Government Accountability - Rocky Mountain Voice

Colorado’s bill boom: 56 percent growth since 2012 sparks right-to-know push

27Feb

By External OutletNo Comments

Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s bill boom: 56 percent growth since 2012 sparks right-to-know push

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project The legislation piles up so fast, you cannot keep up I was texting with a friend the other day and we both agreed that the legislative pace is beyond human-scale. The laws and, frankly, the nonsense, pile up so fast it's nearly impossible to keep up.My impression seems to be borne out by the Common Sense Institute study linked at bottom. The bullet points out of the study's abstract put numbers to things. Quoting:--The growth of Colorado’s legislative output since 2012 is 56%—4th-highest in the country--In 2025, the legislature passed 487 bills. Although this is a decrease from 2024’s 527, it is still 23% more than the average between 2012 and 2018--The average complexity of passed legislation has increased ...

Declassified Cold War CIA Files Detail Secret Government Mind Control Experiments

26Feb

By External OutletNo Comments

Daily Mail, Approved, National

Declassified Cold War CIA Files Detail Secret Government Mind Control Experiments

By Stacy Liberatore | Daily Mail A newly released CIA document reveals a chilling blueprint to manipulate minds through covert drugging experiments. The report, added to the CIA's reading room in 2025, details the government's once top-secret Project Artichoke that ran from 1951 to 1956, focusing on behavior control, interrogation techniques and psychological manipulation. The seven-page document, titled 'Special Research for Artichoke,' with an attachment labeled 'Suggested Fields for Special Research Relative Artichoke,' outlines proposals to develop chemicals capable of altering human behavior. It discusses drugs designed for both immediate effects, like truth serums and long-term influence, potentially administered through food, water, alcohol...

FBI Quietly Planned for Disputed 2020 Election Long Before Capitol Riot

9Feb

By External OutletNo Comments

Just The News, Approved, National

FBI Quietly Planned for Disputed 2020 Election Long Before Capitol Riot

By John Solomon and Steven Richards | Just the News What did they know, and when did they know it? The memos from 2020 recently turned over to Congress by FBI Director Kash Patel also warned that foreign enemies like Iran and China were likely to foment domestic violence on U.S. soil. The FBI conducted a tabletop exercise in summer 2020 that imagined what sort of violence might ensue in a contested presidential election that year, devising strategies like undercover informants and mass prosecutions for minor crimes that it would later use with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, documents obtained by Just the News show. FBI Director Kash Patel turned over the long-secret memos to Congress last week, providing fresh evidence that federal law enforcement was acutely con...

RTD Accountability Panel Calls for Smaller Board and Structural Reforms

5Feb

By External OutletNo Comments

DENVER7, Approved, Local

RTD Accountability Panel Calls for Smaller Board and Structural Reforms

By Colette Bordelon | Denver7 DENVER — Over the course of roughly four months, where 12 meetings totaled to 43 hours, a group designed to hold a major Colorado public transit agency accountable produced 31 recommendations they presented to state lawmakers on Wednesday. The Regional Transportation District (RTD) serves eight counties along the Front Range. Problems like crime and drug use have plagued the public transportation system, which has also suffered from low ridership numbers. "I believe in a robust, reliable, safe, environmentally conscious RTD system," said Maria Garcia Berry, the Chair of the RTD Accountability Committee. "Right now, RTD has one of the lowest riderships of all its peers, and it's not recovered from the pandemic." The&...

Lawmakers press agencies as SMART Act hearings expose budget growth and policy shifts

4Feb

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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Lawmakers press agencies as SMART Act hearings expose budget growth and policy shifts

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado The hearings were billed as SMART. The answers raised harder questions. The last two weeks have been full of SMART Act (State Measurement for Accountable, Responsive, and Transparent Government) hearings at the Capitol with a smattering of committee work on bills. The Joint Judiciary Committee met for three days, and the Joint Health and Human Services Committee met for two. Here are some of the highlights from the hearings. Attorney General Phil Weiser presented to the Joint Judiciary Committee on behalf of the Department of Law (DOL). During his presentation, he stated that Colorado, at his direction, has filed 51 lawsuits against the Trump Administration for a cost of approximatel...

Medicaid billing error cost Colorado tens of millions, officials acknowledge

3Feb

By External OutletNo Comments

Approved, Colorado Accountability Project, Commentary, Red State

Medicaid billing error cost Colorado tens of millions, officials acknowledge

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project HCPF really did accidentally pay millions in Medicaid claims. In an earlier op ed about Colorado's Medicaid expansion (see the first link below) and how that puts our state at higher risk of fraud, waste, and/or abuse, I asked the Colorado Division of Healthcare Policy and Financing, HCPF, the state unit which adminsiters Medicaid, about what they do to prevent or stop such problems.Their spokesperson responded with:“We constantly look out for fraud, waste and abuse (FWA) across all services & programs, but some programs or services are more susceptible to FWA than others. We have various processes/procedures in place for ‘high risk’ services to prevent inappropriate payments from going out the door. Tho...

Federal Fraud Probe And Climate Lawsuits Puts Minnesota AG Keith Ellison Under Scrutiny

3Feb

By External OutletNo Comments

Fox News, Approved, National

Federal Fraud Probe And Climate Lawsuits Puts Minnesota AG Keith Ellison Under Scrutiny

By Emma Colton | Fox News Ellison has defended partnerships with NYU and Sher Edling for climate litigation. A sweeping fraud scandal is putting Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in the spotlight, reviving questions about his controversial ties to progressive environmental causes. Ellison, who has served as attorney general since 2019 after more than a decade in Congress, has long-drawn conservative criticism for aligning his office with left-wing priorities, from climate litigation to political fights over immigration enforcement. Now, with a federal investigation underway into what prosecutors allege was a massive scheme to siphon taxpayer funds meant to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ellison is facing intensified atte...

27Jan

By Guest CommentaryNo Comments

Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

The Age of Gaslighting Is Ending

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice You don’t get to do this again. You don’t get another George Floyd. You don’t get another COVID. You don’t get another “mostly peaceful” summer of chaos. You don’t get another shutdown. You don’t get another censorship campaign. You don’t get another government-media narrative that collapses the moment questions start getting answered. You don’t get another election season soaked in fear, confusion, and rule changes. You don’t get to burn trust to the ground and demand we clap for it. You don’t get to excuse violence when it benefits you, then act righteous when it doesn’t. We’ve watched fraud scandals, institutional coverups, and politically convenient “trut...

Why Congress keeps pressing NIH over bat research funding tied to CSU

22Jan

By Jen SchumannNo Comments

Rocky Mountain Voice, National, Top Stories

Why Congress keeps pressing NIH over bat research funding tied to CSU

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice The scrutiny hasn’t faded because the funding didn’t stop at a single lab. NIH records show CSU’s bat research support extending into overseas field work in Bangladesh, where a separate NIH award to EcoHealth Alliance also played a role—a convergence that has kept lawmakers focused on how these projects are monitored and connected. Congress is demanding more transparency from the NIH over bat research grants tied to Colorado State University, asking, “How many millions of tax dollars is NIH giving to live bat research and why?” In a Jan. 12, 2026 letter to NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, Sen. Joni Ernst and Rep. Paul Gosar called on the agency to cancel remaining funding tied to CSU bat research and to produce a full accounting of ...

How Colorado laws are really made: What Rep. Matt Soper says voters rarely see

13Jan

By Jen SchumannNo Comments

Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

How Colorado laws are really made: What Rep. Matt Soper says voters rarely see

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice The Colorado legislature is about to gavel in for another 120-day sprint, and with it comes a flood of bills most Coloradans will never see until the consequences land. What many don’t see is how quickly ideas move, who pushes them forward—and why outcomes can feel disconnected from public input. Few lawmakers are positioned to explain that gap as clearly as Matt Soper, now the longest-serving Republican in the House and widely regarded inside the building as the caucus “dean.” With term limits constantly churning the legislature, Soper has watched the same policy ideas cycle through multiple sessions, often repackaged and moving faster each time. “There’s the textbook version of how a bill becomes a law that everyone...

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Tag: Government Accountability

Colorado’s bill boom: 56 percent growth since 2012 sparks right-to-know push

Declassified Cold War CIA Files Detail Secret Government Mind Control Experiments

FBI Quietly Planned for Disputed 2020 Election Long Before Capitol Riot

RTD Accountability Panel Calls for Smaller Board and Structural Reforms

Lawmakers press agencies as SMART Act hearings expose budget growth and policy shifts

Medicaid billing error cost Colorado tens of millions, officials acknowledge

Federal Fraud Probe And Climate Lawsuits Puts Minnesota AG Keith Ellison Under Scrutiny

The Age of Gaslighting Is Ending

Why Congress keeps pressing NIH over bat research funding tied to CSU

How Colorado laws are really made: What Rep. Matt Soper says voters rarely see

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