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Krannawitter: From Decoration Day to Memorial Day, the history of honoring those who gave all
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Approved, Commentary

Krannawitter: From Decoration Day to Memorial Day, the history of honoring those who gave all

By THOMAS L. KRANNAWITTER, PH.D. | Liberty Lyceum What is now officially Memorial Day used to be called Decoration Day, a uniquely American holiday born from the ashes of the America War. The American Civil War raged from 1861 to 1865. The results included death, destruction, and devastation of every kind on scales that had never been witnessed before. After the fires were put out and the dead were buried, veterans who survived the war and other citizens wanted to honor and express appreciation for their fellow citizens who had given “the last full measure of devotion,” in the memorable words Abraham Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg. This included newly-freed former slaves, some of whom were freed by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, all of whom were freed by the 13th Amendm...
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Moriarty: Democrats’ Colorado Energy story has a bad ending
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Approved, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice, State

Moriarty: Democrats’ Colorado Energy story has a bad ending

By Tom Moriarty | Guest Columnist Colorado Governor Jared Polis and the Colorado democrats tell us a story about fossil fuels. This story has three parts: fossil fuels are bad, the democrats have a plan to eliminate fossil fuels, and their plan is working. They pander to the “fossil fuels are bad” fear that has been exaggerated by relentless climate porn. This old fashioned fear mongering is an effective political strategy among their base and many in the middle. But “feat not,”they say, because the Colorado democrats have a plan to slay the fossil fuel monster. This plan was laid out in the Polis administration's 2019 document “Roadmap to 100% Renewable Energy by 2040 and Bold Climate Action.” The title is unequivocal: “100% Renewable Energy by 2040.” Now that is the kind of plan...
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Applegate: Possible solutions for El Paso County’s immigration problem
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Approved, Commentary, El Paso County, Rocky Mountain Voice

Applegate: Possible solutions for El Paso County’s immigration problem

By Cory Applegate | Guest Columnist El Paso County recently saw two busloads of immigrants here illegally come down from Denver. Since Denver's sanctuary city policies create their own fiscal burden, they now claim they cannot afford to keep taking care of lawbreakers they attracted in the first place. The hospitals in the Denver area gave away $136 million in care last year, which will never be paid back by those with no income or insurance. While Denver's hospitals teeter on the edge of bankruptcy, President Joe Biden refuses to shut down the border. With more than 8,000 illegal crossings per day, none of which are going through a proper port of entry, El Paso County needs to prepare themselves for the inevitable. A distant problem at the southern border is now becoming a present p...
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Cooper: Colorado May Have A Problem with 12,000+ Disappearing Undeliverable Ballots
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Approved, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice, State

Cooper: Colorado May Have A Problem with 12,000+ Disappearing Undeliverable Ballots

By Bob Cooper | Guest Contributor The Colorado Open Record Act (CORA) allows citizens to examine public records of payments via invoices as well as a long list of election records for every election.  CORA enables state and county officials to provide transparency for citizens, so they have access to and confidence in our governance. It is a valuable resource especially considering the national concern over our election systems. The information for this article is based on CORA information from 11 Colorado counties. Undeliverable ballots are a vital election record in every election. States with mail in voting systems, like Colorado, mail out millions of ballots at the start of an election. The USPS delivers ballots to voters based on the mailing address in the voter registratio...
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Gaines: Imagine if journalists covered guns like they do abortion
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Approved, Commentary, completecolorado.com, State

Gaines: Imagine if journalists covered guns like they do abortion

By Cory Gaines | Complete Colorado I think you can take Democrat House Majority Leader Duran at her word when she recently told CPR News, that she and her colleagues made passing gun control legislation “…routine, just as anything else that we run.”  Since taking over all levers of power at the state level, and suffering no negative consequences, majority Democrats have indeed made gun control legislation “routine” in Colorado. In that same CPR article, Duran is also quoted as saying, “I know the bills we passed this year will make a big difference in making our community safer.”  Regardless of where you put the balance point between individual liberties and tradeoffs made in the name of safety, I hope that we could agree that we should be careful putting restrictions on any kin...
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Caldara: Looming gas price hike entirely Jared Polis’ doing
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Approved, Commentary, completecolorado.com

Caldara: Looming gas price hike entirely Jared Polis’ doing

By Jon Caldara | Complete Colorado (You can listen to this column, read by the author, here). The Hayman fire in 2002 was one of the worst in Colorado’s history. What’s more appalling is it was started by one person whose responsibility it was to make sure forest fires don’t happen in the first place. That’s what is going on today with the one person who should have prevented our gasoline prices from spiking $0.50 to $1 per gallon, but instead made it happen. In that remarkably dry year of 2002, there was a burn ban in the area northwest of Colorado Springs. A park ranger with the U.S. Forest Service, Terry Barton, a forestry technician, set a piece of paper on fire in an area she knew was prone to ignite. Why? Some say it was so she could put out the fire and look like...
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Walcher: The importance of Jim Evans in the battle for PILT
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Approved, Commentary, Greg Walcher

Walcher: The importance of Jim Evans in the battle for PILT

By Greg Walcher | Guest Columnist I did a double-take when I saw the headline: “Meeker County to call on Congress to pay up for  federal lands.” I thought it must be a typo, because Meeker is a town and not a county (it’s in Rio  Blanco County). The subtitle repeated it: “Analysis of public lands in Meeker County found that  federal revenues fall short of what property taxes would generate.”   I wondered what reporter made such an error, but then noticed it was from the West Central  Minnesota Tribune, an area where there is in fact a “Meeker County,” an entirely different place  named for an entirely different historical figure. But the headline certainly makes clear that the  two communities have something in common. South Central Minnesot...
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Southern Utes accuse Durango of secret efforts to annex tribal lands, following CORA requests
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Approved, Commentary, The Southern Ute Drum

Southern Utes accuse Durango of secret efforts to annex tribal lands, following CORA requests

By Southern Ute Indian Tribe | The Southern Ute Drum It was over 140 years ago that Felix Brunot, Chairman of the Board of Indian Commissioners, made promises and assurances to the Utes about protecting tribal interests while secretly hiding his intentions to turn over 3.7 million acres of land reserved to the Utes in the Treaty of 1868 to mining interests. Despite evidence of his wrongdoing, Congress approved the agreement he reached in 1874, resulting in the loss of Ute land to state jurisdiction.  The Southern Ute Indian Tribe has often faced attacks on its jurisdiction since that time in an effort by non-tribal members to undermine the Tribe’s sovereignty and economically benefit non-Natives. Few of those have been as brazen as that of Brunot. However, this year the Tribe ex...
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Sloan: The DEI facade is showing cracks
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Approved, Commentary, National

Sloan: The DEI facade is showing cracks

By Kelly Sloan | Special Contributor, The Rocky Mountain Voice Last week, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's board of trustees did what only a short time ago would have been considered an unthinkable act of social regression: they voted, unanimously, to not only cut the $2.3 million funding of the institution’s DEI program, but to reroute that money into public safety – yes, meaning campus police.  It is but one example of the slow, but steady retreat from the madness of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs that have metastasized throughout our culture in the wake of the civil unrest stemming from the killing of George Floyd in 2020. The innocuous-sounding trifecta – who could argue against those values in a pluralistic society? – disguised a far m...
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Hillman: Jokes about our legislature used to be funny
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Approved, Commentary, Mark Hillman

Hillman: Jokes about our legislature used to be funny

By Mark Hillman | Guest Commentary We used to joke that “no man’s life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”  That’s no laughing matter in today’s Colorado. The collective sigh heard across our state when 100 legislators finally went home to mind their own business reflects the growing sense of dread that accompanies the Colorado General Assembly convening each January. Although some of their worst ideas died on May 8 when the annual session ended, many of them will rise again like zombies next January, and Coloradans will again be subjected to this same ritual.  Not long ago, Democrats and Republicans argued mostly about whether taxes and government spending should be higher or lower.  But as Democrats achieved super-majority status – now 46-1...
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