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Voters face a $56 million question: Should “free lunch for all” come from your refund?
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Independence Institute, Approved, State

Voters face a $56 million question: Should “free lunch for all” come from your refund?

By Nash Herman and Jake Fogleman | Independence Institute Executive Summary In 2022, Proposition FF created Colorado’s Healthy School Meals for All (HSMA) program, offering free school lunches to all students regardless of family income, funded by capping state income tax deductions for households earning over $300,000.  The program’s costs far exceeded expectations in its first year, creating a $56 million shortfall despite earlier warnings that it was likely to be unsustainable.  Proposition LL would let the state permanently retain and spend excess revenue from Prop FF, exempting it from TABOR refund limits going forward.  Proposition MM would institute another income tax hike by further lowering deduction caps, while also diverting some new revenue to fun...
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A ‘Trail of Broken Lives’ Tells the Real Story of Colorado’s Legalized Marijuana
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Commentary, State

A ‘Trail of Broken Lives’ Tells the Real Story of Colorado’s Legalized Marijuana

By: Gazette Editorial Board | Commentary, The Denver Gazette Society once vilified marijuana. Later generations of hipsters laughed off the stigma.  Now, mounting evidence has brought things full circle — vindicating the psychoactive drug’s original critics after all.  Today’s high-potency pot — legalized for recreational use in Colorado in 2012 and in over two dozen other states since then — is leaving a trail of destruction. Whether it’s marijuana’s devastating impact on the mental health of our youth, or on the safety of our highways, it’s drawing overdue scrutiny that is justified by hard data. Pot’s toll in traffic fatalities in particular is back in the news. A new study by Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, looked at driver autopsy results from car crashe...
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Aurora Gang Investigation Nets Four Arrests, Fifth Suspect Still at Large
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kdvr.com, Approved, Local

Aurora Gang Investigation Nets Four Arrests, Fifth Suspect Still at Large

By: Heather Willard | KDVR FOX31 DENVER (KDVR) — Four people have been arrested in connection with an incident at an Aurora apartment complex after video was released this summer showing several armed suspects with firearms pointed toward an apartment’s door. In mid-June, the Aurora Police Department held a press conference to discuss the video, taken at an apartment complex near 6th Avenue and Potomac Street, as well as the resulting investigation and similarities to incidents at the now-closed The Edge at Lowry apartments involving alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The video shows men positioned in the hallway and stairs outside an apartment unit, guns drawn and pointed at the door. The video shows one man knocking on the door, but the re...
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Trump Layoffs Hit Left-Leaning HUD Office Accused of Obama-Era Social Engineering
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Daily Wire, Approved, National

Trump Layoffs Hit Left-Leaning HUD Office Accused of Obama-Era Social Engineering

By: Luke Rosiak | The Daily Wire When the government shutdown ends, some workers at left-wing government offices may not return. More than 400 employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development were issued layoff notices on Friday, primarily targeting an office that pushed left-wing ideology, a department official told The Daily Wire. The federal government has been shut down for more than two weeks, with only “essential” workers reporting for duty, as Democrats refuse to grant a temporary funding extension unless Republicans add in new funding. The Trump administration said in a court filing that some 4,000 workers across seven agencies should be laid off instead. A HUD official said the largest office targeted by the 442 layoffs at that agency is the Fair ...
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Colorado Justices Say Old Statute Didn’t Cover AI-Generated Child Pornography
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Justices Say Old Statute Didn’t Cover AI-Generated Child Pornography

By: Michael Karlik | The Denver Gazette Colorado law prior to 2025 did not criminalize, as a means of sexually exploiting a child, the use of artificial intelligence to generate nude images depicting real children, the state Supreme Court concluded on Monday. The legislature acted this year to clearly establish a crime for someone to have or share fake, yet “highly realistic,” images of children that are explicitly sexual. However, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a teenager’s 2023 creation of “deepfake” porn was also illegal at the time. No, it was not, the court concluded. “Unfortunately, it took our legislature time to catch up to the recent advances in generative-AI technology,” wrote Justice Carlos A. Samour Jr. in the Oct. 13 opinion. Therefore...
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Critics Say City Resources Misused in Denver’s $1 Billion Bond Campaign
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Colorado Politics, Approved, Local

Critics Say City Resources Misused in Denver’s $1 Billion Bond Campaign

By Deborah Smith | Colorado Politics A group that is seeking to push back on government debt argued that big dollars are rolling in from funders supporting Mayor Mike Johnston’s $1 billion debt package and alleged some of those contributions may be legally prohibited. The group said the contributors included entities that receive taxpayer funding, questioning whether public money is going to the campaign that seeks to persuade voters to support the borrowing package. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is asking residents to let the city take on nearly $1 billion in new debt as part of his “Vibrant Denver” bond initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot. City officials have framed the bond as a “much-needed” investment in the city’s future, aimed at repairing and improving infrastructure and commu...
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La Jara land deal raises questions about public access and state priorities
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

La Jara land deal raises questions about public access and state priorities

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Selling La Jara to conservation groups and the Feds, including a swap with CPW? I had a reader send me a heads up on the State Land Board’s (SLB) La Jara land deal. The reader had heard about it in a CPW meeting because CPW could be involved in the land swap. I wanted to push this out quick so you have a chance to sign up and speak (or email) prior to the October 15th State Land Board meeting. As such, I can’t go into huge amounts of depth or summarize. I can give you the information that’s publicly out there so you can look and decide for yourself. As a quick overview, the SLB is charged with management and leasing of the state’s publicly-owned lands with the mission of getting as much revenue from them as the...
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A Seat at the Table, Not Just a Chair in the Room
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American Policy, Approved, Commentary, State

A Seat at the Table, Not Just a Chair in the Room

By Aimee Tooker | Commentary, American Policy Center Coordination is the key to harmonizing land management plans and the strategies of the communities that live and work on federal public lands From the San Juan Mountains in Southwest Colorado the Dolores River flows through Montezuma, Dolores, San Miguel, Montrose and Mesa counties until the state line with Utah.  National and local environmental and rewilding advocates had pushed for almost 50 years for a Wild and Scenic designation on the Dolores River.  It never went through because over the course of the years it was decided by the generational locals, municipalities and tax districts that that was not the correct way to manage the river. The talk of Wild and Scenic designation (most restrictive designation for a river) cau...
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‘Nothing off the table’: U.S. targets citizenship fraud in major enforcement push
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Just The News, Approved, National

‘Nothing off the table’: U.S. targets citizenship fraud in major enforcement push

By Steven Richards | Just the News Operation Twin Shield in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota flagged more than 1,000 cases suspected of being fraudulent, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told Just the News. After a joint operation by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) found “mass patterns” of marriage and other immigration fraud in Minneapolis, the agency’s director says denaturalization and prosecutions are on the table. Operation Twin Shield, which was conducted by USCIS in coordination with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the FBI in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, flagged over 1,000 cases suspected of involving “fraud or ineligibility indicators,” the agency shared in an after-action announcement.  The agency rev...
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FBI Surveillance of GOP Lawmakers Raises Questions About Abuse of Power
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The Federalist, Approved, National

FBI Surveillance of GOP Lawmakers Raises Questions About Abuse of Power

By Hans Mahncke | The Federalist The FBI secretly monitored the phone records of eight sitting Republican senators in an abusive fishing expedition done with impunity. In 1972, a small team of operatives connected to President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign broke into the Democratic National Committee’s offices in the Watergate complex to install listening devices. To this day, there is no conclusive evidence that Nixon personally ordered — or even knew of — the break-in beforehand. Yet Watergate shaped American political consciousness for decades. It gave the world a permanent suffix for scandal and became the ultimate symbol of abuse of power, a crisis so severe that it culminated in the only resignation of a U.S. president to preempt removal from office. Fast forward 50 y...
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