Free Republic

Colorado has a new cash crop. New figures show that the state has been raking in profits since January, when it became the first in the nation to legalize the sale of marijuana for recreational use. Add in sales taxes from lower taxed medical marijuana and so far this year the state has banked nearly $18 million. Along with the big bucks have come some big problems. Like 10 toddlers so far this year overdosing on edible marijuana products. And from January through May, the Colorado State Patrol handed out 289 tickets to people driving under the influence of marijuana....

"They are turning people of faith into religious refugees." Colorado bakery owner Jack Phillips never sought out a gay person to discrminate against, nor to harm in any way. He has no desire to do so. But because he serves Jesus Christ above all else, Phillips was not about to be forced into participation in celebrating the "marriage" of two gay men. So when they entered his store to place an order for a wedding cake, he simply told them they would have to find a different bakery. We've told you this story before, and it's now reached exactly the...

DENVER — Rep. Cory Gardner of Colorado said Thursday he supports granting citizenship to people who enter the country illegally and serve in the U.S. military. Photo - Rep. Cory Gardner is challenging Democratic Sen Mark Udall and has been criticized for not favoring a broader path to citizenship for people living in the country illegally. (Denver Post file) + caption The Republican is challenging Democratic Sen Mark Udall and has been criticized for not favoring a broader path to citizenship for people living in the country illegally. Gardner's statements, in an interview with The Associated Press, came a day...

An order handed down by Colorado's Civil Rights Commission on a local Christian baker forcing him to undergo sensitivity training after he refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding citing his faith is "vague," "lousy" and pointless, says his lawyer. Last Friday, the commission ruled that Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, could not refuse to bake cakes for gay weddings citing his Christian faith and ordered him to undergo sensitivity training. In an interview with The Christian Post Wednesday, his lawyer, Nicolle Martin, said the sensitivity training was pointless, because her client does not discriminate...

Maureen Dowd, author of “Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk”, speaks during a panel discussion during a luncheon at the Book Expo America convention, Saturday, June 5, 2004, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Brian Kersey) I never smoked marijuana before, and Maureen Dowd‘s haphazard experience with a weed-laced candy bar in her Denver hotel room certainly isn’t motivating me to book a plane ticket to what is soon to be dubbed the “Mile High State.” The New York Times columnist was in Colorado reporting on the state’s first months of legalized marijuana use when she decided to take what she later learned...

The Civil Rights Commission of Colorado ruled Friday that baker Jack Philips 1st Amendment rights to free exercise of his religious beliefs may in fact be prohibited. In a decision sure to be challenged, they ruled Philips must participate in same-sex wedding celebrations by ordering him to accept any custom orders wedding cakes from same-sex couples. The Colorado ruling on the pro gay-marriage cake begs the question as to whether or not their definitions of civil rights go both ways (pun intended). Let us consider if the roles in the case were somehow reversed. How would rule if a self-described...

Oil companies say a weeks-old Obama administration ruling that protects a Southwestern prairie bird has already halted oil-drilling operations in Kansas and is costing the U.S. economy tens of millions of dollars, as a GOP congressmen suggests the move is another “job-killing” attack on fossil fuel. The decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that was announced in late March and took effect May 1 includes a provision that should allow federal officials and landowners in the five impacted states -- Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas -- to manage conservation efforts. But oil producers say the interim...

Nearly five months into Colorado’s great pot experiment, the early returns are good. In Denver, home to the bulk of the first-in-the-nation retail stores, violent crime fell by 5.6 percent over the first four months of the year, with major property crimes down nearly twice that, according to the city’s police. State coffers, meanwhile, are flush with tax revenues from the nearly $50 million worth of recreational weed that was sold through March, the last month for which official estimates are available. Those sales translate into $7.3 million for the state, a number that jumps to $12.6 million when you...

[Video] 8 Year Old Schoolboy Reprimanded For Thinking a Cloud Looked Like a Gun During Assignment May 22 2014 by Dan Cannon Share This Post So I think we’re officially to the point where our public schools are punishing children for their imagination. According to KKTV, Second grader Kody Smith was assigned to go outside, look at the clouds, and then use his imagination to draw what he saw. “Draw a picture of what you see in the clouds from your imagination and that picture is a gun,” explained 8-year-old Kody. Because it was a gun, the teacher at Talbott...

Academia is hell. In the latest higher-education fad, students want "trigger warnings," according to The New York Times. It appears that some students are so fragile that they want university staff to protect them from big bad ideas. Students around the country say they want "explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans." An Oberlin College draft -- now "under revision" -- for trigger warnings suggested faculty "be aware of racism,...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Chipotle is asking customers not to bring firearms into its stores after it says gun rights advocates brought military-style assault rifles into one of its restaurants in Texas.</p> <p>The Denver-based company notes that it has traditionally complied with local laws regarding open and concealed firearms.</p>

Challengers see themselves in the Texas senator, even in races where their odds of an upset are considered steeper than Cruz’s surprise victory over a GOP establishment figure two years ago. He’s made endorsements in the Oklahoma and Nebraska Senate races, plus the Nebraska gubernatorial race, and sent almost $26,000 to federal candidates through his leadership PAC. “Ted Cruz would be extremely helpful as an endorser and a fundraiser,” said C. Edmund Wright, a consultant to longshot South Carolina Senate hopeful Lee Bright, in an email. “Rand Paul and Mike Lee would be great also.” But, he said, “the reason...

Bystanders file suit after being detained by Aurora police looking for suspect

Gun control supporters appear poised to force New Jersey's Republican governor, Chris Christie, often discussed as a potential presidential candidate in 2016, to show where he stands on the Second Amendment. On Monday, the state's Senate passed A2006, legislation to lower the state's magazine-capacity limit from 15 rounds to 10 rounds, by a vote of 22-17, mostly along party lines. The bill will be sent to Christie for signature or veto after the Assembly, which previously approved it by a vote of 46-31, approves technical changes made to the bill by the Senate. Once the bill reaches Christie's desk, he...

Surprise action outside Denver's Brown Palace Hotel this morning, as a press release from a coalition of groups including Together Colorado and the Colorado Immigration Reform Coalition (CIRC) explains: Outside a fundraiser headlined by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) for Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) today, local leaders staged a rally to protest the fact that these three House Republicans are key obstacles standing in the way of immigration reform that would keep Colorado immigrant families together. It has been 322 days since the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill, but Speaker Boehner and House...

A man who lives near Oprah Winfrey’s new property above Telluride, Colorado, is suing her for allegedly blocking access to hiking trails open to neighbours for decades. Retired nuclear physicist Charles D. Goodman claims Winfrey’s Yellow Brick Road company, the property’s former owners and the town of Mountain Village made a secret deal to close access to the trails that cut across the property purchased for $10.9 million in March. “I don’t care if Oprah is a neighbor, but if she is going to cut off access to trails, I don’t find that acceptable,” Goodman said in an interview with...

Colorado lawmakers approved the first financial system for the marijuana industry Wednesday, a network of uninsured cooperatives designed to give pot businesses a way to access basic banking services. The plan seeks to move the marijuana industry away from its cash-only roots. Banks routinely reject pot businesses for even basic services such as checking accounts because they fear running afoul of federal law, which considers marijuana and its proceeds illegal. The result: Pot shop owners deal in large amounts of cash, which makes them targets for criminals. Or they try to find ways around the problem, like drenching their proceeds...

The plan to void 60 western Colorado energy leases.. is a looming BLM-caused disaster. Hundreds of citizens from Mesa County and other affected areas gathered May 1 in De Beque to protest a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan to void existing contracts the government made with private individuals and companies. The meeting in De Beque, a little town dependent almost entirely on gas, oil, coal and cows, was not originally planned by the BLM. Since half of the imperiled leases are in Mesa County, the Mesa County Board of Commissioners joined with various associations and individuals to demand that...

Deputies discover hash oil operation while investigating report of man being bitten on penis by pit bull (full title) SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, Colo. - The San Miguel County Sheriff's Office says a deputy found a potentially dangerous butane hash oil operation while responding to an unusual call. The sheriff's office says a man who lives at the home near Telluride called 9-1-1 and reported that his pit bull bit him on his penis. The deputy said that there was a large amount of blood in the home and that the man was taken to the hospital. While responding to the...

The opening months of Colorado’s first-in-the-nation recreational marijuana industry have seen a rise in fiery explosions and injuries as pot users try to make the drug’s intoxicating oil in crude home-based laboratories. Since Jan. 1, when sales began, the state’s only certified adult burn center has treated 10 people with serious injuries they suffered while making hash oil, compared with 11 in 2013 and one in 2012. Law enforcement and fire officials, meanwhile, are grappling with how to respond, as the questionable legality of the process has made it difficult to punish amateur chemists. Some prosecutors are charging them with...