Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

Commentary

Colorado’s green building code mandates drive up housing costs and do little for the climate
No Comments
ScottKJames.com, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s green building code mandates drive up housing costs and do little for the climate

By Scott K. James | Commentary, Scott K. James New ‘green’ building code mandates in Colorado reek of virtue signaling, drive up housing costs, and do jack squat for the environment. The Denver Post recently dropped a fun little read about how Colorado’s unelected bureaucrats have found yet another way to make housing completely unaffordable while pretending they’re saving the planet. The Colorado Legislature cedes authority to unelected bureaucrats in the Colorado Energy Office (CEO) to whip out new codes. The Denver Post piece highlights how the CEO has done just that, and – viola – Colorado will now require cities and counties to adopt updated building codes focused on cutting emissions – because if there’s one thing this housing market needed, it was more ...
Read More
Phones Out of Classrooms A Rare Point of Unity in Divided Nation
No Comments
Politico, Approved, Commentary, National

Phones Out of Classrooms A Rare Point of Unity in Divided Nation

By Jonathan Martin | Commentary, Politico Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” has prompted an unlikely bipartisan revolution to ban phones in classrooms. LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas — The most consequential bipartisan accomplishment of this decade was hatched in NYU faculty housing and is being fulfilled in conservative and liberal state capitals alike. The legislative victory at hand? Banning phones in classrooms. Until now, it has barely registered amid the tribal trolling that passes for a national political dialogue in the Age of Trump. But as the school year gets fully underway across the country this week, more parents may be able to identify Jonathan Haidt, or at least his groundbreaking book on the risk of children’s access to smartphones, than they can recognize their ow...
Read More
Fewer teens working as minimum wage hikes cut entry-level jobs
No Comments
The Daily Signal, Approved, Commentary, National

Fewer teens working as minimum wage hikes cut entry-level jobs

By Rachel Greszler | Commentary, The Daily Signal As an older millennial, my high school and college summers were defined largely by the jobs I held. Not many of today’s teens can say the same. Once a rite of passage, teen jobs are now endangered. Just 35% of 16- to 19-year-olds worked last summer, down from 54% in 2000. It’s a big deal. My only purpose in working as a teen was to earn as much money as possible. But I now realize the experience and life lessons those jobs provided were far more valuable. Low-wage, entry-level jobs provide the perfect opportunity for young people to learn the importance of key skills: showing up on time, getting along with co-workers, demonstrating respect and kindness toward customers who may lack both, and...
Read More
Are you racist? The Durango School Board thinks so.
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, Local, Top Stories

Are you racist? The Durango School Board thinks so.

By Protect La Plata Kids | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Durango School District 9-R has spent heavily on a quiet plan to bring diversity, equity and inclusion policies into local classrooms. Attached to this commentary are invoices obtained through CORA requests to the district. They show the board paid Make It Plain Consulting more than $209,000 between 2021 and 2025. A combined file of the invoices can be viewed here. What the community didn’t realize is that the board’s long-term goal was to introduce Critical Race Theory under the banner of DEI. School board directors Kristen Smith, Erika Brown and Andrea Parmenter started by pushing a new resolution for the Durango 9-R Board of Education. As of July 2025, three Federal Civil Rights Complaints were filed against D...
Read More
The new golden calves: Progressives bow to political idols
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, National, Top Stories

The new golden calves: Progressives bow to political idols

By Michael A. Hancock | Commentary, Undercurrent Substack How the Left Turns Leaders Into Gods and Politics Into Religion Idolatry is as old as humanity itself. Ancient Israel bowed before golden calves. Rome worshiped its emperors. Today, American progressives practice their own brand of idolatry—transforming politicians, activists, movements, and bureaucracies into secular saints. These idols are exalted as saviors of society, placed beyond criticism, and treated as the ultimate sources of justice and truth. The only thing they never deliver is actual redemption. The Priesthood of Experts The story begins with intellectuals. W.E.B. Du Bois envisioned the “Talented Tenth,” a vanguard of Black elites who would uplift the race through education and cultural refinement. His idea ...
Read More
Nuclear Energy Presents a Security Solution Colorado Can’t Afford to Overlook
No Comments
State, Approved, Commentary, Complete Colorado

Nuclear Energy Presents a Security Solution Colorado Can’t Afford to Overlook

By Kevin McManimon | Commentary, Complete Colorado While a real-life ‘Red Dawn’ scenario playing out is unlikely, with Soviets falling from the skies and taking over Colorado, the threats to national security posed by Colorado’s current decarbonization agenda are very real. Colorado is home to some of the United States’ most important national security assets, including the U.S. Space Command, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and many aerospace and defense contractors. The installations run by these assets require a dependable energy source in order to monitor threats, operate satellites, and carry out functions to protect the nation. But as the state continues towards an unrealistic climate goal of 100% decarbonization by 2040, an important iss...
Read More
The Shield of Faith: The Final Move – Who Do You Want to Be?
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, Devotional, Top Stories

The Shield of Faith: The Final Move – Who Do You Want to Be?

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice “Who do you want to be today… who do you want to be?” – Devo If you knew me back in the 80s, or if you’ve read my devotions or heard me preach, you know I wasn’t grooving to synth-pop or rocking parachute pants. I was a hard rocker through and through. Zeppelin, Dio, Ozzy… those were my peeps. My soul leaned into guitar solos, not synthesizers. But recently, I caught myself humming a Devo tune—yeah, that Devo—the 1984 track “Who Do You Want to Be Today?” And it struck me: that quirky little lyric actually echoes something Jesus asked long before the ‘80s ever got weird. Jesus said it better, and with eternal weight: “Follow Me.” Devo asked a fun question; however, Jesus asked a life-altering one. “Who do you want to be today?” ...
Read More
Doing the math on the cost of mail-in voting after 25 years
No Comments
Captain K's Corner, Approved, Commentary, National

Doing the math on the cost of mail-in voting after 25 years

By Capt. Seth Keshel | Commentary, Captain K's Corner, Substack A statistical guide to the impacts of mail-in voting and why Democrats will make it their hill to die on. It appears, based on his recent statements, that President Trump is likely to take executive action targeting mail-in ballots and perhaps other deficiencies and disenfranchising items present in the American system of elections. As a former intelligence officer, my mind moves immediately to thinking like how the enemy thinks, and in this case, those enemies will be representatives of states that run quasi-elections tainted by mail-in balloting, which is always accompanied by ballot harvesting (whether legal or not), pushed out to an ever-expanding list of registrations polluted by Automatic Voter Registration. As ...
Read More
Don’t buy The Sun’s spin: TABOR isn’t the reason Colorado’s roads are failing, it’s lawmakers’ misplaced priorities
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Don’t buy The Sun’s spin: TABOR isn’t the reason Colorado’s roads are failing, it’s lawmakers’ misplaced priorities

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project The Sun's Gigafact check tries, but fails spectacularly. The Sun has been doing yeoman's work lately to get the progressive talking points on our state's budget and TABOR out there. Their Gigafact check linked first below is a great example.In answer to the question, "Has the condition of Colorado’s roads worsened under TABOR?", their response is a resounding YES.Let me pull some non-contiguous quotes. As a quick aside, the amount of text below is about 50% of the entire text in the fact check, a point I will return to shortly."The percentage of state roads in Colorado rated “poor” by the Federal Highway Administration has risen from 8% to 24% since the agency began collecting data in 1994, two years after the Taxpayer’...
Read More
When Violence Targets Conservatives, the Media Looks Away
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, National, Top Stories

When Violence Targets Conservatives, the Media Looks Away

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The nation is reeling after the tragic shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school. Two children are dead, more than a dozen are injured, and the community is shattered. Investigators have identified the shooter as Robin M. Westman, and disturbing evidence has already surfaced: weapons scrawled with political messages, including “Kill Donald Trump.” This fact should dominate headlines. Yet it will not. The corporate press will bury it, sanitize it, or frame it around mental illness and gun control. What they will not do is admit what the evidence shows: a politically motivated act of violence targeting conservatives. Why? Because the media knows the truth - that the Left has incubated more political violence than the Righ...
Read More