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Walcher: The importance of Jim Evans in the battle for PILT
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Approved, Commentary, Greg Walcher

Walcher: The importance of Jim Evans in the battle for PILT

By Greg Walcher | Guest Columnist I did a double-take when I saw the headline: “Meeker County to call on Congress to pay up for  federal lands.” I thought it must be a typo, because Meeker is a town and not a county (it’s in Rio  Blanco County). The subtitle repeated it: “Analysis of public lands in Meeker County found that  federal revenues fall short of what property taxes would generate.”   I wondered what reporter made such an error, but then noticed it was from the West Central  Minnesota Tribune, an area where there is in fact a “Meeker County,” an entirely different place  named for an entirely different historical figure. But the headline certainly makes clear that the  two communities have something in common. South Central Minnesot...
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Southern Utes accuse Durango of secret efforts to annex tribal lands, following CORA requests
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Approved, Commentary, The Southern Ute Drum

Southern Utes accuse Durango of secret efforts to annex tribal lands, following CORA requests

By Southern Ute Indian Tribe | The Southern Ute Drum It was over 140 years ago that Felix Brunot, Chairman of the Board of Indian Commissioners, made promises and assurances to the Utes about protecting tribal interests while secretly hiding his intentions to turn over 3.7 million acres of land reserved to the Utes in the Treaty of 1868 to mining interests. Despite evidence of his wrongdoing, Congress approved the agreement he reached in 1874, resulting in the loss of Ute land to state jurisdiction.  The Southern Ute Indian Tribe has often faced attacks on its jurisdiction since that time in an effort by non-tribal members to undermine the Tribe’s sovereignty and economically benefit non-Natives. Few of those have been as brazen as that of Brunot. However, this year the Tribe ex...
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Peacock: House Republicans should heed Texas’ warning on dangers of Democrat-Driven ‘Bipartisanship’
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Approved, Commentary, The Federalist

Peacock: House Republicans should heed Texas’ warning on dangers of Democrat-Driven ‘Bipartisanship’

By BILL PEACOCK | The Federalist It appears the U.S. House of Representatives has entered an era of unprecedented bipartisan cooperation. Within the last month, a rare coalition of Democrats and Republicans voted to approve a rule to advance foreign aid to Ukraine and defeat a motion to vacate the chair and oust Speaker Mike Johnson from his office. In the past, the Democrats have relished voting against the Republican House leadership while watching the corporate media blame “hard-right conservatives [for] throwing the House and its Republican leadership into chaos.” With the recent votes, it is clear something has changed in the Democrats’ approach. It is doubtful, though, that the change includes supporting a more conservative agenda. So before getting too c...
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Caldara: The case for a 90-day Colorado legislative session
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Approved, Commentary

Caldara: The case for a 90-day Colorado legislative session

By Jon Caldara | Complete Colorado I was that kid in high school who would wait until the night before the term paper was due to even get started, as you can tell, a practice I honor to this day with this column. Of course, it was good enough to slide through high school; the paper was always lousy. That’s OK, coming from a sloppy high school kid. But would you trust that kid to spend $35 billion of your money and make the laws that govern every aspect of your life? Because, you have. The Colorado legislative session is 120 days long and, yet again, almost all the important work was left to the last few days and done to the quality my high school teachers came to expect of me. A 120-day session is remarkably long. Texas, for example, has a 90-day session only every other year. ...
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Davidson: Whatever U.S. elites are defending in Ukraine, it isn’t democracy
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Approved, Commentary, The Federalist

Davidson: Whatever U.S. elites are defending in Ukraine, it isn’t democracy

By JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | The Federalist It’s getting harder and harder to pretend the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, is about “defending democracy,” as our political elites in Washington insist. This is especially true when Secretary of State Antony Blinken shows up in Ukraine to deliver billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund the war, proclaims that Ukraine’s scheduled presidential elections this spring are canceled until “conditions allow” (Ukraine has not held elections since 2019), and then jaunts off to a popular Kyiv nightclub to play a boomerish cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” That actually happened this week.  READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE FEDERALIST
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Barnhart: Learning to live with the uncertainty of parenting
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Approved, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

Barnhart: Learning to live with the uncertainty of parenting

By Faye Barnhart | Contributing Columnist The primary educators and caregivers of children are their parents. It actually does not take a village to raise a child, it only takes parents. Parents can get some help with that responsibility by including other teachers in a school, childcare or Sunday school, but those institutions should only compliment what the parent is already teaching at home, as those institutions are employed or contracted by the parents and may be fired by the parents at any time. The state may want to socialize children to be dutiful robots to a government-run social order, but parents have the responsibility to their children to stand in the way of that. It is normal for parents to doubt their own abilities and think others may be better at it. The insecu...
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Devotional: What the Old and New Testament have to say on immigration
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Approved, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

Devotional: What the Old and New Testament have to say on immigration

By Drake Hunter | Special Contributor The contributions of immigrants have enriched our country's strength and diversity, a fact that we should all appreciate. The treatment of immigrants, whether they are legal or illegal, has been a topic of discussion throughout history, including in modern times. Even the Bible has references to this topic. In the Old Testament, Moses instructs the Israelites on how to treat immigrants, emphasizing the importance of protecting and treating them fairly and compassionately. His words provide a blueprint for treating strangers justly, mentioning their concerns over 35 times and offering specific instructions about citizenship rights, land ownership and immigrant guidelines. The Old Testament favors the justice side of the discussion. Neverthel...
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Sloan: The greater threat to the planet
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Approved, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

Sloan: The greater threat to the planet

By Kelly Sloan | Special Contributor George Will recently wrote a rather chilling column, pointing out something so obvious that it has escaped much attention. That is this: while much of the world is obsessed over climate change, to the point of spending trillions of dollars annually, virtually no attention is being paid to another hypothetical scenario, one that is at least as real in potential (if not more so) as climate change and which bears far more immediate and devastating consequences – that is the threat of nuclear war. Will refers to a book by reporter and historian Annie Jacobsen titled “Nuclear War: A Scenario” in which the author details how a modern-day nuclear exchange could play out – and how quickly – along with the aftermath. The consequences described are every bi...
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Walcher: Is the goal cleaner air, or something else?
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Approved, Commentary, Greg Walcher

Walcher: Is the goal cleaner air, or something else?

By GREG WALCHER | GregWalcher.com In 1991, Oleta Adams sang “Get Here” on “Soul Train.” She spent 23 weeks on the Billboard top 100 with the love ballad, listing all the ways he could get to her: by railway, trailway, airplane, caravan, sailboat, swinging on a rope, by sled, horseback, or even by windsurfing, magic carpet, or hot air balloon. The conclusion is, “I don’t care how you get here, just get here…” Government regulators like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ought to take that approach, but rarely do. This was the primary controversy surrounding EPA’s regulation of methane emissions, which sought not only to set and enforce standards for the pollutant, but also to dictate a one-size-fits-all outdated technology to monitor emissions. Governments are often behind ...
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Lobue: Since Biden inherited the Trump boom, the whole economy’s gone bust
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Approved, Commentary, The Federalist

Lobue: Since Biden inherited the Trump boom, the whole economy’s gone bust

By JOSEPH LOBUE | The Federalist For years, President Joe Biden was flying west to east with the prevailing winds, economically speaking. During Covid, politicians (primarily Democrats) closed down large portions of the economy. When Covid ended, the economy “grew” because that’s what happens when you go from a partially closed economy to an entirely open one. Why economists fail to recognize this easy-growth environment is befuddling. Now, in rapid succession, we have a weak GDP report, poor jobs and unemployment reports, another terrible fiscal report, and more awful inflation reports. Horrible data that even the pro-Biden media can’t cover up. The truth is that Biden’s economic numbers were never any good. And now that the easy-growth environment of the post-Covid era is well b...
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