Tag Archives: Sean Paige

Threat of Atmel plant closure prompts city council to rescind support of solar farm, on Earth Day

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COLO. SPRINGS- I told the gentleman from Atmel who trolled the city council meeting, this would be my headline: ATMEL KILLS SOLAR IN COLORADO SPRINGS. Prompted by his threat to ship Atmel jobs to Malaysia if a 0.25% utilities rate hike went into effect, the Colorado Springs City Council voted today, inauspiciously the day after Earth Day, to rescind their minuscule subsidy of a community solar farm program. Apparently Atmel is the city’s largest utilities customer, so when Atmel whines, CSU grovels. Actually their rep turns up at every discussion of renewable energy or water restrictions and he’s against everything. Colorado Springs is the coal ash belching, Fountain Creek polluting, burnt foothills, diminished community services, low-tax haven it is today thanks to Atmel and its Tea Party posse.

Working a token solar power start-up into the utility grid would result in a rate increase of 10¢ for monthly energy bill of $100, or 60¢ per $200. Semiconductor manufacturer Atmel faced a potential $6,000 increase per month, enough to jeopardize the multimillion dollar operation according them. It’s the same Powerpoint presentation they conjure when the city’s inquiring about wind turbines or scrubbers on the aging coal plant or solar or water rate hikes.

An Atmel facility in California sources its energy from solar, at a rate of 16¢ per whatever, but our local rate of 3¢ is too high for our local Atmel. He kept saying he was “for solar” but when pressed he answered “but not in Colorado Springs.” You wonder if his headquarters knows their Atmel guy is being such a regressive douche. I plan to inquire.

The vote today meant that Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) will not implement its tariff planned for May 1st, which solar startup SUNSHARES had been counting on for its financing.

The public turnout at today’s meeting was two thirds in favor of solar power and one third against. (Measured by body weight the two sides were equal. It’s probably no surprise that environmental minded citizens know how to eat sustainably too. The two factions kept to separate sides of the room which was how I formed my size-ist observation.) The pro-solar folk represented themselves, common citizens, but those speaking against solar bore titles with advocacy groups like Americans For Prosperity, Citizens for Affordable Energy, and, get this, the Clean Energy Coalition, which bills itself as the largest advocacy network for renewable energy, but surprise, they’re against solar! Well, not one dared to say they were against solar, in fact they all prefaced their remarks with “I’m for solar, but–“. Their coordinator, noxious AFP henchman Sean Paige explained that climate science is “faith based” and in fact, resistance to fracking is also faith-based. All the anti talking points were boilerplate climate denial crap. Manufacturing solar panels pollutes (what about manufacturing fossil fuel equipment?), renewable energy costs jobs, yada yada. There was even an economics professor from Colorado College, who asserted that solar power was bad for the economy. Weird.

Of course the new slate of city councilors bought it. What has already emerged to be a cabal of mouth breathers conceived of this plan yesterday, EARTH DAY, to rescind their initial foray into solar energy, and today they entertained informed comments from the public and ignored them.

Tea Party Patriot robes for tiny pee pees

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Klu Klux Klan Minuteman Racist Bigot anti-immigrant robeCOLORADO SPRINGS- This year for Halloween I’m dressing up like yokel heroes Sean Paige, Richard Randall, Tom Gallagher, and Doug Lamborn, the rabble-rousers behind our local Teabag mobs. They’re reveling in the white man anger, against immigrants, ACORN, and taxes for social programs, laughing off accusations of being racist, while probably praying to God their mob doesn’t seize upon a passing African American and lynch him. Until recently a Halloween costume like this would have been mistaken to be a ghost, but for the resurgent ugly white man. The Pikes Peak region was crawling with KKK members in the 1930s, and during the Bush years their sons and grandsons snuck to the Texas border to join the Klan’s modern incarnation The Minutemen. With a black president clouding the horizon, suddenly these same men and women are rallying. At a recent public meeting, Representative Lamborn chuckled about his fellow malcontents rising up, at “I guess we call them, Tea Parties.” A heckler cried out “Clan Rallies.” The Lamborn crowd booed, but I bet most of them still have their fathers’ robes.

Sean Paige appointed to City Council

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Here’s the plan. After the Tuesday noon RALLY AGAINST GREED on the city steps, dash up to the city council chambers where ex-Gazette editor, now Teabag charlatan, Sean Paige will be attending his first meeting. Before 1PM, sign up to speak during the public comment period, you’ll be allotted three minutes. What is there to say about Paige’s appointment over qualified candidates to replace Councilman Jerry Heimlicher? Just say “You’ve GOT to be freaking kidding me.” Leave a long pause as you look each of them in the eye. Repeat. Make it a long 3 minutes.

Right-wing KVOR radio goon tries to intimidate city council

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Talk radio goonI snapped this photo at Monday’s city council meeting: A stringer for right-wing KVOR radio holds his microphone up to the chamber’s amplification system. Curiously, he only assumed this conspicuous stance when the council members were explaining their votes, and then, ONLY for those anticipated to speak against TABOR and its proponents.

As the councilmen vied to straddle the fence on the issue, this gentleman would slowly stand whenever someone’s reasoning appeared to vacillate against the interests of the anti-tax wingnuts, Local Liberty Action, and teabagger Sean Paige.

Weiss TABOR reform has votes to pass!

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larry small john weissCOLORADO SPRINGS- I attended a COS city council meeting today, lured by the prospect that Vice Mayor Larry Small was going to call the CS Independent publisher a liar to his face.

I’m always excited at the prospect of differences of opinion reaching a level of incivility. Do we care about these issues? Or is it all about liking each other, regardless who’s oppressing whom? We gentlemen debaters, after all, are never those affected by the injustices in question.

To the city’s credit, Small made it a point at the very start of the meeting to make a public apology. He and John Weiss shook hands and that was that. What’s more, he cast his vote with Weiss’s proposal, a deciding vote, to put repeal of the city’s TABOR restrictions on the next ballot.

Small is not saying he’s for it, simply considering that it might be germane to consult the voters. Where it stands, the city council members declared their intentions on how they will vote tomorrow, and 5-4, they intend to back the proposal.

Without any name calling.

That said, some pyrotechnics can very easily be a bore. For example, there were grunts from the peanut gallery at this meeting, in particular from ex-editorial page tyrant Sean Paige. The silver-locked loudmouth, now shilling for Local Liberty Action, sat in the back and harrumphed as Weiss gave his reasons for reforming TABOR. Although Paige is no longer with the Gazette, I’ve seen him gesticulating at local Teaparty rallies. Like his Norquesque mentors, the editorial bully is set on strangling the baby in the bathwater.

How satisfying then to see Paige grovel before city council to urge them “not to throw [his TABOR] baby out with the bath water.”

Paige spoke as if “TABOR proponents” need to be consulted in any ongoing discussions about reforming it. Just because those idiots got the law passed, and doomed municipalities to impoverished services, who is to say their voice should have a grandfather clause? Here’s a chance for city council to hear the cries of outrage from Colorado Springs residents who want the damn thing repealed. They want their public services back.

TABOR was an initiative which asserted that a citizen couldn’t trust their representatives with tax dollars. What does it mean to have councilmen say they “believe in TABOR.” They know they shouldn’t be trusted? Did they run for election on that slogan?

Here’s a chance for the city pols to grab the reins. What else are they supposed to be deciding at their jobs?

And they took it, with four dissenting opinions. First, Bernie Herpin, who doesn’t see any reason to rush to address TABOR’s ratchet lunacy.

Another no vote comes from Jerry Heimlicher. The meeting’s highlight was Councilman Jerry Heimlicher’s kiss-fest with Sean Paige. Let Westside voters who rejected Democrat Dave Gardner as an alternative, note what Heimlicher can be very obstinate when he’s decided he’d rather give in to the Teabaggers.

Two more NOs came from Glen and Purvis. Purvis took the chance to compare proponent Richard Skorman’s voice to the sound of a belt sander. He explained how Skorman had interrupted his weekend of fixing his deck.

Tom Gallagher was the councilman who brought the issue for his colleagues to decide. He spoke about how incredulous it was that he was siding with Weiss on an issue, and hesitated greatly to defy his conservative friends. “I live on their side of the playing field.” But he lead the support. With Hente, Small, Martin and Rivera joining him.

Did I say Rivera? Yes.

We all looked at each other in surprise, but there it was, Mayor Lionel Rivera saying he thought it was a capital idea to give the citizens of the city the last word on whether to reform TABOR.

Scott Hente made the day’s most noteworthy remark. He thanked the assembled crowd for having upheld a civil discourse. He was impressed that it was unlike the many town hall meetings he’s been seeing on the news. I took this to be acknowledgment that he recognized the sawdust floor populism emanating from Sean Paige’s back corner.

Tea Party Tax Revolt ignorance-mongers rally their usual Republican supporters

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COLORADO SPRINGS- The corporate media led by Fox News, local talk radio led by KVOR, and the Gazette editorial page itself, herded their red sheep into Acacia Park today for lunch-time speeches full of hate, ignorance, and good old-fashioned unapologetic self-interest. They didn’t understand my sign, but knew enough to scowl.
Bunch of Republican dim wits who blame their troubles on the poor

Gazette representative Maria St. Louis-Sanchez was live-blogging the event, sitting on the ground beside the stage, which gave her an appropriate lack of perspective for the coverage she intended. For example, this online exchange:

12:33 [Comment From Guest] Is it basically an all white gathering?

12:34 Tough to tell. There seems to be a good mix of people here.

Oh my goodness. The crowd was ALL WHITE! With the lonely exception of deposed-councilman Ed Jones, who delighted the crowd when he proclaimed he was not an African American, he was an American, and derided those critics who would call him an “Uncle Tom.” The crowd cheered Jones, there were even chants exhorting him to run for governor. But if this had been nightfall, and one depression earlier, this is the mob that would have lynched him.

And I’m inclined to imagine that had Jones been Hispanic American, judging from the anti-immigrant rhetoric, they would have jumped him in broad daylight today.

tax day tea party white male

Richard Randall

These were ugly Americans, led by their representative uglies, hate-radio DJ Richard Randall, representative Doug “Porky” Lamborn, the illiterate Quixote Douglas Bruce and business-homophobe Ed Bircham. All pure archetypes of disgruntled white males.

The demographics in my estimation were all white, mostly male, with ugly carved into everyone’s faces from years of being disagreeable and bitter. And a plentiful predominance of pasty obesity.

Disaproval

Colorado Springs future looking brighter

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Mark Lewis took this photo of Gazette editor and hillbilly blowhard Sean Paige holding court recently in Poor Richards restaurant to discuss his leaving the city daily
Colorado Springs has several attributes which make it a pleasant place to live. Our dry sunny climate of course, and Garden of the Gods, Manitou, The Broadmoor, Colorado College, the Smokebrush Foundation, to leave out quite a bit. Pikes Peak, the Olympic Training Center and NORAD separate us from other provincial backwaters only by giving us a sense that we are on the map.

Since Amendment 2 Colorado Springs has been on the map for our unpleasant demographic. The sagging mental acuity of the Pikes Peak area is something of legend, and lo, increasingly deserved. We owe this to the abundance of military employers, to the continuing influx of fundy revivalists and of course the standard American low expectations for education. But no entity has played a more detrimental role in shaping our pinheads than our city newspaper, the “libertarian” Freedom Communications Gazette. Since the demise/absorption of its competitor the COS Sun, the Gazette Telegraph has warped our city news with impunity.

And none have done it with more mean-spirit and Rush Limbaugh alacrity than Gazette Editorialist Sean Paige. Our own top-tier asshole.

And he’s leaving! Hurray! I wish it had been with tar and feathers. And it’s a rather selfish joy, because doubtless he’s moving somewhere. Wouldn’t it be more noble to know to where, so that instead of passing him off, we could give them a shout and prevent Paige from wreaking his cynical damage in their unsuspecting community?

Miscalculating non-violent for non-litigious

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Not wanting to tell us his name
(Clarification: Esther has just been thrown to the ground. Eric is not on the ground by choice, and Elizabeth is about to be pulled away.)

In the aftermath of our dashed efforts at the St Patrick’s Day parade and the abrupt violence which shocked everyone, the seven arrestees took a conciliatory tact to reflect on the actions and reactions of that day before leveling recriminations. The issue after all was about promoting peace, not fighting back. Where did being gracious get us?

The police seized the opportunity to announce they’ve received no complaints about their manner, going so far even to solicit bystander videos as if to suggest that the documentation will support their conduct.

Though we’d given plenty of interviews, our quiet tone gave the local newspapers leeway to print untruths about what happened that day. The Gazette has now suggested the marchers acted to disrupt the festivities, to obstruct the parade, in a fashion intended to provoke arrests.

The Independent has been able to hide behind offering only the Police Department’s account, that the peace marchers were attempting to participate “without a permit,” and that to an “untrained eye” what might appear to have been a “chokehold” was actually a “pressure-compliant hold.”

Even the local internet jackasses have jumped in on the action to chide us for duplicity in obtaining our permit, giving an uncritical platform for parade organizer John O’Donnell to cry foul.

Well GOD-DAMNIT are you fascists in for a surprise! This treatment is more of exactly what we received on the parade route. And just like the policemen who thought they could set an example and brutalize us unto a side street, this disrespect is not going to stand.

Here’s where it’s going to get you.

Mr. O’Donnell and his partners in City Hall are going to face a civil lawsuit for violating the 1st Amendment rights of 46 marchers. They will face another lawsuit for conducting a public event which discriminated among the participants. You want to throw an all-white, good ol’ boy, pro-war parade these days, you better say so. You can’t of course, and O’Donnell and COS will never put green lipstick on one of these again.

I’m not saying the St Patrick’s Day Parade shouldn’t feature a Marine recruiter’s blow-up doll, or crew-cutted uniformed Pee-wee Killers for Christ, or Hooters sex-workers for gracious sakes. I’m just saying that you’ve got to allow room for another community aesthetic as well.

The Colorado Springs Police Department will face charges for violating the 4th Amendment rights of the seven arrestees, and of three more who were brutalized, with a measure of the 9th Amendment thrown in for the indignity. In the meantime we’ll explore what degree of police brutality is actually sanctioned by the city. I don’t care how much you may hate criminals, all persons have a right to be protected from physical abuse.

We may lobby for special rehab for certain of the policemen. I’d like to see that Officer Erwin “Jimmy” Paladino is not given the authority to remove a kitten from a tree before he’s had counseling.

The Gazette will be charged with slander, plain and simple. You don’t call a 65-year-old woman’s injuries “rugburn” and think you’re going to chuckle your way to market. Ms. Fineron and myself will have our day in court, we’ll demonstrate our actions were not premeditated and for discrediting our integrity we’re going after Hillbilly Gazette editor Sean Paige. Slam-dunk what an asshole.

The Independent’s slander is embarrassing. Michael de Yoanna needs to cover both sides of a story. Our permit was on the books, thank you very much. Quoting a police blotter to say we had no permit, without noting the error, is deliberately misleading. And let me say something about that “chokehold.” Two of our marchers, the very two in fact who were choked, were both corrections department veterans. Both knew precisely the illegality of how they were being handled, and calmly told their respective assailants as much.

The videotapes and pictures will bear out these facts. Perhaps this is the reason that the television media coverage was fairly balanced from the start.

Wanted for questioningSpecial note
The police will need the identity of this man that he can be charged with assault upon Elizabeth Fineron, leading to her fall and subsequent dragging across the pavement. As the Gazette put it, What a drag.

Complaints
Let’s say a word about complaints to the police. If you want to complain about the police conduct, you’ll find they don’t have forms for that purpose. They walk you straight in to see an internal affairs officer and he’ll sit and interrogate you without the aid of a lawyer, or a tape recording that you can keep. Best to write a letter describing your complaint and send it in.