Perhaps cattle belches are least of Colorado’s problems

Re: “Cattle belches a focus of bill,” March 31 news story

Just when you thought nothing could top Monday’s much-anticipated total solar eclipse, something does.

Case in point. Colorado’s U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is sponsoring the “Emit Less Act.” In short, this bill aims to curb cattle, goats and sheep from doing what cattle, goats and sheep have done since when they were residents of Noah’s Ark. Fart and belch. This is perceived as an issue that needs to be addressed?

How about addressing real issues faced by Coloradans now, Sen. Bennet?

Well over half of Colorado families are living paycheck to paycheck.

Nearly 5% of Coloradans are without health insurance.

No one is going to argue that Colorado, and more specifically, greater Denver, has an acute homelessness situation and it is getting worse. This situation has been directly responsible for business closures in downtown Denver as they owners feared for their staff and clientele safety.

The average median rent in the metro area, according to HUD’s 2023 calculation of fair market value is up year over year 15.8%. The cost of living (food, utilities, transportation and health care) is currently clocking in at 7% above the national average.

These are the crises we in Colorado are facing now, senator, and they are why you were elected and sent to Washington — not for studying farm animals farting and belching.

Seriously?

— Matthew Revitte, Greeley

Rather than change the diet of cattle in an attempt to reduce methane emissions, people should instead change their diets to reduce the use of animal products or, better yet, go plant-based.

The harms to the environment from raising cattle go way beyond the release of methane from cow burps. These include habitat loss and degradation (41% of U.S. lands are used for cattle grazing and growing crops to feed them), huge amounts of water consumption, water pollution, air pollution and species loss.

Human health can be adversely impacted by eating too much beef: think heart disease, obesity, cancers, antibiotic resistance and zoonotic disease. Breaking news confirms that bird flu has been transmitted to humans from cows; this is very worrying but not at all surprising.

The list of harms doesn’t begin to touch upon the horrors of both the beef and dairy industries on the cattle themselves. In their short lives they suffer privations, confinement and health impacts from selective breeding before they are killed or stunned by captive bolt and sometimes butchered while still conscious.

— Judy Greenfield, Denver

Alcohol “fee” will be another blow to bars and restaurants

Re: “Senators propose new fee on alcohol companies,” March 13 news story

The new alcohol tax being floated as a “fee” by Sen. Kevin Priola and Sen. Chris Hansen sounds like a bad idea with bad timing, as far as Colorado’s bars and restaurants are concerned.

Despite what the authors say, this is a tax, not a “fee.” As such, this should be voted on by the people rather than hashed out in some back room simply because the authors know it won’t pass a popular vote.

For the last four years, there has been one hurdle after another: dining restrictions, supply shortages, and now inflation. Costs keep adding up, and in a slim-margin business like ours, it doesn’t take much to go from profitability to underwater.

Supporters say this tax is so small that no one will notice. Well, someone will have to pay the cost, and ultimately it makes its way down to the consumer. If we continue to take the “a little bit here, a little bit more there” approach, eventually there will be nothing left.

Currently, alcohol taxes contribute very little money towards treatment programs. If these programs are as important as the sponsors say, surely some portion of the current tax dollars could be diverted to that instead of going into the general fund, which they do now.

Good nights have been hard to come by these past couple of years — and if alcohol prices continue to go up, they will be harder to come by.

— Mark Berzins, Denver

Secretary of state should be challenged, not impeached

Re: “Being ridiculously partisan does not warrant impeachment,” March 31 commentary

Election processes are different from state to state. There is no federal standard for election processes, so every state needs to manage voter registration databases, voting equipment approval, and finally, certifying election results. However, these election processes should be auditable and performance should be measurable. These duties should not be partisan.

Secretary of State Jena Griswold is clearly partisan. More than anything else, partisanship puts a cloud over every decision made as secretary of state. Griswold’s actions to support the removal of a popular candidate of the opposing party tarnish all the election processes that she oversees. Griswold should not be impeached but challenged. This is the same standard that needs to be applied to all candidates, including those running for president.

We live in a country where there is a presumption of innocence at the start of any legal due process. Assuming guilt and bypassing due process is not the way things are done in the United States. The Colorado Supreme Court and Griswold mostly looked ridiculous in their decisions, which were slapped down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Griswold needs to stay in her lane and make sure the voter roles are accurate and that equipment and personnel are in the right locations and performing well. In doing this, citizens will have confidence in the election processes and final results, never caring or knowing which candidate the secretary of state voted for.

— Steven D. Kalavity, Fort Collins

Ambrose victim of Trump derangement?

Re: “The fraud of accusing the former president of fraud,” March 31 commentary

What a ridiculous article we got from Jay Ambrose! Trump filed deliberately false financial documents, in violation of New York law, and still Ambrose complains when Trump is held accountable for his actions. It’s like if someone does 90 mph in a 30 mph zone and when they get ticketed for it they say that “everybody does it, so I shouldn’t get a ticket unless they all do”. What you really mean is that all other cheats should be fined as well, and that sounds like a great idea. Oh, and about the size of the penalty, I say “don’t do the crime if you can’t pay the fine!”

The writer goes on to bring up many of the other tired Republican cliches about how Trump is the victim here and that it’s political bias to indict him on so many charges. Ridiculous!

In fact, Trump is arguably the biggest crook of our time and has committed many more crimes that he has not been charged with. But if you believe that Trump is innocent of the charges then wouldn’t you expect him to want to appear in court to clear his name? Instead, he is doing everything possible to delay going to trial even though it is costing his supporters millions in

legal fees (as you know, Trump claims to be rich but doesn’t use his own money to pay his bills). You have to admit that nothing about his behavior says that he is innocent.

In the end, Jay Ambrose is just another victim of the Trump scams.

— Don Iverson, Louisville

Poor Donald Trump, persecuted for being rich. Trump is a victim of a “victimless ” crime. He made money, the banks money, everybody’s happy! Except he made money on tax fraud, and taxpayers are the victims. Is inside trading a victimless crime? No. Is bribery a victimless crime? No. How about blackmail? No, no and no. Ask Trump’s associates, Allen Weisselberg and Michael Cohen, what they say about tax fraud and lying while covering the tracks of Trump and company. They got jail while Trump is the Republican champion for president, again.

— Victoria Swearingen, Denver

Of course, Jay Ambrose is entitled to his opinion, no matter how filled with error, disinformation, and willing ignorance of factual evidence to the contrary.

Some examples:

• The fact that “there are bad things in the world, besides Trump” is a poor excuse for minimizing his immoral, malevolent, dictatorial and likely illegal behavior.

• Ambrose conveniently forgets or ignores the fact that Trump’s indictments were determined by grand jury determinations of “probable cause” — not Democrats, Joe Biden, the judicial branch, or the so-called “deep state.”

These are two of the most egregious examples of Ambrose’s rantings. The fact that he supplies no factual evidence to validate his further claims is boringly typical of the Trump cult.

Hopefully, readers will recognize that Ambrose writes opinions. He is not a fact-reporting journalist in this instance. And these are my opinions, as well.

— William Scott Taylor, Erie

Cycle out the party-damaging Republicans

Re: “Speaking of Ken Buck …” March 24 letter to the editor

The letter writer, oddly enough from Cheyenne, Wyo., felt the need to express his support for Donald Trump by wading into Colorado politics. He lists all of the tired Republican issues that are distorted, theatrical, and many times just plain made up and designed to hurt Americans while strengthening one very disturbed man. Trump is running to soothe his embarrassment from Americans firing him in 2020. He and his party have no agenda except revenge. We do need two healthy parties. I’m not sure that labeling themselves as independents will solve anything. I think there are enough honest, silent Republicans out there who can vote for Biden one time to rid themselves of Trump. They can still find centrist Republicans for other offices. They are out there, but they need to start now to cycle those radical regressives out of their party!

— Sue Cole, Centennial

Hold the bad actors accountable

Re: “The degradation of women and girls that we meet with a shrug,” March 31 commentary

Not once in the piece did Nicholas Kristof question what’s wrong with boys and men who create the deepfake photos and videos of women, and those who view them and think they’re hilarious.

We’re still dancing around this bad behavior and looking for ways to contain it rather than dealing with it directly.

I foster puppies. It’s time for boys and men to stop acting like unneutered, six-month-old cocker spaniels. Men should foster each other and teach manners and good citizenship. If male puppies can learn it, so can they.

— Kathy Ayers, Littleton