It has been a somber week in Colorado following last weekend's anti-Semitic firebombing attack in Boulder that injured 15 innocent people.

Yes, there's fear and despair, but also resiliency and strength.

The larger Boulder community, especially the Jewish community, is really coming together to support one another.

The many aspects of this story have captured all of our attention.

So our insiders are gathered to share some insight as well as process what took place in Boulder, along with some of the other happenings from this week.

So let's get started with Colorado.

Inside-Out.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Kyle Dyer.

Let me get right to introduce you to this week's insider panel.

We have Patty Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword.

Eric Sandra, mine columnist with Color of Politics and the Colorado Springs and Denver Gazette's Chris Rourke, consultant with Work Media, and Laura Eldredge, a city building consultant and former planning director for the City and County of Denver.

Healing is the focus going forward in Boulder and among the Jewish community.

Wednesday night there was a large community gathering at the JCC.

Earlier that day there was a rally with local leaders and then this Sunday, the 30th annual Boulder Jewish Festival is set to go on as scheduled in the same spot right there on Pearl Street where last weekend people were horribly injured.

Now, the man charged with the anti-Semitic attack will spend life in prison if convicted of the dozens of state charges.

And then the federal hate crime he's facing.

The Egyptian national was in the country illegally and chose to use fire as his weapon when he could not purchase a gun because his visa had expired.

Patti, I will start with you.

This story was shocking and just how has evolved over this week, as has been something to watch.

It was incredible just hearing on Sunday first that there was an attack on the mall.

I automatically assumed it was downtown because people had been so concerned downtown Denver would reopen 16th Street and something would happen because everyone had been so obsessed with safety there.

And then all of a sudden you hear Boulder and you hear you think, not again.

I mean, this state has gone through Columbine.

It's gone through the Aurora theater shootings, the Planned Parenthood shootings, the club Q shootings, the King Soopers shootings, and to have King Soopers.

And then this happened in Boulder.

It's just a narrative that's beyond belief.

It can happen there.

It can happen anywhere.

And that is the additional news started coming out, the peaceful gathering that has been getting together what, since October of 2023, they have gone to protest the continuing hostage situation with the Hamas.

And for these people to be attacked by this man who we are now finding out was had overstayed his welcome with a visa.

We now hear Trump, of course, is now banning travelers from 12 countries when Egypt wasn't even one of them.

So that wouldn't have stopped this.

Interestingly, the gun law in Colorado did stop him getting a gun, which might have made it worse.

The fire, though, is just the video that was captured is horrifying, Eric.

Obviously, this hits personally, it hits home.

Some viewers, you know, know my story.

I'm the first born son of two Holocaust refugees who got out of Germany, but not all of their families were able to escape with them.

So, you know, we're all a product of of our heritage and where we came from and some issues hit home more than others.

There's this delineation that some people try to hold, that they hang their hat on of I'm anti-Zionist and not anti-Semitic.

And I will grant there's a difference between the two.

They're not always one and the same, but they are close cousins in many sense, if you want to argue as vociferously as you want against specific policies of the Israeli government or specific actors within the Israeli government, more power to you, and I'll join in on that.

But when you attack Israel's right to exist as a country, when you get up there and pronounce from the river to the sea, which basically means there is no more Jewish homeland, that then goes way beyond Zionism and into full blown antisemitism.

And there's way too much of that in the world.

It's the disease that won't go away.

And he was caught on camera.

They attacker was making claims and shouting things like that.

Chris Well, I'm going to make the case that the gun law didn't work in this situation because he was flagged, because he failed the background check.

His visa had expired, but there was no follow up on this man.

Why was there no follow up that he could have been stopped right there?

The law really didn't work.

Gun laws don't prevent violence.

Granted, he didn't do as much damage as he could have, but violent offenders will always find a way to violently offend unless we stop them first.

You know, as to what Eric was sharing about this group did not have a Zionist message.

They were simply protest ing the fact that hostages are still being held for a very long time.

And these were Americans.

Every American should be upset about what happened here.

This wasn't just an attack on someone because of what's going on in another country, but these were Americans that had a voice and they were expressing it peacefully.

And then this happened.

Every American should be angry.

Laura what was interesting is that this man is coming from a city of Colorado Springs, which is not a sanctuary city.

And so much has been made about whether it's a sanctuary city, and that's allowing immigrants to stay undocumented in those cities or states.

And this clearly wasn't the case in Colorado Springs.

And yet he still was able to to bring about these acts of violence.

So I think that's I think we need to take a moment about what it what it means to be a sanctuary city or not and and what the results can lead to.

And that's been so much of the talk, you know, people pointing fingers, people are going online, blaming Governor Polis for creating a sanctuary state.

I don't think this man was really thinking about what policies policies were.

This man was blinded by pure hatred, and that's what he took action on.

And we're beginning now to see.

He made videos, he kept a journal, he had a manifesto.

So his twisted the thinking was all hate.

The problem is, though, we don't know who is in this country because we have allowed immigration and an open border policy for four years and we're trying to correct that now.

I don't know that the methods are always lining up with what's going to be the best, but we really don't know who's in this country and what their opinions of us are or what their intentions are.

But I think you are talking about it's a broken system.

I think everybody would agree that it's a broken system, but it doesn't mean that that has been open for the last four years.

I would disagree with you on that point.

I think it's been a different attempt.

Right.

And if you'll remember, the there was a bipartisan bill that came up that was going to reform immigration and the way people came into this country and Trump shot it down and everybody was on board.

Both sides were on board.

And because of politics and because he's more concerned about himself than what's good for our country, it was shot down and every Republican stood behind him.

And so that's that is a problem also.

But why the policy brought up earlier in the administration, it was negotiated and the Republicans pushed the Democrats to the table.

And I think that's fantastic.

And that is a great way for our country to move forward.

But then the Republicans fell in line behind a specific leader instead of behind principles.

Both Laura and Chris are correct in their own way.

Yes, it is a broken system.

And yes, it was particularly out of control and ill managed over the last four years.

But I think it is a mistake to hang this purely on the issue that he was an immigrant.

I mean, I flashback to Oklahoma City.

Those two guys, they weren't immigrants.

They were as white bread as American boys can be.

These are individual acts.

They are not group acts.

We need to address them as individual acts.

That is not to say we can't fix our immigration system and must fix our immigration system and have a better idea of who's in this country.

But to use this to demonize all immigrants is wrong.

I don't want to pretend that I'm demonizing all immigrants, but we have had a broken system and this man was here illegally.

Expired visa.

40% of those who are here illegally came with a visa and it's expired.

So something has to be fixed.

And the administration says they're going to be cracking down on those people who are overstayed their visas.

Now.

Now, okay.

You know, it's tough for us all to see people hurting.

But as Eric mentioned, a lot of people a lot of people have been hurting before this week, this past weekend.

anti-Semitic incidents have reached a high here in Colorado over this past year.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, there were 279 anti-Semitic incidents in Colorado in 2024.

That's a 41% increase from 2023.

And then just last week, there was another report that found there were 33 extremist and hate group organized organizations in Colorado.

That's anti-Semitic groups, anti-government groups, Anti-lgbtq coup plus organizations and anti immigrant organizations.

Eric to see these numbers about these groups, I'm sure that probably is the case in every state.

But the fact we're seeing an increase in Colorado is alarming.

And we fancy ourselves such a liberal, tolerant, open, welcoming state.

And obviously that is not the case.

I think the foremost realization for me in the aftermath of October 7th, which is now what, 20 months ago or something like that, is that the disease of anti-Semitism is not just relegated to history, it's not just the pogroms of Eastern Europe.

It is not just the Holocaust that led to World War Two.

It is the disease that that won't go away.

There is no vaccine to it.

We haven't been able to eradicate it.

there are too many actors of all political persuasions who think that violence is more and more and increasingly justified.

And that's one of the very scary factors that we're living with in this age as well.

It's not just in Colorado.

I looked at FBI statistics and hate crimes, 25% increase in five years.

And they do believe that these these crimes are underreported.

Anti-religion hate crimes up 36% last five years, and that makes up 22% of all hate crimes.

It's second only to race bias.

there needs to be a correction like I said, the FBI, the Anti-Defamation League, all of them are reporting these record high numbers.

And there has to be a solution.

Well, just to Eric's point around the history of hatred in our world, I had the opportunity to visit Anne Frank's house as a young teenager, and you first go through the experience that she lived through, and then there's a second exhibit on the amount of hate groups worldwide, anti-Semitic groups.

And as a teenager, this is before the turn of the century.

There was an enormous amount in Colorado that and I don't remember the numbers, but I was struck as a Coloradan that this would exist at that time already in continuation and post World War two, which was kind of my frame at that point.

Laura is absolutely right that before the turn of this century, Colorado was well, it was also known as the hate state because after we passed Amendment two, but it also had it, the KKK was marching in the twenties, 1920s, and then again in the 1990s.

You had the militia, you had a lot of non-immigrants who were causing trouble and spreading hate and spreading.

For a country that is based on religious freedom and freedom of speech and yes, the right to bear arms.

You have an immense amount of disagreement about what people live and let live.

So I think the civil discourse now is the worst I've seen it in 20, 30 years.

Partly it's because of social media makes it easy to send your screeds out, but it also makes it very easy to respond in a way that makes dehumanizes people.

I've never on both sides of this issue pro-Palestine, pro-Israel.

The conversation is really ugly and somehow we have to get together and have the kinds of talks that I hope we'll see in Boulder on Sunday.

All right.

Let's discuss another issue that has people in Colorado odd at odds and has been the case for a couple of years now.

And that is the reintroduction of gray wolves in Colorado.

It's a program that passed because of voters in urban areas.

Despite the concerns from the ranching communities, the end of May brought with it the deaths of two of the wolves.

It's not known yet exactly how one of them died, but the other was taken down by Colorado Parks and Wildlife because it had attacked livestock in Pitkin County.

We are now at nine reintroduced wolves dying since the program started back in December of 23.

But since the start of this year, Chris, we have had six die.

That seems like a lot.

Will there be a reevaluation of this program?

We think a reevaluation is triggered when survival rate dips below 70%.

I think we're there.

Although Colorado Parks and Wildlife says they're waiting to see how many pups were born this year to really tip that number up.

But overall, 25 to 30 wolves introduced ten the first year, 15 the second, although there were four pups, The math doesn't add up for me, and I think we're below 70% when I do the math.

The unknown factor is how many were born this year.

So it triggers a pause on the program to evaluate what is going wrong and how can it be corrected.

I will tell you our survival rate is lower than what the Yellowstone reintroduction numbers were.

It's lower than the reintroduction in central Idaho.

And, you know, Wyoming refused to give us wolves.

A year ago, Governor Mark Gordon made some big statements about how their wolf management program was well-done because they kept wolves in areas where there was low conflict.

And just to read part of his quote and it kind of sums up the problem here, our border with Colorado is an unsuitable area for wolves, and that would mean more human conflicts.

Resolution of conflicts are almost deadly to wolves.

So I'm not anti Wolf.

I'm pro Wolf.

I'm tired of seeing them die.

And I think this program.

Needs a pause.

Okay.

All right, Laura.

Well, I'll just qualify that.

I am a city builder, so why I am speaking about this?

I'm not sure why I voted on this.

I'm not sure.

And it's I think it's to the to the denigration of Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

It's to the denigration of our ranchers who are on the ground seeing this and interact this situation, interact with their with their population of cattle.

And what's interesting, I went back and started looking at why, why, why did we even have this ballot initiative?

And going back to understand wolves, gray wolves being put on the endangered species list, and then some of them being removed and seeing success come back in Montana, Idaho, Yellowstone, and my reflection on that is we are a different state.

We have a wholly different population happening across our state.

Right?

Certainly in areas of where the gray wolf populations have been released.

And it is unfortunate that this science experiment, which is exactly what it is, which means you have to test and come back and test and come back and refine is being splayed out in politics.

And I have no comment.

I shouldn't have a comment.

Well said as a city planner.

Thank you, Patty.

As a city journalist, I can say you don't we don't spend a lot of time reporting on ranches.

We do talk about ballot initiatives.

And of course, this was one of those citizen initiated ballot initiatives.

I like it that citizens can initiate ballots.

Does this mean we should have a higher level of signatures needed?

Not necessarily, But I think we need to have better discussion of ballots that come forward.

And we almost had another discussion coming up in November.

There was a move to put a ballot measure on that would rescind this and have the discussion again, that was not wisely written and maybe the first one wasn't wisely written either.

But it is time to have a discussion about how urban and rural deal with each other in this state.

And there's so much overlap between the two.

Also, the people who have their second homes in the mountains who can leave the wolves because they're not raising the cattle.

So we need a better discussion of all of Colorado.

Yes, we do, Eric.

But first of all, somebody needs to get the wolves a memo that you stay out of.

Pitkin County.

Pitkin County is Aspen.

Pitkin County is where the wealthy estates are.

The big fancy ranches.

And, you know, yeah, if you're going to take up home there, you're going to cause a stir and get even more attention I think there is tremendous buyer's remorse out there.

If there was a responsible issue that came back before the voters that somehow could reel this back in, in a in an effective way, I think it would pass and pass by appreciable numbers.

I don't know how to bring that about, but this is a failed experiment, a failed science experiment, in Laura's phrase, and by the buyers are very remorseful at this point in time.

I agree with him.

Okay.

Aside from the Boulder attack last weekend that put us in the national spotlight, so has this week's defamation lawsuit of Mike Lindell, a Trump supporter who stands accused of defaming an employee at Denver based million voting systems by claiming that Eric Coomer was the one who rigged the 2020 presidential election so that Joe Biden would win.

Laura Lindell came to town expecting a legal showdown and he has been showing quite the showmanship of this past couple of days.

Yes, I understand yesterday he came into the courtroom late because he was having such a field day with all the press out front of the courtroom.

So to your point that it is much more about showing up for the show and it is about the court for him than the content of really what's this defamation case?

And so, you know, my message here would be is just because you lose does not mean you can go after the winner or you can go after the process by which you lost.

You need to accept the loss.

And it's been to the denigration of, you know, one of our American principles of the right to vote and that we have a clean, truthful voting process and system.

And this particular individual, Lindell, is more interested in himself and and his social media endeavors than he is in actually standing for his country and doing right, abiding right by his country.

So it's just a disappointment all the way around.

And the level of denial is striking to me.

Eric Coomer, who left Dominion voting system under threats by people.

Dominion had to move their offices twice or three times, I think, because election deniers were threatening them.

We've had testimony already from Eric Coomer.

We've heard from Tina Peters, from jail, who was one of Michael.

You know, Mike Lindell flew her out of the country, out of the state when she was in trouble over her crimes.

We have Joe Altmann, who originally broadcast the podcast where Mike Lindell made the accusations against Eric Coomer.

But most important, we heard from Matt Crain, who's the Republican head of Colorado clerks, who talked about the fact that Colorado's system is fine.

There was no election rigging.

No one has found evidence of election rigging.

So this was so irresponsible on behalf of the election deniers Lindell Altman and everyone else who was involved.

Tina Peters Hey, let's dial this conversation back five or 10 minutes to when we were talking about extremism.

This falls under that same heading.

This is extremist rhetoric.

It is extremist rhetoric that led to a violent outcome witnessed January 6th of 2021.

This notion that somehow the election was stolen had been manufactured by Donald Trump and other Trump allies.

And they had they they signaled that intent long before the election, that they were going to play this card if the election didn't go that way their way.

We're now living in a time where you see run of the mill candidates for county clerk or county commissioner here, they're yonder.

And if they lose an election, their immediate response was, it was stolen.

I don't know if it's one akin to everyone receiving a participation program trophy and no one can have their self esteem hurt in any way in this society.

But sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and you pick up your marbles and you go home and you try a little harder the next time.

Mike Lindell deserves whatever is coming his way.

And I hope what's coming his way is a big judgment.

Okay.

And Chris, I think what.

Caught my attention was when he said he took his actions because he had been triggered because he was dropped from a cable network.

And since one is getting triggered, reasons to do something illegal, I don't know.

To your point, I think, and to Laura's, the denial that Mike Lindell has regarding his actions is stunning.

And I ask myself, you know, I had a conversation with Tina Peters once and the thought that occurred in my mind was this woman is a true believer.

Is Mike Lindell a true believer?

I don't know, because like you pointed out, he loves that limelight and it gets him the attention and it's feeding whatever it is that he needs to feed with this this court case.

So does he truly believe that the election was stolen?

I don't know.

But he's sticking by it.

What is his motive?

I don't know either.

It doesn't really matter in the end.

So it will be interesting to see this case concluded.

All right.

Now let's go down the line and talk about some of the highs and the lows of this week.

We've talked about quite a few lows, but we're running low notes.

We can end on a good note for the weekend.

And Patti, I'll start with you.

I have another low governor policy signed into Bill into law, the bill that would demand that CBI gets the rape kits done faster.

You know, we were up to over 500 days to do it because of all the problems.

The rate now is even worse than it was when that bill passed the legislature.

So there's a lot of work to fix it.

okay.

Let me go back to where we started the show the same day the attacks happened last Sunday in Boulder.

There was a fundraiser among many Democrats for Representative Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who was in town to raise some money.

Democratic Party needs to do some housecleaning of their own.

If I had more time, I could go through a litany of Representative Omar's anti-Semitic comments.

And it's a long litany.

But yet Boulder Representative Junie Joseph and a number of other Democratic representatives from around the metro area, county commissioners, what have you all showed up to hold hands and rally with somebody who is clearly an anti-Semite of the worst kind?

The Democratic Party needs to clean its own house.

And this was in the evening after the attack.

Okay, Chris.

Well, with the acknowledgment that my colleague here once held this position, the city of Denver just lost its planning director after only 13 months on the job.

This was a job that was vacant probably 6 to 8 months in the first year of Mike Johnston's administration, So this is a very important department within the city of Denver.

It needs to be filled with somebody who's really qualified and is ready to go forward with the job.

You're not going back, Laura.

No, you're not.

Okay.

You're the best the best job ever and hardest job ever.

I'm just going to pile on that and the by all means, the right.

The position was empty for eight months.

They hire Maneesh Kumar.

He lasts 13 months under the guy and leaves under the guise of mission accomplished, which I can just tell you firsthand.

No, no chance that you could actually accomplish much in 13 and 13 months.

They're bringing in Brad Buchanan as a colleague of mine.

He's been in that position before.

I worry because it's it's identified.

He's identified for six months as interim, which means you have less power.

He currently is CEO of National Western Center Authority, which he'll continue.

He also runs a ranch in Strasburg, which is terrific.

But this is his will be his third job.

And I know that no shade on Brad, but for the administration to decide that this is the next best stop, I'm concerned about that.

Okay.

All right, Patty, something good.

Down in Denver on Sunday.

If you are on the six straight forward the summer celebration, everything looked great.

People were happy.

People were shopping.

Keep going there.

Okay.

Eric.

Viewers of this show, I recommend you get out your reading glasses.

Go to a publication called The Free Press Online and grab an essay from three, four, or five ago by a writer named Rod Dray or d r e h e r. I just talked about Democrats needing to clean their house.

Rod Dreher is a conservative close to J.D.

Vance and others, and he blew the whistle on the anti-Semitism that is ramped up within certain elements of the hard right.

And it's a very important and well-done essay worth reading.

Okay, Thank you.

I read that.

One was good.

Sunny and Gizmo are two eaglets that were born in Big Bear Valley, California.

There was a camera on their nest.

They were two of three eggs that were hatched of the eaglets died in a snowstorm.

But sunny and gizmo are now almost adults and they've taken the lead.

Sunny has taken her first, her his.

We're not sure.

The first flight flew around the nest.

Gizmo was very sad and depressed because that eaglet had not taken its first flight and Sunny came back to the nest and all is well.

They're in Big Bear Valley, California.

I love you.

Bring us animal stories.

Thank you.

Wildlife.

Got to love it.

Flora.

Also, weekend is the Greek festival out at the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church.

And if you haven't been, it's a fabulous event and celebration of Greek culture, food and dancing and things to purchase.

And my boys are half Greek.

And so we are there regular Lee and and enjoy it and they're good people.

have fun that is a fun festival in my high is just my heartfelt wish for healing both physically but also mentally and spiritually for everyone touched by what happened last weekend in our stage, good always wins over hate.

So my love to you all and thank you to our insiders for the insight in your thoughtful conversation this week.

I so appreciate it and thank you for watching and be engaged with us as well.

Don't forget that we have a podcast on Spotify and Apple.

So if ever you're running errands, you want to listen to us, we're there for you.

I'm Kyle Dyer.

I will see you next week here on PBS 12 PBS's 12 believes in the power of original local programing.

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