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Tag: Government Accountability

Federal audit finds housing benefits paid to 221 deceased recipients in Colorado
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New York Post, Approved, State

Federal audit finds housing benefits paid to 221 deceased recipients in Colorado

By Ryan King | New York Post The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is investigating whether Colorado providers helped nearly 3,000 people swindle taxpayer money from Uncle Sam, The Post has learned. The investigation comes after an internal HUD audit found that benefits were granted to 221 dead people, while another 87 were otherwise ineligible. The department also said that another 2,519 beneficiaries will need to undergo additional verification. “From deceased tenants to individuals receiving HUD housing benefits who were never supposed to, the Department has questions for HUD-supported housing providers in Colorado, and we expect prompt answers and enforcement action,” a HUD spokesperson told The Post. READ THE FULL STORY AT T...
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Colorado Justices Question Whether Cities Can Withhold Key Facts To Beat Lawsuits
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Justices Question Whether Cities Can Withhold Key Facts To Beat Lawsuits

By Michael Karlik | Colorado Politics Members of the Colorado Supreme Court seemed to be on different pages when they considered on Tuesday whether a woman injured by a sidewalk defect in Manitou Springs was forever barred from suing the actual entity responsible because she did not learn until it was too late that Colorado Springs was the proper defendant. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal of Jaimi J. Mostellar after a judge on the state’s second-highest court suggested lawmakers revise the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act to prevent public entities from torpedoing lawsuits by withholding the identity of the actual party responsible for an injury. The immunity law, with limited exceptions, shields public entities from lawsuits over injuries they cause. Its...
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COVID and the Collapse of Wisdom: How Fear, Certainty, and Coercion Broke Human Coexistence
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

COVID and the Collapse of Wisdom: How Fear, Certainty, and Coercion Broke Human Coexistence

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice A recent CNN report says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning to place a “black box” warning on COVID-19 vaccines, the agency’s most serious safety label for medicines. This warning is meant to highlight life-threatening risks that doctors and patients must consider. The report says this move is unusual because such warnings are rare for vaccines and could change how people see COVID-19 immunizations. The plan is not finalized and may change, but it represents a major shift from how vaccines were framed earlier in the pandemic. This recent development affirms the doubts many people had from the beginning about how information was shared, how risk was communicated, and how baseless the certainty experts and o...
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SMART Act hearings offer rare oversight of Colorado state agencies
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

SMART Act hearings offer rare oversight of Colorado state agencies

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project SMART act: speak up at state department/division hearings The Colorado SMART act (see the first link below for the bill) is the formalism by how our state legislature provides oversight of various governmental agencies. Reading through the bill makes me nod with approval while at the same time pegging my scoff meter. What I mean is that the language is lofty, and I’m not sure how much genuine oversight happens. The good news is that (regardless of the effectiveness of the oversight) a SMART act hearing is your chance to speak up if you have comment about a particular department or division of a department. I will use the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee as my example for this ...
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Phil Weiser’s Failed Experiment in Criminal Justice
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Phil Weiser’s Failed Experiment in Criminal Justice

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice  It has become a common theme in many states and cities that the authorities who are responsible for the long-term safety and security of their residents, nevertheless subscribe to the popular fallacy that locking up criminals does little to deter future offenses and is less effective in the long run that social programs or rehabilitation efforts, however those might be defined.  The theory here is that criminals aren’t responsible for their actions, Society is primarily to blame.  The policies of Colorado’s attorney general, Phil Weiser, and the Democrat dominated Colorado legislature prove how foolish and misguided this theory is.  In 2019, the Colorado legislature eliminated the option of cash bail for...
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Colorado cuts health subsidies for illegal immigrants with lottery system deciding who keeps coverage
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Colorado Public Radio, Approved, State

Colorado cuts health subsidies for illegal immigrants with lottery system deciding who keeps coverage

By Mateo Schimpf | CPR News On Nov. 17, phones started lighting up at a first-floor office in north Denver. Hundreds of people wanted to know whether they had won the lottery, and if not, if they had other options. The callers were not looking for the winning Powerball combination. They wanted to know whether they would be able to afford health insurance next year. The days leading up to Nov. 17 were excruciating for Blanca, who’s 52 and a single mother, and whose last name we’re not using because of concerns she could be targeted by federal law enforcement due to her immigration status.  She’s among 12,000 undocumented Coloradans who received subsidies from the state to get free health insurance through the OmniSalud program in 2025. But she had to wait to see if she w...
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The numbers didn’t match: El Paso’s canvass exposes a statewide reporting failure the state never explained
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

The numbers didn’t match: El Paso’s canvass exposes a statewide reporting failure the state never explained

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado voters expected a routine post–Election Day canvass after the November 4 coordinated election. Instead, El Paso County became ground zero for the latest crisis involving Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office after a canvass board member noticed that the numbers on the state’s website didn’t match the county’s certified reports. The mismatch surfaced publicly after businessman and election analyst Peter Bernegger posted screenshots of the Election Night Reporting (ENR) CSV file on Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/PeterBernegger/status/1991610012989329540?s=20 What began as one discrepancy quickly revealed a statewide reporting failure. The ENR CSV file published by the Secretary of State contained contest-level totals that ...
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A mother, a signature and a shutdown: The Waltmans’ five-year battle for answers
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

A mother, a signature and a shutdown: The Waltmans’ five-year battle for answers

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice In the photo Vira Waltman is 91, holding her great-granddaughter Everly. “She was joyful and funny,” said her granddaughter Lauren Tacheny. “She was teasing Everly about touching her Shirley Temple doll—that was her personality: protective, spunky and sharp-witted.” Vira Jean Waltman with her great-granddaughter Everly, weeks before Colorado’s COVID-19 lockdown. Up until the year before she died, Vira was still playing piano and organ at the All Saints Lutheran Church chapel in Brush every Christmas Eve service. “Music was everything to her,” said her grandson Ian Waltman. A law that disappeared behind glass For years, her son John Waltman carried his mother’s notarized Medical Durable Power of Attorney. “It was supp...
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Colorado Among States That Handed Out $1.4B in Medicaid Funds to Illegals
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The Federalist, Approved, National

Colorado Among States That Handed Out $1.4B in Medicaid Funds to Illegals

By: Breccan F. Thies | The Federalist Five states and Washington, D.C., funneled more than $1.35 billion in federal taxpayer Medicaid funding to illegals, according to a preliminary audit of the program completed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS Administrator Dr. Mehemet Oz posted the results of the preliminary audit on social media showing California, D.C., Illinois, Washington, Colorado, and Oregon spent millions each on illegals, with California spending the bulk, topping over $1.3 billion alone. That money, according to Oz, was spent “just in the last few months.” The left constantly claims this does not, or even cannot, happen because it is against federal law to use programs like Medicaid — something meant for Americans — fo...
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