A Colorado judge on Friday ruled in favor of former President Donald Trump in a case that had sought to keep him off the state’s ballot for allegedly inciting an “insurrection” against the United States.
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Report: Mountain States Among ‘Most Free’ in North America
Mountain states rank among the “most free” in North America, according to a new report from the Fraser Institute.
The Canadian think tank employs 10 variables for its Economic Freedom of North America 2023 reports and scores states based on categories such as government spending, taxes, labor market freedom, legal system and property rights, sound money, and freedom to trade internationally.
Read MoreCommentary: Ken Buck Is Wrong About the J6 Defendants
U.S. Representative Ken Buck’s big wet sloppy kiss to Attorney General Merrick Garland last week could not have come at worse time for the Colorado Republican.
Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the federal court in Washington, D.C. was in the process of ordering prison time typically applied to murderers, drug traffickers, and serial child pornographers for five members of the Proud Boys convicted of no serious crime related to January 6. A well-known gun storage company faced backlash for assisting the FBI in yet another armed raid against a January 6 trespasser. And a young man from Utah took his own life just weeks after his arrest on four misdemeanors for his participation in January 6, at least the fourth known suicide of a Capitol protester.
Read MoreStates with Weaker Marijuana Laws See More Impaired Driving, Report Finds
A new report found that states with less restrictive marijuana policies have higher incidents of residents driving while high.
The Drug Free America Foundation released a new report showing that states that have legalized or weakened restrictions around high-THC marijuana, either for medical or recreational use, saw 32% more marijuana-impaired driving than states that have not adopted the same policies.
Read MoreGovernments Across America Spend Millions to Put Homeless in Hotels
In states like California, Colorado, Washington and Arizona, cities this summer are spending millions buying hotels and converting them to shelters for the homeless.
In Los Angeles, there is a ballot initiative in 2024 to require hotels to use vacant rooms to house homeless people besides paying customers. The American Hotel & Lodging Association has objected to the proposal.
Read MoreTexas Sends First Bus of Illegal Border Crossers to Los Angeles
A bus of foreign nationals who illegally entered Texas and were apprehended and released by the Biden administration were taken to Los Angeles for the first time, Gov. Greg Abbott said. They were dropped off at the Los Angeles Union Station Wednesday evening.
“Texas’ small border towns remain overwhelmed and overrun by the thousands of people illegally crossing into Texas from Mexico because of President Biden’s refusal to secure the border,” Abbott said. “Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly now that its city leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary city status. Our border communities are on the frontlines of President Biden’s border crisis, and Texas will continue providing this much-needed relief until he steps up to do his job and secure the border.”
Read MoreDrug Manufacturers, CVS, Walgreens Settle Another Opioid Lawsuit with 22 States for $17.3 Billion
Thirteen attorneys general announced settlements with opioid manufacturers Teva and Allergan on Friday, while 18 states settled with CVS and Walgreens for a total of $17.3 billion.
The attorneys general said settlement funds will start flowing into state and local governments by the end of this year and will be used for prevention and treatment of opioid addiction.
Read MoreReport: Colorado’s 32 Percent Increase in Crime Due to Changes in Prosecutions, Sentences
The crime rate in Colorado increased 32 percent from 2010 to 2022, a new report from a research group says.
The Common Sense Institute’s report, titled “The Fight Against Crime in Colorado: Policing, Legislation and Incarceration,” found the cost of crime in the state was nearly $30 billion in 2022. The cost of crime in Denver was $4 billion and $2.7 billion in Colorado Springs.
Read MoreCommentary: Catholic Campus Ministry Produces Priests at Liberal CU-Boulder
One Catholic campus ministry center is doing what it can to ensure future generations have priests – and it is accomplishing this work at a liberal school in a liberal town.
The St. Thomas Aquinas Center at the University of Colorado-Boulder continues to help young men realize their call to the priesthood.
Read MoreAdvocates Warn of ‘Desperate’ Movement to Undermine the Electoral College
An organization’s efforts to circumvent states’ rights are “getting desperate” as they try new ways to push their interstate compact through state legislatures, two pro-Electoral College advocacy groups told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The National Popular Vote (NPV) is a group initiative to reform the U.S.’ two-step, Electoral College system by ensuring that the candidate with the most popular votes nationwide becomes the president. Now that NPV has enacted its interstate compact in all of the “easy,” bluer states as a standalone bill, it is getting creative to force the law through in swing states like Minnesota, Nevada, Michigan and Maine, Trent England of Save Our States and Jasper Hendricks of Democrats for the Electoral College told the DCNF.
Read MoreSupreme Court Declines to Hear Energy Companies’ Appeals to Climate Damage Lawsuits
The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear local governments’ climate damage lawsuits against energy companies on Monday.
The companies, who localities want to hold financially accountable for burning fossil fuels they allege damaged the climate, appealed their cases to the Supreme Court, asking it to weigh in on whether the claims should be heard in state or federal courts. The Court’s decision benefits the environmental activists behind the lawsuits, who prefer the matter to play out in state courts, where judges may be more inclined to rule in their favor, experts previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Read MoreColorado Authorities Arrest 19 Year-Old Transgender Suspect for Alleged Attempt to Commit School Shootings
Colorado authorities have arrested a 19-year-old man who identifies as a woman for allegedly planning to shoot up multiple schools in the Colorado Springs area. The 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office filed formal charges Thursday against William Whitworth, who calls himself “Lilly Whitworth,” who allegedly planned to shoot up multiple schools in the Academy School District 20 (ASD20), Fox 21 News reported.
Read MoreSenator Calls for Apple, Alphabet to Boot TikTok from App Stores
A U.S. Senator has called on the nation’s top tech companies to break up with the popular short-form video service TikTok.
U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, asked Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai to remove TikTok from the company app stores immediately over national security concerns.
Read MoreFlorida Set to Receive Part of a Nearly $400 Million Settlement from Google over Location-Tracking Probe
Google agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 states after an investigation found that the tech giant participated in questionable location-tracking practices, state attorneys general announced Monday.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong called it a “historic win for consumers.”
Read MoreDemocratic Senator’s Wife Counsels ‘Strategic Ways’ to ‘Quietly’ Defund Police Without Backlash
Susan Daggett, an attorney and wife of Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, said in a video obtained by Just the News that there is a way to “quietly” defund police by reallocating funds and she hopes President Biden doesn’t run for reelection in 2024.
Daggett, law professor at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, was asked if President Biden should run for reelection in the undercover video, released by the media watchdog group Accuracy in Media.
Read MoreCongressional Republicans Deploy Election Observers to Watch Tight Races, Investigate Irregularities
Determined to use their oversight authority to ensure election integrity, House Republicans are deploying dozens of trained observers to key races around the country while dispatching letters putting federal and state officials on notice to look for any shenanigans in the midterms.
The effort led by Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, includes investigating how federal agencies are implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order instructing the U.S. government to expand voter registration, along with the training and deployment of House staff as observers under the authority of Congress.
Read MoreDemocratic Secretaries of State Warn ‘Independent State Legislature Theory’ Would Upend Elections
Thirteen Secretaries of State led by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court in Moore v. Harper, a case that will have the court considering the “independent state legislature” theory.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Moore v. Harper in December, a case brought forth after the Republican-controlled North Carolina Legislature adopted a new congressional voting map based on 2020 Census results. A group of Democratic voters and nonprofit organizations alleged the map was a partisan gerrymander that violated the state constitution and challenged it in court, according to Ballotpedia.
Read More30 Months into the COVID-19 Pandemic, at Least a Dozen States Are Under ‘Emergency’ Orders
In October 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court stripped Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of the unilateral powers she was using when she declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whitmer had been using a 1945 law – which was prompted by a three-day race riot in Detroit three years earlier – that had no sunset provision in it and didn’t require approval by the state legislature.
In May 2021, Whitmer told a news agency that if she still had that 1945 state-of-emergency law, she would use those powers, but not for anything related to a pandemic.
Read MoreStates Take a Stand on Value of Human Life: Oklahoma Protects Unborn Babies from Abortion, Colorado Dismisses Their Humanity
In just the span of about a week, legislation concerning ending the lives of unborn babies in two states starkly reveals that while many state lawmakers are standing up to protect human life, some appear to be underscoring the extremity with which they are prepared to go to dismiss it.
The states continue to take their respective stands in advance of the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, now awaiting a decision at the U.S. Supreme Court. The case is considered to present the most significant challenge to the Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973.
Read MoreRepublicans Take Aim at Colorado’s 7th Congressional District Seat
Republicans are targeting Colorado’s Seventh Congressional district seat for GOP takeover.
The National Republican Congressional Committee announced that they are targeting CO-7. The NRCC’s job is to win as many seats as possible in November in the effort to attain a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Read MoreTwo Key Senate Races Moved in GOP’s Direction by Noted Election Handicapper Cook Political Report
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Friday shifted its forecasts for two 2022 Senate races in the direction of Republicans.
The report moved the North Carolina Senate race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr moved from “toss-up” to “likely Republican.” And moved the Colorado Senate race, in which Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet is seeking a third term, from “solid Democrat” into the “likely Democrat” catagory.
The North Carolina GOP primary is now a competitive race between former President Trump-endorsed Rep. Ted Budd, former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker, with (with Budd and McCrory currently deadlocked).
Read MoreColorado Considers Dropping the Term ‘Sex Offender’ Because of ‘Negative Effects’
Colorado officials are set to vote Friday on whether to drop the term “sex offender” to describe people who engaged in “sexually abusive behavior,” due to “negative effects,” the Denver Post reported.
“I think the biggest thing is research really shows us that assigning a label has the potential for negative effects in rehabilitation,” said Kimberly Kline, chair of the Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB), according to the Denver Post. The board is considering a number of other possible terms for offending individuals, including adults “who commit sexual offenses” and “who engage in sexually abusive behavior.”
“The term ‘sex offender’ will continue to be used in Colorado statute and the criminal justice system, including courts, law enforcement and the Colorado Sex Offender Registry,” a SOMB spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The change being considered is limited in scope and applies only to the language used in the standards and guidelines for treatment providers who assess, evaluate and treat people convicted of sexual offenses.”
Read MoreAmid Bias Rebuke, FBI Raids Homes of GOP Election Clerk, Conservative Activists in Colorado
Even as the Department of Justice Inspector General released a report this week criticizing the politicization of the department, the FBI on Tuesday raided the homes of a Republican election official and several of her associates in Mesa County, Colo., in connection with a dispute about efforts to preserve 2020 election files.
In collaboration with state and county law enforcement, the FBI raided the homes of Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert’s former campaign manager Sherronna Bishop, and two others.
The FBI operations targeting skeptics of the 2020 election results follow the bureau’s raids earlier this month on the homes of conservative guerrilla journalist James O’Keefe and several of his associates with Project Veritas.
Read More‘White Allies/Accomplices’ Participate Separately from BIPOC Staff in University of Colorado at Boulder Diversity Program
The University of Colorado at Boulder is hosting monthly “BIPOC Identity” and “White Ally” meetups this semester that separate attendees based on race.
Specifically, The “monthly meetups,” which the Institute of Cognitive Science and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences sponsors, comprise groups for “Black, Indigenous or other people of color” and another for “white allies/accomplices.”
Read More‘Non-Partisan’ Colorado Newsline Editor Quentin Young Demands Eliminating University’s Conservative Scholar Program
In his recently published op-ed, Colorado Newsline editor Quentin Young has one demand for the University of Colorado Boulder: eliminate the school’s dedicated conservative teaching position.
Every year since 2013, the Conservative Thought and Policy Program at CU Boulder brings one scholar to campus to discuss conservative thought in the fields of “policy, military, and media communities, among others.”
Read More‘The Numbers Are Skewed’: Colorado Officials Warn of Inflated COVID Death Statistics
Multiple public officials in Colorado are warning that the state’s official COVID-19 death count is skewed due to the practice of conflating patients who have died directly due to the disease with those who have merely tested positive for it prior to death.
Data experts and health officials have long struggled to separate out those two key data points in government tallies of COVID deaths, leading to accusations that the death rate for the disease is being inflated modestly or even significantly.
Multiple public officials in Colorado, meanwhile, told “Full Measure” host Sharyl Attkisson that they had personally observed death tallies that erred on the side of COVID, leading to death counts that were effectively misleading to the public.
Read MoreColorado High School Students Stage Walkout to Protest School Mask Requirement
High school students in Douglas County, Colorado, staged protests Wednesday calling for the end of a classroom mask mandate, ABC 7 Denver reported.
Students from ThunderRidge High School walked out of class around 9:30 a.m. in protest of the classroom mask requirement, ABC 7 reported.
Read MoreBiden Gears Up for Renewed Fight Against Oil and Gas
A federal judge has ruled the Biden administration must resume allowing oil and gas leasing on federal land and waters, but the administration is saying it will not go down without a fight.
The Biden administration said it will appeal a court ruling allowing the leases, the latest development in a months-long battle between President Joe Biden and the oil and gas industry, even as gas prices continue to rise.
Read MoreDenver Spends More on Homeless Than Schools and Police
Denver spent twice as much money on its homeless population than it did on its students and police, a Common Sense Institute August report showed.
The city spent between $41,679 and $104,201 per person on its homeless population, compared to $19,202 per student in K-12 public schools in 2020, according to the report. In total it spent $481 million on healthcare, housing and other services for homeless people, over $100 million more than the Department of Public Safety’s budget.
Read MoreCensus Bureau Announces Florida Will Gain a Congressional Seat as Michigan and Ohio Each Lose One
Texas and Florida are slated to gain congressional seats during the decennial redistricting process, while California and New York are set to each lose one, the U.S. Census Bureau announced Monday.
The U.S. Census Bureau released the decennial state population and congressional apportionment totals Monday, outlining how many districts each state will have for the next decade. The data also determines how many Electoral College votes each state will have through 2032, and allocates how federal money is distributed to each state for schools, roads and other public projects.
The release was originally scheduled for December, but faced delays due to the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump administration’s unsuccessful effort to exclude non-citizens from the count.
Read MoreHow Georgia’s Voting Law Compares to Seven Blue, Purple States’ Laws
Democrats have repeatedly denounced the new Georgia election integrity law that requires IDs for absentee ballots, but seldom criticize blue states that have comparable laws on their books—or in some cases, laws making it more difficult to vote than in Georgia.
“Overall, the Georgia law is pretty much in the mainstream and is not regressive or restrictive,” Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, told The Daily Signal. “The availability of absentee ballots and early voting is a lot more progressive than what’s in blue states.”
Here’s a look at how the new Georgia election law stacks up to voting laws in Democrat-leaning blue states.
Read MoreMLB Moves All-Star Game to State that Requires Voter ID
After ditching Atlanta in protest over a new voter integrity law which requires voters to present identification if they wish to vote absentee, Major League Baseball decided to move its All-Star game to Colorado, a state that also requires voter ID.
In order to register to vote in Colorado, voters are required by law to present some form of government issued identification. The only exception to that rule is a current “utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of the elector,” with “current” defined as issued within the previous 60 days before registering to vote.
Read MoreDonald Trump Says Georgia’s Voter Integrity Law Didn’t Go Far Enough, Faults Brian Kemp and Geoff Duncan
Former U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan this week and suggested Democrats in the state got the better of them. “Too bad the desperately needed election reforms in Georgia didn’t go further, as their originally approved bill did, but the governor and lieutenant governor would not go for it. The watered-down version, that was just passed and signed by Governor Kemp, while better than before, doesn’t have signature matching and many other safety measures, which were sadly left out. This bill should have been passed before the 2020 Presidential Election, not after,” Trump said in a written statement.
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