Free Republic

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials have accumulated at least $6.3 billion in more than 1,300 obscure spending accounts akin to slush funds that are essentially beyond congressional, media and public scrutiny. The accounts – which were created through EPA’s Superfund program – are not technically secret because the agency officially acknowledges their existence. But getting concrete details about deposits and expenditures is extremely difficult. The EPA deposited more than $6.3 billion into an estimated 1,308 special accounts between 1990 and 2015, according to the agency’s website, and has spent more than half of the total. The agency doesn’t publicly report...

DENVER — The Environmental Protection Agency came under fire Thursday after an official said the agency would not fully cover a Colorado county’s expenses stemming from the EPA-caused toxic wastewater spill at the Gold King Mine. Colorado Republicans blasted the agency after the Durango Herald reported that an EPA official nixed some of La Plata County’s proposed cooperative agreement for $2.4 million in spill-related costs over 10 years at a Wednesday board of county commissioners meeting. Sen. Cory Gardner, Colorado Republican, described the report as “outrageous” and “yet another example of the Washington double standard,” adding that he would work...

For 65 years, Denver Christian Schools used the mascot “Crusaders,” but that’s all about to change. Although CEO Todd Lanting says it’s not about political correctness, the change is being made because some might find it offensive to Muslims, EAG News reported Tuesday. “In our mission, in light of the command to love our neighbors as ourselves, the crusader was an inconsistent, inappropriate symbol for that mission,” Lanting told KUSA. EAG added: After using the Crusaders mascot for 65 of the school’s 100 year history, officials in November began to solicit ideas for a new symbol, and have since narrowed...

There has been a lot of agitation from the Trump Camp about the caucus process in Colorado – and, maybe, now we know why. A Magellan poll released today shows that in a head to head match up, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would beat his opponent Ted Cruz in Colorado. Here are the numbers when voting on the current ballot: 44% – Trump 34% – Cruz 17% – Kasich 5% – undecided If voters were asked to choose between Cruz and Trump, the result is little changed: 48% – Trump 42% – Cruz According to the poll, Trump’s top...

The chairwoman of the Boulder County GOP has admitted that grave errors affected the Colorado Republican caucus, in which Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97% won a clean sweep of 34 delegates without opening up the process to voting by everyday citizens. Breitbart News has obtained an email that Boulder County GOP chairwoman Peg Cage sent to other top Republican officials in Colorado, including to other party chairs, describing the errors in the process that led to “the perception of fraud.” Reached for comment on the email, Cage said that the caucus might have to be done over.

DENVER (CBS4)– The Colorado Supreme Court decided to let an appellate court ruling that a bakery violated the state’s anti-discrimination law when it turned away a gay couple stand by refusing to hear the case. On Monday, the state Supreme Court let the lower court ruling stand. Attorneys for Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, filed the appeal last fall. They argued the government shouldn’t force Phillips to violate his Christian beliefs.

DENVER — The Colorado Supreme Court declined to hear the case of a Lakewood baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The decision upholds a ruling by the Colorado Court of Appeals last summer that found Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips cannot cite religious beliefs or free-speech rights in refusing to make a wedding case for a same-sex couple.

If you find yourself in an emergency situation in Green Mountain Falls, Colo., don’t bother calling police. In this scenic western hamlet, they no longer exist. All four members of the 700-person town’s police force — Tim Bradley, the police chief, and three volunteer reserve officers — resigned April 14 because of an alleged policy dispute with the municipality’s newly elected mayor, according to Fox affiliate KXRM-TV. Residents told the station that they weren’t exactly sure why the resignations occurred. “Our marshal and three deputies quit, and that’s about all they said,” Ann Pinell said. “We’ve had our hometown marshal...

Free Republic stands for God, family, country! America! "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United State of America." Securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity is our mission on FR. We cannot secure the blessings of liberty with Hillary in the White House. When Trump wins the lion's share of the primary votes, states and...

GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz lashed out at Fox News over coverage of Donald Trumpafter a heated interview with Sean Hannity earlier this week. When asked on “The Dom Giordano Program” about coverage of Trump’s claims of unfair “voterless elections” in states like Wyoming and Colorado, Cruz said, “They know it’s not true.” “Donald doesn’t handle losing well, and when we loses, he cries and he screams and he whines and he curses and he insults everybody,” Cruz said. “So when Donald lost five states in a row in landslide elections, that’s when they began making up this nonsense about...

Here at Magellan Strategies we strive to generate research projects that are not only interesting, but more importantly are relevant to our clients. For our clients here in Colorado, there is very little public research focused on how likely Republican Primary voters view the race for the Republican Presidential nomination. For our clients around the country, there is a lack of public research that attempts to truly understand the factors that are motivating Republican Primary voters to support Donald Trump. We decided to fill both voids at once by fielding a 609n automated survey (April 5th-6th) of likely Republican Primary...

‘Damaged masculinity’ may help explain Columbine and other mass shootings mike.rosenwald@washpost.com Follow @mikerosenwald View Archive RSS Feed April 20 at 6:34 AM Columbine High Schoolshooter, Eric Harris. (AP Photo/HO) Wednesday marks the 17th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre — the terrible day in 1999 when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 and wounded dozens more before killing themselves in Colorado.In the strangely American phenomenon of mass shootings, Columbine comes up again and again. As I wrote last year: It was Columbine that changed everything…a horrifying event that occurred just as the Internet was taking root in the...

Colorado would go back to holding a presidential primary under a bill that's expected to be introduced this week, after Democrat and Republican voters complained that caucuses, held in March, left them out of the nominating process. The idea has Gov. John Hickenlooper's support, even though it might mean the state picks up the cost.

Donald Trump on Sunday accused the Colorado Republican Party of changing the rules of its nomination process because of his campaign. Speaking in Staten Island, N.Y., the businessman and GOP front-runner noted that he announced his campaign on June 16, 2015. Trump said that iwas two months later, in August, when the Colorado GOP's executive committee decided to give the power to delegates, not the voters, to decide whom they would support. Last weekend Texas Sen. Ted Cruz completed a sweep of all the state's 34 delegates. "Just so you understand. They keep saying 'we didn't change the rules' ......

Over the past week, our planet has been hit by large earthquake after large earthquake, and according to Volcano Discovery, there are 38 volcanoes around the world that are erupting right now. We have seen a dramatic spike in global seismic activity that is unlike anything that we have seen in ages, and that is why what is going on at Yellowstone is so incredibly alarming. Geologists tell us that a full-blown eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano would have up to 2,000 times the power of the Mount St. Helen's volcanic eruption of 1980, and approximately two-thirds of the country...

This peaceful university town is 7,000 miles from the violence of the Middle East, but a proposal to become sister cities with a Palestinian community has stirred such rancor that the City Council is trying to negotiate a truce among its own residents. The council decided Tuesday to hire a moderator and convene a citizen panel in hopes of settling differences between two sides arguing about whether Boulder should have a formal sister-city relationship with Nablus on the West Bank. …

Social media posts, along with Cruz’s campaign website, reveal that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) supporters in the Colorado Republican Party were responsible for crushing an effort to give Colorado the ability to vote in a state primary. In May of 2015, four Colorado Senate Republicans killed an initiative “to create a presidential primary in 2016,” reported the Denver Post. “Under the bill, Colorado would have held a presidential primary in March that ran parallel with the state’s complicated caucus system… when it came before the Senate Appropriations Committee, four Republicans voted to kill the bill with three Democrats supporting it.”...

The Republican Party "manipulated" Colorado's convention last weekend, which ended with Ted Cruz receiving all of the Centennial State's 34 delegates, former Rep. Tom Tancredo told Newsmax TV on Friday. "It absolutely was," Tancredo, who served on Capitol Hill for a decade beginning in 1999, told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth. He quit the GOP last year and described Cruz as "the real deal" in January.

Donald Trump is complaining that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is racking up “voterless” victories in states such as Colorado and Wyoming, where delegates are chosen by a “small handful of elites” who are “sidelining” Republican voters. This is dead wrong. In both Colorado and Wyoming, all registered Republican voters in the state had the chance to vote and participate in the delegate selection process. The Wyoming Republican Party website explains the process clearly: “Delegates to the state convention are elected by the county conventions. Delegates to the county convention are elected by precinct caucuses in their respective counties. Any person...

Social media posts, along with Cruz’s campaign website, reveal that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97% supporters in the Colorado Republican Party were responsible for crushing an effort to give Colorado the ability to vote in a state primary. In May of 2015, four Colorado Senate Republicans killed an initiative “to create a presidential primary in 2016,” reported the Denver Post. “Under the bill, Colorado would have held a presidential primary in March that ran parallel with the state’s complicated caucus system… when it came before the Senate Appropriations Committee, four Republicans voted to kill the bill with three Democrats supporting it.”...