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PERA Program Designed to Help Rural Schools Has Potential for Abuse
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

PERA Program Designed to Help Rural Schools Has Potential for Abuse

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project A reader messaged me recently about concerns they had in their own local district. The concern centers around who was getting hired (well, re-hired) at their local school district. For a number of reasons, it’s not feasible to go and check out the reader’s district, but I hung on to the story because it felt like a good learning opportunity to share something I learned about, and it might be a concern you share. As best as I can tell (there may have been laws that refined or changed the original program), a 2017 law which I link to first below created a program in PERA, the Public Employees Retirement Association, to help get teachers into rural schools. In order to understand how this works, I have to bac...
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Colorado Case Tests Limits Of Religious Freedom In Publicly Funded Programs
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado Case Tests Limits Of Religious Freedom In Publicly Funded Programs

By Ari Armstrong | Commentary, Complete Colorado The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of a Colorado Catholic preschool that wishes to get state funding but not follow all antidiscrimination laws pertaining to gay and transgender students and possibly staff. I suspect that constitutional law professor Josh Blackman is right to predict the Court’s view, “This will likely be yet another repudiation of Colorado’s hostility to religious liberty.” Yet I wish Blackman and other conservatives would more fully think through the implications of the case for freedom of conscience. Remember who’s paying the bill The basic argument for not excluding the Catholic preschool is that excluding it infringes the school’s religious liberty. Religious prescho...
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Energy Foundation China Has Been Generous to Those Dealing in Colorado Politics
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Energy Foundation China Has Been Generous to Those Dealing in Colorado Politics

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Energy Foundation China has been generous to those dealing in Colorado politics. One of my recent op eds is linked below. It was a fair bit of research, but worth it. There is a group named Energy Foundation China, which, though it has a San Francisco address for its headquarters, is strongly tied to Beijing, the Chinese government, and the CCP. Another important thing to note is how generous Energy Foundation China has been to environmental and other nonprofits here in Colorado. I was barely able to scratch the surface given how interconnected the nonprofit ecosystem is here in Colorado, but I detail the heavy hitters in a recent op ed below. Follow the money. https://completecolorado.com/202...
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GOP Urged To Refocus As Voter Turnout Concerns Mount for Midterms
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Washington Examiner, Approved, Commentary, National

GOP Urged To Refocus As Voter Turnout Concerns Mount for Midterms

By Leona Salinas | Commentary, The Washington Examiner Just eight weeks ago, during his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump argued that economic stabilization is underway. He stated that egg prices had fallen by 60% and cited declining gas prices as evidence of progress. Republicans thought they could walk into the 2026 midterm elections with the most dangerous assumption in politics: that because Trump is in office, the ground is secure. How quickly things can change in a matter of weeks. Gas prices scratched an average of $4.12 per gallon, and who is monitoring egg prices when there’s a much more pressing situation in the Middle East? Even as signs of stabilization appear, frustration remains high. And frustration d...
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If the state can take property without a conviction, no property is safe
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

If the state can take property without a conviction, no property is safe

By Rep. Ken DeGraaf | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Civil asset forfeiture began as a narrow exception in colonial maritime law, not as a general tool of domestic policing. In those early admiralty cases, the government often had jurisdiction over the ship or cargo, but not over the owner. The vessel might be in port, but the owner could be overseas, unknown, or beyond the reach of the court. In that circumstance, proceeding against the property itself—an action in rem—was often the only practical way to enforce customs law.  Justice Neil Gorsuch recently highlighted this history in his concurrence in Culley v. Marshall and asked the obvious question: if the government today has full jurisdiction over the person—if it can arrest, charge, and prosecute them directly—...
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Counties forced to pay: State landfill mandates come without funding
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Counties forced to pay: State landfill mandates come without funding

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Funded mandates on county landfills? One of the consistent complaints coming out of municipal and local governments is the sheer number of unfunded mandates our state government puts on them. For some context on that, I link to an Advance Colorado report on them first below. Not all mandates come from the state legislature either. Sometimes they come from one of the copious unelected boards running more of the state than they should. A recent decision by the unelected Air Quality Control Council imposed significant costs on smaller, municipal landfills regarding methane controls. As usual, this mandate did not come with any dollars to help fund it. My state senator, B Pelton, has put forward a bi...
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Indictment Suggests SPLC May Have Fueled The Division It Claimed To Fight
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Fox News, Approved, Commentary, National

Indictment Suggests SPLC May Have Fueled The Division It Claimed To Fight

By Mike Davis | Commentary, Fox News Acting AG Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel secured the indictment against the civil rights organization. Since the 1970s, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has characterized itself as an organization that combats extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). This week, because of an indictment that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel secured through stellar leadership, we learned that SPLC wasn’t fighting the Klan — but funding it using generous donations from people who thought they were helping fight racism. James Alex Fields, a White supremacist, ran over and killed a Jewish woman named Heather Heyer at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. ...
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Concerns Mount Over Transparency And Authority In State Capitol
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Commentary, State

Concerns Mount Over Transparency And Authority In State Capitol

By Jon Caldara | Commentary, The Denver Gazette The great 19th-century historian Lord Acton said it best: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Acton was building on the teachings of his mentor, Homer Simpson, who put it more plainly: “The more power you have, the more you can mess things up. Woo-hoo!” And many in Colorado’s political elite have studied under the original oracle of power, Eric Cartman: “Respect my authoritah!” If there were a motto for the progressive machine that now rules Colorado, it would be simple: “Because we f***ing can, that’s why.” Ethics don’t matter. Consistency doesn’t matter. Respecting the will of the people, or even the institution of democracy itself, doesn’t matter. Raw political power to im...
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Stomping out stage 4 brain cancer: A Colorado story of grapes, grace and glioblastoma
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Stomping out stage 4 brain cancer: A Colorado story of grapes, grace and glioblastoma

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Sometimes the greatest miracle isn’t healing—it’s a night off. For families walking the road of stage 4 glioblastoma brain cancer, even a few hours of rest can feel like a return to life. The weight is constant. The uncertainty is relentless. And caregiving, while sacred, can quietly drain every ounce of strength a person has. Recently, my wife Sherrie and I experienced something we hadn’t felt in a long time—margin. Breathing room. A moment to simply be human again. And it came through a story that could only be described as providential. Where the story began What makes this story remarkable is how it started—not through a formal organization or a well-funded campaign, but through a simple blog. When I began writ...
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New Federal Reforms Target Billions In State Fraud And Waste
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The Federalist, Approved, Commentary, National

New Federal Reforms Target Billions In State Fraud And Waste

By Christopher Jacobs | Commentary, The Federalist A recent congressional hearing showed the scope of the state waste, fraud, and abuse problem our nation faces. A recurring theme of public policy — one that leftists often ignore — is how people respond to incentives. If the federal government runs programs that give individuals carte blanche to steal, then some unscrupulous actors will exploit those weaknesses to do so. But those incentives go beyond individuals and also extend to the fight against waste, fraud, and abuse. In many cases, states have taken little action to crack down on fraud and waste within government programs because the federal government provides the bulk of the funding for said programs. If Washington gives states a blank check regardless of wh...
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