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Tag: Gov

  • A judge told Gov. Jared Polis not to comply with an ICE subpoena. Polis’ attorneys say he still wants to.

    Gov. Jared Polis is still trying to find a way to comply with a federal immigration subpoena, four months after a Denver judge ruled that doing so would violate Colorado law.

    In repeated court filings, including one submitted Friday, Polis’ private attorneys have said they intend to turn over records on 10 businesses that employed several sponsors of unaccompanied children to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    They’ve asked a Denver judge, who previously prohibited some state employees from complying with ICE’s subpoena, to dismiss the case and clear the way for them to turn over a more limited batch of records.

    The recent filings represent the second attempt by Polis to comply with the April immigration enforcement subpoena. The governor’s first attempt was blocked by District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones in June, after Jones sided with a senior state employee who’d sued Polis earlier that month to stop the state from fulfilling the subpoena.

    The employee, Scott Moss, argued that providing the requested records would violate state laws that limit what information can be shared with federal immigration authorities.

    But though Jones preliminarily sided with Moss, his ruling is complicated. He prohibited Polis from directing a specific division of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment to comply with the subpoena. But he said he couldn’t prevent Polis from directing others to comply with the subpoena, even though Jones said doing so would still likely violate the law.

    The records that Polis now says he intends to turn over to ICE are in the custody of another labor department division not covered in Jones’ order.

    In an email Tuesday, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman declined to comment on the case or why Polis is still seeking to provide records to ICE. She pointed to the administration’s recent legal filings.

    The administration has previously said it wanted to support ICE’s efforts to check on unaccompanied minors without legal status, though the governor’s office has not provided any evidence that it has sought assurances that ICE wasn’t seeking the information purely for immigration enforcement efforts.

    David Seligman, whose law firm has supported the case, criticized the governor’s decision to seek the lawsuit’s dismissal while indicating his intention to turn over records to ICE. While ICE wrote that it wanted detailed employment records so it could check on the well-being of unaccompanied children, Seligman and Moss, the employee who brought the lawsuit, have argued that the agency only wants the information so it can arrest and deport the children’s sponsors.

    “It is absolutely absurd that this governor would be going out of his way to comply with and cooperate with ICE in light of everything that we’re seeing right now,” Seligman said.

    Moss has since left the department, and Polis’ lawyers now argue that no one associated with the case has a legal standing to challenge compliance with the subpoena. They’ve also argued that they can turn over the records because the employers’ addresses and contact information can be found online.

    The records are only part of the broader swath of personal details that ICE initially requested, and they cover only six of the 35 sponsors for which ICE first sought records. The sponsors are typically family members of children without legal status, who care for the minors while their immigration cases proceed.

    The administration has similarly told ICE officials that it intends to comply with part of the subpoena once the lawsuit is concluded. In a July 11 email, Joe Barela, the head of the Department of Labor and Employment, wrote to a special agent in ICE’s investigative branch that the agency planned to “provide your office with the names and contact information for those 10 employers.”

    The labor department has already complied with three ICE subpoenas this year, including in one “erroneous” case that apparently ran afoul of state law.

    Jones must now rule on whether to dismiss the lawsuit or let it proceed. Between June and early September, Recht Kornfeld, the private law firm Polis hired to represent him in the lawsuit, has billed the state for more than $104,000, according to records obtained by The Denver Post through a public records request.

    The Colorado Attorney General’s Office has said it was unable to represent Polis because of legal advice it provided to the governor related to complying with the subpoena. The office has declined to characterize the nature of that advice.

    The subpoena was sent to the state labor department in April as part of what ICE described as essentially a welfare check of unaccompanied minors in the state. The subpoena sought employment and personal records for the children’s sponsors.

    Initially, administration officials decided not to comply with the subpoena because of the state’s laws limiting such contact. But Polis abruptly changed course and decided to turn over the records, prompting Moss to sue.

    Seth Klamann

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  • Record-high 8 children killed in Colorado domestic violence incidents last year is ‘a wake-up call’

    Eight children were killed in domestic violence incidents across Colorado in 2024 — the highest number since the state began tracking annual domestic violence deaths eight years ago, according to a report released Tuesday by the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board.

    The youngest child to die was 3-month-old Lesley Younghee Kim, who was found dead with her mortally injured mother in a Denver home in July 2024.

    The oldest were each 7. They include Jessi Hill, whose father killed her and her 3-year-old sister, Summer, before dying by suicide in January 2024, as well as 7-year-olds Dane Timms and Tristan Rael. The remaining children who died were toddlers: Xander Martinez-King, 1, Xena Martinez-King, 2, and Aaliyah Vargas-Reyes, 1.

    “It’s a wakeup call, I hope, for people in Colorado,” said Whitney Woods, executive director of the Rose Andom Center, which helped compile the board’s report. “This is a real problem.”

    Seventy-two people died in domestic violence incidents statewide in 2024. That’s up 24% from the 58 domestic violence deaths in 2023 but remains below pandemic-era peaks, when 94 people died in 2022 and 92 people died in 2021.

    The pandemic years also saw elevated numbers of children killed, with four children killed in 2021 and six in 2022. Across the other years, no more than three children died in any given year, the board’s reports show.

    Five of the eight children killed in 2024 died amid custody disputes between their parents, the report found.

    “These findings highlight custody litigation as a high-risk period for families experiencing domestic violence and point to the urgent need for stronger safeguards within family court proceedings,” the report concluded. The legislatively-mandated board, chaired by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, began tracking domestic violence statewide in 2017 and makes annual recommendations for policy changes aimed at preventing deaths.

    The fatality review board last year recommended that the state’s child and family investigators and parental responsibilities evaluators go through training on domestic violence, particularly around understanding the dynamics of domestic violence and how to evaluate the risk of lethality during the custody process. The Colorado Judicial Department is still developing such training, with work continuing in 2026, the report noted.

    “That is to my mind a call to action,” Weiser said. “And we are working with the court system on this right now — how do we make sure our family courts and the general system for addressing domestic violence provides protection, support, services, so that we don’t see these deaths happen?”

    The increase in domestic violence deaths came even as statewide homicides declined 17% to a five-year low. Roughly one in six homicide victims in Colorado in 2024 died during domestic violence incidents. Domestic violence victims account for 18% of all homicide victims statewide, the highest proportion in five years, the annual review found.

    “That is really alarming in this line of work, for us,” Woods said.

    The increase in domestic violence homicides amid the drop in overall homicides “suggests that while broader public safety interventions may be reducing general violence, they are not having the same impact on (domestic violence fatalities),” the report found.

    The increase also comes at a time when many organizations aimed at preventing domestic violence and supporting survivors are facing funding shortfalls and uncertainty, Woods noted.

    Among the 72 people killed in 2024, 38 were victims of domestic violence, 26 were perpetrators of domestic violence and eight — all of the children — were considered ‘collateral victims.’ The victims were overwhelmingly female and the perpetrators overwhelmingly male.

    Across all 72 deaths, guns were used 75% of the time. The second most common type of attack was asphyxiation, which was involved in 8% of all deaths, followed by a knife or sharp object, used in 7% of deaths.

    “Occasionally, people will make comments like, ‘If someone wants to kill someone they can kill them with a knife,’” Weiser said. “I think it’s fair to say access to firearms makes it far more likely that a domestic violence perpetrator will kill somebody.”

    Removing guns from a suspect when domestic violence begins can be an effective prevention strategy, Woods said.

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  • Colorado juvenile detention staff violated strip-search policy 1,000 times in 9 months, watchdog finds

    Staff at Colorado’s juvenile detention centers violated policies meant to protect youth during strip searches more than 1,000 times during nine months between 2023 and 2025, according to a new review by the Child Protection Ombudsman of Colorado released Tuesday.

    There is no effective oversight to ensure strip searches at juvenile detention centers are justified and properly documented, the review found, and the vast majority of youth strip searches did not reveal any contraband, raising questions about how Colorado Division of Youth Services staff members are using the invasive procedure.

    In one instance, five youth in a detention center were strip-searched because one of them might have been charging a vape pen in a computer classroom, the review found. In another instance, a 14-year-old boy was held in a room by himself for more than 10 hours until he consented to a strip search. Another time, a youth was strip-searched three times in one day because staff believed he possessed drug paraphernalia, the report found.

    Nothing was found during any of those searches, the office reported.

    AnneMarie Harper, a spokeswoman for the Division of Youth Services, said in a statement Tuesday that the agency would investigate the ombudsman’s findings.

    “When it comes to searches of youth in our care, DYS staff is trained to balance personal privacy while also taking a trauma-informed approach,” she said. “These efforts help to make sure that dangerous materials and substances that could put all youth and staff at risk are not in our facilities.”

    The ombudsman’s office discovered 1,006 policy violations across 1,009 youth strip searches statewide during three three-month stretches in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Division of Youth Services staff members failed to document supervisor approval for searches, conducted searches with just one staff member present when two are required, and failed to clearly document the reasons for searches or the results, according to the report.

    “When you are talking about the strip search of youth, we have to be incredibly careful that we are documenting every detail and trying to treat these youth as safely as possible,” said Stephanie Villafuerte, the child protection ombudsman.

    ‘Reasonable suspicion’ for search

    About 2,000 youth between the ages of 10 and 21 are housed at juvenile detention centers statewide, according to the report. They are strip-searched when they arrive at the facilities, after visits with family, and after returning to the detention centers from court or other appointments. But they are also subject to strip searches when a staff member has “reasonable suspicion” to believe a juvenile might have contraband.

    The ombudsman’s review focused only on those searches for reasonable suspicion, which the report noted is “arguably the most subjective” reason for a search, a process during which youth fully undress and an adult staff member looks at their naked body.

    The practice is inherently traumatic, even when done completely within policy, the report noted. Youth who are committed to a detention center are more likely than other juveniles to have suffered abuse and neglect, and strip searches can retraumatize them.

    “Strip searches are traumatizing for anyone, and perhaps particularly for teenagers,” said Jessica Feierman, senior managing director at Juvenile Law Center. “They are very aware of their bodies, their bodies are changing, so it is a moment where a strip search can have unique harm.”

    Strip searches should be used sparingly, she said, and ideally not at all — alternatives like handheld metal detectors or airport-style body scanners can often be just as effective at revealing contraband, Feierman said.

    The sheer number of strip searches of Colorado youth, the missing documentation about how the searches were conducted and why, and the low amount of contraband recovered raise concern, she said.

    “All of those things suggest a heavy overreliance on strip searches, even though they are so harmful to young people,” she said.

    On average, DYS staff members found contraband in just 10% of the 1,009 strip searches for reasonable suspicion that the ombudsman’s office reviewed.

    That low percentage suggests that detention center staff are misusing strip searches, said Dana Flores, senior manager for youth justice in Colorado at the National Center for Youth Law.

    “The report indicates that DYS staff are treating strip searches as a mechanism to assert power and control, and that is not rehabilitative,” she said. “That is just an abuse of discretion by adults who are supposed to be providing trauma-informed care to young people we know have already experienced trauma. If only 10% are turning up contraband, and that is the rationale behind strip searches… there must be a motivation for staff to keep doing this that goes above and beyond simply seeking contraband.”

    Contraband — in particular, cocaine and fentanyl — is a ubiquitous problem across Colorado’s youth detention centers, she added, noting that kids who are jailed often search for ways to escape reality. Strip searches of youth don’t address the big-picture problem, she said.

    “That ultimately isn’t going to address the root cause of the problem, which is that this youth has access to contraband,” she said. “So you could strip search a kid on Monday and find drugs on their person — the larger question is what are you doing to provide that young person with the appropriate behavioral health treatment and education to address what may be a substance abuse disorder?”

    ‘We don’t have documentation’

    Division of Youth Services workers document strip searches in handwritten logs, the review found. That log is supposed to include information on when the search was conducted, who approved and carried out the search, the purpose of the search and the outcome.

    However, the Child Protection Ombudsman’s review found the information in the log was often missing, Villafuerte said.

    “We don’t know whether these searches are being conducted in a way that is incorrect, because we don’t have documentation,” she said. “Oftentimes, we don’t know who conducted the search, we don’t know if one or more people were present, we don’t know the underlying reasonable suspicion behind the reason to search. Without having the information, it makes it incredibly difficult to understand whether these searches are being conducted in a way that is effective, and if not, what can we do to make them effective.”

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  • ICE arrests climb in Colorado this summer, but people detained are less likely to have criminal backgrounds

    Federal immigration arrests in Colorado surged this summer as the Trump administration charged ahead with its plans to mass-deport undocumented immigrants.

    But as arrests have spiked, law enforcement agencies increasingly have detained people without any prior criminal convictions or charges, internal data show.

    Between June 11 and July 28, ICE arrested 828 people in Colorado, according to a Denver Post analysis of data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley. That amounted to more than 17 arrests per day, a more than 50% increase from the first five months of the Trump administration, through June 10, a period covered in a previous Post story. The rate from this summer was also more than five times higher than the daily arrest average from the same time period in 2024.

    Of those detained over the summer, only a third had prior criminal convictions noted in the records. Another 18% had pending charges, indicating that nearly half had been neither convicted nor charged with a crime and that their only violation was immigration-related.

    That, too, is a shift: In the earlier months of President Donald Trump’s second term, two-thirds of the 1,639 people arrested in Colorado had either been convicted of a crime (38%) or charged with one (29%).

    “That tracks with what we would have expected (and) what we’ve been hearing from community sources,” said Henry Sandman, the co-executive director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. “The data and the reality disproves ICE’s talking points that they’re going after criminals. We’re seeing tactics increase. They’re trying to increase arrest numbers as high as possible, whatever the reason may be for detaining folks.”

    Steve Kotecki, a spokesman for Denver’s ICE field office, did not respond to a request for comment late last week.

    The data, obtained directly from ICE by the UC Berkeley researchers through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, offers the clearest look at immigration enforcement activities available, as ICE doesn’t post recent information online. For this analysis, The Post examined arrests that occurred in Colorado; arrests that were listed in the dataset as occurring in Wyoming but which took place in a Colorado city; and arrests lacking a listed state but which occurred in a Colorado town or county.

    The Post removed several apparent duplicate arrests and a similarly small number of arrests in the region that did not have a specific location listed. The analysis also included a handful of people who appeared to have been arrested twice in the span of several months.

    When listing a detainee’s criminal background, the data provides no details about the criminal charges or prior crimes. Illegally entering the country is typically treated as a civil matter upon first offense, but a subsequent entry is a felony criminal offense.

    More info about July operation

    The newly released data includes the same nine-day period in July during which ICE has said it arrested 243 immigrants without proper legal status “who are currently charged with or have been convicted of criminal offenses after illegally entering the United States.” The arrests, the agency said, all occurred in metro Denver.

    But the data published by the UC-Berkeley researchers does not fully match ICE’s public representations.

    During the same time frame, the agency arrested 232 people, according to the data. Most of those arrested during that time had never been convicted or charged with a crime, at least according to what’s in the records. Sixty-six people had a previous criminal conviction, and 34 more had pending charges.

    Kotecki did not respond to questions about the July operation.

    The Post previously reported that ICE falsely claimed that it had arrested a convicted murderer in Denver as part of the July operation. The man had actually been arrested at a state prison facility shortly after his scheduled release, state prison officials said last month.

    While ICE claimed the man had found “sanctuary” in the capital city — a shot taken at Denver’s immigration ordinances — The Post found that state prison officials had coordinated his transfer directly to ICE. He was then deported to Mexico, and information matching his description is reflected in the UC Berkeley data.

    It’s unclear if all of ICE’s arrests are fully reflected in the data, making it difficult to verify ICE’s claims. The researchers’ data is imperfect, experts have told The Post. The records likely represent the merging of separate datasets before they were provided by the government, increasing the likelihood of mistakes or missing data.

    Some arrests in Colorado were listed as occurring in other states or had no state listed at all. Other arrests were duplicated entirely, and researchers have cautioned that ICE’s data at times has had inaccurate or missing information.

    The anonymized nature of the data, which lacks arrestees’ names but lists some biographical information, also can make it difficult to verify. When ICE announced the results of the July operation, it named eight of the people it had arrested. Court records and the UC Berkeley data appear to match up with as many as seven of them.

    The eighth, Blanca Ochoa Tello, was arrested on July 14 by ICE’s investigative branch in a drug-trafficking investigation, court filings show. But it’s unclear if she appears in the ICE data, as she was arrested in La Plata County and no woman arrested in that county was listed in the data.

    To verify ICE’s July operation claims, The Post examined arrest data in Colorado and Wyoming, which jointly form the Denver area of operations for the agency. The Post also searched for arrests in every other state to identify any arrests that may have occurred in a Colorado area but were errantly listed under other states.

    Federal agents detain a man as he exits a court hearing in immigration court at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building on July 30, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

    Feds demand higher pace of arrests

    The overall surge in arrests this summer has come as the Trump administration seeks to dramatically increase detentions and, eventually, the pace of deportations. In early July, Congress approved tens of billions of dollars in new funding for ICE as part of the tax bill.

    Nationally, immigration authorities had their most arrest-heavy months this summer, according to data published by researchers at Syracuse University. Immigration officials arrested more than 36,700 people in June, its highest single-month total since June 2019, during Trump’s first term. More than 31,200 were arrested across the country in July.

    The Trump administration has also set out to increase its detention capacity to accommodate the mass-deportation plans.

    As of late July, ICE planned to triple its detention capacity in Colorado, according to documents obtained last month by the Washington Post. That plan includes opening as many as three new facilities and the expansion of Colorado’s sole existing facility in Aurora.

    As of last month, that detention center housed 1,176 people, according to data published by ICE.

    DHS officers watch from the parking lot as protesters gather at the entrance to the ICE Colorado Field Office on Aug. 30, 2025, in Centennial. (Photo By Kathryn Scott/Special to The Denver Post)
    DHS officers watch from the parking lot as protesters gather at the entrance to the ICE Colorado Field Office on Aug. 30, 2025, in Centennial. (Photo By Kathryn Scott/Special to The Denver Post)

    Seth Klamann

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  • Colorado’s legislature has filled a third of budget shortfall by slashing tax breaks. Here’s what comes next.

    More than $250 million down, another $530 million to go.

    That’s how much of a projected $783 million state budget hole the Colorado legislature filled by the time a special session called to address the impact of the federal tax bill ended Tuesday afternoon — and the larger amount that still remains. Erasing the rest of the red ink will fall to Gov. Jared Polis, who plans to rebalance this year’s budget in the coming days through a mix of cuts to state funding and a big dip into the rainy-day fund.

    Over six days, the legislature’s majority Democrats fulfilled their part of a plan worked out with the governor’s office: to pass legislation that is expected to generate enough revenue to close about a third of the shortfall projected for the state’s budget in the current fiscal year, which began July 1. They ended tax breaks and found other ways to offset declining state income tax revenue, while leaving spending cuts largely for Polis to decide.

    “What we did here in this special session is soften the blow,” said Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat who chairs the legislature’s budget committee. “But when the federal government cuts $1.2 billion in revenue from the state with a stroke of a pen, after we’ve already cut $1.2 billion (from the budget) in the regular session, that’s a tough deficit to come back from in a way that doesn’t impact the people of Colorado.”

    The special session ended with 11 bills going to Polis for final approval. Five sought to fill the budget gap, largely by ending tax incentives for businesses and high-income earners.

    The single largest revenue-raising measure, House Bill 1004, will auction off tax credits that can be claimed in future tax years for a discount. Backers expected that bill to bring in an additional $100 million to state coffers this year, at the expense of about $125 million in future years.

    Together, those measures add up to $253 million in revenue to reduce the projected deficit — money that Democrats say represents averted cuts to Medicaid, schools and hospitals.

    “Colorado legislators stepped up and helped protect children’s food access and minimized the devastating cost increases to health insurance premiums across the state, to the best of our ability,” Polis, who signed two of the new bills earlier Tuesday, said in a statement.

    The legislature’s Joint Budget Committee expects to meet Thursday to hear Polis’ plan to address the remaining $500 million or so, including mid-year spending cuts. 

    As part of his call for a special session on Aug. 6, Polis announced a statewide hiring freeze. He said in an interview before the session started that he hoped to avoid cuts to K-12 education, but he has left all other options on the table, including Medicaid program spending. 

    The plan also factors in a significant use of reserves to offset some of the remaining gap.

    Partisan debates

    Over the past week, Republicans fought the Democrats’ bills, but strong Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers all but preordained the outcome. 

    “Not only did we increase taxes, we’re balancing the budget on the back of small businesses,” said Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican on the budget committee.

    One of the bills heading to Polis would erase a fee paid by the state to businesses for collecting sales taxes — an outdated subsidy, according to Democrats, and an unnecessary new burden now put on businesses, according to Republicans.

    Republicans said before the session that they’d likely challenge several bills in court over allegations that they violate provisions in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights that require voter approval for tax increases. Kirkmeyer and Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican who’s also on the budget committee, said bills going to the governor that would eliminate some tax credits and allow the sale of tax credits against future collections seemed particularly vulnerable to a challenge under TABOR.

    Debate throughout the special session took a distinctly partisan edge. Democrats laid the cuts on congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump and called the federal tax bill a de facto theft of benefits from the poorest Coloradans to benefit the wealthiest.

    Republicans countered that the federal bill delivered much-needed tax cuts, and they said Democrats sought to yank those away instead of cutting partisan priorities.

    Legislators begin to gather in the Senate Chambers before the start of another day of the special legislative session at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on Aug. 26, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)

    Bills on wolves, artificial intelligence

    Other bills passed sought to respond to different aspects of the federal bill, formerly known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as well as other priorities.

    Lawmakers stripped general fund money away from the voter-approved program to reintroduce wolves in the state, though releases are expected to continue this winter. They tweaked ballot language for a measure about taxes for universal school meals to allow that money to go to general food assistance, as well, if voters approve it in November.

    Nick Coltrain, Seth Klamann

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  • Gov. JB Pritzker Crowns Malört the DNC’s Unofficial Shot in Chicago

    Gov. JB Pritzker Crowns Malört the DNC’s Unofficial Shot in Chicago

    Politics can be bitter, but no one was prepared for over the weekend when Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker declared Jeppson’s Malört “as the unofficial shot of the Democratic National Convention.”

    The governor announced his unofficial declaration on Saturday after appearing in a video segment with former White House press secretary Jen Psaki. The bitter and yellowish spirit is both reviled and beloved in Chicago where passionate opinions have made it a divisive topic.

    “If you come to Chicago, every Chicagoan knows you got to have a shot of Malört,” Pritzker tells Psaki. “This is a liqueur that Chicagoans take — I’m not saying it’s the best-tasting liqueur, I’m just saying that it’s the one that if you want to prove your mettle, you got to have a shot.”

    The two proceeded to ham it up while enjoying the infamous shot with the governor high-fiving Psaki and praising her, “Well done!”

    Psaki pauses as her tastebuds realize what she has done: “Whoo! That has an aftereffect.”

    This leaves an uneasy feeling for Chicagoans. There might be a portion happy to see naive politicians and journalists suffer while trying to stomach that first shock shot. But watching Pritzker’s segment, recorded in the lobby of the Hotel Zachary — with the Wrigley Field’s famous marquee in the background — it’s not hard to wonder if Malört is beginning to jump the shark. This used to be a working-class drink, one that survived tough times over nine decades. Dive bar owners were the only ones stocking the drink, often dusting off old bottles in storage for only a handful of fans who enjoy the unusual beverage once marketed as medicine. A few blocks away, Nisei Lounge — one of the few dives that survived after the Hotel Zachary opened in 2018 and remade the area — specializes in Malört infusions. It’s the kind of dimly lit tavern where Malört is best enjoyed. It’s quite a juxtaposition to the huge windows that soak up natural light at the hotel across from the Friendly Confines.

    A private pop-up, the CNN/Politico Grill, is opened during the DNC in Chicago outside the United Center.
    CNN

    The scene is particularly confusing considering that the Cubs are owned by the Ricketts family, who aren’t exactly known as allies of the Democratic party.

    Of course, dozens have chimed in with their hot takes on Malört over the years, and Chicagoans themselves even turned to the drink to celebrate Biden’s victory over Trump outside of Trump Tower in 2020. To combat Pritzker, Republican campaign strategist Kory Wood dared to call Malört “weird,” trying to appropriate a phrase the Democrats have used to attack Republicans.

    Music writer Josh Terry writes: “Jeppson’s Malört is perilously close to becoming the next culture war football.”

    The reality is Malört isn’t carried at DNC venue the United Center, confirms Tremaine Atkinson, owner of CH Distillery. That’s the company that now owns Jeppson’s Malört. Outside the arena, CNN and Politico have teamed up on a private pop-up restaurant. It’s open from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. during the convention, set up just inside the United Center’s security perimeter, only accessible to DNC attendees. It’s called the CNN/Politico Grill. They’ve run these restaurants for 20 years outside of both Republican and Democratic national conventions, according to a rep. One popped up earlier this summer outside of Milwaukee at the RNC. They feature local vendors and food.

    The Chicago edition will feature Portillo’s Italian beef, Jay’s potato chips, and Marconi’s giardiniera. Vienna beef hot dogs, selections from Publican Quality Bread, and celebrity chef Stephanie Izard’s This Little Goat chili crunch are also available, according to a CNN rep.

    Alas, while Big Shoulders Coffee, beer from Haymarket Brewing, and boozy cider from Right Bee Cider are also available, Malört is nowhere to be found: “Damn! It would certainly liven up the conversations!” Atkinson texts.

    Coincidentally, CH — which has designs on making Malört a national brand — had already launched a marketing campaign promoting “I voted” stickers, with shirts and decals reading “I Malörted” stickers available at bars and stores.

    As Chicago has increasingly become a culinary Las Vegas — where anxious coastal elitists visit and enjoy Midwestern comfort foods without shame, without worrying about their beach bods or judgment — Malört has become part of that ritual. This is a city that embraces craft beer and breweries, cheap beer and shots at dives, and fancy drinks at cocktail lounges. What happens in Chicago stays in Chicago.

    1901 West Madison Street, , IL 60612

    Ashok Selvam

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  • EU court sides with Fiat Chrysler in tax advantage case

    EU court sides with Fiat Chrysler in tax advantage case

    LUXEMBOURG — The European Union’s top court on Tuesday overturned a decision requiring automaker Fiat Chrysler to pay up to 30 million euros ($30 million) in back taxes to Luxembourg.

    The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm and anti-trust regulator, had determined in 2015 that a 2012 Luxembourg tax ruling favored Fiat companies in Europe and was incompatible with state aid rules in the 27-nation bloc.

    A European court ruled in the commission’s favor in 2019, ordering the automaker to return the tax break. Fiat Chrysler, which last year merged with France’s PSA Peugeot to form Stellantis, asked the higher court to set aside the order.

    The Court of Justice of the EU said Tuesday that the commission failed to take into account the typical tax laws in Luxembourg when it was determining whether the automaker got a tax advantage and that the EU’s General Court “committed an error of law” in upholding that approach three years ago.

    EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager tweeted that Tuesday’s ruling was a “big loss for tax fairness.”

    “The Commission is committed to continue using all the tools at its disposal to ensure that fair competition is not distorted in the Single Market through the grant by Member States of illegal tax breaks to multinational companies,” she said in a statement.

    It comes as countries in Europe and around the world are working to enshrine into law a global minimum tax deal that more than 130 nations signed on to last year, designed to create a more equal footing in attracting and keeping multinational companies.

    It aims to deter multinationals from stashing profits in countries where they pay little or no taxes — commonly known as tax havens.

    Stellantis is “pleased that the Court of Justice has confirmed our view that the Commission was wrong to consider our tax ruling to be unlawful state aid,” spokeswoman Valerie Gillot said.

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  • Musk emerging as Twitter’s chief moderator ahead of midterms

    Musk emerging as Twitter’s chief moderator ahead of midterms

    AP Business Writers — Days after taking over Twitter and a week before the U.S. midterm elections, billionaire Elon Musk has positioned himself as moderator-in-chief of one of the most important social media platforms in American politics.

    Musk has said he won’t make major decisions about content or restoring banned accounts before setting up a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints. But his own behavior as a prolific tweeter has signaled otherwise.

    He’s engaged directly with figures on the political right who are appealing for looser restrictions, including a Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state who credits Musk with enabling him to begin tweeting again after his account was briefly suspended Monday.

    Musk even changed his profile to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” — with a photo of himself when he was a toddler holding a telephone. But it is almost impossible for those outside of Twitter to know what strings he is pulling or whose accounts have been suspended: The company has stopped responding to media questions, except for the few that Musk answers by tweet.

    Musk’s promised interventions started last week on his first full day as Twitter’s owner. A conservative political podcaster shared examples of the platform allegedly favoring liberals and secretively downgrading conservative voices — a common criticism that Twitter’s previous leaders dismissed as inaccurate. “I will be digging in more today,” Musk responded.

    It continued when the daughter of Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, whose provocative critiques of “politically correct” culture and feminism are popular with some right-wing activists, appealed for Musk to restore her father’s account after a tweet about transgender actor Elliot Page that apparently ran afoul of Twitter’s rules on hateful conduct.

    “Anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail,” Musk pledged. He had months earlier said in reference to Peterson that Twitter was “going way too far in squashing dissenting opinions.”

    One of Musk’s first big moves was an open letter to advertisers — Twitter’s chief revenue source — promising that he would not let Twitter descend into a “free-for-all hellscape” as he follows through with his plans to promote free speech on the platform. And he’s suggesting asking users to pay $8 for a coveted verified blue check mark as a way to diversify revenue.

    The check mark has been criticized as a symbol of elitism on the platform. But its primary purpose has been to verify that accounts in the public eye — such as politicians, brands and journalists — are who they say they are. It’s been a tool to prevent impersonation and help stem the flow of misinformation.

    But some still have their worries about Musk opening the platform to a flood of online toxicity that’s bad for their brands. General Motors has said it will suspend advertising on Twitter as it monitors the platform under Musk, and others are facing pressure to review their own plans. On Tuesday, more than three dozen advocacy organizations sent an open letter to Twitter’s top 20 advertisers, calling on them to commit to halting advertising on the platform if Twitter under Musk undermines “brand safety” and guts content moderation.

    Over the weekend, the billionaire posted — then deleted — an article that contained baseless rumors about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. And much of his commentary in recent days has been a response to appeals from conservative voices.

    In a text exchange with The Associated Press, Mark Finchem, the Republican running to become Arizona’s secretary of state, said his access to the platform was restored quickly after reaching out to Musk via his personal Twitter handle. Asked why his account was suspended, Finchem said: “Perhaps you should reach out to Elon Musk. We were banned for an unknown reason, we reached out to him and 45 minutes later we were reinstated.”

    Finchem, who questions the results of the 2020 presidential election and was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has drawn national attention for his statements about election security and his ability to change election rules if he wins the state’s top election post next week.

    Musk tweeted Monday evening that he was “Looking into it” in response to a complaint about Finchem’s apparent suspension. The complaint came from attorney Jenna Ellis, who was a legal adviser to former President Donald Trump’s campaign. About 40 minutes later, Finchem posted a “test” tweet on his account, which was followed by a lengthier post thanking Musk for restoring his ability to use the site.

    “Thank you @elonmusk for stopping the commie who suspended me from Twitter a week before the election,” Finchem wrote in the Tweet. “Twitter is much better with you at the helm.”

    Jared Holt, a senior research manager at The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said big social media companies have typically operated on the whims of their owners. But “that problem is especially glaring when somebody like Elon Musk takes the reins and kind of establishes himself as king of the platform, rather than an owner trying to run a coherent business,” Holt said.

    At the same time, Musk has sent mixed signals about his intentions. Despite overt examples of appealing to conservative calls and complaints about Twitter’s policies, there’s also plenty of evidence that the platform’s policies on combating misinformation are still in effect. Separately, Musk has defended Twitter’s ongoing head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, after some conservative users called for his firing over past comments expressing liberal views.

    Roth remained on the job this week after other top executives were fired or resigned. And apart from Musk, he appeared to be the chief public voice of Twitter’s content moderation, explaining that the company spent the weekend working to remove a “surge in hateful conduct” following Musk’s takeover.

    “We’ve all made some questionable tweets, me more than most, but I want to be clear that I support Yoel,” Musk tweeted in response to a complaint from another conservative commentator. “My sense is that he has high integrity, and we are all entitled to our political beliefs.”

    Some longtime Twitter observers have expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of Musk’s planned content moderation council. In part, that’s because Twitter already has a trust and safety advisory council to address moderation questions.

    “Truly I can’t imagine how it would differ,” said Danielle Citron, a University of Virginia law professor who sits on the council and has been working with Twitter since 2009 to tackle online harms, such as threats and stalking. “Our council has the full spectrum of views on free speech.”

    Citron said she’s still waiting to hear if the council will be having its next meeting, scheduled for the day after the midterms.

    ——-

    O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.. AP Writer Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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