Free Republic

Senate Republicans will have to work hard to retain their recently won majority as they face a tough 2016 electoral map. They have 24 seats up compared to Democrats' 10, including seven in states resident Obama carried twice. Democrats won't have any red-state senators facing reelection and could be buoyed by a favorable presidential-year electorate. ... 1. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) 3. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) 7. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) 10. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – A good deed for a Colorado Springs man turned into a terrifying experience Friday evening. According to police, the man picked up a couple near Jet Wing Drive and Astrozon Boulevard around 6:40 p.m. because he was concerned they were cold. The man agreed to drive the couple about a mile down the road, but when they arrived at the destination the man pointed a gun at him and took his car.

Colorado emerged as the state with the second-highest percentage of regular marijuana users as it began legalizing the drug, according to a new national study. The Denver Post reports the study by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found about 1 out of 8 Colorado residents older than 12 had used marijuana in the past month. Only Rhode Island topped Colorado in the percentage of residents who reported using pot as often, according to the study. The study averaged state-specific data over two-year periods. It found that, for the 2011-2012 period, 10.4 percent of Colorado residents 12 and...

<p>DENVER (AP) — Officials at some Denver homeless shelters say the legalization of marijuana has contributed to an increase in the number of younger people living on the city’s streets.</p> <p>One organization dealing with the increase is Urban Peak, which provides food, shelter and other services to homeless people aged 15 to 24 in Denver and Colorado Springs.</p>

DENVER -- Chris Easterling was sick of relying on drug dealers in Minneapolis when he needed marijuana to help ease the pain of multiple sclerosis. They were flaky, often leaving the homeless man without the drug when he needed relief the most. So he moved to Denver, where legal pot dispensaries are plentiful and accessible. Easterling is among a growing number of homeless people who have recently come to Colorado seeking its legal marijuana, and who now remain in the state and occupy beds in shelters, according to service providers. While no state agency records how many homeless people were...

The Colorado Department of Transportation will be eliminating several wildlife traffic zones in 2015, after a study showed that increased penalties did not reduce wildlife crashes. Southwest Regional traffic engineer, Mick McVaugh says by law the department cannot keep speed limit signs that are not supported by research.

Colorado movie theater gunman James Holmes is “not a monster” and should be spared a death sentence, his parents plead in their first public comments since one of the worst mass shootings in American history. Robert and Arlene Holmes’ two-page letter to the Denver Post editorial section was delivered by Lisa Damiani, one of the gunman’s court-appointed attorneys. The newspaper published the entire letter on Friday.The parents are breaking their silence as 9,000 summonses are being mailed to prospective jurors. Jury selection is scheduled for January with a trial to begin in late spring or early summer.Holmes, who turned 27...

OKLAHOMA CITY – After legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, Colorado is at the heart of a lawsuit. The Denver Post is reporting that Nebraska and Oklahoma have filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to strike down Colorado’s legalization laws. The Colorado attorney general’s office says the lawsuit alleges “that Colorado’s Amendment 64 and its implementing legislation regarding marijuana is unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.” “Because neighboring states have expressed concern about Colorado-grown marijuana coming into their states, we are not entirely surprised by this action,” said Colorado Attorney General John...

Redstate catches an unguarded moment with Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper at a lunch earlier this week where he speaks extemporaneously and gives us a peek into what he believes the proper role of government to be. You might be surprised at just how little responsibility he feels you should take for yourself. Government should do what people individually canÂ’t do, or canÂ’t do well themselves. You know, educating our young people, [emphasis added] making sure our roads are designed and built properly, making sure our communities are safeÂ…that our economic system is robust, but at the same time fairÂ…that every...

In the wake of a New York grand jury deciding not to indict police officer Daniel Pantaleo for the chokehold death of Eric Garner, racially diverse protests instantly erupted across the nation. White faces could be seen in swelling crowds from NYC and D.C., to Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit and Denver. Their mouths covered with masking tape with the words "I can't breathe" scrawled over it. The righteousness of racial solidarity burning in their eyes as they joined in chanting, "Black lives matter! Black lives matter! Black lives matter!" This is not to say that there were not White allies...

In the span of four months, at least 94 children in 33 U.S. states have developed a devastating form of paralysis with symptoms similar to polio. Some require a ventilator to breathe. And some of the greatest government health minds in the country say they have no idea what’s causing it. At the same time, during the past four months, at least 12 children have died after falling ill with a respiratory virus called Enterovirus D-68 (EV-D68). Again, federal health officials are at a loss to explain the origin of the epidemic. Are the mysterious outbreaks linked? The Centers for...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday dismissed a Senate report on harsh interrogation practices used by the Central Intelligence Agency, saying officials "very carefully” avoided going past the legal threshold for torture. "Torture is what the al Qaeda terrorists did to 3,000 Americans on 9/11," Cheney said on NBC's "Meet The Press." "There is no comparison between that and what we did with respect to enhanced interrogation." The CIA’s interrogation techniques following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have come under fire following a Senate report detailing how agency operatives used waterboarding and rectal feeding to try to obtain...

Did you know that there’s been a massive uptick in white thugs setting black folks on fire, yet the media has been virtually silent on this horrendous subject? Sure, we all have heard of Darren Wilson's shooting Michael Brown, but there has been no coverage of the aforementioned. Like in zero… nada… nothing… zilch. What kind of racist “news outlets” would be so heinous to cover up such gross and unspeakable evil? Why haven’t the most powerful people in our government and the entertainment industry spoken out and condemned this obvious xenophobic act of viciousness? How come there has been...

DENVER — Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper made good Friday on his promise to sue the federal government over its hotly contested move to list the Gunnison sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The Colorado Attorney General’s office filed a notice of intent to sue with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Fish and Wildlife Service director Daniel M. Ashe, arguing that the agency’s Nov. 12 decision to list the bird as threatened was flawed and failed to appreciate fully the impact of aggressive state and local conservation efforts. “The Service failed to use the best available science in its listing...

We are entering a Stoned New World here, as Colorado entrepreneurs come up with new ways to make money in the new… ah… atmosphere… of tolerance. It’s also an interesting test case for longtime proponents of legalization such as myself, to see what happens when perfect theory encounters an imperfect world. Our first stumbling block is that the state-sponsored growers and sellers cartels have kept prices artificially high (no pun intended), so we still have a black market for the green herb. That also means, as we’ve discussed here before, that tax revenues are not meeting expectations.

Jonathan Gruber’s health care forecasting is failing in Colorado as Vermont’s Gov. Peter Shumlin prepares to use the economist’s math for single-payer health care. As Vermonters anxiously await a Gruber-modeled financing plan for Green Mountain Care, modeling done for Colorado’s health exchange by Jonathan Gruber Associates has proven wildly erroneous. In 2011, following Colorado’s decision to set up a state health exchange for Obamacare, the state hired Gruber to forecast enrollment trends from which the state and federal government could estimate costs. According to a presentation delivered to the Colorado Health Benefit Exchange Board on Sept. 16, 2011, and provided...

The Obama administration will direct attorneys to not prevent Native American tribes on reservations from growing and selling marijuana even in states where pot is illegal, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday. Some federal restrictions will still apply. Marijuana can't be sold to minors, grown on public land, fall into the hands of drug cartels, or systemically spread to states where the drug remains illegal. It's unclear how many tribes will take advantage of the opportunity. Many are opposed to marijuana legalization. The federal government will continue enforcing prohibition for those tribes, at their request, even in states where...

A record number of rogue Christian pastors are endorsing candidates from the pulpit this election cycle, using Sunday sermons to defiantly flout tax rules. Their message to the IRS: Sue me. But the tax agency is doing anything but. Although the IRS was sued itself for not enforcing the law and admitted about 100 churches may be breaking the rules, the pastors and their critics alike say the agency is looking the other way. The agency refuses to say if it is acting. At the same time, the number of pastors endorsing candidates in what they call Pulpit Freedom Sunday...

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Thus, no matter how full-throated the endorsements of Common Core by such worthies as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the parents go marching on. “Colorado Springs School District 11 struck a blow against the Common Core by voting to remove the majority of its students from the new, mandatory standardized tests,” Chris Neal wrote in School Reform News this month. “District 11, which has nearly 30, 000 students, announced it plans to randomly test the minimum number of students needed to meet the federal requirement, allowing the rest to opt...

".....Yuma,Colorado, a farming town of 3,500 people near the Kansas border, celebrated last month as homegrown Republican Cory Gardner was elected to the U.S. Senate. Gardner, a high school football player and the son of a farm equipment dealer, defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall to help the GOP gain control of the Senate in the second-most expensive congressional race of all time.Gardner represented Colorado’s 4th Congressional District for four years, an expansive territory that covers the mostly flat and rural eastern third of the state. Farmers there mostly grow corn to feed cattle, and water comes from the quickly...