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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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Peacock: House Republicans should heed Texas’ warning on dangers of Democrat-Driven ‘Bipartisanship’
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Approved, Commentary, The Federalist

Peacock: House Republicans should heed Texas’ warning on dangers of Democrat-Driven ‘Bipartisanship’

By BILL PEACOCK | The Federalist It appears the U.S. House of Representatives has entered an era of unprecedented bipartisan cooperation. Within the last month, a rare coalition of Democrats and Republicans voted to approve a rule to advance foreign aid to Ukraine and defeat a motion to vacate the chair and oust Speaker Mike Johnson from his office. In the past, the Democrats have relished voting against the Republican House leadership while watching the corporate media blame “hard-right conservatives [for] throwing the House and its Republican leadership into chaos.” With the recent votes, it is clear something has changed in the Democrats’ approach. It is doubtful, though, that the change includes supporting a more conservative agenda. So before getting too c...
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Caldara: The case for a 90-day Colorado legislative session
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Approved, Commentary

Caldara: The case for a 90-day Colorado legislative session

By Jon Caldara | Complete Colorado I was that kid in high school who would wait until the night before the term paper was due to even get started, as you can tell, a practice I honor to this day with this column. Of course, it was good enough to slide through high school; the paper was always lousy. That’s OK, coming from a sloppy high school kid. But would you trust that kid to spend $35 billion of your money and make the laws that govern every aspect of your life? Because, you have. The Colorado legislative session is 120 days long and, yet again, almost all the important work was left to the last few days and done to the quality my high school teachers came to expect of me. A 120-day session is remarkably long. Texas, for example, has a 90-day session only every other year. ...
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Davidson: Whatever U.S. elites are defending in Ukraine, it isn’t democracy
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Approved, Commentary, The Federalist

Davidson: Whatever U.S. elites are defending in Ukraine, it isn’t democracy

By JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | The Federalist It’s getting harder and harder to pretend the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, is about “defending democracy,” as our political elites in Washington insist. This is especially true when Secretary of State Antony Blinken shows up in Ukraine to deliver billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund the war, proclaims that Ukraine’s scheduled presidential elections this spring are canceled until “conditions allow” (Ukraine has not held elections since 2019), and then jaunts off to a popular Kyiv nightclub to play a boomerish cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” That actually happened this week.  READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE FEDERALIST
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Barnhart: Learning to live with the uncertainty of parenting
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Approved, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

Barnhart: Learning to live with the uncertainty of parenting

By Faye Barnhart | Contributing Columnist The primary educators and caregivers of children are their parents. It actually does not take a village to raise a child, it only takes parents. Parents can get some help with that responsibility by including other teachers in a school, childcare or Sunday school, but those institutions should only compliment what the parent is already teaching at home, as those institutions are employed or contracted by the parents and may be fired by the parents at any time. The state may want to socialize children to be dutiful robots to a government-run social order, but parents have the responsibility to their children to stand in the way of that. It is normal for parents to doubt their own abilities and think others may be better at it. The insecu...
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Devotional: What the Old and New Testament have to say on immigration
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Approved, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

Devotional: What the Old and New Testament have to say on immigration

By Drake Hunter | Special Contributor The contributions of immigrants have enriched our country's strength and diversity, a fact that we should all appreciate. The treatment of immigrants, whether they are legal or illegal, has been a topic of discussion throughout history, including in modern times. Even the Bible has references to this topic. In the Old Testament, Moses instructs the Israelites on how to treat immigrants, emphasizing the importance of protecting and treating them fairly and compassionately. His words provide a blueprint for treating strangers justly, mentioning their concerns over 35 times and offering specific instructions about citizenship rights, land ownership and immigrant guidelines. The Old Testament favors the justice side of the discussion. Neverthel...
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