Free Republic

Colorado’s whitewashing of Aurora Wilkins’s murder seems like the sort of thing people of conscience would find unacceptable. Yet here we are, accepting it. On March 18, Dynel Lane savagely attacked Michelle Wilkins, butchering her to get at Aurora. Ms. Lane had been telling people she was pregnant when she wasn’t, and now she wanted a young corpse that she could pass off for a miscarriage so that she could avoid the impending awkwardness of a prenatal checkup. After luring Ms. Wilkins to her home, Dynel proceeded to stab her repeatedly with a knife. Dynel then left Michelle for dead...

By now the horrific story about Michelle WilkinsÂ’ 7 month old preborn Aurora being ripped from her motherÂ’s womb in Colorado has dominated headlines throughout the country. Dynel Lane, the perpetrator, was charged with eight felonies by the Boulder County District AttorneyÂ’s office. Yet one charge was visibly missing: the murder of baby Aurora. A new poll reveals that 76% of Americans agree that an attacker who causes the death of a womanÂ’s preborn child should be charged with murder. Colorado has devastatingly failed Aurora. Michelle WilkinsÂ’ story is tragic. Wilkins, 26, answered a fraudulent Craigslist ad for baby clothes....

Bill Jack wants to make one thing perfectly clear: Bakers should not be forced to make a cake that would violate their conscience or freedom of expression. Jack, of Castle Rock, Colo., is making national headlines over an experiment he conducted in the wake of attacks on Christian business owners who refuse to provide services for same-sex marriages. Last year, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled that the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood unlawfully discriminated against a gay couple who wanted a wedding cake. Jack Phillips, the owner of the cake shop, is a devout Christian, and his attorneys argued that...

The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is one of the icons of the Cold War - a self-contained and sufficient town buried under the Rockies meant to be impervious to a Soviet nuclear barrage. It was home to the North American Aerospace Command (NORAD), scanning the skies for Russian missiles and the military command and control center of the United States in the event of World War Three. The high tech base entered popular culture with appearances in the 1983 Cold War thriller War Games and 1994's Stargate - which imagined the complex as a clandestine home for intergalactic travel. It shut...

Taxpayers paid state Supreme Court Chief Justice Nancy Rice nearly $148,000 plus generous government benefits last year. But, since 2007, she collected more than $100,000 in public money teaching University of Colorado law school classes that began during normal judicial business hours, Watchdog.org has found. Public Defender Douglas Wilson and one of his employees, Ann Roan, also were paid for teaching at the CU law school during normal work hours, despite taxpayers paying Wilson more than $138,000 and Roan more than $132,000 a year to do their public defender jobs, documents obtained under state open records laws show. Steve Curtis,...

Steamboat Springs — Routt County commissioners are among local government officials in Colorado who are railing against the latest plans of the state legislature to appropriate $20 million from the mineral severance tax fund to balance the 2015-16 budget. "Since I’ve been a commissioner, this is the fourth or fifth time they’ve raided the severance tax to take care of the state’s budget, and to the detriment of local governments,” Routt County Commission Chairman Doug Monger said. “If we don’t make noise about it, it will become a normal event. We have to get out there and say ‘This really...

The US military command that scans North America's skies for enemy missiles and aircraft plans to move its communications gear to a Cold War-era mountain bunker, officers said. The shift to the Cheyenne Mountain base in Colorado is designed to safeguard the command's sensitive sensors and servers from a potential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, military officers said. The Pentagon last week announced a $700 million contract with Raytheon Corporation to oversee the work for North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) and US Northern Command. Admiral William Gortney, head of NORAD and Northern Command, said that "because of the very nature of...

Joshua Feuerstein says bakery wouldn't make a cake that said 'we do not support gay marriage'Longwood bakery owners receive an outpouring of support after refusing to bake a cake with an anti-gay marriage message on it. Amanda Ober (@AmandaOberWESH) reports on what criminal charges could be filed in the cake controversy. Criminal charges possible in Longwood cake controversy (Video) Cut the Cake bakery said it has lost business and faced harassment since last week when evangelist Joshua Feuerstein posted a video of the bakery owner refusing to make a cake that said, "We do not support gay marriage."Feuerstein talked to...

A bakery in Colorado will not be punished for refusing to bake a cake requested by a Christian activist that included quotes from the Bible denouncing homosexuality. Azucar Bakery in Denver was found not guilty of discrimination by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Regulatory Agencies when it refused to make a cake requested by Christian activist Bill Jack. In comments sent to The Christian Post on Sunday, Jack denounced the decision by the Civil Rights Division and its use of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. "Colorado prosecuted Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop for bringing his Christian faith to...

DENVER - Colorado's legal battles between religious freedom and gay rights continue to play out in the not-so-sweet arena of bakery cake requests. Last week, the Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled that Denver's Azucar Bakery did not discriminate against William Jack, a Christian from Castle Rock, by refusing to make two cakes with anti-gay messages and imagery that he requested last year.

BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) – Boulder’s Jewish Community Center was evacuated Monday morning after a letter containing white powder arrived saying “you have enemies.” The Boulder County Sheriff is responding to the situation at the center, which is located on the 3800 block of Kalmia Avenue.

Colorado's legal battles between religious freedom and gay rights continue to play out in the not-so-sweet arena of bakery cake requests. Last week, the Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled that Denver's Azucar Bakery did not discriminate against William Jack, a Christian from Castle Rock, by refusing to make two cakes with anti-gay messages and imagery that he requested last year. The dispute began March 13, 2014 when Jack went to the bakery at 1886 S. Broadway and requested two cakes shaped like bibles. He asked that one cake have the image of two groomsmen holding hands in front of a...

Last week, the Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled that Denver’s Azucar Bakery did not discriminate against William Jack, a Christian from Castle Rock, by refusing to make two cakes with anti-gay messages and imagery that he requested last year. [However,] Last year, the Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled that another bakery, Masterpiece Cake Shop in Lakewood, could not refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, calling it discriminatory.

Efforts to protect the greater sage grouse in its 11-state territory are multiplying, according to a report from the Western Governors’ Association released Thursday, and Northwest Colorado’s sage grouse population is seeing significant growth as a result. The report is a comprehensive inventory of public and private conservation initiatives in 2014 throughout the bird’s range in 11 western states, including Colorado. Northwest Colorado is home to about two thirds of the state’s greater sage grouse population, which grew by 30 percent from 2013 to 2014, according to Senior Wildlife Biologist Brad Petch with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. ... Moffat, Routt...

Republican presidential hopefuls are united in blasting President Obama for his chaotic enforcement of marijuana laws, but the unity quickly breaks down when they are asked how they would handle things if they were in the White House. Some have sent mixed signals, saying state decisions should be respected while questioning how Mr. Obama has respected those decisions. Others have refused to say how they would wield the federal bureaucracy against marijuana. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is one of the few potential candidates to take a firm stance, saying he would insist on following federal statutes that outlaw the drug....

Air Force Academy officials say a cadet who was found injured in his dorm room has died. The cadet, whose name has not been released, was found at about 2 p.m. Thursday and died at about 3:45 p.m. Investigators have not released a cause of death or any information about the injuries.

The Western Governors' Association released a report today highlighting the voluntary efforts in 11 states to conserve the habitat of sage-grouse as part of an effort to avoid a federal listing of the bird under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The association, which represents the governors of 19 Western states, said that “the breadth and depth of voluntary conservation efforts across the region, if allowed to run their course, will provide the bird with the necessary habitat to live and thrive.” The greater sage grouse is found in 11 states and its habitat encompasses 186 million acres . The U.S....

It’s not even 8 a.m. and rush hour is on in northwestern New Mexico. Dozens of big white trucks and water tankers, neon flags flying, head north to the gas patch. I’m driving south, through Aztec, and as I pass the retro-orange A&W on the edge of town, I pull up alongside a drilling rig. The thing’s huge, too huge, it seems, to be rolling along the same road as my little Nissan. Yet the strange, rolling infrastructure has been a familiar site around here for decades — back in 1948, when a UFO purportedly crashed out on a nearby...

Already pegged by The Hill as one of the most vulnerable U.S. Senators facing re-election in 2016, and the only Democrat on that list now that Sen. Harry Reid has decided to retire, Michael Bennet is still scrambling to consolidate his base. With his polling numbers hovering just above the 50% mark among Democrats and Democrat activists actively protesting his fundraisers, we cannot blame him one bit. Bennet’s latest pander was an amendment he introduced last week that effectively declared climate change to be a national security issue. While this might mollify the environmental extremists who comprise a meaningful spot...

This afternoon, Fact Check.org produced a fact-check that ostensibly criticizes U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) for his contention that there has never been an instance of ground water contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing. Of course, this piece isn’t really about Inhofe at all; but before we get into that, we can’t help but wonder why they are fact-checking Inhofe and not former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson … or Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz … or Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell — all of whom have said exactly the same thing. Rather than a “fact-check,” it reads more like an advocacy...