Rocky Mountain Voice

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“This is the team”: Michael Knowles at TPUSA AmFest on holding a coalition together
Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

“This is the team”: Michael Knowles at TPUSA AmFest on holding a coalition together

By RMV Editorial Board The opening night of AmericaFest did not unfold as a unified rally. Disagreements among speakers played out in real time, reflecting a broader conservative fracture now visible nationally and within state parties, including in Colorado. Michael Knowles articulated what the evening had already revealed. “In the absence of our generation’s political peacemaker,” he said, “we find ourselves in the latest right-wing civil war.” https://www.youtube.com/live/hcBd0whz8ec?si=osLqunNpf8BDHrdl Knowles did not frame that civil war as scandal or betrayal. He treated it as a structural failure. Conservatives, he observed, are independent-minded by nature. They argue. They splinter into factions. That part is not new. What is new is the absence...
PUC clean heat rule sparks call for public action over rising utility costs
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

PUC clean heat rule sparks call for public action over rising utility costs

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Email the PUC about their natural gas rule this December. I wanted to share with you another way you can speak up to the PUC re. their Clean Heat Rulemaking. In addition to speaking up at their January 14th meeting, you can also send in an email prior to their finalizing their Clean Heat Plan December 22nd.I received the below from a reader recently. Quoted here with links intact:“Per the Commission’s usual process, any individual, stakeholder or organization may request that the Commission reconsider its decision on these rules. Such requests are due by Dec. 22. The Commission will consider these requests and publicly deliberate at a January weekly meeting. Any one wishing to make public comment or request ...
Inside the structure of Colorado’s Democrat-advocacy complex
ScottKJames.com, Approved, Commentary, State

Inside the structure of Colorado’s Democrat-advocacy complex

By Scott K. James | Commentary, Scott’s Sheet How a Small Circle of Nonprofits, Appointees & Climate Advocates Took the Reins Friday, we broke down the rule that choked our highways. Today, we lift the curtain on the people and organizations pulling the levers. This isn’t conspiracy theory. It’s process. It’s not “secret cabal.” It’s perfectly public what they do — just rarely examined. 1. Meet the Architects Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) – Executive Director Elise S. Jones. Based in Boulder. Works in six-state region promoting decarbonization, clean transportation, smart land use. (SWEEP) Colorado Energy Office (CEO) – Executive Director Will Toor. Oversees state’s energy & transportation-electrification ag...
COVID and the Collapse of Wisdom: How Fear, Certainty, and Coercion Broke Human Coexistence
Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

COVID and the Collapse of Wisdom: How Fear, Certainty, and Coercion Broke Human Coexistence

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice A recent CNN report says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning to place a “black box” warning on COVID-19 vaccines, the agency’s most serious safety label for medicines. This warning is meant to highlight life-threatening risks that doctors and patients must consider. The report says this move is unusual because such warnings are rare for vaccines and could change how people see COVID-19 immunizations. The plan is not finalized and may change, but it represents a major shift from how vaccines were framed earlier in the pandemic. This recent development affirms the doubts many people had from the beginning about how information was shared, how risk was communicated, and how baseless the certainty experts and o...
Is Colorado witnessing a modern David versus Goliath moment?
Correspondence Theory, Approved, Commentary, State

Is Colorado witnessing a modern David versus Goliath moment?

By Kelly Notarfrancesco | Commentary, Correspondence Theory (Editor’s Note: This post is to highlight an important movement happening in Colorado. This could be the watershed moment that will affect Colorado, the USA, and the greater western world. Please read and consider helping.) In a time when political and social power are manipulated and controlled by powerful elites, a group of everyday Colorado citizens are engaged in a battle which has the potential to uphold truth and reaffirm the sovereign power of the individual citizen. Colorado has trapped children and families in a web of egregious laws which supplant individual rights with collective state authority. Colorado kids are forcibly taught gender ideology, compelled to socially transition their classm...
Teachers Union Pushes Polis To Block Federal Scholarship Option For Families
Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Teachers Union Pushes Polis To Block Federal Scholarship Option For Families

By Ari Armstrong | Complete Colorado Will the Colorado teachers’ union be so spiteful toward private education options that they will deny Colorado families money from privately funded scholarships promoted by federal tax credits? We soon will find out. I first learned of the program in question when the Colorado Sun published Jay Stooksberry’s op-ed on the matter on August 19. As Stooksberry explains, buried within the One Big Beautiful Bill was the Education Choice for Children Act, which allows individuals to “make tax-deductible donations up to $1,700 to scholarship organizations.” Before a state’s families can take advantage, Stooksberry adds, the governor must opt in and “approve a list of qualifying scholarship organizations the year before the donations can ...
Feds own the dams, but who owns the water?
Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, National

Feds own the dams, but who owns the water?

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com A couple years ago, I criticized the Bureau of Reclamation for draining Blue Mesa Reservoir without bothering to tell the people in Gunnison whose livelihood is affected. I got a little push-back for saying that while the Bureau owned the dam, it did not own the water. A close friend and water lawyer told me to be careful, that the Bureau does in fact own some water rights in the Gunnison River. I admit the legal nuance but still insist it is a debatable point. That’s because Congress never funded such water projects for the purpose of the federal government owning and controlling the West’s water. The Colorado River Storage Project Act of 1956 led to construction of Glen Canyon, Flaming Gorge, and Navajo Dams, as well as ...
Polis opts Colorado into federal scholarship program as education spending swells
Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Polis opts Colorado into federal scholarship program as education spending swells

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado With Christmas right around the corner, we are all shopping in earnest. This flurry of activity makes us focus on our budget and how much we can spend on all that Christmas cheer. We are carefully counting our pennies, while the State of Colorado’s Budget continues to spend more each year. Governor Polis’ budget request for 2026 is over $50 billion. Education spending is no exception. Colorado’s per-pupil spending is $18,130, an increase of 7.4% since 2020, according to the Reason Foundation. As enrollment in public schools continues to decline, funding is going in the opposite direction. Coloradans are asking, “Where is all the money going?” Staffing levels are up, even with a 4.6% drop in public...
Good News or Fake News: Joy — Real News Worth Celebrating
Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Devotional, Top Stories

Good News or Fake News: Joy — Real News Worth Celebrating

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice If hope helps us wait and peace helps us stand, then joy helps us move forward. Joy can sometimes be misunderstood. People often mix it up with happiness, think it’s just an emotion, or even brush it off as silly. But joy has its own special meaning! At its core, true joy isn’t shallow or fragile; it's strong and active. It shows up in our lives when things are real, and it deserves to be celebrated. As we reflect during this Advent season, let’s continue to think about this important question: “What’s shaping who you are—the Good News or the fake news?” The source you trust can really influence your peace and your joy in life. We understand that fake news promotes self-sufficiency, cynicism, and entitlement. Conversel...
The highway rule few Coloradans know is steering road projects
ScottKJames.com, Approved, Commentary, State

The highway rule few Coloradans know is steering road projects

By Scott James | Commentary, Scott K. James Colorado’s GHG rule quietly reshaped every major highway decision, forcing climate math over real-world mobility. Part 2 exposes how it happened Yesterday, in Part 1, we traced how Colorado got quietly rewired: from voters rejecting Prop 112… to SB19-181 passing anyway… to statewide GHG targets… to “roadmaps” that turned climate goals into marching orders… to SB21-260, welding transportation funding to climate policy. Today isn’t about another bill. Today is about one rule – written in the middle of COVID, on glitchy Zoom calls and muted microphones – that quietly changed how every major transportation decision in Colorado gets made: The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Transportation Planning St...