Free Republic

For too long the state has held our roads and bridges hostage while increasing spending on other priorities like Medicaid expansion, hoping we taxpayers get so frustrated by traffic we’ll agree to a tax increase. Well, this fall voters will have a choice. As the Denver Chamber of Commerce pimps a 21% state sales tax increase for transit, roads and a slush fund for cities, there will be an alternative as our Fix Our Damn Roads initiative will also be on the ballot. It will force the state to use its large surplus funds and re-prioritize less than 2 percent...

A professor at a university in Colorado has assigned books that criticize President Trump as required reading material for her class.[snip]The required reading material reportedly claims that people should challenge the “Trump effect" and also label the president's supporters as prejudiced against minority groups.

The full body camera footage of a traffic stop in March that showed the son of the Denver mayor threatening a cop’s job and cursing at him has been released. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock's 22-year-old son, Jordan, was pulled over March 23 by an Aurora police officer for going 65 mph in a 40 mph zone, FOX 31 reports. A bodycam video of the encounter showed Hancock's immediate anger toward Officer Paul McClendon. He told the cop to pick up the pace and write him a speeding ticket, though the officer warned it wouldn’t be quick because Jordan didn’t have...

Believe it or not, Jack Phillips is once again being hauled before the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. In June, Jack Phillips won a five-year battle against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The Supreme Court, by a 7-2 margin, ruled that the Commission had displayed impermissible bias towards his faith. What kind of bias? Well, statements comparing Phillips' unwillingness to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding to the Holocaust. Yes, there was ample evidence, the court ruled, that the Commission was out to get Phillips. It seems like the Commission, which was almost defunded for their shenanigans by the Colorado...

The widespread assumption at this point, when it comes to the future of Colin Kaepernick, is he will not find work in the NFL moving forward. It's tough to get a gig when you're suing your potential employers! But according to Broncos VP of Football Ops John Elway on Thursday, Kaepernick COULD have a job if he wanted to. In other words, Elway blames Kaepernick for not taking the Broncos offer when it was on the table. "Colin had his chance here. We offered him a contract. He didn't take it," Elway said. "So, as I said it in my...

Frederick, Colorado (WTVD) -- A Colorado man has been arrested after allegedly confessing to killing his pregnant wife and two daughters. According to ABC affiliate KMGH, law enforcement officials said 33-year-old Christopher Watts confessed to killing 34-year-old Shanann Watts, who was 15 weeks pregnant, and their two daughters, 3-year-old Celeste and 4-year-old Bella, just hours after pleading for them to return home. Early Thursday morning, officials announced his arrest. He was booked into the Weld County Jail under three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of tampering with physical evidence. Police believe they know where bodies are and they're...

A Colorado man confessed Wednesday to killing his pregnant wife and their two young daughters, a day after authorities launched an investigation into their mysterious disappearance, reports said. Chris Watts, 33, admitted killing 34-year-old Shanann Watts, who was 15 weeks pregnant, and daughters Celeste, 3, and Bella, 4, FOX31 Denver reported, citing a family source

Colorado is trying to compel the same baker who just won a Supreme Court case into baking a second cake that violates his religious beliefs. Masterpiece Cakeshop’s Jack Phillips, who won a Supreme Court case in June, is once again being harangued by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for refusing to bake a cake with a pro-LGBTQ message. Alliance Defending Freedom filed a federal lawsuit late Tuesday night against the commission on his behalf, over the state’s second attempt to compel him to bake a cake with a message that violates his religious beliefs. Two months ago, the Supreme Court...

- Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop fame is suing the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. - The Commission commenced new proceedings against Phillips on behalf of a transgender complainant just weeks after he prevailed at the U.S. Supreme Court. - Phillips' attorneys say the Commission is engaged in a concerted campaign to destroy him, which is unlawful.Jack Phillips, the Christian baker who prevailed at the U.S. Supreme Court after declining to create a custom wedding cake for a gay couple, filed a lawsuit in federal court late Tuesday suing the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Phillips and his attorneys at the Alliance...

The Christian baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple and was vindicated by the Supreme Court earlier this year is mounting another legal challenge this week after refusing to bake a gender-transitioning cake. Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in June that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission discriminated against baker Jack Phillips for his religious beliefs, an attorney requested he create a cake that was pink on the inside and blue on the outside to represent a gender transition from male to female. As a Christian, Mr. Phillips would not make the cake since it...

On August 9, Denver experienced its first triple homicide since the summer of 2016, when a drug deal went bad in Park Hill. On Thursday, three bodies were discovered near the RTD light-rail station on South Broadway near the I-25 overpass. And according to the Denver Police Department, there's an added dimension to these latest murders: The three victims were all homeless. The DPD has yet to announce the names of the three victims, their causes of death or any suspects in the crime. But the gravity of the murders and the fact that the victims were homeless has many...

A childhood photo of Vanessa Bennett, who survived the hammer attack, and Alex Ewing as seen in a mid-1980s booking photo. Family photo via 9News/Nevada Department of Corrections via 9News Ax Handle Attacker Alex Ewing Named Suspect in Bennett Family Murders Michael Roberts | August 10, 2018 | 11:26am At a press conference this morning, August 10, representatives of the Aurora Police Department and other local law enforcement agencies confirmed that Alex Christopher Ewing, a 57-year-old prisoner in Nevada, where he's serving time for brutally beating a couple with an ax handle, has been named in arrest warrants related...

Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, 50, was arrested by the FBI and booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center at 4:53 p.m. Thursday. He's been wanted for 12 years, after he was indicted in 2006 on charges of arson, conspiracy and animal enterprise terrorism. In 2008, he was believed to have been living in Syria with family members, and federal officials announced a $50,000 reward for his arrest. (FBI) A fugitive sought for more than a decade and accused of taking part in a string of eco-sabotage attacks across the West is in custody in Portland and was to make his...

U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) sent a letter to Bank of the West President and Chief Executive Officer Nandita Bakhshi pushing back on the bank’s decision to no longer conduct business with companies engaged in the exploration and production of coal, oil and natural gas. Bank of the West, headquartered in San Francisco, CA, has 23 branches with dedicated employees who work hard to serve communities and families across Wyoming. In his letter, Barrasso condemned the San Francisco headquarter’s attack on Wyoming’s communities and businesses that depend on fossil fuels for energy security, jobs and economic growth. “This misguided and...

For months, neighbors worried about a squalid compound built along a remote New Mexico plain, saying they brought their concerns to authorities long before sheriff’s officials found 11 hungry children on the lot, and then the remains of a small boy. Two men and three women also had been living at the compound, and were arrested following a raid Friday that came as officials searched for a missing Georgia boy with severe medical issues. Medical examiners still must confirm whether the body found at the property in a second search of the compound on Monday is that of Abdul-ghani Wahhaj,...

A man accused of shooting a Colorado Springs police officer in the head in a shootout early Thursday while free on bond was known to immigration enforcement officials, yet evaded deportation despite a string of crimes, court records show. Why Karrar Al Khammasi wasn’t deported was among the questions left unanswered Friday as his bond was revoked. Cem Duzel, the officer he is accused of shooting, remained hospitalized in critical condition. The 31-year-old Iraqi immigrant appears to have lived in the Pikes Peak region for at least five years, and he had at least nine contacts with police in that...

Late last summer, and with great fanfare, Xcel Energy announced its proposal to close the Comanche I & II power units in Pueblo a decade ahead of schedule. They offered as replacement the euphemistically titled “Colorado Energy Plan” , a massive $2.5 billion fuel-switching scheme to move its Colorado customers away from baseload, reliable hydrocarbons in favor of intermittent renewables. ... the Minneapolis-based monopoly utility will force captive ratepayers to cough up at least another $287 million. That’s on top of the modeling errors we already found in their accounting, and Xcel acknowledged. In other words, ratepayers will pay higher...

When asked about a popular restaurant, Yogi Berra put it like only Yogi could. “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” Well, Colorado has turned into that restaurant. A fascinating recent report by The Denver Post’s Aldo Svaldi (which I’m pretty sure is the name he made up to start a budget winery) details the demographic shifts happening to our once ruggedly individualistic state. More people are still pouring into Colorado than sneaking out, but the gap is narrowing. Last year was the first drop this decade in people moving here from other states. At the same time, more people...

DENVER – The stepson of the man shot and killed early Monday morning by Aurora police says there were just seconds between when his stepfather shot the man who’d broken into their home and assaulted his son and when police shot his stepfather dead. Chad Hayashi spoke to ABC News on Wednesday about the police shooting that left his stepfather, Richard “Gary” Black, Jr., dead in an incident that has stirred homeowners and gun owners alike. “It’s just heartbreaking. My dad was a hero,” Hayashi said in the exclusive interview. “My son wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him....

The Aurora police officer who shot and killed an armed homeowner early Monday morning was involved in another deadly shooting in late June. The officer was returned to regular duty while the investigation of whether he was legally justified in using deadly force in the June incident was still ongoing. ... In this week’s incident, police received multiple 911 calls just before 1:30 a.m. Monday reporting a disturbance. Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz, in a written release, said officers encountered “a very chaotic and violent scene,” heard gunfire inside a home at 10609 E. Montview Blvd. and then “encountered an...