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After Supreme Court ruling Colorado advances controversial counseling and parental rights bills
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

After Supreme Court ruling Colorado advances controversial counseling and parental rights bills

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado Colorado may go down in history as the most ideologically extreme state in the nation. Between throwing President Trump off the ballot in 2024, persecuting Christian bakers and graphic designers, and banning free speech in religious counseling for minors dealing with sexual identity issues, Colorado is consistently striking out. The decisions made by our legal institutions are continually being overturned by the United States Supreme Court on basic constitutional arguments. Let’s take the state’s radical positions on gender theory. Just two weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 to reverse the Tenth Circuit decision on Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy for minors. The Court held that the Colorado...
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Where did your TABOR refund go? Follow the spending
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Where did your TABOR refund go? Follow the spending

By Jarvis Caldwell and Gabe Evans | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice TABOR, otherwise known as the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, was created to protect Coloradans from bloated government spending, prevent politicians from overtaxing working families, and ensure extra revenue is returned to the people who earned it. But under Governor Polis' fiscal mismanagement and runaway spending, Coloradans are paying the price — through dramatically reduced TABOR refunds this year and no refunds at all next year.  TABOR is a provision in the Colorado Constitution passed by voters in 1992 that puts strict limits on how much the government can tax, spend, and grow unless otherwise voted on and approved. It ensures government spending increases only by inflation and population growth and...
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Cutting Social Studies Tests Means Less Accountability For Schools
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Cutting Social Studies Tests Means Less Accountability For Schools

By Ari Armstrong | Commentary, Complete Colorado If “public education is the bedrock of Colorado’s democracy,” as Democratic sponsors declare in the TABOR-busting Senate Bill 26-135, then why do lawmakers want to cut social-studies testing from two grades to one? Someone might conclude that not even the legislators believe the slop they’re slinging on behalf of the teachers’ unions. A look at social-studies testing Given how abysmally most Colorado students perform on the social studies portion of the Colorado Measures of Academic Success, maybe it’s no wonder that some legislators want to sweep the evidence of underperforming public schools under the rug. If you look at CMAS results by year, you’ll find that the last publicly-released data f...
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Another spring, another Democrat lawmaker push for “extreme temperature” workplace rules
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Another spring, another Democrat lawmaker push for “extreme temperature” workplace rules

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project For the last couple (I think--don't quote me on it being two) legislative sessions, some of the more progressive Democrats in the state legislature have been trying, and failing, to run a bill to offer "protection" to workers who do their job in extreme temperatures.Such a bill is running again this year. It's HB26-1272 which I link to first below.Past efforts died due to (legitimate) concerns by businesses and industry over the effect rules about breaks, heating, and cooling would have on their ability to operate.This year's effort is at least passing its first initial hurdles, albeit in an altered form. Quoting from the Sum and Substance article about the bill linked second below (with link intact):"House Bill 12...
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Democrats Would Have Sacrificed Swalwell to Target GOP Lawmakers
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TownHall.com, Approved, Commentary, National

Democrats Would Have Sacrificed Swalwell to Target GOP Lawmakers

By Matt Vespa | Commentary, Townhall Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), having nothing left to lose, finally decided to resign from Congress. He didn’t specify when, so stay tuned. However, he’s indicated that he’s leaving. Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX), who was already planning to leave after losing in a primary following an affair with a staffer that led to her suicide. Reps. Cory Mills (R-FL) and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) are also at risk for ethics violations; Cherfilus-McCormick is accused of stealing millions from FEMA. These four were likely the target of the purge, probably the only motion with substantial bipartisan support.  So, what would have happened? Well, given what was brewing before Swalwell decided to call it quits, Democrats were scheming—what else is new—...
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Election Integrity and Cybersecurity Failures at the Colorado GOP Convention
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Election Integrity and Cybersecurity Failures at the Colorado GOP Convention

By Maria Orms | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice I attended this past weekend’s Colorado Republican State Convention in Pueblo as a gubernatorial candidate seeking ballot access. I was there not only as a candidate, but as a cybersecurity professional. What I witnessed—and what was reported by multiple credible participants—was not simply disorganization. It was a series of failures that demand a full, independent investigation. Confidence in any election process—whether internal to a party or statewide—depends on security, transparency, and adherence to procedure. In Pueblo, those standards were not met. Start with the delegate database. Multiple individuals reported that the system had been corrupted or compromised just days before the convention. That alone should hav...
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How many lawmakers benefit from taxpayer-funded nonprofits in Colorado?
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

How many lawmakers benefit from taxpayer-funded nonprofits in Colorado?

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project I saw a CPR article (see the first link below) about how much Colorado legislators are paid recently. It was one of their "Colorado Wonders" series. This is a series where CPR writes articles based on reader questions. If you want more on that series, see the second link below. I read the article on how much Colorado legislators are paid. If that's something you've wondered, give it a look. The answer is "not much", but if you look at the daily rate for what has always been and ought to continue to be a part-time job, it's respectable. Noting that it was completely missing from the CPR piece on legislator pay, I had a little Colorado Wonders of my own. I actually took the time to submit it to CPR last week immedi...
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HB26-1276 faces hearing today as Rep. Slaugh warns sanctuary policies could cut federal jail funding
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

HB26-1276 faces hearing today as Rep. Slaugh warns sanctuary policies could cut federal jail funding

By Rep. Scott Slaugh | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Editor’s update: HB26-1276 is scheduled to be heard today at 1:30 p.m. in the House Finance Committee (HCR 0112). Readers can listen to the hearing live here or sign up to testify here. Since the year 2000, by Act of Congress the federal Department of Justice’s has annually reimbursed state prisons and thousands of local county jails across the nation for the documented costs of incarcerating convicted criminal aliens –persons not lawfully present in the United States and convicted of a felony crime or two misdemeanors under a state’s criminal code. That decades-old federal program is called the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, or simply, “SCAAP.”   From its inception the federal SCAAP program ...
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Washington Post Frames Constitutional Rulings As Civil Rights Setbacks
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The Federalist, Approved, Commentary, National

Washington Post Frames Constitutional Rulings As Civil Rights Setbacks

By Shawn Fleetwood | Commentary, The Federalist In his new article, Washington Post reporter Justin Jouvenal attempts to convince readers that SCOTUS has waged a war on ‘civil rights.’ The unspoken competition among legacy media outlets to see who can produce the most asinine propaganda is pretty fierce this week. On top of a debunked hatchet job involving the Pentagon and Vatican, The Washington Post decided to throw its hat in the ring with a particularly dumb hit piece of its own — this time, against the U.S. Supreme Court. In a Thursday article titled, “Supreme Court remade by Trump ushers in historic defeats for civil rights,” Post reporter Justin Jouvenal attempted to convince readers that the court’s conservative justices have waged an all-...
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From imminent threat to no threat: Why the Iran narrative suddenly changed
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American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

From imminent threat to no threat: Why the Iran narrative suddenly changed

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker Not long ago, Iran was described as an imminent threat. Now we are told it wasn’t a threat at all. What changed? Not the facts. The politics. That shift is playing out in real time as the narrative around the Iran war evolves. A recent Rasmussen Reports poll found that a majority of likely U.S. voters believe the conflict has been successful so far. Under normal circumstances, that would invite a sober reassessment. Instead, it has produced something closer to denial. From the beginning, critics warned that confronting Iran would spark chaos across the Middle East, destabilize global markets, and drag the United States into another endless quagmire. Many insisted there was no urgent threat requiring acti...
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