Rocky Mountain Voice

Blog

Jury finds ex-NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre liable for corruption, orders repayment of $4.3M to gun rights group
Approved, Fox News, National

Jury finds ex-NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre liable for corruption, orders repayment of $4.3M to gun rights group

By Emma Colton | Fox News A Manhattan jury in the civil corruption case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James against the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its former CEO found the organization liable for financial mismanagement. The jury determined that Wayne LaPierre's violations of his duties cost the NRA $5,400,000, but he had already paid roughly $1 million back to the organization. LaPierre was ordered to repay the group $4,351,231. The New York jury said that the NRA's CEO for three decades misspent millions of dollars of the group’s money on luxury personal purchases.
Third-party vendor laying off 200 employees from Amazon facilities in Colorado Springs, Aurora and Thornton
Approved, denvergazette.com, State

Third-party vendor laying off 200 employees from Amazon facilities in Colorado Springs, Aurora and Thornton

By Rich Laden | Colorado Springs Gazette Nearly 200 employees of a global company that provides operational and maintenance services for airports and industrial customers will be laid off in April from their jobs at Amazon fulfillment centers in Colorado Springs and Thornton and a sortation center in Aurora. Daifuku Services America Corp. of suburban Dallas notified the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment on Thursday of the layoffs, which will take effect April 22. Daifuku Services is part of the Japan-based Daifuku corporation, whose businesses include consulting, engineering and design work in Asia, Europe and North America, according to its website. Details of the layoffs were included in Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) letters that Daifuku filed wi...
‘Small’ high-altitude balloon of unknown origin flying over Colorado, Western U.S., poses ‘no threat’
Approved, National, New York Post

‘Small’ high-altitude balloon of unknown origin flying over Colorado, Western U.S., poses ‘no threat’

By Victor Nava / New York Post The US government is tracking a high-altitude balloon of unknown origin — and officials insist that it is not a security threat. The balloon, flying at an altitude between 43,000 and 45,000 feet, was determined to be “not maneuverable” and poses no threat to national security, the North American Aerospace Defense Command told The Post on Friday.  The nation’s airspace watchdog described it as “small” and said its fighter jets intercepted the balloon over Utah.  “NORAD will continue to track and monitor the balloon,” the military agency said in a statement. “The FAA also determined the balloon posed no hazard to flight safety.”  READ THE FULL STORY AT THE NEW YORK POST
Get involved with Colorado’s postpartum pilot program
Approved, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

Get involved with Colorado’s postpartum pilot program

By Rebekah Meurer | Rocky Mountain Voice Do you value God, family and freedom? Do you stand for those values? Will you stand for God, country and freedom? These are important questions in our present times. If you were to be asked what is the most under attack in the United States, what would your answer be? Would you respond it is the family? If the family is allowed to be brought down, government tyranny will destroy everything else with ease. The United States has a major health crisis with new mothers in the immediate postpartum period. In 2010, rates of postpartum depression were at 9.4%. Fast forward to the time of the pandemic, postpartum depression rates more than doubled. With the birth rates in the United States averaging about 4 million live births each year, that means...
Debate over proposals tackling drug use, treatment illustrates ideological divide in Colorado
Approved, coloradopolitics.com, State

Debate over proposals tackling drug use, treatment illustrates ideological divide in Colorado

By Marissa Ventrelli  | Colorado Politics Colorado lawmakers on Tuesday tackled two proposals that offer convergent — and divergent — approaches to combatting drug abuse during a discussion that starkly illuminated on ideological disagreements at the state Capitol.       Both bills emerged out of ad hoc panel, which met over the summer as a response to soaring addiction rates nationwide and in Colorado. Colorado ranks in the Top 10 states in the nation for drug use, according to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Advocates and policymakers agree that addressing such a complex issue requires a multifaceted response, but they often clash in their preferred solutions. "Harm reduction" advocates argue that tougher penalties hav...
Colorado lawmakers vote to give themselves a pay raise beginning in 2025
Approved, coloradopolitics.com, State

Colorado lawmakers vote to give themselves a pay raise beginning in 2025

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics Colorado House Democrats on Thursday voted to boost the pay of General Assembly lawmakers beginning in the 2025-26 fiscal year, with those living in the Denver metro area getting substantially more in actual dollars and rate increase than policymakers who reside outside.  The cost to taxpayers for the higher per diems is just shy of $300,000 in 2025-26. Metro-area legislators' per diem has not increased for more than three decades.  Under House Bill 1059, the per diem rate claimed by lawmakers who reside in the Denver metro area will increase to 25% of the federal per diem rate set for the city and county of Denver by the U.S. General Services Administration. READ THE FULL STORY AT COLORADO POLITICS
Postal Service floats idea of driving Western Slope mail to Denver and back before delivery
Approved, Local, The Colorado Sun, Western Slope

Postal Service floats idea of driving Western Slope mail to Denver and back before delivery

By Nancy Lofholm | The Colorado Sun The U.S. Postal Service faced a rowdy, critical crowd Thursday in Grand Junction, a city that has yet to suffer the same delivery problems that have bedeviled smaller towns across Colorado. The crowd, packed into a too-small meeting room at Colorado Mesa University, hooted, hollered and guffawed as Postal Service officials laid out a plan to change the Western Slope’s largest city from a regional to a local mail processing center. The crowd whistled and clapped when speaker after speaker took the microphone to criticize the plan. The crowd had made its way to the meeting room in spite of the fact that Postal Service notices announcing the meeting had gone out with a wrong address for the meeting location. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO S...
Lara Trump promises no more flowers, focus on electing GOP nominee as top priorities for RNC she’s rumored to be preparing to run
Approved, Fox News, National

Lara Trump promises no more flowers, focus on electing GOP nominee as top priorities for RNC she’s rumored to be preparing to run

By Timothy H.J. Nerozzi  | Fox News Former President Donald Trump's daughter-in-law is promising that all the Republican National Committee's (RNC) finances will be poured into getting him re-elected if she is made co-chair of the committee. Lara Trump, who the former president has pushed as a potential co-chair of the RNC, told reporters on Tuesday that "every single penny" would go to the campaign effort if she were appointed.  "The RNC needs to be the leanest, most lethal political fighting machine we’ve ever seen in American history," Lara Trump told Newsmax. "That is the goal over the next nine-and-a-half months. If I am elected to this position, I can assure you, there will not be any more $70,000 – or whatever exorbitant amount of money it was – spent on flowers."...
A new — and much gentler — property tax hike is proposed for Colorado short-term rental properties
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

A new — and much gentler — property tax hike is proposed for Colorado short-term rental properties

By Jason Blevins and Jesse Paul | Colorado Sun A proposed property tax hike on Colorado short-term rental owners would only kick in for people with three or more homes under new legislation proposed as a gentler alternative to a further-reaching measure also being debated at the state Capitol this year.  State Rep. Shannon Bird, a Democrat from Westminster, hopes her House Bill 1299 will work as a compromise to slow the growth of short-term rentals that is pinching the housing supply, especially for local workers.  Her legislation would impose the state’s much higher commercial property tax rate on properties offered as short-term rentals when they belong to a person or business that owns at least two other homes.  READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
Liberal media says Denver made a ‘grave misstep’ in cuts to pay for migrant costs
Approved, coloradopeakpolitics.com, Commentary

Liberal media says Denver made a ‘grave misstep’ in cuts to pay for migrant costs

By Colorado Peak Politics The Denver Post’s editorial board has made it official among his voting base: Mayor Johnston made a grave misstep cutting services directly impacting families to pay for Biden’s open borders and resulting migrant costs. The bottom line is this: Denver is still out $28 million for sheltering, feeding, and shipping off tens of thousands of migrants to other cities paying for their bus and plane tickets. Instead of using the $262 million in the city’s emergency reserves or even the $34 million in contingency funds to cover those costs, Johnston opted to make Denver taxpayers feel the pain just to recoup a measly $5 million of the city’s $4 billion budget. From the Denver Post: Johnston announced cuts last week to some of Denver’s core s...