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Feds own the dams, but who owns the water?
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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 ...
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Polis opts Colorado into federal scholarship program as education spending swells
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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...
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Good News or Fake News: Joy — Real News Worth Celebrating
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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...
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The highway rule few Coloradans know is steering road projects
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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...
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State commission blocks bid to expand public review into minor business emissions changes
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

State commission blocks bid to expand public review into minor business emissions changes

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project New emissions rules for minor modifications gets (thankfully) voted down. There’s something noteworthy towards the end of the Sum and Substance article linked at bottom.** The part I want to focus on begins under the heading “A debate over minor modifications”. Don’t make the same (initial) mistake I did and take it from the words that the debated would be minor! The minor modifications here refer to a change in a factory or plant’s process which might slightly alter the amount of pollution they emit. Quoting the article: “APCD [Air Pollution Control Division] staffers, for example, wanted to change the current permitting process for minor modifications — facility upgrades at major-emitt...
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Report Claims Whitmer, Ossoff, and Booker Part of Massive Democrat Donation Laundering
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The Gateway Pundit, Approved, Commentary, National

Report Claims Whitmer, Ossoff, and Booker Part of Massive Democrat Donation Laundering

By Jim Hoft, Bob Cushman | Commentary, The Gateway Pundit Guest post by Bob Cushman Once in a while, a reporter finds a story that challenges his or her ability to tell because it is so massive in terms of time and scope. He or she feels over-whelmed. This reporter feels that way, but let’s begin anyway. This story will attempt to show the reader the journey that this reporter has been on to discover what is most likely one of the largest money laundering evolutions in the history of this country. First Indications of Massive Money Laundering – 2019 Six years ago in October of 2019, I was downloading data from the FEC database, which by the way is quite easy to do. As I compiled the data I found that three Michigan Congresswomen had received about 75% of their t...
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How climate policy became the steering wheel of Colorado government
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ScottKJames.com, Approved, Commentary, State

How climate policy became the steering wheel of Colorado government

By Scott James | Commentary, Scott K. James In part 1 of my five-part series, I reveal how climate mandates quietly reshaped Colorado’s laws, roads, and local control – without a vote from the people. Yesterday, I told you the truth about where I am – not as an elected official, not as a partisan, not as a policy wonk, but as a human being who loves this state enough to lose sleep over it. If you missed it, you can read that emotional prologue here. That was the heart.Today begins the head. Today marks the first installment of the five-part series I promised – not ranting, not rumor, not political theater, but the receipts. The real sequence of events, the policies, the bills, the rules, the decisions, and the machinery that fundamentally reshap...
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When the State Disarms the Innocent, Violence Gets Time to Work
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

When the State Disarms the Innocent, Violence Gets Time to Work

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice What happened in Australia was not merely a criminal act. It was a demonstration. A hard, visual lesson about time, power, and responsibility. Dozens of videos show attackers firing openly while innocent people run, hide, and plead. The footage is disturbing, but it is also instructive. It shows fear. It shows chaos. Most importantly, it shows uninterrupted time. Time during which violence was allowed to operate without resistance. This is not a theory. It is not ideology. It is a visible reality, recorded from multiple angles. Violence expands when nothing confronts it. It contracts only when it is met. THE MOMENT THAT DETERMINES EVERYTHING Every mass attack contains a decisive window. A moment whe...
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How a Generation of Men Lost Their Place in America’s Institutions
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Compact Mag, Approved, Commentary, National

How a Generation of Men Lost Their Place in America’s Institutions

By Jacob Savage | Compact Mag For fifteen years I’ve scalped tickets to pay the bills. But in January 2016 I almost managed a real career. I was thirty-one, I’d been in Los Angeles for five years writing scripts. There had been minor successes, a couple of small projects optioned, and I’d recently started writing with my best friend. We were writing constantly, making each other better, building momentum.  Success felt close. Back then it always did. We’d written a pilot script that a veteran showrunner had agreed, in a very theoretical, very Hollywood sort of way, to “come on” to. That project had fizzled, so we were surprised when an executive emailed us out of the blue to meet. The showrunner explained he’d submitted us for an upcoming writer’s room he was goin...
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Colorado’s quiet transformation leaves working communities behind
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s quiet transformation leaves working communities behind

By Scott James | Commentary, Scott K. James I am sounding the alarm on the quiet erosion of Colorado’s values, warning of a top-down agenda that’s silencing everyday citizens. Not the Colorado of glossy tourism ads and climate conferences. The real Colorado. The one where: Kids worked ranches and feedlots, not “sustainability internships.” You and I went to Northeastern Junior College, Aims, CSU, UNC, CU – not Cornell, Yale, or Harvard – and that was good, solid, honest. We measured a person by whether they showed up and worked, not by what panel they spoke on. A neighbor expanding his cow–calf operation was a reason to crack a beer, not a reason to clutch pearls about “emissions.” Colorado used to be: Free. Pragmatic. Op...
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