Month: April 2022

(Colorado Peak Politics)

Gov. Polis announced Colorado taxpayers will get a $400 refund this summer using Taxpayer Bill of Rights refunds that Democrats like him once wanted to eliminate entirely.

Democrats have been critics of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights since the beginning and regularly try to overturn it, which makes their sudden support especially comical.

The refunds Polis announced Monday were already mandated under this law, but Democrats decided to advance the payments from next spring to August, just before the fall midterms.

They are engaging in some unprecedented election year shenanigans:

“It’s money that would have to be refunded anyway. They just changed how it’s refunded – and are sending it before the election,” [Michael Fields] told Colorado Politics. “This is an election year ploy to try to get Coloradans to forget about all the fees and taxes that Democrats have passed during the last 3 years.”

This is a good time to remind everyone that Governor Polis:

-opposed TABOR refunds in 2019
-decriminalized fentanyl in 2019
-raised the gas tax in 2021
-raised property taxes in 2021 #copolitics

— Michael Fields (@MichaelCLFields) April 25, 2022

The move is an incredibly shameless shift for Polis, who campaigned along with Democrats in the state legislature for Proposition CC in 2019.

The measure would have allowed the state to keep the very Taxpayer Bill of Rights refunds that Polis will no doubt feature in ads for his reelection this year.

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(Complete Colorado Page Two)

The next step in closing the escape hatches from Colorado’s government mandate health coverage prison is House Bill 22-1269. A mean-spirited bill, it requires that health sharing groups operating in other states report to the Colorado Commissioner of Insurance even if just one Colorado resident is a member.

Established health sharing groups were exempted from the Obamacare mandates. People in these groups donate stipulated monthly amounts to pay for other members’ health expenses. Their donations may be routed directly to a member who has asked for help. Generally limited to extraordinary expenses rather than routine care, sharing payments are not guaranteed and the amount of sharing per condition may be explicitly limited. The payments are not tax deductible. Christian religious belief may be required. Some groups bar both smokers and illegal drug users, as well as prospective members with certain pre-existing conditions.

These groups mind their own business, impose no charges on Colorado residents, and have not been the source of any reported problems. They have provided help with health care expenses for people who could no longer afford to purchase their own coverage once Obamacare ended health insurance in favor of prepaid health care at ruinous rates.

So, why do Colorado legislators think that health sharing plans are so harmful that they want to impose substantial regulatory costs on their members and spend an estimated $100,000 a year compiling a report on the data the plans will provide,

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(Colorado Peak Politics)

A Republican candidate running for Congress to replace Ed Perlmutter in the 7th District is arguing that unaffiliated voters have the right to help pick which GOP candidates can run in the party primary.

Brad Dempsey’s petition to participate in the party primary fell short by 251 signers, while 287 signers were eliminated by the Secretary of State’s office because they were not Republican Party voters. 

Now Dempsey is suing Secretary of State Jena Griswold, claiming that since unaffiliated voters are permitted to vote in party primaries, they should also be allowed to participate in a political party’s nominating process.

From Colorado Politics: 

Citing Proposition 108, a 2016 ballot measure approved in 2016 that permits unaffiliated voters to cast ballots in either the Democratic or Republican primary, Dempsey said in a statement that Colorado voters made it clear that they wanted to enable unaffiliated voters to have a say on which candidates would receive the nomination from the respective major political parties in Colorado.

So now we find ourselves on a very slippery slope of, what next? 

Do we open party assemblies to unaffiliated voters to participate in the party process, become a party delegate and act as a party member to choose candidates for the party’s primary?

Because that would technically make them members of the party, and they would no longer be unaffiliated voters.

Or, we could just declare everyone unaffiliated and abolish both parties.

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(Complete Colorado Page Two)

EDGEWATER — The Edgewater City Council has significantly scaled back — at least for now — most of what it planned to consider in way of new gun rights restrictions being encouraged by an anti-gun advocacy group, after dozens of residents and others emailed and showed up at an April 19 work session to express their displeasure on possible ordinances targeting gun owners.

Edgewater is a metro-area home rule city of just over 5,000 people bordered by Denver to the east, Lakewood to the south and west, and Wheat Ridge to the north.

The potential ordinances that the council decided to continue discussion on were:

• Prohibiting open carry of guns city-wide.
• Prohibiting licensed concealed carry in city-owned buildings and parks.
• Prohibiting licensed conceal carry in daycare centers and preschools.
• Banning so-called “ghost guns,” a name given by anti-gun activists to guns made by individuals, but that do not have serial numbers.
• Setting a waiting period for buying a firearm of 3-10 days.
• Dealer regulations with an effective date grandfathering in Edgewater’s one gun dealer.
• Mandatory reporting requirement for lost or stolen guns, which is already covered under state law.

Although Denver has long banned open carry and recently announced its intent to look at banning conceal carry in public spaces including parks and city buildings, and other communities have put in place a patchwork of other restrictions,

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Visitors walk outside the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File) more

By Joseph Clark

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The Washington Times
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Saturday, April 23, 2022

A man who attempted to self-immolate in front of the Supreme Court has died, authorities said Saturday.

Wynn Bruce, 50, from Boulder Colorado was airlifted to the hospital Friday evening after attempting to set himself on fire on the plaza in front of the Supreme C

This article was published at The Washington Times. Read it in its entirety here. Read More

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