Who will be Colorado’s 2017 Californian of the Year? That’s not a typo; it’s the latest stunt coming from the Independence Institute, whose president, Jon Caldara, recently penned an essay castigating those who would “change our once liberty-loving state into East California.”
“The beneficial potential, safety, and efficacy of kratom has been discussed, studied, clinically researched and found to be as safe as coffee,” the letter, signed by seventeen lawmakers, states.
From cake to coffee, green roofs to I-70, here are the biggest news stories of the year in Denver.
How one man made a difference to help those experiencing homelessness.
On December 20, a mistrial was declared in the Nevada Bundy case. One of the self-proclaimed judges who advised the Bundys, Bruce Doucette, is among the eight individuals who were arrested in March in Colorado; he’s sentenced for trial on February 26.
In a day and age when ethics in government appears to be in short supply, Colorado Ethics Watch has announced that the organization will be shutting its doors for good at year’s end for budgetary reasons. But CEW director Luis Toro is hopeful that ethics oversight in the state won’t suffer too much as a result.
A Resolution of Disapproval is a legislative procedure used to reverse rulings made by the executive branch.
The ACLU of Colorado has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain more information about how a 64-year-old Iranian man, Kamyar Samimi, died while being held at ICE’s detention center in Aurora on December 2.
A bipartisan group of Colorado lawmakers has assembled six bills for the 2018 legislative session that are intended to address the ongoing opioid crisis. Art Way, senior director of national criminal justice reform strategy for the Drug Policy Alliance, and state director for the DPA’s Colorado office, sees most of these efforts as steps in the right direction. However, he emphasizes that more still needs to be done to truly deal with the issue.
A new poll shows Colorado gubernatorial candidates ahead in hypothetical one-on-one match ups with Republican Tom Tancredo. It also shows Donald Trump’s Colorado approval rating in the mid 30s, and dangerously low among independent voters.
Within an hour of the Federal Communications Commission voting to rescind rules protecting net neutrality on December 14, Colorado Congressman Mike Coffman took to Twitter to voice his disappointment and announce that he’ll be introducing his own bill pertaining to net neutrality in Congress, where the “conversation belongs.” Net neutrality…
On December 16, 2016, the End of Life Options Act, passed by Colorado voters during the previous month’s election, took effect. Two days shy of a year later, Compassion & Choices, the group that led the campaign for the measure, originally known as Proposition 106, estimates that 45-55 terminally ill adults requested prescriptions for medical aid in dying.
In recent years, glamping, a term for so-called “glamour camping,” has become a thing in places such as Colorado, with the website GlampingHub.com currently linking to more than 1,000 Airbnb-type listings for luxurious cabins and the like in the state. This week, however, a proposal for a full-scale glamping facility, complete with modified tents outfitted like motel rooms, is expected to win approval in the Silverton area, with a debut possible as soon as next year.
Colorado Senator Cory Gardner is being both celebrated and castigated for his role in the apparent defeat of fellow Republican Judge Roy Moore in Alabama’s U.S. Senate election yesterday, December 12. As is clear from a collection of tweets on view below, those who backed Moore’s opponent, Democrat Doug Jones, see Gardner’s decision to criticize and withhold financial support from Moore as a heroic act, while fans of the judge and President Donald Trump, who offered the alleged sexual assaulter his full-throated endorsement, see his moves as downright traitorous to the GOP cause.
Twelve months of meetings. Discussion among 23 people about parliamentary procedures and committee positions. Hours spent debating the nuances of words like “gentrification.” Listening to reports from Denver’s Office of Economic Development. Public comment periods. Presentations from community groups about how Denver should tackle its affordable housing crisis.
In a new interview, Vail’s Lindsey Vonn, among the most famous and accomplished skiers ever from the State of Colorado, says that if she makes the United States team for the next Winter Olympics games, to be held during February 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, she will be representing America but not President Donald Trump. Vonn adds that should she be invited to the White House with the squad or after earning a medal, she will not attend.
This morning, Monday, December 5, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, with the nine jurists charged with considering whether Denver-based Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips discriminated against a gay couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, by refusing to make them a wedding cake because their union contradicts his fundamentalist Christian views. Given the current ideological makeup of the court and the ultra-conservative proclivities of the newest justice, Colorado native Neil Gorsuch, many observers expect the court to side with Phillips in a ruling that critics say would preference one group of Christians over all others. But an expert thinks there’s still a chance the Supremes will reject the Masterpiece claim and suggests arguments that may sway the court’s potential swing justices.
Pod Save America, currently the country’s hottest political podcast, is bringing its live tour to Denver in early 2018 in a double bill with its Crooked Media sister program, Lovett or Leave It. The shows will take place back to back at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Thursday, February 8, 2018, at the Temple Hoyne Buell Theatre.
When federal agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement want to arrest someone at the Office of Denver Adult Probation, they must follow the office’s twelve-step procedure that is supposed to help facilitate undercover arrests by ICE.
Denver Millennial Political Action Coalition doesn’t have a lot of members, but its low-cost model for local, community-based projects doesn’t require them.
For the last four Thanksgivings, my husband and I hosted Thanksgiving dinners at our home in Vienna, where I was serving as the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. We invited a group of ambassadors and their spouses. The dinner was not formal: We made invitations with handprint turkeys.
Representative Diana DeGette has revealed a past episode of sexual harassment against her, detailing an unwanted physical advance in an elevator by ex-San Diego Mayor Bob Filner when he was a Congressman. This disclosure, made in a November 20 interview on view below, makes DeGette the highest profile Colorado politician to go public with disgusting tales of unwanted contact and more since early October, when shocking tales about allegedly criminal behavior by disgraced Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein unleashed a slew of accusations against powerful men, including retired Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning.
