Free Republic

Property-tax relief? Hardly. Proposition HH on this fall’s statewide ballot is really about growing government. And it attempts to do that by piggybacking on public outrage over skyrocketing property tax bills. The proposal’s purported property-tax “relief” — served up by Gov. Jared Polis and his legislative allies as one part of their dizzyingly complicated scheme — is a ruse. As with every attempt to play politics with a crisis, there’s a hidden agenda. And that agenda is to snooker Colorado voters into letting the state keep and spend billions of dollars in surplus tax revenue that otherwise would have to...

Members of a major left-wing dark money outfit are providing large chunks of cash for, and serving as top advisers and officers of, President Barack Obama’s personal advocacy group. Democracy Alliance donors have contributed at least $1.87 million to Organizing for Action (OFA), the 501(c)(4) organization that evolved out of Obama’s reelection campaign, according to data released by OFA. Democracy Alliance members also have official roles in running OFA. According to Democracy Alliance documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, OFA’s board of directors includes four Democracy Alliance “partners,” individuals who pay $30,000 in annual dues and contribute at least...

Free at last! I’m silent no more. Now, the story can be told. Democrats here in my adopted state of Colorado did not want the new political documentary I hosted to see the light of day. They lost. This week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency injunction declaring that our movie deserved the same free-speech rights as a “traditional” (translation: old-guard liberal) news organization. “Rocky Mountain Heist,” produced by David Bossie’s Citizens United and directed by Jason Killian Meath, tells the story of how a wealthy quartet of liberal millionaires and billionaires in Colorado — known as...

The final numbers are in for the 2013 ballot initiatives and, surprise!, the pro-Amendment 66 campaign spent a ridiculous amount of money. But, they raised less than what they hoped as some cited $12 million as a target. They raised (and presumably spent nearly all) $11,079,408 to garner only 496,151 votes or 35% of the votes. That’s $22.33 per vote, which is more than either of the presidential candidates in the 2012 election. Not shocking, but the largest contributors to the effort were the Colorado Education Association and the National Education Association (aka the teachers unions). Each contributed two million...

The most pivotal figure in the Colorado recall election may be an unseen Kentucky woman who’s directing the Democratic fundraising. Julie Wells, the registered agent for more than two dozen groups since 2006 raising and spending millions to benefit Democrats, is also the registered or designated filing agent for at least two committees contributing funds and airing ads on behalf of Democratic state Sens. Angela Giron and John Morse. Her latest group is We Can Do Better, Colorado, which launched a television spot Thursday accusing Republican recall candidates Bernie Herpin and George Rivera of supporting personhood, the Colorado Democratic Party’s...

EXCLUSIVE...CompleteColorado.com EMAILS SHOW WHITE HOUSE DROVE FAILED GREEN-LOAN IN COLORADO

The Colorado health department is ordering bankrupt Abound Solar to clean up hazardous waste and thousands of solar panels that it says are unsellable at four Front Range facilities.

Medical supply giant Stryker is the latest company to announce job cuts in anticipation of coming costs associated with ObamaCare, even though the man who inherited a fortune from the company's founder is a fan. The company will cut 1,170 jobs, or five percent of its worldwide workforce, despite the fact that the founder's grandson was one of the largest contributors to President Obama’s re-election campaign. Medical tech scion Jon Stryker, whose net worth is currently estimated at $1.2 billion, contributed $2 million to the Priorities USA Action super PAC and has given $66,000 in contributions to Obama and the...

...CompleteColorado.com has obtained emails that seem to directly contradict Plouffe’s answer, and also challenge the President’s notion that the DOE’s loan decisions were universally autonomous within the agency. The emails also lend even more credence to the theory that the loan to Abound Solar was political payback to Colorado’s wealthy Democratic benefactor and Gang-of-Four member, Pat Stryker.

Internal documentation and testimony from sources within Abound show that the company was selling a faulty, underperforming product, and may have mislead lenders at one point in order to keep itself afloat. “Our solar modules worked as long as you didn’t put them in the sun,” an internal source told The Daily Caller News Foundation. The company knew its panels were faulty prior to obtaining taxpayer dollars, according to sources, but kept pushing product out the door in order to meet Department of Energy goals required for their $400 million loan guarantee.

Another stimulus-backed green energy company has filed for bankruptcy, further fueling criticism of Energy Department programs that backed highly-risky investments on the taxpayer dime. Like Solyndra and a number of other green energy investments made under this administration, Abound Solar had a very poor credit rating, but enjoyed a wealth of political connections. ... Abound had to remove an entire rooftop of defective solar panels from the headquarters of one of its top investors, Bohemian Companies, a venture capital firm owned by Pat Stryker. Stryker is particularly noteworthy, given her extensive ties to Democratic causes and politicians, including President Obama....

Stryker Corp. is preparing to lay off area workers as it winds down the local operations it acquired from Gaymar Industries. Stryker has filed a notice with the state Department of Labor that it will lay off 11 area employees starting Sept. 21. ... Stryker has put the Orchard Park location up for sale for $3.9 million, through Pyramid Brokerage's Buffalo office. Stryker said it was closing the Gaymar operations in the Buffalo Niagara region and relocating its production lines as part of a broader strategy to cut the size of its workforce and reduce its annual pretax operating costs...

Yet another solar company that received loan guarantees from the Department of Energy has dismissed factory workers, lopping off 70 percent of its U.S. employees. Loveland, Colo.-based Abound Solar announced Tuesday it would lay off 280 workers at its production plant near Longmont, leaving 120 still employed. The start-up (2009) company attributed the cutbacks to the need for upgrades at the plant to manufacture more efficient solar panels, with plans to restore production levels and rehire most employees within six to nine months. “Hopefully at the end of that time period we will bring people back,” said Steve Abely,...

Abound Solar, given a $400 million Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee for a project expected to create 400 permanent jobs, receives private financial backing through an investment firm founded by a fundraising bundler for President Obama. The Sunlight Foundation notes that Bohemian Companies, which was founded by billionaire and Obama bundler Pat Stryker, participated with other companies in the "second institutional equity round of financing" in 2008 for Abound Solar, which recieved $104 million total through that round of financing. Stryker gave $50,000 to Obama's inauguration, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and raised a further $87,000 for...

It's such a respectable name for an outfit dedicated to character assassination: Accountability for Colorado. With such respectable men and women behind the respectable front, too. They include two of Colorado's richest citizens, Tim Gill and Pat Stryker, as well as the Colorado Education Association, the AFL-CIO and the corporate leadership of Xcel Energy and Comcast. Gill and Stryker each gave the independent political committee $75,000 in recent months — pocket change for them, perhaps, but serious political money — while the CEA chipped in $105,000, the AFL-CIO $50,000, and Xcel and Comcast 10 grand each. For what purpose? In...

Republicans allege two members of Michigan's Stryker family may have links to a fraud case in South Dakota involving Medicare and the Stryker Corp. Stryker is a medical products company. Jon Stryker has contributed to groups protecting gay rights. Anti-gay rights U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., has called for an investigation into the fraud case to see if it extends further... The fraud case reportedly involves a medical clinic in South Dakota and the Stryker Corp. aggreeing to repay Medicare $345,000. The government says the clinic took money from the Stryker Corp. in exchange for using the company's orthopedic products....

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reserved $630,000 in TV advertising for Angie Paccione’s bid to unseat Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, but has apparently pulled the money. “If this isn’t the final nail in Angie Paccione’s political coffin, it’s pretty close,” Musgrave campaign manager Shaun Kenney said in a press release. “Coming on top of the poll earlier this week showing Marilyn Musgrave leading by 10 percentage points, it is clear that national Democrats have completely given up hope for “Angry Angie”.” Paccione was recently named to the DCCC’s coveted “Red to Blue” program, designed to funnel...

Perhaps you've heard those mean-spirited, hyper attack ads on Denver radio slandering Colorado Secretary of State Gigi Dennis. They're sponsored by Clear Peak Colorado, one of those free-wheeling 527 groups that sprang up to get around campaign finance reform laws like McCain- Feingold. This one is bankrolled by Pat Stryker and Tim Gill, a pair of liberal Democrat fat cats who lavishly support a cornucopia of partisan and left-wing causes. According to Clear Peak's most recent IRS filing, through June of this year Stryker and Gill have poured in just under $180,000 to the cause. Former Colorado Democratic Party Chairman...