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When Rhetoric Escalates: How Polarizing Language Shapes Public Conflict
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

When Rhetoric Escalates: How Polarizing Language Shapes Public Conflict

By Shaina Cole | Commentary, Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Political speech extends well beyond the moment it’s expressed. Words travel. They settle into public discourse and shape how authority, disagreement, and risk are understood over time.  Research shows that rhetoric does more than mirror tension. In certain conditions, it redirects it—especially when government leaders frame conflict in threatening or moral terms. That context helps explain why the White House published an article titled “57 Times Sick, Unhinged Democrats Declared War on Law Enforcement.” The article quotes Democrat state governors, congressmen, and other public figures whose statements the administration has characterized as contributing to a hostile environment for federal la...
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Fascist Regime? CU Boulder Newsletter Tests University Speech Policies
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Fascist Regime? CU Boulder Newsletter Tests University Speech Policies

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice The episode has sharpened attention on a familiar but unresolved issue in higher education: when speech delivered through an official university platform stops being personal expression and starts carrying institutional weight. “I’m not trying to be divisive, controversial, or polarizing,” insisted Jennifer Ho, director of CU Boulder’s Center for Humanities & the Arts. But the January newsletter sent under the center’s name and distributed through official university email quickly did exactly that, leveling sweeping accusations against the federal government and blurring the line between personal opinion and institutional speech. Academic centers send newsletters all the time. What set this one apart...
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Federal Court Hits Colorado With $5.4 Million Bill Over Pro Life Clinic Ban
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Life News, Approved, State

Federal Court Hits Colorado With $5.4 Million Bill Over Pro Life Clinic Ban

By Ryan Colby | Life News The State of Colorado must pay $5.4 million in attorneys’ fees to Becket following the state’s unconstitutional effort to outlaw abortion pill reversal. Becket represented Bella Health and Wellness, a Denver-area Catholic pro-life healthcare clinic, defending them against Colorado’s attempt to make it illegal for doctors and nurses to help women who take the first abortion pill but then decide to continue their pregnancies. A federal court found that Colorado’s attempt to ban abortion pill reversal violated the First Amendment. A federal law now requires the state to pay attorneys’ fees and court costs. “At least 18 moms who received abortion pill reversal care at Bella just celebrate...
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Lowering The Bar In The Name Of Equity At MSU Denver
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, Local

Lowering The Bar In The Name Of Equity At MSU Denver

By Ari Armstrong | Commentary, Complete Colorado Standard American English does not exist, says Metropolitan State University’s writing center, but also it “is a social construct that privileges white communities and maintains social and racial hierarchies.” Yet the very MSU document damning standard English and calling for its rejection is written in—you guessed it—standard English. (MSU’s ‘linguistic white supremacy’ webpage has been taken down, but here are screenshots from the document). You might think that a writing center’s goal should be to help students write clearly and intelligibly. No, no, no. Obviously you’re a racist if you think that. The goal of MSU’s writing center is to “be actively anti-racist,” to fight white supremacy, to challenge inequali...
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Fort Lewis College Student Stands Firm After Turning Point USA Chapter Sparks Backlash
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Colorado Politics, Approved, Local

Fort Lewis College Student Stands Firm After Turning Point USA Chapter Sparks Backlash

By Elizabeth Pond | Colorado Politics Before Fort Lewis College senior Jonah Flynn became president of the newly formed FLC Turning Point USA chapter, he described himself as a liberal-leaning atheist. Flynn, a senior studying philosophy and Spanish, gained local and national attention after the Associated Students of Fort Lewis College initially denied his request to start a Turning Point chapter at an Oct. 29 meeting. Outcry from conservative students and community members led to an emergency on Nov. 7 meeting, where the Associated Students decision was reversed. Since then, the 25-year-old has appeared in numerous news outlets, including CBS and Fox News, where he spoke on a panel alongside activist Jack Posobiec. Flynn said he has been heckled on campus and ...
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“This is the team”: Michael Knowles at TPUSA AmFest on holding a coalition together
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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...
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Clerks vs. the Constitution: Why the CCCA’s Letter to Polis Gets It Wrong
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Clerks vs. the Constitution: Why the CCCA’s Letter to Polis Gets It Wrong

By A.L. Goodwin | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The Colorado County Clerks Association (CCCA) sent a letter urging Governor Polis to block the potential transfer of Tina Peters to federal custody. That request rests on unconstitutional assumptions and a series of demonstrably false claims—many of which CCCA Director Matt Crane repeated in his November 24, 2025 interview on 710 KNUS, spread across two morning segments — Let My Tina Go! and Should Tina Peters Be Pardoned? 1. Matt Crane falsely asserted that Tina was a flight risk and should not be out on bond pending appeal. “Tina certainly demonstrated before that she's a flight risk, right? So after the cyber symposium, in 2021 where she went and, you know, hid out … she was gone for at least a month after tha...
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CU Denver Puts Its Pro-Hamas Hate on Full Display
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Local, Top Stories

CU Denver Puts Its Pro-Hamas Hate on Full Display

By Ahnaf Kalam | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Every so often, a university event accidentally tells the truth about the institution hosting it. The recent panel on November 19,  “Gaza: Two Years On” at the University of Colorado Denver – my alma mater – was one such moment: a rare occasion when the carefully maintained façade of academic neutrality collapsed, revealing the fetid ideological machinery underneath. It was presented as an open conversation, a balanced intellectual exchange. In practice, it was a ceremony—an orchestrated display of political piety in which the outcome was preordained, the narrative sealed in advance. Even the panel composition made this clear: three anti-Israel speakers and a lone Israeli Jewish professor, the only person on stage with firs...
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