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Tag: Government Oversight

When a remodel turns into a $60,000 lesson: One builder’s run-in with Colorado’s regulatory system
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

When a remodel turns into a $60,000 lesson: One builder’s run-in with Colorado’s regulatory system

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice When Rob Treta started expanding a small home for his girlfriend in Arvada, he thought he was dealing with a familiar problem—delays. “I submitted the plans and I said, ‘Hey, tell me what I need to do,’” Treta said. “They told me three to four weeks. It took 22 weeks. Nobody ever mentioned asbestos.” Treta has been building in Colorado for 30 years. He has worked across multiple counties, pulled permits, remodeled homes and built from the ground up. What changed isn’t entirely clear—but Treta said what he ran into felt unlike anything he had seen in decades of building. “I’ve probably built 60, 70 projects in my 30 years,” he said. “And I’ve never run into this before. Never.” This wasn’t how his projects usually went. It star...
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Federal Disinformation Initiative Flagged For Targeting U.S. Media Despite Assurances
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The Federalist, Approved, National

Federal Disinformation Initiative Flagged For Targeting U.S. Media Despite Assurances

By Margot Cleveland | The Federalist The evidence uncovered during litigation should shake Americans awake to the threat to their liberties. Staff with the Global Engagement Center (“GEC”) told a State Department official that its testbed platform “will NOT focus on US audiences,” but then proceeded to fund a trial targeting The Blaze — a Texas-based media outlet. The Federalist uncovered this detail during discovery in its lawsuit against the State Department and the GEC, which the plaintiffs settled last week after the Defendants agreed to detailed prophylactic measures to prevent similar violations of Americans’ First Amendment rights. The Federalist, along with The Daily Wire, sued the State Department and GEC in December of 2023, after learni...
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Lawmakers Face Tough Choices As Medicaid Spending Explodes Crushing State Budget
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Lawmakers Face Tough Choices As Medicaid Spending Explodes Crushing State Budget

By Nico Brambila | Colorado Politics The state’s Medicaid program — which covers about one in four Coloradans — is poised for its largest single-year jump in at least two decades, with officials proposing a $2.3 billion increase, even as lawmakers face a $1.5 billion budget shortfall. The data shows Medicaid enrollment has grown steadily, while spending has increased far more rapidly — more than fivefold since 2007. As lawmakers begin work this week on next year’s budget, they will have to grapple with Medicaid spending, which has overtaken K-12 education as the largest line item in the state budget. “What’s even more alarming, over the past five years, Medicaid expenses have averaged 19%,” said state Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican. “This ...
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CIA report flagged motherhood as extremism indicator before quiet retraction
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The Christian Post, Approved, National

CIA report flagged motherhood as extremism indicator before quiet retraction

By Ryan Foley | The Christian Post The Central Intelligence Agency retracted a Biden-era internal document warning about female “racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists" that listed the prioritization of “motherhood and homemaking," raising the concern of a conservative legal group.  In a thread posted to X last week, the legal organization America First Legal, founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller in 2021, shared screenshots of a now-retracted intelligence assessment compiled during the Biden administration. The document, titled “Women Advancing White Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists,” outlines concerns about women’s participation in “white racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism.” The intelligence assessme...
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The Democrats who funded Colorado’s 611% Medicaid overrun are running for Congress
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

The Democrats who funded Colorado’s 611% Medicaid overrun are running for Congress

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado is staring down a $1 billion budget hole. Disabled kids are losing healthcare. Dental benefits are getting capped at $750 a year. Two Democrats who helped create and fund Cover All Coloradans are now asking voters to send them to Congress. Shannon Bird stepped away from the statehouse to run full-time. That sets up a primary between Bird and Rep. Manny Rutinel in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, with Republican incumbent Gabe Evans waiting in November. It started with HB22-1289 in 2022, opening Medicaid-style coverage to children and pregnant women who otherwise met eligibility but didn’t qualify because of their immigration status. Bird voted yes. The early estimate was $14.7 million for the fiscal year, tied to an expe...
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Colorado House panel advances immigration bill after hours of testimony
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado House panel advances immigration bill after hours of testimony

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice After hours of testimony that moved between legal arguments, the House Judiciary committee advanced a sweeping immigration bill Tuesday. House Bill 26-1276 passed the committee on a 6–5 vote. The "Protect Safety of Individuals Who Are Immigrants" bill, sponsored by Reps. Elizabeth Velasco and Lorena García, focuses on how state and local entities interact with federal immigration enforcement through information sharing, task-force reporting, detention oversight and the use of public resources. Velasco told the committee the bill grew out of what sponsors saw as gaps in existing law. "This bill was written in response to issues…as well as growing concerns that we are seeing across Colorado and the nation," she said. That includ...
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Education Department Moves To Reveal Foreign Donors Funding US Universities
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The Daily Signal, Approved, National

Education Department Moves To Reveal Foreign Donors Funding US Universities

By Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell | The Daily Signal FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Department of Education will soon require universities to publicly disclose the counterparties of foreign funding, a senior Education Department official told The Daily Signal. Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires higher education institutions to report gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more to the Department of Education, to make them available for public inspection. Universities currently report counterparties, their gifters or contractors, to the agency. However, the identities of foreign counterparties are not made public, which the senior department official said violates the law. The totals received from counterparties of concern are listed in the Section...
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Former Judicial Discipline Director Files Federal Lawsuit Challenging Colorado Supreme Court Oversight
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Former Judicial Discipline Director Files Federal Lawsuit Challenging Colorado Supreme Court Oversight

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice A former top official inside Colorado’s judicial discipline system is accusing the state’s highest court of protecting itself — and says he was fired after trying to hold it accountable. Christopher S.P. Gregory’s federal lawsuit names an unusually broad group of defendants: the Colorado Judicial Discipline Rulemaking Committee, the Colorado Supreme Court, Governor Jared Polis, Attorney General Phil Weiser, current and former justices, senior judicial administrators, and other state officials. The breadth of the case is intentional. He is not just accusing individuals of wrongdoing. He is challenging the framework that he says allowed those individuals to influence — and ultimately suppress — the very pr...
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Audits Across 28 States Halt $5.7 Billion in Improper Spending
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Red State, Approved, National

Audits Across 28 States Halt $5.7 Billion in Improper Spending

By Ben Smith | RedState.com For years, fraud has been dismissed as a right-wing talking point from the Trump administration. A new report from state financial officers makes that claim harder to ignore. Across 28 states, auditors say they identified and stopped $5.7 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse in a single year. Those findings span Medicaid eligibility systems, local government budgets, payroll controls, and nonprofit oversight. The money did not disappear into thin air. It was tracked, documented, and stopped once someone chose to look. The State Financial Officers Foundation’s 2025 Oversight Report lays out what 40 state treasurers, auditors, and comptrollers say they uncovered after digging into eligibility systems, payment flows, an...
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From $8 Billion to $16 Billion: How Colorado’s Medicaid Budget Doubled in a Decade
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

From $8 Billion to $16 Billion: How Colorado’s Medicaid Budget Doubled in a Decade

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice If you ask most Colorado families how they feel about health care right now, the answers aren’t complicated. It’s expensive.It’s confusing.It keeps going up. And for taxpayers helping fund Colorado’s Medicaid program — known as Health First Colorado — another question has started to surface: If enrollment has come back down, why hasn’t spending followed? Ten years ago, Colorado’s Medicaid agency operated on roughly $8 billion. Today it’s closer to $16 billion. The Common Sense Institute (CSI) calculates that as 101 percent growth over the decade. CSI reports that the rest of the state operating budget grew 64 percent during that same period. The story of enrollment is different. ...
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