Free Republic

Cheating. Bullying. Cybersexting. Hazing. Molestation. Suicide. Drug abuse. Murder. Scanning the headlines of the latest scandals in America's schools, it's quite clear that the problem is not that there's too much God in students' lives. The problem is that there isn't nearly enough of Him. With the malfunction of moral seatbelts and the erosion of moral guardrails, too many kids have turned to a pantheon of false gods, crutches and palliatives. They're obsessed with "Slender Man" and "Vampire Diaries." Alex from Target's hair and Rihanna's tattoos. Overpriced basketball sneakers and underdressed reality stars. Choking games and YouTube games. Gossip and...

DENVER — Denver shattered two low temperature records in a matter of hours when the mercury plummeted as skies cleared from the recent storm. The temperature reached minus 13 degrees just before midnight, breaking the record of minus 4 degrees set on Nov. 12, 1882. And just before 3 a.m. Thursday, the temperature reached minus 14 degrees, breaking the previous record low of minus-3 set on Nov. 13, 1916. The National Weather Service says Thursday’s mark ties for the second-coldest temperature at any point in November in recorded Denver history. An NWS observer reported a temperature of minus 24 degrees...

...[I]t's immediately apparent that Senate Republicans did an outstanding job of recruiting this cycle. Capito ran one of the best campaigns in a non-competitive race in the country. McConnell was, as usual, outstanding. Gillespie came from nowhere to almost upset the single most popular politician in Virginia. And Ernst is a rising national star. But, when you look at the totality of the campaign, it's clear that Cory Gardner was the single best candidate of the 2014 election.

Federal wildlife officials have granted protection to the Gunnison sage grouse, a move that could to bring restrictions on oil and gas drilling and other land uses to preserve the bird's habitat in Colorado and Utah. ... They're related to the greater sage grouse, which is at the center of a separate and larger debate over federal protection across 11 Western states.

(Reuters) - Moves by some U.S. states to legalize marijuana are not in line with international drugs conventions, the U.N. anti-narcotics chief said on Wednesday, adding he would discuss the issue in Washington next week. Residents of Oregon, Alaska, and the U.S. capital voted this month to allow the use of marijuana, boosting the legalization movement as cannabis usage is increasingly recognized by the American mainstream. "I don't see how (the new laws) can be compatible with existing conventions," Yury Fedotov, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told reporters. Asked whether there was anything...

MESA COUNTY, Colo The Mesa County Sheriff's Office says Ben Lawrence, a deputy with the sheriff's office, shot and killed a dog after the dog bit him on thigh during a suspected DUI arrest last night.

Christian students at a Colorado public high school were told they could no longer meet to pray, sing religious songs or discuss religious topics during free time – because such activity violated the U.S. Constitution, a lawsuit filed in federal court alleges. Chase Windebank is a senior at Pine Creek High School in Colorado Springs. Three years ago he started meeting together informally with his classmates for prayer and religious fellowship. The young people would meet in an unoccupied choir room to sing songs like “Amazing Grace” and discuss the issues of the day from a religious perspective. But all...

Voters reject half-cent sales tax by 74 percent. Pueblo police and fire union members don't plan to lobby city council for more money in lieu of a public safety tax failing.

Whether liberals would like to admit it or not; 2014 was a historic moment for women, especially Republican women. Besides it being a wave election, Republicans elected the first female senators from Iowa and West Virginia, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, and the first black Republican woman–Mia Love–in Utah. Yet, these were Republican women; they’re a horrid subset of the human species beholden to their patriarchal masters according to feminists. Well, it all comes down to abortion–again–and this super-secret conspiracy to make life for American women–and women around the world–miserable (via the Guardian) [emphasis mine]: In a way, female...

Owner of Mexican restaurant 'Illegal Pete's' won't change name 'offensive to immigrants' because it memorializes his father who died of cancer A Mexican restaurant owner says he won't change the name of his establishment some community members find offensive to illegal immigrants. The restaurant in Denver, Colorado has been named Illegal Pete's for many years and owner Pete Turner says the name wasn't meant to offend and was named after his rambunctious father with whom he shared a name.

Former two-term gubernatorial candidate and Congressman Tom Tancredo is forming a political action committee to “stop Chris Christie” from getting the GOP nod for president in 2016. (SNIP) “I have never liked the guy… [B]ecause he was concerned that I would, in fact, go against the [United States] Chamber of Commerce position on immigration and make it a big deal, and I might win, he chose to … spend a quarter of a million dollars of Republican money…to attack me, here, in Colorado. And launder the money through Attorneys General Association.”

A former Navy chaplain who made headlines for being court martialed for praying in Jesus’ name has been elected to the Colorado State House of Representatives. Former Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, nicknamed “Chaps,” won the seat Tuesday in Colorado House District 15 with more than 70 percent of the vote. His work will begin in January.

"My time in the Obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience." It was close to midnight on Jan. 20, 2009, and I was about to go to sleep when my iPhone beeped. There was a new text message. It was from Richard Holbrooke. It said, "Are you up, can you talk?" When I called, he told me that Barack Obama had asked him to serve as envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He would work out of the State Department, and he wanted me to join his team. "No one knows this yet. Don't tell anyone. Well, maybe...

No, this is sadly not satire. Colorado barely held onto their Democratic governor in last night’s hotly contested election. They did, however, elect a radical, anti-LGBT, Obama-hating chaplain to their state House of Representatives. The Colorado Springs Gazette reports that activist Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt, who made national headlines last year for his attempt to exorcise a “demonic spirit” from President Barack Obama, won his position with 70 percent of the vote in the El Paso County district. The district is solid Republican, with a 2-1 registered advantage...

Mark Udall Advocates Condone Voter Fraud:"That’s Not Even Like Lying or Stealing"A top official at a Democratic get-out-the-vote outfit working to reelect Sen. Mark Udall (D., Colo) appears to endorse voter fraud in a hidden camera video released on Wednesday. The video, released by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe, shows Meredith Hicks, director of the political canvassing group Work for Progress, endorse the casting of fraudulent mail-in ballots for ineligible voters. “If they are not eligible to vote, and all these people are throwing out ballots, lets use those ballots to vote. So we can get as many votes as possible,”...

Radical liberal feminism — the kind that likes abortion on demand and taxpayer-funded birth control — has been rejected at the polls. Or, at least, it’s been a really rough week, or so. And I’m not just talking about the fact that Sen.-elect Cory Gardner effectively pushed back on the “war on women” narrative by defeating Colorado’s ”Mark Uterus.”The story also played out in Texas, where — writing about the race — Mollie Hemingway observed: “Wendy Davis was the face of ‘War On Women’ Politics. How’d that go?” And it played out in California, where Sandra Fluke lost a bid for...

DENVER — Though the GOP takeover swept across the nation on Tuesday, two pro-gun Republican recall winners who helped start the shift of power in Colorado before election season lost their seats in the state Senate Tuesday night, leaving control of that crucial chamber still up for grabs Wednesday morning. If Democrats were to retain their majority in the state Senate, they would not only control that chamber, but the governor’s office, with FOX31 Denver calling that tight race in favor of John Hickenlooper Wednesday morning, and possibly the state House, as well. However, many were surprised to see the...

Hispanics voted nearly two to one for Democratic candidates on Tuesday just as they did in the 2010 midterm elections, a national exit poll shows. In a number of key races, however, they voted more heavily Republican, pointing to a strategy for Republicans in the presidential contest in 2016. In the Senate race in Colorado, for example, where Latinos make up 14 percent of voters, a conservative Republican, Cory Gardner, took the seat of the incumbent Democrat, Mark Udall, in what analysts from both parties called a Republican playbook on how to blunt the Democrats’ advantage with Hispanics. Mr. Gardner...

Published on Nov 4, 2014ABC News correspondent says something you never would have expected to hear on national TV during midterm election mayhem coverage.

Control of the Colorado Senate and House of Representatives rests in a few key races that are still too close to call. But things are looking good for Republicans who needed to net one seat in the Senate and five seats in the House. It all hinges on elections in Jefferson and Adams counties, races that are in limbo with ballots uncounted and those coming in from overseas and military voters. Republicans lost the two seats in the Senate that they had picked up from Democrats during the September 2013 recall elections. Michael Merrifield, a Democrat, unseated Republican Bernie Herpin...