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Webb: A ‘yes’ vote for Home Rule is a vote for Douglas County’s future
Approved, Commentary, Local, Rocky Mountain Voice, Top Stories

Webb: A ‘yes’ vote for Home Rule is a vote for Douglas County’s future

By Robin Webb | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice On June 24, 2025, Douglas County residents will have the opportunity to vote in a Special Election to decide whether to form a Home Rule Charter Commission and elect 21 commission members to draft a potential Home Rule Charter. As the leader of the Douglas County Republican Party, I believe this historic vote could pave the way for greater local control, flexibility, and self-governance, positioning Douglas County to address its unique needs more effectively. Here’s why voting “Yes” for Home Rule is the best choice for our county. What is Home Rule? Home Rule is a form of local governance that allows counties to create their own charter, essentially a local constitution, to define how the county is structured and governed....
Walcher: Who decides what species come back from extinction?
Approved, Commentary, GregWalcher.com, National

Walcher: Who decides what species come back from extinction?

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com A British biologist named John Gurdon won a Nobel Prize for discovering that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become “pluripotent.” That means mature cells can be converted into stem cells, so brain cells can be changed into heart, foot, or skin cells. That enabled Gurdon in 1962 to clone the first vertebrate in his lab, an African clawed frog, now considered an invasive species in most of Europe, China, and the U.S. This was interesting mainly to scientists until 1996 when a Scottish lab cloned the first mammal, a sheep named Dolly, an overnight global media sensation. It proved that the nucleus from an adult cell, transferred into an unfertilized egg, can divide and develop in the same mysterious way it does in a real womb. ...
President Trump hails court win keeping tariffs in place amid global negotiations
Approved, CBS Colorado, National

President Trump hails court win keeping tariffs in place amid global negotiations

By Joe Walsh | CBS Colorado The wide-reaching tariffs imposed by President Trump on virtually every country can remain in place until at least the end of July, an appellate court said Tuesday evening. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Trump administration's request to pause a lower court ruling that blocked the tariffs pending appeal. The appellate judges scheduled oral arguments in the case on July 31, meaning the tariffs are set to stay in effect until then unless there's further court action in the case. The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled last month that many of Mr. Trump's signature tariffs are illegal, including the 10% tariffs on virtually every U.S. trading partner and a set of tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. The appellate co...
Priced out, packed in: Colorado renters squeezed by costs, policy gridlock and population growth
Approved, Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Priced out, packed in: Colorado renters squeezed by costs, policy gridlock and population growth

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado’s affordable housing crunch – especially in the rental sector – has been building for years. Reports from the Common Sense Institute and Bell Policy Center trace the tipping point to around 2015, when demand consistently began outpacing supply. The last decade has seen rising home prices, stagnant wages and insufficient new construction which has made the situation worse due to recent immigration pressures and allegations of resource allocation issues. Origins and escalation of the crisis Bell Policy Center noted a statewide rental rate increase from 30.9% in 2009 to 34.8% by 2022, with urban counties like Denver reaching 50.1%.  In just a year, Colorado slipped further down the affordability scale, now rank...
Hancock: President Trump’s nuclear plan puts power—and America—back on the grid
Approved, Commentary, National, Rocky Mountain Voice, Substack, Top Stories

Hancock: President Trump’s nuclear plan puts power—and America—back on the grid

By Michael A. Hancock | Commentary, Substack Trump’s Plan to Fix the Grid, Cut the Red Tape, & Fuel the Future Politics doesn’t power cities—electricity does. And Trump just fired up the most significant energy move we’ve seen in decades. It isn’t about windmills or wishful thinking. It’s about fission. Steel. Jobs. It’s about restoring America’s backbone, one kilowatt at a time. Welcome to America’s new atomic age. Trump’s nuclear strategy is not a relic of the Cold War but a blueprint for national revival. At its core is a simple truth: electricity has become intelligence. The race to dominate artificial intelligence—the next frontier of economic and military superiority—will not be won with slogans or solar panels. It will be won with gigawatts. And nuclear energy, ...
Gazette editorial board: Time to repeal the delivery fee feeding Colorado’s bloated government
Approved, Commentary, denvergazette.com, State

Gazette editorial board: Time to repeal the delivery fee feeding Colorado’s bloated government

The Gazette editorial board | Commentary, Denver Gazette Do you use DoorDash for lunch or maybe Uber Eats for dinner? How about Amazon, FedEx or any of the other delivery services — for just about everything else? Probably. Have you ever noticed a 29-cent “retail delivery fee” on your tab once your order was fulfilled? Probably not. After all, it’s only a fraction of the price you paid for whatever was delivered, so even if you did see it, you likely shrugged it off as just another one of the taxes assessed on your order. Which, in reality, it is. But technically, it’s not a tax; it’s a “fee” that was slapped on deliveries by the Legislature in 2021. And because it was designated as a fee in statute, it didn’t require statewide voter approval as a tax would under our state c...
Graffiti, assaults and street blockades: Denver ‘ICE Out’ protest leads to 17 arrests
Approved, DENVER7, Local

Graffiti, assaults and street blockades: Denver ‘ICE Out’ protest leads to 17 arrests

By Allie Jennerjahn | Denver7 DENVER — 17 people were arrested during protests in Denver Tuesday. "I want to be present and stand up to what I think is really wrong," Bonnie Lloyd from Broomfield said. Crowds gathered to protest against federal immigration enforcement and ICE raids, joining protests across the country — namely Los Angeles — to call for an end to detentions and deportations. "I'm doing my part as an American citizen and someone who loves our country to do what I can," Ellen Keckler from Conifer said. Denver police released the number of arrests and what they were for: Graffiti (3) Interference with Police Authority (1) Unlawful Throwing of Projectiles, Failure to Obey a Lawful Order (1) Obstruction of Streets, Failure to Obey a Lawful Order (7) ...
Released and reloaded: Montrose bond records show cracks feeding Colorado’s criminal underworld
Approved, Local, Rocky Mountain Voice, Top Stories

Released and reloaded: Montrose bond records show cracks feeding Colorado’s criminal underworld

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice When a Montrose County woman was released on a $0 personal recognizance bond after skipping court in late 2023, it wasn’t her first time facing charges. It wouldn’t be her last either. Within nine months, she was arrested again – this time for second degree assault, harassment and criminal attempt. Her story is not an outlier. It is a warning. “There’s a revolving door with criminals or serious crime,” said Montrose County Sheriff Gene Lillard in a recent interview with RMV. “Last month we picked up one person five times – they were released on PR bond. There’s no consequences.” To illustrate how Colorado laws are contributing to rising crime and lawlessness, Sheriff Lillard prepared and shared a document showing just one small snapshot in ti...
Garbo: Sanctuary policies led to chaos—and now they’re blaming ICE
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Garbo: Sanctuary policies led to chaos—and now they’re blaming ICE

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The chaos unfolding in Los Angeles isn’t just disturbing, it’s the natural result of years of political cowardice and ideological extremism. The riots erupting in response to ICE’s lawful enforcement of deportation orders are not acts of civil disobedience. They are acts of defiance against the rule of law itself. And the blame lies squarely at the feet of Democratic leadership in California, who declared Los Angeles a “sanctuary city,” emboldening illegal activity while abandoning their sworn duty to protect American citizens. Let’s be clear: no elected official has the right to nullify federal law to score political points. Yet that’s exactly what California’s leadership has done - undermining immigration enforcement, encourag...
99.8% of job growth under Trump was private sector—Biden’s includes 25% government jobs
Approved, National, The Post Millennial

99.8% of job growth under Trump was private sector—Biden’s includes 25% government jobs

By Thomas Stevenson | Post Millennial Only around 75% of jobs added under Biden's last two years in office were added to the private sector. Under President Donald Trump's first few months in office during his second term, 99.8 percent of all job growth was in the private sector, in comparison to around 75 percent in the last two years of the Biden administration. In a press release, the White House touted the jobs numbers, saying, "Since President Trump took office, 99.8% of job gains have been in the private sector. During the final two years of the Biden Administration, one in four jobs created were in government," or 25 percent of job growth.  The jobs report for the month of May saw 139,000 jobs added to the economy, surpassing expectations from the Dow Jones as some have ...