Free Republic

With organizers working to collect the necessary 18,900 signatures to get the recall of Colorado state Senator Evie Hudak (D-Dist. 19) on the ballot, Breitbart News spoke with Mike McAlpine, the man behind the recall effort. When asked how the collection of signatures was going, he said "very, very strong." Moreover, he said 15 percent of the signatories at this point have been Democrats, which "is very encouraging." McAlpine and his fellow volunteers have a 60-day window in which to collect all the needed signatures, which began on October 4 and ends on December 3 at 5 PM. He also...

"It's just me," Holmes said, according to documents and testimony. Officers asked Holmes other questions about weapons and explosives. Roughly two hours would pass before the chaos subsided and detectives would read Holmes his Miranda rights - anything you say can be used against you. On Tuesday, Holmes' lawyers will argue that delay violated his constitutional rights and that anything he told the arresting officers should be barred from his trial. Prosecutors will counter that the officers urgently needed to know whether Holmes had an accomplice who could still be shooting and killing people at the Century 16 theater in...

DENVER — Despite some technical problems, thousands of Coloradans signed up for accounts with the new state health insurance marketplace website during its first week, according to metrics released Monday. Connect for Health Colorado, the marketplace associated with the federal Affordable Care Act, saw 162,941 unique visitors during the period between Oct. 1 and Oct. 7, operators reported. Of those, 18,174 people created accounts. But only 226 of them actually bought health care plans, covering 305 people in total.

DENVER (CBS4) – There’s more controversy over legalized marijuana after some members of the Denver City Council want to limit open consumption. Marijuana advocates say the city may be violating the spirit of Amendment 64. Under the proposal smoking marijuana at a park or other public places could lead a fine of almost $1,000 and a year in jail. But what’s causing alarm to marijuana smokers is how Denver might be defining how much is too much in the privacy of a person’s property. People were passing out free joints in Civic Center Park last month and Denver Mayor Michael...

Big deal. They disowned the last two also, telling the organizers that they could never possibly win. But they were wrong. They could be right this time as there was already on effort to recall Evie Hudak by the voters in her district, but they didn’t get enough signatures to do it. This time it is more organized and they have plenty of volunteers. The state GOP, who lost the state to the democrats in the first place are still trying to dispense advice. And like any other free advice, it’s worth every penny of it. The State GOP...

Rubin rose before Chief U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Portland, where she pleaded guilty to a dozen crimes – in Colorado, Oregon and California – as part of the underground Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front. ... Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen F. Peifer recounted Rubin's crimes as part of the largest group of eco-saboteurs ever taken down by the FBI. They called themselves The Family and committed an estimated $40 million in damage from 1996 to 2001. ... the terms of the highly structured plea agreement sets limits on the number of years Rubin will spend in prison....

The Obama administration has turned bureaucrats at environmental agencies into armed SWAT teams to conduct unprecedented raids on small mining operations for what used to be simple reviews of clean water permits. That’s according to Colorado Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn, chairman of the House Natural Resources subcommittee on energy and mineral resources, who held a hearing Thursday that examined the August raid of armed federal officials including the Environmental Protection Agency in Chicken, Alaska. Lamborn said the “EPA SWAT team of heavily armed and armored agents conducted paperwork inspections on small mining operations, in what appears nothing more than an...

The push for radical transgender rights in schools is trumping privacy rights at one Colorado high school. A male student at Florence High School who claims to be a transgender has been harrassing girls in the bathroom. When parents complained, school officials said the boy's rights as a transgender trumped their daughters' privacy rights. As the controversy grew, some students were threatened with being kicked off athletic teams or charged with hate crimes if they continued to voice concerns. The Pacific Justice Institute sent the school a letter warning against squelching privacy rights. "We're not going to stand by and...

Weird things happen in Boulder Colorado — it has a gorilla run to support apes in Uganda, locals dash around naked wearing pumpkin heads Halloween night (sorry, not offering up a link) and let’s just say 4/20 is the locals’ favorite date. Despite the city’s liberal background, students at the University of Colorado Boulder on Tuesday blamed President Obama and Democrats more than the GOP for the partial government shutdown. “Everybody is blaming Obama and the Democrats, is this normal?” Caleb Bonham of Campus Reform asked after several undergraduates quickly identified the culprit. “Um, no I don’t think so but...

The intense political polarization of the United States is most clearly reflected by the dysfunctional nature of the federal government. At a more local scale, it is seen as well in the growing movement to create new states by splitting existing ones. Most of these cases involve the desire of people in rural, conservative counties to secede from the more liberal states in which they are currently located. A front-page story in the October 7 edition of the New York Times, for example, highlights a drive to devise a new state of “Northern Colorado.” Eleven Colorado counties will vote on...

700,000 people a day would have been visiting the parks and that the surrounding areas are losing $76 million in visitor spending per day. The park service said it is losing $450,000 per day in revenue from entrance fees and other in-park expenditures, such as campground fees and boat rentals.

Aggressive actions and double standards used by the National Park Service are vindictive and designed to inflict maximum inconvenience and fear among visitors, say Republican lawmakers whose efforts to reopen the parks are gridlocked by Senate Democrats. World War II veterans were blocked by barricades and armed guards from paying tribute at their memorial last week. However, the national mall where the memorial is located was opened Tuesday to allow hundreds of illegal immigrants to stage a protest demanding amnesty. ... the administration has closed the Mall and memorials to some groups and not others, giving preferential treatment under the...

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vqDVy4Pk61oFeel free to reply or post with comments.

Public lands continue to draw attention in San Juan County. A series of public meetings in October will allow local residents to learn about several issues and make their voices heard. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has released an environmental assessment and an economic analysis of the Gunnision sage grouse proposals. ... Public comment on the studies will be accepted until October 19. It is expected that the US Fish and Wildlife Service will make a decision on designation by March 31, 2014. The federal agency is considering the designation of the sage grouse as an endangered species and...

End the Shutdown and Negotiate To govern in a divided government and get results, one must be open to compromise. And I know the American people and the people of Colorado expect us to govern. We are now in the second week of a government shutdown. To compound matters, the country will reach its authorized debt limit in a little over a week. Congress and President Obama must end this partisan drama by passing a spending bill to reopen the government, avert an economic crisis by passing an increase in the debt limit, and immediately begin working on a bipartisan...

<p>Colorado gun rights advocates, coming off two successful efforts to recall Democratic state senators over votes to strengthen gun control laws, began collecting signatures in a third district over the weekend in hopes of booting another incumbent out of office.</p>

Back in February and March, NRA-ILA warned that Colorado's House Bill 1229(PDF), criminalizing the private transfer of firearms, was overbroad, and would unduly burden and ensnare law-abiding citizens. Lo and behold, less than seven months after Gov. Hickenlooper signed HB 1229, some victims of September's devastating floods are fearful of being prosecuted under the new law. According to an article published in the Greeley Tribune of Greeley, Colo., residents of Weld County, Colo. contacted Weld District Attorney Ken Buck with concerns that if they were to store their firearms with family or friends while cleaning or rebuilding their flood ravaged...

DENVER — After two successful recall elections in Colorado, there is a new effort under way. This one is to recall state Senator Evie Hudak because of her support for gun control during the last legislative session. Her district includes Westminster and Arvada in northwest metro Denver. Hudak issued a statement Friday night about the recall effort against her. “The approval of a recall petition will not change my focus on the 2014 legislative session, during which I will advocate for women and seniors, and for the best education we can provide our children – just as I have always...

Six months ago, Bernie Herpin assumed his best political days were behind him. He had lost his reelection bid for Colorado Springs city council and he was approaching his 70th birthday. “I just figured I was done with politics,” said Herpin. It turns out he was wrong. On Thursday, Republicans Herpin and George Rivera were sworn in as the newest members of the Colorado state Senate, replacing the two Democrats ousted in last month’s historic recall elections. ... Pro-Democrat groups outspent the recallers by at least 6 to 1, which resulted in a few tense moments for the GOP campaigns....

Tenth Circuit Panel Rules in Favor of Colo. Company Against Abortion Pill Mandate A three-judge panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Colorado-based business does not have to adhere to the federal government's abortion pill mandate as its lawsuit proceeds. In a ruling issued Thursday, the panel affirmed a lower court ruling on behalf of Hercules Industries, a family-owned Denver-based HVAC manufacturer. The decision noted that the motion to appeal was "denied as moot" given that the United States Supreme Court likely will hear arguments in a similar lawsuit regarding the Hobby Lobby retail chain.... Full...

Attractive women wearing nothing but a smile and flesh-colored underwear emblazoned with the motto “Are You Covered?” strolled the most popular shopping areas of Denver in the name of the Affordable Care Act this week. Oh, and there were blondes in the shortest of short shorts plus muscular young men in gray flannel boxers — and that is all — also on parade. They sported beribboned signs reading “Without health insurance, you’re exposed.”The earnest models were handing out information to startled passers-by, hired by Colorado HealthOP, a nonprofit insurance company eager to get the message about the new health care...

The Colorado Supreme Court heard oral arguments last Tuesday morning in a case that could decide whether Coloradans have a constitutional right to a secret ballot. Although the particulars of the case (a March 13th Recall Election in Colorado for the Board of Trustees of the Town of Center, in Saguache County) involve only a small number of people in a single locale, the outcome (and implications for voter rights) could affect the very foundation of elections throughout the entire state of Colorado. At issue: whether Colorado citizens have the right to a secret ballot, as guaranteed by the Colorado...

ALASKA The race against incumbent Mark Begich is likely to end up tougher than it should be. Mark Begich, if you remember, was voted in on the 2008 wave on King Obama’s coattails. He won by something like 2% over incumbent Republican, Ted Stevens. Stevens was being indicted at the time (though the charges were later thrown out), so it’s remarkable that the race was that close. Stevens subsequently died in a plane crash. Mark Begich is a fraud. And I often call Joe Manchin a fraud, well Begich is a bigger fraud. He consistently avoids being tied to Obama...

In his 63 years ranging cattle at Pine Butte Ranch in Wycliffe, Ray Van Steinburg has never had grizzly bears take down a cow. That is, until earlier this month, when he and other ranch workers found the carcasses of two cows about 100 feet apart on the 15,000 hectare property. The cows weigh about 1,400 pounds each. They set up a motion-detected camera at the site of one of the kills and caught amazing footage of not one but two grizzlies approaching the kill, feeding on it, and even wrestling with each other. Van Steinburg said that while his...

DENVER - Colorado went live with its health insurance marketplace website Tuesday, but there was glitch that prevented some users from creating new accounts. After more than 1,000 people created new accounts between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., a technical problem caused the system for creating new accounts to go down. ...

RedState Readers, there was a time when we could ask you to open your wallets for solid candidates and within hours goals would be met. We did that recently with Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia and you showed just how quickly you could raise money. But people still think you guys are not as engaged as you once were. So I have a challenge for you this morning — show the world conservatives are not disengaged. But more importantly, show the world you’ll do what it takes to fund reinforcements for Ted Cruz in the United States Senate. There are two...

A federal proposal to impose strict new rules on emissions from new coal-fired plants has drawn the ire of critics who are determined to stop regulatory effort from affecting coal-producing states such as Colorado. Last Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule for new coal plants: large plants can emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour while smaller plants can emit the slightly higher figure of 1,100 pounds. ... war on coal... Shovel-ready jobs apparently don’t apply to those who work in coal,” Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) quipped, referring to President Obama’s description...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — or Obamacare for short — has already refunded about $630,000 in health insurance premiums during the past two years to Pueblo city employees and the city’s general fund. But Marisa Pacheco, the city’s human resources director, says those refund days are likely over, and in the future, starting in 2015, the federal health care mandate will cost the city an extra $400,000 a year to help pay for increasing the size of the national health insurance safety net. “Right now, the law is an ever-shifting program and it’s hard to say for...

In six weeks there will be a little-followed election that could help determine the path for education reform in the United States for a long time to come. At issue is whether a local school board has the authority to tell the government employee union—you know, the forces of darkness that are preventing commonsense education reform in our schools? -- to take a hike. In July 2012, that’s exactly what Douglas County, Colorado school board decided. After months of negotiations the school board reached an impasse with the union as their contract expired. Previously the union has demanded that the...

EVANS, Colorado (AP) — Immigrants living in the U.S. illegally returned to their mobile home parks in flood-ravaged Colorado to find that there was little left to salvage — not the water-damaged cars, not the old family pictures and not the sheds carried away by the rushing waters. The destruction, however, was only the beginning of what's been a nightmarish two weeks. They didn't have flood insurance. And because they are not citizens or legal residents — and don't have family members who are — they won't get the federal government's help. "They say that faith and hope die last,"...

A decision this week by Shell to shutter its oil shale operation in Colorado to pursue other ventures in Jordan and Canada highlights the difficulties faced by developers in the state as they wrestle with uncertain rules under the Obama administration. Royal Dutch Shell was one of the most successful companies in the state in its efforts to develop a cost-efficient technique to extract oil from shale rock. But the final act of Ken Salazar as Interior secretary earlier this year to rewrite industry rules left companies in limbo with undeterminable royalty rates, and blocked them from obtaining leases for...

Like an estimated 22 million other Americans, I am a self-employed small-business owner who buys health insurance for my family directly on the individual market. We have a high-deductible PPO plan that allows us to choose from a wide range of doctors. Or rather, we had such a plan. Last week, our family received notice from Anthem BlueCross BlueShield of Colorado that we can no longer keep the plan we like because of "changes from health care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA)." The letter informed us that "(t)o meet the requirements of the new laws, your...

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe's (D) website was updated Monday to show his commitment to bring Colorado-like gun control to the commonwealth. In the section titled "Investing in Virginia's Urban Centers," TerryMcAuliffe.com now contains the heading, "Support Common Sense Gun Control Measures." Under that heading, it says McAuliffe "will support mainstream and majority supported gun control measures like universal background checks, limiting the size of magazines, and a return to the 1-gun-per-month rule." The limitation on magazine capacity is a Colorado-like gun control measure that will put law-abiding Virginians at a disadvantage the moment it is enacted. This is because...

Carmel Ross, 66, an artist and caretaker for the elderly, thought about the town's future amid the splintered trailers that now surround the mobile home she rents for $430 a month. "Who rebuilds a trailer park?" she asked, laughing through tears. "Lyons is going to become a different story now. It's a loss of a way of life. The things could always be bought again, but there will no longer by any low-income housing in this town." Former mayor Tim Combs said the new Lyons might look more like Aspen, a tony, celebrity refuge that began as a working class...

As Colorado rebuilds from the floods some survivors are being victimized again — this time by thieves. Now there’s an army of agencies helping protect what little some people have left. The Colorado National Guard will keep watch on damaged neighborhoods in Longmont and Lyons indefinitely. Given the scope of the flooding, the number of reports of looting is really quite low, but in one Milliken mobile home park alone there were three residences that were burglarized. It’s a lot like kicking someone when they’re down.

DENVER - Current and former elected officials wishing to undo the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, better known as TABOR, argued on Monday in federal appeals court that they have standing and the court has the authority to hear their complaint. A total of 33 plaintiffs brought the suit against Gov. John Hickenlooper in May 2011, challenging the constitutionality of TABOR, a law limiting tax increases unless Colorado voters approve. A few months later, Attorney General John Suthers sought to have the case dismissed on the grounds that none of the plaintiffs had standing and the courts didn't have the proper...

When U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Col.) got the word that he could opt out of Obamacare or keep his current health-care plan — which you might be surprised to learn is a private plan — he took a road some might say is less traveled…and then hit a big pileup:(Credit: Twitter via Twitchy) He breaks it down a bit more:(Credit: Twitter via Twitchy) Instead of heading down a woe-is-me path, Gardner harnessed his unfortunate news to get a conversation going about what’s happening to people’s health-care plans in the wake of

President Obama has now addressed the seventh mass shooting of his presidency, and we certainly heard the weariness in his voice Monday as spoke about the massacre at the Washington Navy Yard: “It’s a shooting that targeted our military and civilian personnel. These are men and women who were going to work, doing their job, protecting all of us. They’re patriots, and they know the dangers of serving abroad, but today they faced the unimaginable violence that they wouldn’t have expected here at home.” As a state legislator now branded by the word “recalled,” I can identify with that weariness....

Vice President Joe Biden will tour the flood devastation across Colorado's Front Range on Monday, and while his itinerary has yet to be revealed, residents and officials in Boulder County worry that such a high-level visit would stretch the area's exhausted resources to the limit. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said Friday that he has been contacted about what resources his department would be able to provide should Biden visit the county next week. Pelle said he doesn't have any to spare. "Our resources are still tied up," he said. "With roadblocks and escorts and all the things we need,...

A new lawsuit has been filed seeking the release of an indictment on John and Patsy Ramsey, parents of the slain JonBenet, whose death dominated headlines worldwide more than a decade ago. A reporter from the Boulder Daily Camera and a local press advocacy group filed the lawsuit after reports surfaced a grand jury voted in secret to indict the Ramseys on charges of child abuse resulting in death in 1999. The Daily Camera reports Alex Hunter, the District Attorney at the time, refused to sign the indictment because of a lack of evidence. JonBenet, a frequent beauty pageant contestant,...

Colorado’s flooding shut down hundreds of natural gas and oil wells in the state’s main petroleum-producing region, triggering at least two spills, temporarily suspending a multibillion-dollar drilling frenzy and sending inspectors into the field to gauge the extent of pollution. Besides the possible environmental impact, flood damage to roads, railroads and other infrastructure will affect the region’s energy production for months to come. And analysts warn that images of flooded wellheads from the booming Wattenberg field will increase public pressure to impose restrictions on drilling techniques such as fracking. “There’s been massive amounts of growth in the last two years...

Two videos are posted at Twitchy and GSL in which Angela Giron continues to reinforce why she was recalled in a recent Colorado effort. In an interview clip below, Giron blames the NRA for the Navy Yard shooting. Giron feels the NRA keeps trying to convince people—out of greed—that “more guns equals safety. And in this case in particular, we can look at, it was a Navy Yard. You couldn’t have any more armed people than in that case right there.” Apparently Giron is unaware that the Navy Yard was a gun-free zone thanks to Bill Clinton. Additionally, GatewayPundit reported...

Nebraskans have observed the Colorado flooding with detached concern, but their worries are about to become reality, at least if they live along the South Platte River. Virtually all of the creeks mentioned in reports of last week's flooding shared something in comon -- they drain into the South Platte River. National Weather Service officials are warning that there will be flooding, but they're not entirely sure how bad it will be, because a number of river gauges were damaged by debris. A coordinating team from the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency is already in Ogallala to help local officials, and...

Last week's successful recall of two Colorado state senators who had voted to enshrine two new gun-control initiatives into state law has been widely seen as a victory for the NRA and a major setback for the gun-control movement. Mayor Bloomberg, in particular, spent $350,000 to support one of the recalled senators, and his anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, sent staffers to help in the effort. But in a press conference today, Bloomberg offered a markedly different take on the election: "The NRA lost." Bloomberg argued that not only are the gun-control laws still in force, but that the...

Colorado's historic recall of two state legislators who backed new gun restrictions may have national repercussions, as advocates say the effort will make it harder to revive stalled efforts in Congress to tighten firearm laws. In April, federal legislation expanding background check requirements for gun buyers fell five votes short in the Senate, despite political momentum from last December's massacre at a Connecticut elementary school. Gun control backers say they have yet to win a single new Senate supporter, and many worry that the muscle shown by pro-gun groups and voters last week in Colorado will make it even harder...

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper says last week’s victory by gun-rights voters in the state’s recall elections shouldn’t be seen as a litmus test for the rest of the nation — or even the rest of the state. The Democratic governor, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, said the recalls of two state lawmakers, both Democrats, who supported gun-control legislation he signed earlier this year were more about local politics. “I’m not sure it has a national message or even a statewide message,” he said. “These are very specific districts.” Asked if the recall indicated a broader unease...

The First and Second Amendment are very good friends. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that they’re close, one always protecting the other, as we witnessed again last week in Colorado. The national media dutifully reported that two gun-and-ammo grabbing Rocky Mountain State legislators were recalled from public office by the voters in their districts — the two being now former Senate President John Morse (D-Colorado Springs) and former Sen. Angela Giron (D-Pueblo). But don’t expect thoughtful analysis or introspection from the stridently anti-gun Fourth Estate. Nightly, the TV talking-heads tell us to be afraid of the powerful National Rifle Association, which...

Somewhere, up there, Andrew Breitbart is celebrating. On September 10, 2013, the legendary gadfly whose huge heart gave out far too soon chalked up a three more big wins in his campaign to take America back from the hypocritical liberal snobs he despised. In New York, a Democrat electorate soundly rejected Anthony Wiener’s creepy comeback bid. And in Colorado, an enraged citizenry defied everything the liberal establishment could throw at them and tossed out a pair of Democrat state senators who thought they could trample on the basic civil right to keep and bear arms. Neither victory would have been...

Aerial photos of the flood damage caused by heavy rains along Colorado’s Front Range. A 60-year-old Cedar Cove woman was believed to be the fifth person killed in this week’s historic flooding as authorities scrambled Saturday to reach the 230 people listed as unaccounted for in northern Colorado. Meanwhile, evacuation orders spread throughout the day to communities downstream as rivers continued to flow above flood stage.

Gun control advocates say the National Rifle Association-aided recall of two Colorado legislators who backed new gun restrictions will make it harder to revive stalled efforts in Congress to tighten firearm laws. Federal legislation expanding background check requirements for gun buyers fell five votes short in the Senate in April, despite political momentum from last December's massacre at a Connecticut elementary school. Gun control backers say they have yet to win a single new Senate supporter, and many worry that the muscle shown by pro-gun groups and voters last week in Colorado will make it even harder to find converts....