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An open letter to the 10th Circuit on free speech and the First Amendment
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

An open letter to the 10th Circuit on free speech and the First Amendment

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project The 10th Circuit of Court of Appeals got it wrong on free speech -- an open letter Similar to what Lincoln said of himself — I’m a slow walker but I don’t walk backwards — I often get busy with life and have to shelve writing projects without letting them go. I wrote back in early May about a decision rendered by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on legislative immunity. That newsletter is linked first below. The second link is to the judge’s decision. At the time, I wrote the clerk of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and asked how it was that one could send in feedback to the judges on their decision. The clerk said that you can either email them to [email protected], or mail them to the ...
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The Self-Control Weapon: Don’t Pull the Plum Yet
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Devotional, Top Stories

The Self-Control Weapon: Don’t Pull the Plum Yet

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie. He put in his thumb, pulled out a plum, and said, "What a good boy am I." Most of us learned that nursery rhyme as children and never gave it another thought. But through the lens of Jesus, Little Jack Horner tells a familiar story. Jack sees something he wants, reaches for it, takes it, and congratulates himself for getting it. That sounds a lot like us. We live in a world of immediate gratification. We want answers now, comfort now, success now, relief now, and pleasure now. Yet one of the greatest lessons Jesus teaches is that strength is often found in waiting. You see, before Jesus preached a sermon, healed a disease, or called a disciple, the Spirit led hi...
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Colorado’s budget keeps growing. Florida just cut spending again
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s budget keeps growing. Florida just cut spending again

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado While Colorado’s majority Democrats lament the state’s persistent budget challenges, Florida’s Republican majority just celebrated reducing spending for a second consecutive year in another business-as-usual state budget.  Colorado legislators have plenty of lessons they could learn from Florida, instead, they are more likely to double down on more tax and spend, economy-wrecking policies.  How the states compare  Governor Jared Polis recently signed a $46.8 billion state budget, an almost 7 percent increase over last year’s $43.9 billion in spending, this despite legislators’ constant catastrophizing about Colorado’s “budget shortfall.”  That amounts to approximately $7,800 for every Color...
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Colorado seeks feedback from firearms dealers as new regulations take shape
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado seeks feedback from firearms dealers as new regulations take shape

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Colorado Department of Revenue seeks feedback from Firearms Dealers The Colorado Department of Revenue (DOR) was tasked with regulating — on top of the ATF and existing federal regulation — firearms dealers in the state. They are the ones who make the rules to enforce recently passed requirements on Colorado firearm dealers. I got an email from DOR last week announcing an upcoming rulemaking relevant to firearms dealers. The Department has an existing working group which will be doing the rulemaking, but that doesn’t mean you cannot weigh in. You can provide public comment to the group and can also send in written comment. The announcement of the meeting along with all links to draft rules, agendas, ...
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The conservation success story hidden in Colorado’s coal country
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, State

The conservation success story hidden in Colorado’s coal country

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com In a popular Substack publication called Asterisk Magazine, a California physicist named Casey Handmer wrote a great piece titled “It’s 2024 and Drought is Optional,” about desalination technology. But he also touched on an even more fundamental point about how people don’t want to think about the importance of infrastructure. “The past century of prosperity has produced a culture happily ignorant of this weight-bearing infrastructure — a culture foreign to, if not hostile toward, the idea that humans can positively improve the natural environment.” Indeed, mankind is the only species that not only can improve the environment, but regularly does so, on purpose. That’s because people believe nature has its own intrinsic value, completely a...
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Whoever holds power, Colorado records should remain public
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Whoever holds power, Colorado records should remain public

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project CFOIC updates their CORA/Open Meetings guide CFOIC has been a great help to me in learning how to do public records requests (and they continue to be as I encounter issues with getting records, etc.). They recently updated their excellent guide on open records requests and open meetings law based on recent changes. It’s linked at bottom. If you are doing requests or thinking about it, bookmark it. In the spirit of paying forward the help I received, I am happy to help you in what ways I can if you are thinking of doing some records requests and/or if you have a topic you want to investigate but don’t know where to start. Message me or email through my newsletter. https://coloradofoic.org/op...
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Media Ignores Questions Surrounding California Vote Counting as Familiar Patterns Reappear
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The Federalist, Approved, Commentary, National

Media Ignores Questions Surrounding California Vote Counting as Familiar Patterns Reappear

By: Chris Bray | Commentary, The Federalist Legacy media are insisting that there’s no evidence of fraud or cheating in California’s recent primary elections. It’s obviously not true. Legacy media don’t describe. They exist to prevent description, corralling and deflecting. In the famous description from Iowahawk, “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.” Four states held primary elections on June 9, and on the morning of June 10, they were either ahead in their count or about as far along in their count of ballots as California, which held its primaries on June 2. These screenshots from live election results at the NBC News website are both from Wednesday morning at 9:30 PT: NBC NewsImage CreditScreenshot NBC ...
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Colorado needs a smarter answer on data centers than yes or no
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ScottKJames.com, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado needs a smarter answer on data centers than yes or no

By Scott James | Commentary, Scott's Sheet Colorado can welcome data centers, but only with honest math on water, power, rates, and who pays when the press release meets the utility bill. Most normal people do not wake up worried about data centers. They wake up worried about the mortgage, the water bill, the power bill, the kids, the roads, and whether the internet will freeze right as the Broncos line up on fourth and short. Then somebody says “data center,” and the room divides almost immediately. One side acts like every giant project is economic manna from heaven. The other side acts like a server farm is Mordor with better landscaping. Somewhere between NIMBY and corporate shill, there is a principled yes. Colorado ought to find it. Big Pivots argues that...
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RE-1 Valley’s persistence pays off with proposed $8.4 million BEST grant
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, Local

RE-1 Valley’s persistence pays off with proposed $8.4 million BEST grant

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project RE-1 Valley gets a BEST grant Let’s turn to something local (for me at least): per the article linked first below, RE-1 Valley school district got their long sought-after BEST grant. Before some detail on that, let’s back up a step. In case you weren’t familiar, BEST (Building Excellent Schools Today) grants are money that comes from the state to be used primarily to, quoting their webpage linked second below, “… resolve health, safety, and security issues in Colorado public schools.” It is a competitive grant program, meaning schools from across the state compete for the grants in any given yearly cycle. As a quick side note (more available at the BEST webpage) since it’s been a topic on this page mult...
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Lawmakers Put Reliability And Energy Costs Ahead Of New Climate Mandates In 2026
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The Sum & Substance, Approved, Commentary, State

Lawmakers Put Reliability And Energy Costs Ahead Of New Climate Mandates In 2026

By: Ed Sealover | Commentary, The Sum & Substance This legislative session was supposed to be a defining one for the utility and energy sectors — one in which legislators would debate and pass a long-discussed plan to move up the net-zero emissions deadline by 10 years and also remake the Public Utilities Commission. But the story of the 2026 session for energy advocates instead turned out to be all about what didn’t happen. No 2040 net-zero plan got introduced. No radical changes came through the extension of the PUC. And for the first time in over a decade, no existential threats to the oil and gas sector received debate in the 75th General Assembly. The topics that took center stage instead were reliability and affordability of energy sources. Legislators h...
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