Trump administration’s concern for Colorado inmates contradicts actions

Re: “DOJ investigating state’s prisons,” Dec. 9 news story

I read with great interest that President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is “investigating whether Colorado prisons are violating the constitutional rights of the state’s adult inmates and youth detainees through excessive force, inadequate medical care and nutrition …”

I find it fascinating and ironic that this same DOJ has chronically overlooked similar issues in regard to the handling of the migrants who have been systematically grabbed without warrants, and imprisoned without due process in facilities that have been documented as being overpopulated, unsanitary, and with inadequate nutrition or medical care. I’ve only heard of a few, if any, interventions to undo these chronic civil rights violations.

David Thomas, Denver

Name-calling sign of the president’s immaturity

Re: “Federal court denies latest request to leave prison,” Dec. 9 news story

In the article, President Donald Trump refers to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis as a “sleazebag.” Trump seems to have numerous undesirable traits, but one of his favorites seems to be derogatory name-calling. He seems to have a less-than-complimentary name for anyone who is not loyal to him, anyone he disagrees with, such as journalists, etc. According to artificial intelligence, this form of name-calling is most prevalent among children, which seems to fall in line with his level of maturity, sophistication and intelligence!

Steve Nash, Centennial

The 11-2 Broncos are an underdog?

Further proof that the NFL/Vegas betting has no respect for the Broncos. The Broncos currently own the number one seed in the AFC, have not lost at home this year, and are on a 10-game winning streak. Still, Denver is the underdog in next week’s home game against Green Bay.

Leroy M. Martinez, Denver

Senator’s tragic death reminds us to do good in our lives

Re: “State Sen. Winter killed in I-25 crash,” Nov. 28 news story

Life can change within a second. The entire trajectory of someone’s future can be altered in the blink of an eye. I would’ve never believed that the section of the highway, Interstate 25, I travel on so often, the one that blurs by in a moment, could ever be remembered as something so tragic. That highway is now a distressing symbol of how life is a gift and can be snatched away at any random moment.

Recently, two accidents occurred on the northbound I-25 near Dry Creek. Faith Winter, a Colorado senator, was killed, and three others were injured. However, it is important to remember Sen. Winter not the way she passed but how she lived.

Reporter Katie Langford reminded us about how Sen. Winter fought to make Colorado a better place her entire life. She strongly advocated for and brought paid family leave to the state of Colorado, passed an important transportation bill to improve roads and public transportation, and fought against workplace sexual harassment, making impactful changes wherever she went.

Sen. Winter made history and brought positive changes to many Coloradans and she will be honored and remembered in our hearts for years to come.

Life is so short and unpredictable. Those who realize the importance of living each day like it’s your last and doing good in the world never really pass away. They live in everyone’s hearts, and the memory of them lasts for a lifetime.

Swatiswagatika Nayak, Castle Pines

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In August 2024, the Office of the State Auditor deemed the Regional Transportation District to be in good financial standing. “State audit finds RTD’s financial health stronger than many of its peers,” an RTD news release headline declared. “RTD met all financial health ratios with no warning indicators,” the former board chairman, Erik Davidson, told state lawmakers at the time. “Health ratios” were good, “cost efficiency metrics” were strong, and RTD declared itself “good stewards of taxpayers’ money.”

After such effusive declarations of financial stability, leave it to RTD to be in complete crisis barely a year later. 

Despite a record high budget of $1.5 billion, RTD is facing a mind-boggling deficit somewhere between $100 million and $400 million, and is considering dreaded service cuts. 

Such a sudden and staggering deficit might leave you wondering, how could a public agency stumble from the picture of financial health to sounding the klaxon and planning to cut service? Apparently, higher-than-anticipated maintenance and repair costs and falling sales tax revenues (which fund 70% of RTD’s spending). 

RTD director and general manager Debra Johnson compared the agency’s apparently unexpected infrastructure maintenance needs to that of an old house. 

“This is par for the course. If you lived in a home for 30 years, do you think you wouldn’t have to make some repairs?” Johnson told The Denver Post. 

But as any homeowner knows — and as lawmakers rightfully pointed out — you don’t just sit idly by and watch your house deteriorate for 30 years, then suddenly start rushing around trying to fix everything. Upkeep is an ongoing process that you budget for each and every year. 

A year ago, when the agency was not-so-humbly proclaiming itself a good steward of taxpayer dollars, was there really no forward thinking? No anticipation of hard times? It’s not like sales tax revenues were soaring last year — they were, in fact, declining, following a trend that has continued since 2022. 

Sadly, it seems apparent that we shouldn’t expect common sense to reign at RTD. After all, it’s been more than 20 years since Boulder County citizens voted for FasTracks — and we’re still waiting on our train. 

Which brings us to the crux of this issue. RTD has always been something of a shambolic agency, so their new budget woes aren’t really surprising. But a few line items in the budget have raised some serious questions.

For starters, while RTD is in a budget crunch, the agency is still sitting on about $1 billion in reserves. And a year ago, it had $1.12 billion in reserves. Reserves are important — especially now as the agency faces a deficit. But for an agency with a $1.5 billion budget, $1 billion in reserves feels like a lot of money to just be sitting on — especially for a taxpayer-funded agency responsible for providing services to the citizens of the Front Range. 

For context, the City of Denver, which has a slightly larger budget of $1.66 billion, only has $180 million in reserves. The state of Colorado, with a budget of $47.9 billion, has just $2.1 billion in reserves. So while the state of Colorado sits on 4% in reserves, RTD has 66% squirreled away. 

And here’s the rub, RTD estimates that the cost of completing the construction of Northwest Rail Peak Service — which would provide train service from Denver to Boulder and on to Longmont — would be approximately $650 million. Even adding on finishing the North Metro corridor, which would run from Denver to Thornton, would push the total cost to around $1 billion. 

Of course, even though RTD has an excessively high ratio of reserves compared to its budget, we don’t want to imply that the agency should spend every last penny on finishing the northern portion of FasTracks. That would be irresponsible. (And impossible, as some of the reserve funds are dedicated to other expenditures.)

But the implication here should be clear. From the outside, it sure looks like RTD should have been able to make a lot more progress on the promises it made to Boulder County voters. 

Especially once we add on the fact that RTD is planning to borrow $539 million to buy new diesel buses, a move that totally throws the agency’s supposed commitment to Colorado’s climate goals out the window. 

Sure, sales tax revenue is falling and ridership has never really recovered to pre-pandemic levels. But an agency with $1 billion in reserves shouldn’t be considering cutting services a year after being in complete financial health — unless something is seriously wrong in management. 

If RTD does start cutting services, things are likely to only get worse for the agency. While primarily funded through sales tax, if ridership declines due to cuts and people can no longer rely on buses and trains, that will not only hit the agency’s bottom line, it will also harm support for the agency when it comes to other sources of funding. 

If people can’t ride public transit, why would they vote to fund it? 

In the past, we have advocated on behalf of fully funding RTD because we believe in the mission of the agency. And it is true that we must do our part to ensure RTD is financially situated to meet our needs. But it is getting harder and harder to trust an agency that keeps failing to live up to its promises. 

This is all the more frustrating when you consider how imperative RTD is to our efforts to lower emissions and meet Colorado’s aspirational climate goals. As we negotiate our way toward a future of limited carbon emissions, RTD must be a daily commuting option for as many people as possible. This means we need increased ridership, expanded services and investments in new technologies. 

Instead, we have half a billion spent on new diesel buses, reneging on promises of train services and potential cuts to services. 

Next year, six seats on RTD’s board, including those representing Boulder and Longmont, will be up for election. And as it looks now, that board is in dire need of a shake-up to reinvigorate leadership and actually see to it that our transit agency meets the needs of our communities. 

We do not want service cuts. We do not need diesel buses. We want the Northwest Rail Service FasTracks promised. And we need fully funded, fully functioning mass transit for all — and we need it today. We can’t afford to wait. 

—Gary Garrison for the Camera Editorial Board

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When Congressman Jason Crow and five Democratic colleagues with military and intelligence service released a video on social media urging troops to refuse orders “that violate the law or our Constitution,” detractors complained the message was dangerously ambiguous; it implied the administration was giving illegal orders but provided no specific examples.

These critics had a point, that is, until The Washington Post exposed one such incident, a potential war crime no less. Turns out, the video’s warning about illegal orders was right on target.

Whether the episode will garner the bipartisan scrutiny it deserves, time will tell. Republicans in Congress have been hesitant to criticize the Trump administration, fearing retribution — a Trump-backed primary opponent, an agency investigation, or a lawsuit.

With President Trump’s approval rating dropping to a near-low of 36% in the most recent Gallop poll, they might find the courage to defy their leader. Let’s hope so. The illegal order exposed by The Washington Post isn’t the only one worth questioning.

According to the news story, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth commanded “kill them all” before a September 2 military strike on an alleged drug boat that slew 11, including two who survived the first strike and were clinging to the wreckage. Firing upon shipwrecked combatants is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Department of Defense’s own Law of War Manual.

Hegseth assailed the allegation as “fake news” on a social media post that also boasted “Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them.” He was referring to the 80-plus suspected drug traffickers whose boats the military has blown up in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since early September.

Hegseth also tweeted a meme of Franklin the Turtle firing missiles at drug boats further undermining his credibility and assuring him another cameo on South Park. The Canadian publisher of Franklin the Turtle has since condemned the misuse of their children’s storybook character to depict violence. Later, Hegseth tried to distance himself from the incident, claiming he had left the room after the first strike, and then by saying the “fog of war” prevented him from seeing the survivors.

U.S. House and Senate Armed Services Committees have opened investigations into the incident. To do it justice, they need to examine the wider situation. While killing the incapacitated is a war crime, we have not declared war on Venezuela. Moreover, the alleged drug traffickers targeted by these missiles are not soldiers; they are civilians. They pose no imminent threat to troops. Labeling them “narco-terrorists” doesn’t negate military rules of engagement. Even if they are guilty of drug trafficking, killing them isn’t a justifiable use of the military power. Their deaths are extrajudicial executions.

And if they aren’t guilty? This week, the family of a Colombian man who was killed in a strike made an official complaint against the U.S. with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He was a fisherman, they say, the primary breadwinner for a family of six and they want compensation for their loss. It’s hard to secure evidence of guilt or innocence post-obliteration. Bomb first, ask questions later doesn’t work.

There are lawful ways to intercept drugs and bring drug traffickers to justice that assure due process, protect the innocent, and maintain the integrity of the armed forces. The U.S. Coast Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Border Patrol regularly seize illicit drugs and arrest smugglers who are then prosecuted in federal courts.

One such drug trafficker, Juan Orlando Hernández, former president of Honduras, was arrested by the DEA in 2022, extradited to the U.S., tried, and convicted of moving more than 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. Although sentenced to 45 years in prison, he walked free this week thanks to a pardon by President Donald Trump.

During the upcoming hearings on Hegseth’s “kill them all” moment, senators and representatives should inquire why suspected, low-level smugglers get death without due process and convicted kingpins walk.

They should also ask Hegseth if he plans to bomb civilian targets on the Venezuelan mainland, as Trump alluded to this week.

Is the man who renamed the Department of Defense, the Department of War, itching to start one? Is he aware that only Congress has the authority to declare war? If not, the committee could take the opportunity to show the secretary a recently-released video about the military’s responsibility to uphold the law and the Constitution.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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FORT COLLINS — What began as forts made of pads as a toddler ended with a hug made of tears as a senior.

His teammates clearing the field at Canvas Stadium, posing for snapshots that they can live in forever, Kellen Behrendsen raced up the stairs at the 30-yard line. He greeted both sets of his grandparents, brother and mom with an embrace decades in the making.

Behrendsen was born into the Dakota Ridge community, a bundle of energy, curiosity and light.

And on a chilly Saturday night, he became his father’s sonshine.

Behrendsen and his dad Jeremiah guided Dakota Ridge to its first state football championship, overwhelming Palmer Ridge 38-14. After six losses in the semifinals, after falling in their lone title game appearance in 2004, thirty years of Dakota Ridge dreaming awoke to a blissful reality on Sunday morning.

The Eagle has landed. DRidge Nation, you are champions.

“I have been here my whole life, raised here. I started going to practices when I was little. I was making forts out of the pads, playing with other kids,” Kellen Behrendsen said. “This is a full circle moment. Knowing I was able to bring this home with my brothers on the team and my dad, it means so much.”

Father knew this was possible before the coach. Jeremiah watched his son grow up competing with great kids who were surrounded by strong families. This is the kind of life he wanted for when moving from Akron to Littleton, and taking a job as the Eagles freshman team offensive coordinator in 2004.

“I love this community,” coach Behrendsen said. “I absolutely thought (Kellen) might win state someday because I knew this group had a chance to do something special if they came together the right way.”

The bonds begin forming on two feeders during middle school. When the players morphed into one as freshmen, the vision began to crystallize like a Polaroid picture. That season the Eagles averaged roughly 50 points per game and allowed 50.

“We still had all the same guys, and we kept getting better,” said star receiver Nathan Rodriguez. “We knew our senior year was going to be our year.”

Behrendsen felt responsible for getting the Eagles across the finish line. Consistency was paramount. As a first-year starter last season, he completed 67.6 % of his passes for 12 touchdowns and six interceptions. For a kid who wants to be engineer, he knew there were bigger numbers available if he solved the equation of work, film and calm.

Against an undefeated Bears team, Behrendsen was more accurate than a DNA test. He completed his first nine passes. He had 167 yards on his first seven attempts.

On the Eagles’ opening drive, he connected on a swing pass to Landon Kalsbeck. The one-man wrecking ball who is headed to Washington State broke three tackles and juked two other defenders for a 44-yard score.

Following a Jack Offerdahl interception, Behrendsen took the shotgun snap and fired a dart to Jaxson Arnold, who raced 84 yards untouched to the end zone.

When the Eagles were briefly threatened in the third quarter, Behrendsen climbed the pocket and launched a ball 50 yards in that air that Rodriguez hauled in for a diving touchdown worthy of SportsCenter.

His subsequent celebration – think Rob Gronkowski with the Patriots – provided an exclamation point, showing why Dakota Ridge outscored opponents 565-168 this season.

“I absolutely burned the DB. I was a little bit overwhelmed with excitement and spiked the ball. But I think it was fair to do that, don’t you?” Rodriguez said. “My quarterback puts trust in me. And he absolutely put on a show. He does this every game. He’s got the arm, and he believes in us, and it’s why he is so good.”

What makes Behrendsen special is the work performed in the shadows. He stands 5-foot-11, weighs 155 pounds. What he lacks in physicality, he makes up for with efficiency. Behrendsen finished the season with 235 completions in 286 attempts, an alarming 82.1 percent, with 42 touchdowns and three interceptions.

He added more helium to statistics on Saturday, going for 14-for-16 for 259 yards and four scores.

“He is really smart and an incredible decision maker. Experience is the difference this season. And he has grown into being a leader,” coach Behrendsen said. “As he played better, his teammates started to believing in and his confidence grew tenfold.”

Father and son tried to keep this past week as normal as possible. They lived in cliches. Kept everything the same even when they knew the stakes were higher, the end was closer. The pair tries to avoid football talk at home, where coach estimates he is dad “90 percent of the time.” And this week, they were not about to let stress steal their joy.

“After practices we did some fun stuff,” Kellen said. “When it snowed, we went out and shoveled the ‘DR’ out front of the school so everybody still knew we were playing. … But honestly, it still hasn’t hit me that I am not going to play for him again.”

The son plans to continue to his career. He has attracted interested from five Division III and Division II schools, including CSU-Pueblo. Dad will keep coaching.

Long ago, he realized something very cool about giving up your time for children who are not your own. You gain another life.

You become part of something bigger. As the Dakota Ridge players celebrated, as tears rolled down cheeks, Jeremiah basked in the glow of his son, overcome with gratitude on what they had done.

“We have worked really hard to cultivate the type of community where everyone has your back. We have worked really hard to get to this point. I have watched great coaches and players try. We were building and building and building,” coach Behrendsen said. “This was for DRidge Nation. This championship was built on the backs of 30 years of people. A lot of them are here today. It is special.”

Just on the other side of the holiday season, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, the organization that helped raise me and that I currently lead, is celebrating the grand opening of our new Center for the Healing Arts.

As I think about this milestone, I’m reminded of a Denver interview a decade ago with the great Black American ballerina Misty Copeland as she reflected on how dance rescued her from a chaotic childhood to help her find her voice through artistic expression.

“…Once I discovered ballet it was so clear to me that it was such an escape from all of the obstacles at home …  And when I was in the studio is really the first time that there was this clarity, and it was something that was so beautiful that again was my own. And I never experienced that as a child. And to this day it still is an escape for me,” she said.

Copeland was addressing young girls, but her comments resonate for anyone curious about the power of dance. The arts have been a balm for the soul, for individuals young and old, from every background, and political persuasion. It is something Cleo Parker Robinson Dance has understood for our 55 years of existence.

Our 25,000 square-foot expansion, adjoining our longtime home in the Historic Shorter African Methodist Episcopal Church (100 years old in 2026), is not just a beautiful edifice. It represents a melding of the old and new to forge an expansive future.

My parents grew up a couple of blocks away and my late dad, Tom Robinson, attended Boy Scouts in the church’s garden-level gymnasium. Thirty-eight years ago, CPRD transformed that very gym into dance studios and the sanctuary upstairs into a theatre that has been home to more than 30 performing arts companies from around the metropolitan area.

But we always dreamed of a new facility to match the quality of the organization’s educational and artistic programs.

After fits and starts, including surviving the pandemic and price escalations, we launched a multi-phased capital campaign. In 2021, CPRD purchased the historic building and adjacent land, and today stands a new four-level structure that includes a state-of-the-art theater with world-class acoustics, new studios, rehearsal spaces, and gathering areas designed for our community wellness programs.

With an annual budget of $2.5 million, CPRD has always punched above its weight, but we would not have succeeded in raising the $25 million for the expansion without the support and collaboration of the Denver arts, political and philanthropic infrastructure.

What we have accomplished is a testament to the galvanizing power of bringing people together and the learning that brings about. Through an extensive public-private partnership, funding for the project came from every corner of our city and state.

Community foundations, political representatives and corporate partners stepped forward as well as individual donors from across the community (who contributed nearly 20 percent of the total cost) — proof that Cleo Parker Robinson Dance is a valued asset to Denver and Colorado.

For five decades, we have championed the arts to spark curiosity and learning, promote healing and foster belonging. My mother, our founder, Cleo Parker Robinson, established the company after earning double degrees in dance and psychology.

Her passion and vision have integrated the arts and behavioral health into award-winning programs. Those early “healing power of art” workshops have morphed into the new Center for the Healing Arts. Our work is not only cross cultural, but intergenerational, multi-regional and deeply rooted in African Diasporic traditions.

It’s a big reason for our success. Over the decades, we’ve trained thousands of young dancers in ballet, hip-hop, jazz, African dance, and tap. Our company has performed all over the world, and touched every corner of Colorado, making more than 2,000 school visits to reach kids from pre-K to high school who might not otherwise have seen a professional dance company.

And for 34 years, our holiday production, Granny Dances to a Holiday Drum, has become a Denver tradition — blending dance, live music and seasonal customs from around the world for families that have made it a part of their annual December celebrations.

That’s why the grand opening January 15 is far more than a ribbon-cutting. It is a powerful reminder of the remarkable ability of the arts to break down barriers, promote greater understanding and lay bare our common humanity.

We truly appreciate how Denver and Colorado have invested in our future. We will reciprocate that love by continuing to innovate and collaborate, to nurture young artists, preserve Black dance traditions and push creative boundaries while entertaining new generations. That means staying accessible, inclusive and relevant to all. We will never veer from that mission.

As I walk through our new space, I am grateful to all the people who made this possible: my parents, our founding company members, our generous partners and donors, and every child who has taken a first leap with us.

Malik Robinson is the president and CEO at Cleo Parker Robinson Dance in Denver Colorado.

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Colorado’s high school coaches and athletic directors are clamoring for updated rules to make it easier for student athletes to transfer schools. The need for reform, they told Denver Post reporter Kyle Newman, can be found in the sad stories of teenagers who were forced to miss playing time in their varsity sport because their family’s move was deemed sports motivated and not “bona fide.”

The examples in Newman’s excellent investigation, however, only drive home for us the importance of another prohibition in Colorado high school sports — the ban on recruiting athletes.

Eaglecrest basketball coach Jarris Krapcha highlighted the problem for Newman, speaking out against the proposal that the Colorado High School Athletics Association (CHSAA) adopt a one-time free transfer for student athletes:

“The recruiting piece — the pre-enrollment contact piece — is something that CHSAA cannot police simply because they don’t have the manpower, and it’s already happening rampantly,” Krapcha said. “If you allow a one-time free transfer, it’s going to be open season on recruiting other players from other schools.”

In other words, recruiting is already happening. Coaches are — against clear policies spelled out in the bylaws of CHSAA — talking to students and their parents about enrolling with their school.

Student transfers would not be a problem if coaches were not recruiting. We want Colorado students to have choice when it comes to their education, and thankfully, our public schools no longer confine students to schools based on their zip codes. Yes, a student or his parents could be motivated to transfer or move based on athletic success of a school or promises from an athletic director, but there are a whole host of good reasons a student could transfer: to escape bullying, to access advanced coursework, or for a shorter commute.

The thought of varsity athletes who chose for healthy reasons to switch schools (absent unhealthy recruitment) being punished by a half-year loss of playing time is unpleasant to say the least.

But we know that coaches are recruiting. The top athletes in the state are not hopping from power-house program to power-house program without assurances of playing time and position, or at the very least, conversations about coaching style and practice schedules.

“I can say that violations do occur, they have always occurred, and they continue to occur today. We have unfortunately had violations this fall that have been addressed and penalized,” wrote CHSAA’s Mike Krueger in response to questions from The Denver Post editorial board about student transfers and recruitment.

“Hundreds of thousands of students, families and coaches in Colorado participate the right way, for the right reasons,” he concluded. “Our responsibility is to protect the fairness and integrity of the experience for them. It takes all of us to act with integrity, and that responsibility will not only continue, but in this day and age it will be more pronounced.”

Keeping high school athletics focused on what is most important for students — growth and development — rather than what is most important for coaches and athletic directors — winning at all costs — is critical at this moment. Many college sports, especially football and basketball, feel more like professional sports every day, and the term “student-athlete” is becoming an oxymoron even for sports that once avoided the corruption of professionalization.

So what is the solution to this intractable problem?

We urge CHSAA’s Legislative Council, a body with representatives from every league across the state, to consider shifting the focus of enforcement from the actions of students’ parents and the punishment of students to scrutiny of the behavior of coaches, athletic directors, school administrators and team boosters. Until coaches are suspended for an entire season for recruiting a student to transfer from another school, the bad behavior will continue. Until athletic directors face consequences for conversations that are clearly prohibited by CHSAA, players will continue to get recruited.

Krueger points out, correctly, that recruitment is hard to police, and he notes that CHSAA has and does impose penalties when coaches are caught cheating.

But policing recruiting can’t be any more difficult than trying to determine if a child switched schools because of his or her parents’ divorce or because he or she really wants to play for a team likely to compete in the state championship.

CHSAA’s bylaws currently emphasize analysis of the behavior of parents and de-emphasize the behavior of coaches. For example, the bylines define “broken-home” but do not actually define “recruiting.” Coaches are encouraged to forward email inquiries about their sports program to the school’s administration, but are not required to do so. Likewise, parents who don’t have the money to make a bona fide move and, say, buy a house right next door to Cherry Creek High School are asked to instead demonstrate a hardship that forced their child to switch schools so that the student can play varsity sports uninterrupted. But coaches aren’t told in the bylaws what they risk when promising an athlete that they can start at quarterback if they move schools.

The focus in the bylaws feels all wrong.

CHSAA should keep its prohibition on sports-motivated transfers, but refocus its enforcement on coaches rather than parents and students.

That could look like requiring a coach to sign a legally-binding affidavit swearing that no one associated with the team engaged in the recruitment of a newly transferred student in order for that student to play without a waiting period. Then, when text messages about playing time and access to college recruiters emerge, there will be no crocodile tears when the coach gets banned from coaching for CHSAA schools.

We all want Colorado’s high school students to get the education they deserve at the school of their choice. And we all want to protect high school athletics from the corrupting influences of recruitment.

The road forward is for CHSAA to stick to its guns on student transfers, but to switch the focus from students to coaches.

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Editor’s note: Features coordinator Barbara Ellis takes a side in the “real vs. fake” Christmas tree debate. Look for the counterpoint by Editorial Page editor Megan Schrader.

I can still see my dad, hand slapping his forehead, looking exasperated, as my mom instructed (OK, bossed) him on how to “fix up” the live Christmas tree they had brought home from a hardware store lot in our small Massachusetts town.

She made him purchase extra branches “to fill the tree out.”

“Drill a hole and insert this branch there, Joe. And then that one goes there. No, there.”

“OK, now take this branch out and put it on top.”

Related: Colorado’s national forests open for Christmas tree cutting — with strict rules

And most years, it was too wide to fit through the door, and too tall to stand in our living room. More amending.

It’s amazing that dad (the most patient man on Earth) didn’t turn into the Grinch right before our eyes.

When I started my own family, I, too, insisted on a real tree. We would trudge out into the snowy wild (permit in hand) with hand saws, kids in tow, to select and cut down a Colorado fir or spruce under which to place our wrapped gifts.

Then we’d return home, fight to get the tree in a stand in front of the fireplace (sometimes having to hack away at it to make it fit), make hot cocoa and watch old animated versions of “Frosty the Snowman” or “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” while the kids hung their favorite ornaments on the lower branches. So cozy, so familial. Visions of sugarplums, and all that.

And every year, I fought to keep that tree from drying out and turning brown, begging it to hang on until at least Dec. 25. But constant watering, and even a humidifier nearby, never seemed to be enough in Colorado’s arid climate. Before too long, the tree skirt was littered with needles — which would then hide in the carpet to be stepped on in March.

After the holiday was over, we had another burden: Back then, some 25 years ago, it wasn’t as easy to dispose of live trees as it is now. There was no tree recycling program that we knew of. So we would hack the tree up into chunks and cart them down to our cabin in Fremont County to burn in a campfire. (The sap and needles would spread over the inside of the truck and get inside all the gear and bins of food we carried down, just one more mess to deal with.)

Oh, I bought into the romanticized vision of cutting down a live tree. “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening,” etc. Family unity. Creating traditions. Teaching the kids to appreciate the outdoors and bring them closer to nature, fa la la la la.

To that I say: Bah, humbug.

When we finally bought a fabulous fake, I breathed a sigh of relief.

No watering. No messy needles everywhere. No sap. No disposal (just storage).

No problem.

We still were able to teach the kids about nature and the beauty of the land, just in other ways: at the cabin, at parks, during visits to the mountains, in our backyard and through books.

As I entered my 40s, I was happy to trade in the tree-cutting tradition to spend more time with the family on other things: Decorating the house, making popcorn strings to hang on the (fake) tree, baking hundreds of cookies, pinching dozens of pierogi, visiting with friends, and trying to cut down on the frenzy.

And our artificial tree really is lovely. It’s not perfectly shaped (that would look too fake, you know); its uneven branches are sturdy enough to carry the weight of dozens of ornaments, all heavy with memories; its needles are soft, not pokey (yes, they drop off, but not obnoxiously so); the color is rich and natural, not washed out or garish. A couple of pine-scented ornaments add to the ambiance, and voila! My fabulous fake is a thing of beauty.

And easy to store, since it breaks into three pieces. As long as I have some help getting it in the bag and up in the rafters of the garage, that is.

Of course, some will argue that an artificial tree isn’t as environmentally friendly as a real one. And they would be right.

Still, I’ve had the same fake tree for more than 20 years now, so haven’t (yet) polluted a landfill with a plastic stem and branches. And it still looks as good as any real tree, IMO. With any luck, it’ll last another 10 years or more.

Not bad for an investment of $129 for an 8-foot fake fir in 2001. Even Scrooge would approve of that.

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Laboratory name change spells trouble

Re: “The National Renewable Energy Lab is renamed,” Dec. 3 news story

Changing the name of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to the National Laboratory of the Rockies may seem inconsequential to the casual newsreader, but it’s a true harbinger of this administration’s brutal neutralizing of clean energy technology development in the United States.

It’s hard to know what the “Laboratory of the Rockies” will actually be; maybe something like analyzing professional baseball in Colorado or such. Regardless, the laboratory will soon lose its position as the leading applied science lab in the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratory System for developing marketable, clean energy technologies. This has been done primarily through NREL’s long-term research relationships with American business concerns.

Three more years of slash-and-burn of these relationships will cause irreparable harm to American leadership in this critical 21st-century sector, allowing China dominance for years to come. Bad news for Colorado, bad news for the United States. Very sad.

John A. Herrick, Denver

Editor’s note: Herrick is a former chief counsel for the Department of Energy’s Golden Field Office.

Forty-one years have elapsed since constructed in 1984, but hey, it’s never too late to make a change. “Renewable energy” is no longer permissible under the “climate realism” Orwellian newspeak of the new regime. The buildings remain in place on the southern slope of South Table Mountain in Golden, but the National Renewable Energy Lab is now the National Laboratory of the Rockies. Wonder what they will be doing there?

Phil Nelson, Golden

Putting on chains altogether now

Re: “Law requires anti-slip devices for 2WD vehicles,” Nov. 22 news story

Can CDOT and the state legislature as a whole imagine the drivers of all two-wheel drive vehicles on many miles of Interstate 70 stopping at the same time to install “anti-slip devices” when snows begin? That is what their new law requires. And notably, many miles of the highway now have an express lane, which “disappeared” formerly safe shoulders. Additionally, if you happen to have an all-wheel drive vehicle, note that if you are rolling on the last 59% of your thousand-dollar tire set’s tread in such weather, you will be breaking the law as well.

Thanks, to all of the genius legislators who so badly want to please the ski industry lobby.

Peter Ehrlich, Denver

License plata data as boogeyman is oversold

Re: “Big Brother is tracking you – Denver’s descent into dystopia,” Nov. 30  commentary

Robin Reichhardt’s column oversells and underdelivers by a mile. Renewing an existing license plate contract is clearly not a “descent” into anything, and the details are as mundane as the license plate cameras on our toll lanes and money trees, er, mobile speed cameras. The piece misses a glaring point: The plate data is hard deleted after 30 days. While police can search it later, it’s not much later.

Among other things the author doesn’t like are data centers, which she used her imagination in describing and tying to Big Brother Denver. The internet is complicated, but there’s no causation between the license plate cameras and the CoreSite — or any other local data center. Flock’s data is not stored in Colorado. Even if it were, plate records contribute no meaningful portion to data center capacity, which is almost entirely videos of attractive people doing banal tasks, cat videos, and, of course, porn.

I do appreciate the writer’s description of herself as a “community organizer” rather than an “informed citizen.”

Bradley Rehak, Denver

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As Democratic presidential candidates did battle this week in New Hampshire, Mike Bloomberg zipped ahead to focus on Super Tuesday states.

On the other side of the aisle, President Donald Trump took some flak from former chief of staff John Kelly over the removal of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from the White House. Vindman testified in the House impeachment proceedings.

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Plaudits for bipartisanship! Dan Rubinstein, the Republican Mesa County district attorney and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, urged Gov. Jared Polis in a recent letter not to acquiesce to demands by the Trump administration to transfer former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters to federal custody. Another letter by the Colorado County Clerks Association counsels the same.

They are right. Under no circumstances should Peters be transferred out of La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo, where she is serving a nine-year sentence. Peters committed multiple felonies in connection with an illegal 2021 scheme to grant unauthorized access to voting equipment in an attempt to prove the election was stolen from her candidate. Peters’ crimes cost taxpayers millions of dollars to replace equipment compromised by her actions and for legal fees, investigations, recounts and other costs. Her election lies fueled harassment and threats to clerks, their staffs, and even their family members, and diminished the public’s trust in elections.

No one is surprised that President Donald Trump is working to free Peters from the grip of justice. He has pardoned most everyone charged with crimes related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. First, he granted clemency to nearly all of the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, even those convicted of assaulting police officers. Trump also ordered the Department of Justice to dismiss any cases still pending against perpetrators of violence. Later, he pardoned the architects of his election subversion conspiracy – liars, I mean, lawyers Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Now it’s Peters’ turn to receive her get-out-of-jail card.

After a few months of truculent, all-caps argle-bargle on social media demanding her release, Trump is now trying other means to liberate her from accountability. He cannot pardon Peters since she was convicted of breaking state laws, but that won’t stop him from trying. On Nov. 12, the Federal Bureau of Prisons sent a letter to the Colorado Department of Corrections requesting Peters be transferred to federal custody.

Not only would this circumvent our justice system here in Colorado, as Rubinstein and Weiser’s letter points out, it also would “offer a politically connected inmate the comforts of an easier sentence. This is not mere speculation or conjecture, as one need only to review recent reports on other politically connected criminals presently receiving ‘preferential treatment’ in federal facilities during their sentences.”

Is this an oblique reference to a certain associate of Jeffrey Epstein’s who was sent to prison for sex trafficking? Ghislaine Maxwell’s sentence got a bit cushier after being transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security one in Bryan, Texas. Maybe Peters can get that magnetic mattress she says she needs if transferred to a new facility.

It’s more likely that once transferred, a bureaucratic “error” would spring Peters. When was the last time the Trump administration let law get in the way? Peters would be free to continue her public recrimination of election clerks, again putting them in harm’s way.

At no point has the jailbird shown contrition for her crimes. Peters’ fans and enablers continue to help her maintain the fantasy of victimhood. Peters’ lead attorney, Peter Ticktin, one of the attorneys who helped secure pardons for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, confessed in a recent interview that  Peters is “not embarrassed or ashamed in any way. She’s proud of what she’s done because she’s not a criminal.” Meanwhile, her pal, far-right podcaster Joe Oltmann, said Colorado’s governor, attorney general and Secretary of State Jena Griswold “should be hung.”

To release Peters into federal custody, thereby securing an easier sentence or outright release, would not only undermine our justice system, it also would encourage people like Oltmann who spout lies and advocate violence. Colorado Republicans and Democrats who uphold truth and justice cannot stop the release of criminals at the federal level, but we can stop that travesty of justice from happening here.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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