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Tag: Government Accountability

From insider to critic: Ex-White House official questions public health orthodoxy
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All Better, Approved, Commentary, National

From insider to critic: Ex-White House official questions public health orthodoxy

By Katy Talento | AllBetter Substack I kept Robert F. Kennedy Jr. out of the West Wing. Now I owe him an apology. It was 2017. We had hauled the CEOs of a bunch of pharmaceutical companies into the Oval Office so that President Trump could berate them about their drug prices. (Always a good time.) Somehow, the word “vaccine” came up in the conversation. When that happens in the president’s presence, then, now, last month, and probably next week, like clockwork, he always starts telling the same story. A woman who worked for him at the Trump Organization back in the day. Her two-year-old son, who was “perfect, beautiful, magnificent, flawless.” Then he got a shot and he was “just gone. Gone. Never the same. Beautiful boy. Then, just gone.” The CEOs all shrank back and tu...
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Weiser’s record: A system falling behind
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Weiser’s record: A system falling behind

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Every time a convicted felon in Colorado decides to fight their case on appeal, the state has to answer. Homicide. Sexual assault. White collar crime. Death row. It doesn't matter — the Attorney General's Criminal Appeals Section picks up every one. Thirty-four attorneys. Every felony appeal in the state. And for three straight years, they haven't been able to keep up. The cost of that starts before a single case is decided. The state tracks response briefs through mandatory SMART Act performance filings. One metric counts how many are overdue — cases where the office has not filed within the deadline set by the Colorado Appellate Rules.  The Attorney General's office sets its own annual target for how ma...
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Lawmakers Move To Level Playing Field Between Lobbyists And State Agencies
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Colorado Public Radio, Approved, State

Lawmakers Move To Level Playing Field Between Lobbyists And State Agencies

By Rae Solomon | Colorado Public Radio Governor Jared Polis is strongly pushing back against a proposal that would treat legislative staff in his administration like any other lobbyist.  The primary job of those workers, called legislative liaisons, is to try to sway lawmakers and change legislation. They’re essentially lobbyists for the state government and the Polis administration, but they aren’t required to follow the same disclosure rules that govern most lobbyists.  A bipartisan bill moving through the statehouse would change that, a measure that appeared to ruffle feathers within Governor Jared Polis’s administration. “Staff members in the Governor’s office are not registered lobbyists, and it would be absurd to have them treated the same way,” ...
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Bongino Fears Retaliation After Uncovering Sensitive Crossfire Hurricane File
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Just The News, Approved, National

Bongino Fears Retaliation After Uncovering Sensitive Crossfire Hurricane File

By Misty Severi | Just the News Bongino, who left the bureau in January after roughly 10 months in the job, said he found the document in a burn bag that was related to the FBI probe into allegations of Russian collusion in President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino confessed in an interview Tuesday that he lives in constant fear that he’ll face retaliation after he shed light on corruption in the bureau and because of a document he found related to Crossfire Hurricane. Bongino, who left the bureau in January after roughly 10 months in the job, said he found the document in a burn bag that was related to the FBI probe into allegations of Russia collusion in President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. The former deputy director c...
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PERA Program Designed to Help Rural Schools Has Potential for Abuse
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

PERA Program Designed to Help Rural Schools Has Potential for Abuse

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project A reader messaged me recently about concerns they had in their own local district. The concern centers around who was getting hired (well, re-hired) at their local school district. For a number of reasons, it’s not feasible to go and check out the reader’s district, but I hung on to the story because it felt like a good learning opportunity to share something I learned about, and it might be a concern you share. As best as I can tell (there may have been laws that refined or changed the original program), a 2017 law which I link to first below created a program in PERA, the Public Employees Retirement Association, to help get teachers into rural schools. In order to understand how this works, I have to bac...
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Federal Indictment Fuels New Questions Over Federal Handling Of COVID Origins And Vaccine Risks
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Just The News, Approved, National

Federal Indictment Fuels New Questions Over Federal Handling Of COVID Origins And Vaccine Risks

By Greg Piper | Just the News Indictment alleges quid pro quo between EcoHealth Alliance, Fauci senior advisor started with an "upper-mid tier" wine delivery. Sen. Johnson says FDA knew government database "masked" vaccine injuries, rejected transparency update. David Morens, senior advisor to former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci for 16 years, spent much of his career studying the threat of viral outbreaks posed by birds, especially when infections jump from wild fowl to poultry. Now he's facing the possibility of prison. The chickens have come home to roost for Morens, two years after congressional subpoenas exposed his avowed practice of circumventing the Freedom of Information Act to hide conversations ...
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Concerns Mount Over Transparency And Authority In State Capitol
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Commentary, State

Concerns Mount Over Transparency And Authority In State Capitol

By Jon Caldara | Commentary, The Denver Gazette The great 19th-century historian Lord Acton said it best: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Acton was building on the teachings of his mentor, Homer Simpson, who put it more plainly: “The more power you have, the more you can mess things up. Woo-hoo!” And many in Colorado’s political elite have studied under the original oracle of power, Eric Cartman: “Respect my authoritah!” If there were a motto for the progressive machine that now rules Colorado, it would be simple: “Because we f***ing can, that’s why.” Ethics don’t matter. Consistency doesn’t matter. Respecting the will of the people, or even the institution of democracy itself, doesn’t matter. Raw political power to im...
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Polis Orders Review After State Agency Misses Red Flags In Hiring Process
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Polis Orders Review After State Agency Misses Red Flags In Hiring Process

By Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun The former regional executive director of CASA of Adams and Broomfield counties was hired by the state Behavioral Health Administration in November. The state Behavioral Health Administration, which lost its first two commissioners amid allegations of mismanagement, hired a deputy commissioner without checking with the nonprofit where she had worked for 12 years or learning she was under investigation for stealing $99,000 in a tuition-reimbursement scheme, The Colorado Sun has learned. Lindsay Salas, who was hired in November as a deputy behavioral health commissioner at the 4-year-old state agency, worked there until Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office revealed this week that Salas doctored tuition reimbursement records to take...
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Weiser’s record: 27,000 complaints. 17 settlements.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Weiser’s record: 27,000 complaints. 17 settlements.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice When a Coloradan files a consumer complaint with the attorney general's office — a contractor who vanished with a deposit, a lender charging illegal interest, a landlord who pocketed a security deposit without cause — the office receives it, logs it and adds it to a database. The complaint may help build a future case. It informs trend reports. For the person who filed it, that is usually where it ends. Coloradans filed a record 26,993 complaints with Attorney General Phil Weiser's Consumer Protection Section last fiscal year. That's nearly three times the number filed when Weiser took office in 2019. His March 2026 press release describes the growth as "over 200 percent." His office's own annual figures put the actual increa...
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Colorado Democrats Push Bill Expanding Lawsuits Against Public Officials
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Democrats Push Bill Expanding Lawsuits Against Public Officials

By Marissa Ventrelli | The Denver Gazette Colorado Democrats are considering a bill that would let people sue federal, state, and local officials for alleged constitutional violations — a change supporters say would check government power, while critics warn it could trigger a surge of lawsuits against public employees. Senate Bill 176, dubbed the “No Kings Act,” is sponsored by Sens. Mike Weissman, D-Aurora, and Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, and Reps. Javier Mabrey, D-Denver, and Yara Zokaie, D-Fort Collins, would allow individuals who have been subjected to a “deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities” afforded in the U.S. Constitution to sue for civil damages within two years of the alleged violation. The bill still permits federal officials to claim absolute...
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