Well, I’ll see clearer now in about an hour or so, because I’m sitting at my buddy Andy’s shop – Windshields Express – getting my windshield replaced as rocks tend to find me on my trips to Gypsum to pick up The Business Times. All part of my weekly routine in the ever-changing news biz I’ve been immersed in over the past quarter century.

And here you thought I don’t work for a living. I do, just as little as possible. Has to be some kind of personal reward for owning my own shop all this time.

And windshield time, along with listening to my “Jesus mix,” tends to be my thinking time, so now you know where all my crazy thoughts enter my cranium. And now I’m doing it weekly for the past couple of years, so there’s my problem, many would say. I tend to agree, but only in this sense: I write in the hopes I make folks think, not to tell anyone how to think.

I just hope I can do that in God’s perspective by stating the obvious. So, clear vision, it’s a thing over here in Craigy Land. I’m sure many will disagree with my vision(s), especially those who were shocked (and I’m guessing saddened) to find themselves agreeing with yours truly over the No. 1 problem facing Coloradans of all political leanings: The release of Public Enemy No. 1, Tina Peters.

And the fact we’re still talking about Tina is proof positive Pontius Polis played us perfectly.

Well, not me. I saw what our pompous pontificating potentate was performing in washing his hands of the whole mess as rabid republicans relished the release of their regally retained reprobate.

Tell me who’s got the bad vision? And enough with the forced alliteration, Craig.

And it’s with this bug-splattered, filthy, rock-chipped vision your favorite republicans got played. I know the proverb says look in the windshield and not the rear-view mirror, because you’re headed one way and not the other. But I’d argue the windshield is in desperate need of replacing, and the rear view has too many in Colorado (especially Mesa County) republican leadership stuck in 2020, with Tina as the anchor holding the party from actually moving into the future where reality lives outside of denial.

See what I did there?

And now you know the reason Pontius set Tina free. She’s like Herman’s Hermits as the second verse of Tina’s tantrums is the same as the first. And it only took Peters about a half hour after her release to appear on Steve Bannon’s crazy pillow-talk radio to say the democrats are gonna cheat, and she found the source of all voter fraud that’s ever happened in United States’ elections.

Only two problems there. It’s a fact democrats always cheat, so we already know that. And when it comes to searching and finding, Tina would have had as much success finding fraud had she stole badges for Stevie Wonder, Helen Keller and Roy Orbison; which is none.

If she’d found anything, we’d know it. Because the gold star mockumentary sure didn’t show us anything. And no matter how loudly or often republicans scream, “Grisly Griswold did it, too!” it will never prove Tina finally found fraud (sorry, had to).

And Pontius Polis knows this. Just like we all do. Especially those whose political persona will never let it be understood. But that’s a mental disorder for another column.

Fact is, Polis was counting on exactly that: Mind-numb republicans, who’ve been demanding Tina’s release, spouting off about her release even though the only denial they seem to posses is a misunderstanding of why Tina went to the hoosegow in the first place. To help them: It wasn’t because she exposed voter fraud.

No. 1, because she didn’t. And we know this because her handlers (who are the real criminals here, Tina was just the scapegoat – speaking of being played) would have presented the evidence well before Tina ever went to trial. Sounds like Trump in the Epstein files, no?

Most important, however, is the Tina was in prison because of HOW she went about trying to find, as Mitch McDeer would put it, “the secret files,” along with Tina’s own personal behavior and lack of remorse throughout this entire fiasco. Fact is, if a democrat had done the same, these same republicans would want to lock them up and throw away the key. You know, kind of the way they think of our Grisly Bear, Jena.

Hate to break it to the republican (m)asses … if Jena is guilty, so is Tina.

Just another way the rabid right is being played like a fiddle by our Nero in Denver.

Here’s another. By releasing Tina when he did, our Pontius one has republicans distracted again as Tina begins her malarkey tour with the proverbial, “I told you so, she was innocent,” declarations galore. Which has republicans infighting. After all, Tina couldn’t get the votes to become party chair, and she certainly won’t garner any support outside of the sycophants who’ve been blinded all along.

I’m sure I’ll hear from them soon enough.

So now, instead of republicans being split on Tina’s innocence during her trial and incarceration, we have the same republicans split on the very same topics in her commutation. But let’s not play it up like she’s innocent. And most of the people know she’s not, republican power brokers aside. Well played indeed, Jared.

In the meantime, the two democrat gubernatorial candidates widen the gap over the preacher, the bully and lady no one has ever heard of more than Weiser’s front teeth and Bennet’s grasp of reality. Which means only one thing: Democrat sweeps statewide in 2026.

Added to this, republicans are running Carrot Top for secretary of state, whose latest prop was a Facebook post pic of himself with the Pontius one. Locally, we’ve got some kid who put on a blazer and red tie and thinks he’s become SuperTrump running for breakfast in America, and I don’t even know who the republicans are running for attorney general. Maybe Tina is the only thing to be excited about for republicans. Too bad it’s not in a good way.

The only thing these upcoming primaries will prove statewide is which democrat is going to win. Locally, it’ll still be republicans, but when the enemy has a super majority, it won’t matter much who we select to run, except for the fact we can say we know them and they are good people.

Now you know why Jared made Tina the face of this election cycle. Democrats will come out in droves to vote against her party as their candidates will say her name more often than they disparage Trump on the trail. And that’s sayin’ sumthin. And it splits republicans as a bonus, because some will say her name even more. I’d advise against it.

But what do I know? After all, I think she got what she deserved. More important, earned.

Same old democrats? You bet, because it works. Same old republicans? You bet, because it doesn’t. That’s Colorado politics for ya.

In Truth and freedom.

Craig Hall is owner and publisher of The Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com