Crisis journalism. Legislative Immunity (per the 10th circuit) covers a whole lot. A (now not so) secret addition to icing.

Crisis journalism

How many crises does Colorado have? I don't know that I can count them all for you, but to give you a sense, I did a Google site search for four major Colorado media outlets: The Denver Gazette, Colorado politics, CPR, and Colorado Sun. If you're curious to tool around in there, you'll find the searches linked below in that same order.

We apparently are beset by crises. A quick survey through the first four links below shows a climate crisis, a budget crisis, a Colorado River crisis, a mental health crisis, a healthcare crisis, a childcare crisis, the list goes on.

I am not surprised by advocates and politicians using the word crisis. The fifth link below is to Senator Hickenlooper's Twitter feed and, sure enough, he uses it all the time.

But media are different.

It's one thing to see someone quoted in an article use the word crisis to describe a problem--see the above about politicians and advocates--but you see it over and over in the reporter's own writing. It's the reporter using the word to characterize a situation.

I've written in the past about the media letting their lexicon get co-opted by advocates, often in a one-sided fashion. Instead of a more neutral term such as "transgender" care, it's "gender-affirming" (and don't dare even think about the opposite advocacy term: "sex-rejecting"). When everything is a crisis, I have a hard time seeing how that's also not letting advocates co-opt your lexicon. I suppose that the move to make everything a crisis could be a way of boosting readership too; nothing gets the clicks quite like a good old fashioned emergency.

I forget now where I first heard it, but this all made me think of a concept called alarm fatigue. When you're surrounded by flashing lights and blaring annunciators all the time, you cease to notice them. I would not at all be surprised to find that many people nowadays have crisis fatigue.

When everything is dire, nothing is.

Whatever is driving the media's (over)use of the word crisis, they along with the advocates who are gladly sitting by while their words are echoed would do well to temper their enthusiasm for the label.

It's not helping either group in the long run.


Denver Gazette

Colorado Politics

CPR

Colorado Sun

Senator Hickenlooper

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Legislative Immunity (per the 10th circuit) covers a whole lot.

I wrote in the past about a case which went to the 10th circuit court of appeals (Colorado as well as some other Western States is in the Federal 10th Judicial District).

The case concerned legislative immunity, with the context of the case centering on Colorado State (now Senate) Representative Weissman shutting down committee testimony he didn't like.

As a quick reminder (with more context to be had on both the original case, etc. in the first link below) legislative immunity is a legal doctrine that protects legislators from personal liability for actions or decisions made during official legislative business.**

As a quick update, I offer you the Colorado Politics article on the appellate court's verdict. In short, yes, legislators (in particular committee chairs per the legislature's rules) have wide latitude in how they can create and enforce their rules of decorum. Per all three judges on the appellate panel, if they don't like what you say, they can shut you down.

Quoting (with link intact) from that article:

“'The legislative process is inherently political, and therefore not easily amenable to federal judicial inquiry. People injured by this process are generally not free to sue legislators for their legislative acts,' wrote Judge Richard E.N. Federico in the panel’s March 10 opinion. 'The entire purpose of adopting committee rules was to govern conduct at legislative hearings. That adoption would be meaningless if legislators, as the ones overseeing such hearings, could not enforce those rules in the very forum they were designed for.'”

Oddly enough, one of the judges seems to have squirted our from under his misgivings about his agreement by writing a separate concurring opinion where he kinda-sorta disagrees all while voting with the others. One of the quotes from the article demonstrates:

“'Although it troubles me that a legislative body can effectively silence speech and leave the party whose speech is compelled or prohibited without a judicial remedy, the relevant authorities allow it,' he [Judge Joel M. Carson III] wrote. 'And the result in favor of one viewpoint in this case will apply equally if a legislative body in another state flips the script and allows only the opposite viewpoint to be expressed in its hearings. But the legislative immunity doctrine purposely imposes harsh consequences.'"

I don't know about you, but I don't particularly care if any scripts are flipped. The First Amendment applies to us all or it applies to none.

The last thing to remind you of is a newsletter I put out earlier this week. That's the third link below. In that edition, I took Senator Tom Sullivan and Senate President James Coleman to task for his bullying behavior and lack of response to same (respectively).

Sadly, per the ruling by the three judge panel, I would say it doesn't really seem as though there's a legal remedy to Senator Sullivan's behavior, provided it's in the "sphere of legitimate" activity for the legislator and legislature.

A bad ruling on the part of the judges.

A perfect example of the wide gulf between legal and moral in the case of Sullivan.

**While our state legislators have railed against, and written laws to circumscribe, police officers' qualified immunity, I have yet to see any effort to circumscribe their own immunity for poor choices such as shutting witness testimony down that you don't like.

https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/does-legislative-immunity-mean-co?utm_source=publication-search

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/2026/03/10/10th-circuit-dismisses-challenge-to-colorado-legislatures-decorum-rules/#google_vignette

https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/as-sen-sullivan-says-you-should-write

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A (now not so) secret addition to icing

That time of the week again. It’s the last post til Sunday and thus it’s time for something for fun, something not related to politics.

I have a secret to share with you. Well, it’s not so much a secret; it wasn’t before now and it sure as hell won’t be after. I picked this up in a wonderful book called “The Bread Bakers Apprentice”. Having tried it and liked it on my last round of cinnamon rolls and Danish, I thought I’d let you in on it too.

If you like to bake, next time you make your favorite cinnamon roll recipe, try a little lemon extract in the icing (and perhaps the dough). Don’t omit anything, just add a little lemon and restrain yourself to less than you’d think. I’d say no more than about a half teaspoon of lemon extract in the icing for 8 big rolls (and no more than that in the dough). If you prefer zest to extract, I’d say zest might work decently in the dough, but I don’t like the texture it would add to the icing. Your rolls though, make what you like.

It might not sound like it--it certainly wouldn’t be if you add lots of lemon--but just that little bit of lemon really sets off cinnamon rolls. It’s there, but not there, and complements the cinnamon really well.

Works great on Danish too (see the blueberry version in the pic attached). In a Danish, the sweet fruit atop a buttery, flaky pastry is usually the main star, but the floral note of the lemon + vanilla really plays off the fruit and pastry well. It makes it all taste just a little better than simply just more sweet on top of sweet.

If you have some tips of your own to share, toss them in the comments. I’m always looking for new ideas.

That’s it for today. Enjoy the rest of Friday and see you back at it Sunday. Happy baking!

Related, well, sort of:

I couldn’t not put in something about the garden. I have had a hell of a time with alfalfa volunteers in my pollinator lawn the last couple years. Enough to make me think I should stop fighting it and just learn to love it. Maybe I could sell it at a Denver Farmers Market as artisan alfalfa.

At any rate, the other day while plucking them out (and waging a never-ending war against bindweed), I noticed the kind of volunteer I could really get behind.

Tucked in amid some flowers was a parsley plant. Hot damn. I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to have one, all the more so given how hard parsley is to start from seed (and I have some struggling little seedlings to prove it).

This is the kind of volunteer I can get behind!