(National Review) Griswold filed her brief a week ahead of the Supreme Court’s date for oral arguments, which are scheduled to be heard on February 8…
This article was published at National Review. Read it in its entirety here. Read More
Month: January 2024
(Complete Colorado Page Two)
(You can listen to this column, read by the author, here.)
I must have hit that age. Nostalgia keeps overtaking me.
I remember a Colorado that had thriving, competitive newspapers in every city, along with equally thriving local radio to keep them in check.
There was a time when local radio was big.
Colorado, and the Front Range in particular, had some of the most competitive radio wars in the country due to more stations than similarly sized metro areas.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocated radio frequencies very miserly, so one station’s broadcast wouldn’t bleed into another’s. And since the Front Range market was so far away from other big urban markets, we had more radio real estate available.
Hard to have local talk radio in New York City without it spilling all over New Jersey. Not the problem here.
And Colorado stations wove their way into our community. You spent time with those local guys on radio. Love ’em or hate ’em, you might spend hours a day with them.
Recently we just lost one of the greatest as the voice of the University of Colorado Buffaloes and the Denver Broncos, Larry Zimmer, passed away.
I remember as a kid my old man turning down the sound on the TV set during the Bronco games and turning on “850 KOA,” along with most Bronco fans,
(Colorado Peak Politics)
The lack of affordable housing is nothing new to working class folks across the state’s swanky ski resorts who have struggled since the 1980s to pay the rent.
Now those who lived like paupers to actually buy a property are about to get mugged for their effort by Gov. Polis, who broke his pledge to slash the 2024 property tax spike.
Aspen Daily News reports it’s not just the rich, but the locals who are taking some of the biggest hits.
In Pitkin County, tax bills surged from 43% for an infamous McMansion on Red Mountain to 75% for a longtime local’s home in Brush Creek Village.
One home behind the El Jebel City Market more than doubled in price to nearly $860,000 after state-mandated tax revaluations last year, with a tax bill of $4,300.
Tax bills are doubling for other homes by the thousands, while the rich are facing bills upwards of $20,000, the News reports.
In Eagle County, it’s been a month since county commissioners considered offering tax relief to its residents.
Yet in the Vail Daily report, it sounded more like commissioners were in favor of local governments taking the bigger chunks of working local’s property taxes to pay for their own paychecks and health care.
Adding insult to injury, Chief Financial Officer Jill Klosterman suggested that taxpayers also pick up the tab for people who can’t afford to pay their property taxes.
(Colorado Peak Politics)
The Colorado legislature, as featured on Libs of Tik Tok, wants to make it easier for convicted felons to change their names — but only those seeking gender affirming care.
When Libs of TikTok pick up a story about Colorado legislators, you know you are in trouble. @coloradodems #COLeg #COPolitics https://t.co/9l6MQISAbh
— Watty Strickland (@wattystrick) January 29, 2024
The story featured in the video is from 9News, which highlighted this person’s unverified claim about Florida law, that we could not substantiate.
Florida does have a three-strikes law for felony offenders. But charging prostitutes with a felony for getting three misdemeanors?
It didn’t check out with Google, and 9New didn’t attribute that information to anyone except Tiara Kelley.
“So in Florida, when you have three of a similar charge, whether they’re misdemeanors, and they’re three of a similar charge, they become a felony charge, so that’s where my felony came from, was from being a sex worker and having three different charges for that,” she said.
Kelley said that her felony conviction changed her world. As she began her gender affirming care, a piece of her past always remained: her legal name. She said it is a name she no longer identifies with and shudders when she hears it.
Colorado’s law already states that a person’s name can be changed for “good cause.”
Democrat state Rep.
(Complete Colorado Page Two)
Why do people in government refuse to listen when voters say no?
This year’s House Bill 24-1075 would require the Colorado School of Public Health to “research and deliver” model legislation for a single payer health care system. In single payer systems, government sets health care prices, determines treatments, and then decides who gets treated. Health care providers can go to jail for accepting any payment from any entity other than the state.
In 2016, almost 79 percent of Colorado voters rejected single payer care. They voted against Amendment 69, a single payer health plan for Colorado.
In response, the legislature created the Colorado Commission on Affordable Health Care.
When the Commission’s final report did not recommend a single payer plan in 2017, the legislature created a “Health Cost Analysis Task Force” in 2019, which in turn hired the Colorado School of Public Health to conduct a “financial analysis” comparing single payer health system costs with existing system costs. The economically illiterate conclusion was that single payer “pricing regulations” could control health care cost growth, and that Coloradans supported single payer. That conclusion rested on an analysis of personal interviews with fewer than 100 people and 550 responses to an online survey.
The School of Public Health is to deliver Colorado’s single payer plan, price controls and all, to the legislature by July 1, 2024. Given that delivery is required just a few months after the bill’s passage,
(Colorado Peak Politics)
Gov. Polis’s cronies at Parks and Wildlife have apologized for being so secretive and deceitful with ranchers and locals about releasing dangerous wolves into their backyard and promises to be more cooperative and transparent in the future.
We suspect it’s a trap.
And so it is, confirms Rachel Gabel, assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, and a member of one of the state’s 12,000 cattle-raising families.
Writing in Colorado Politics, Gabel reveals we’re just all being lulled into complacency long enough for Polis to screw us yet again when it comes to his new appointments to lead the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission (CPW).
Apologies and assurances mean nothing so long as no one is willing to stand against Gov. Jared Polis’s extremist appointees and demand special interests not be given free rein. Jessica Beaulieu, Gary Skiba and Jack Murphy, the governor’s three most recent CPW Commission appointees who have not yet received Senate confirmation, ought not be confirmed by the full Senate.
Voting against this confirmation is a small step that carries a huge message. If voters are unwilling to draw a line in the sand and refuse to allow the governor to run roughshod, packing commissions like CPW with those willing to push agendas favored by environmental groups, the special-interest crowd will remain emboldened.
The problem with Polis’s nominees is their lack of actual experience with wildlife management or recreation,
(Bleacher Report)
Set Number: X164461
Travis Kelce earned the Kansas City Chiefs’ first touchdown of Sunday’s AFC Championship by catching a 19-yard pass from quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the first quarter.
He also earned praise from University of Colorado Boulder football coach Deion Sanders.
COACH PRIME @DeionSanders
@tkelce is HIM!!!!!!
Before helping the Chiefs out to early lead Sunday, Kelce had already played a key role in his team’s sixth straight trip to the AFC title game.
The tight end hauled in five catches for 75 yards and two touchdowns in the Chiefs’ 27-24 divisional round victory over the Buffalo Bills last Sunday.
This isn’t the first time Sanders has publicly lauded Kelce, who is in his ninth consecutive Pro Bowl season for Kansas City. He also sang the Chiefs star’s praises while speaking to Bleacher Report’s Taylor Rooks before the NFL season.
“Travis Kelce is it, man,” Sanders said in September. “I love everything about Travis Kelce. He’s like a little brother to me. I’m serious. He’s like the guy I can call at any time and be like, hey dawg, whatcha doing? He’s always in a good mood and he just dominates every weekend. He has that je ne sais quoi off the field and I love that.”
Kelce, who has similarly praised Sanders’ efforts to turn around the Colorado football program, might be receiving one of those calls from Sanders later Sunday night if his early score helps the Chiefs upset the Ravens.
This article was published at Bleacher Report. Read it in its entirety here. Read More
(Colorado Peak Politics)
Sanctuary City has thousands of new students this school year who are projected to cost Denver Public Schools an additional $17.5 million.
Hang onto your wallets PeakNation™ because state taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill for the additional costs above Denver school’s $1.3 billion annual budget this year.
Thanks to President Biden’s open asylum policy, the influx of migrant students in Denver has risen to almost 3,000 and continues to grow weekly.
Denver Public Schools is asking the state for a one-time adjustment in increased funding, which must be approved and funded by the state legislature, reports the Denver Post.
Denver schools are currently juggling some money already in the coffers, and the dip in enrollment from past years can take up some slack.
So how many more taxpayer dollars are needed to hire Spanish speaking teachers and provide other resources to migrant children as their parents wait years for an asylum hearing?
The Post didn’t report a price tag.
With more students arriving weekly, we suspect the cash register just keeps dinging.
Until Democrats get serious about reverting to the pre-Biden era of asylum seekers getting their status granted before they come to the U.S., this influx of the world’s impoverished citizenry will continue to overwhelm U.S. resources and what we can reasonably provide.
And beware of Democrat lip service by politicians claiming to support strong borders,
(Complete Colorado Page Two)
“Build the wall,” Trump says, for immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of our country. Many Americans agree. A CBS/YouGov poll asked, “Do you agree or disagree with the statement that immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are ‘poisoning the blood’ of the country?” 45% agreed, 55% disagreed. Among Republican registered voters, 72% agreed, and 82% did when the language was attributed to Trump.
We like to think that the eugenics movement is far behind us and a campaign only of Nazis. Not so. Rhetoric about immigrants “poisoning our blood” harks back to America’s extremely popular eugenics movement of the early 1900s. The Nazis based their own sterilization law partly on those passed by a majority of U.S. states, partly on model legislation crafted by American Harry Laughlin. Hitler called “The Passing of the Great Race,” by American Madison Grant, his “Bible.” U.S. immigration restrictions of the time, which prevented many Jews caught in the Nazi scourge from finding refuge in America, were in part an outgrowth of the eugenics movement.
Recently, in horror, I watched the PBS documentary “The Eugenics Crusade.” The film relates that on October 19, 1927, Carrie Buck of Virginia was forcibly sterilized after she was raped and her foster parents had her committed to the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded.
The resulting court case wound to the Supreme Court, where Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes defended sterilization, lest the country be “swamped with incompetence.” He wrote,
(Colorado Peak Politics)
The gloves are off in the 4th district congressional race where nine candidates running to replace Ken Buck jockeyed for position at a debate and straw poll event Thursday in Fort Lupton.
Long story short, Western Slope transplant Lauren Boebert came in 5th place out of 117 votes cast.
The event was sponsored by the Republican Women of Weld. Here’s the scorecard:
22 votes — Logan County Commissioner Jerry Sonnenberg
20 votes — State Rep. Mike Lynch
18 voters — Former congressional candidate Deborah Flora
17 votes — House Minority Whip Richard Holtorf
12 votes — 3rd District U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert
11 votes — Former congressional nominee Peter Yu
7 votes — Former state Sen. Ted Harvey
5 votes — Weld County Councilman Trent Leisy
3 votes — Former congressional staffer Chris Phelen
The vote came on the heels of a 90-minute debate. Watch it here.
The event also featured a debate and straw poll for the 8th congressional race against Democrat incumbent Yadira Caraveo.
State Rep. Gabe Evans won with 69 votes, Weld County Commissioner Scott James came in second with 38 votes, and Air Force veteran Joe Andujo ran third with 13 votes. Watch that debate here.
Apparently, several attendees walked away undecided, in what will most assuredly be one of the most watched congressional races in the country.