Free Republic

If you’ve opened your property tax assessment you’ve already had your coronary. Your property value has gone up between 30% and 70%.. That means because the Legislature, under Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter, froze mill levy rates (preventing them from lowering) and because voters foolishly repealed the Gallagher Amendment in 2020, your property taxes are going to go up some 30% to 70% next year. But don’t worry. The same people who have put you in this bind are going to pantomime rescuing you just as the clock runs out on their legislative session. What heroes. The Colorado state Legislature, with...

Weeks after J.K. Rowling expressed disdain for a British employer firing an employee for stating sex is binary, another employer—this time in the U.S.—allegedly fired a freelance columnist for saying there are only two sexes. Jon Caldara, a regular columnist for The Denver Post, announced Jan. 17 in a Facebook post that the publication had fired him for his traditional, but apparently offensive and “insensitive,” beliefs about sex and gender. An editor’s note posted Jan.21 at The Denver Post confirmed Megan Schrader, editor of The Denver Post’s editorial pages, decided the publication no longer would run Caldara’s weekly freelance column,...

An armed man is a free man whilst an unarmed man is a serf who is subject to the whims and dictates of the State. That is why progressive liberals fear and despise gun ownership and why they relentlessly pursue to destroy the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. They know that an armed population can resist any final destruction of their God-given liberties. This week saw a mixed bag of news as it pertains to gun rights. However, while there was a setback in Missouri, the overall news is encouraging. On Tuesday, voters in Colorado successfully recalled two anti-liberty...

Via the Corner. Tuesday night, expecting a close race, I couldn’t believe that she lost by 12 points. Now, after watching her for the first time, I can’t believe she lost by only 12 points. She’s got one argument here — “voter suppression,” ripped straight from the DNC’s talking points memo, which is completely destroyed by her own now-famous admission a few weeks ago that if Bloomberg and his anti-gun group couldn’t buy her a victory in this race, “they might as well fold it up.” They did their best for her; as Erika noted earlier, gun-grabbers outspent gun-rights supporters...

If you see the Independence Institute's Jon Caldara smiling today, here's one likely reason: He provided the de facto name for the lead segment on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show last night. Sitting to the side of a continental-U.S. map plastered with the Caldara-uttered phrase "Wave of Fear," Maddow explored the recall election defeats of John Morse and Angela Giron over their support of gun-control legislation. Along the way, she featured a clip of Caldara at the lectern and politically incorrect graphics courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. See it all below. Following an introduction noting that her program is...

"It's worth saying Colorado has maintained people's right to own a gun --- we've maintained the full respect for the Second Amendment," he insisted during a press conference on Wednesday. Hickenlooper repeatedly cited a poll showing that 80 percent of Colorado voters support universal background checks, calling the law "sound and sensible." He admitted, however, that he was never as "fired up" about limits on ammunition magazines. "That was a tough one," he said.

Leaders of the campaign to pass a $950 million education tax increase are laying plans for their campaign, but they’re being close-mouthed about what those strategies are. With just 35 days until county clerks can start mailing ballots for the Nov. 5 election, Colorado Commits to Kids has yet to stage any public meetings or air any advertising. On Tuesday, Colorado Commits convened representatives of groups supporting Amendment 66 for a meeting on the Auraria campus. The emailed invitation said, “We plan to update you on our success thus far, and explain our road to success in the coming months.”...

Rights: Colorado voters on Tuesday ousted two leading supporters of stricter gun control laws, saying "ready, aim, fired" to those who would deny movie patrons and college women the right to armed self-defense. One would think that Colorado, the site of the tragedies at Columbine and the Aurora movie theater, the purple state where President Obama accepted his first nomination amidst faux Greek columns, would be the least receptive of states for the arguments of Second Amendment defenders. Colorado state Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron found out differently on Tuesday as they were ousted by gun rights...

On Tuesday night, voters in two Colorado districts ousted two prominent state senators due to their support for strict state-level gun control measures. Colorado, which has been trending Democratic over the past four election cycles, has been uniquely resistant to the Republican message. For a moment, that trend in the Centennial State was halted as voters ejected state Sen. Angela Giron and state Senate President John Morse from elected office. Pundits and political scientists often warn observers that special or recall elections are not indicative of any political trend. They are not predictive of the results of a general election...

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a grassroots organization of more than 100,000 members, issued the following statement regarding the recall election results in Colorado: “The gun lobby may have won this local battle, but they will not win the national war. The National Rifle Association purposely called this recall election in Colorado – just a year before the regular election cycle – to ensure voting obstacles and low voter turnout. This reckless desire to remove legislators from office in an off-election year cost Coloradans more than $500,000 – an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars. From the outset,...

The next time you're wondering if polls are biased, just remember this admission from Public Policy Polling: Reflecting on the Colorado recalls We did a poll last weekend in Colorado Senate District 3 and found that voters intended to recall Angela Giron by a 12 point margin, 54/42. In a district that Barack Obama won by almost 20 points I figured there was no way that could be right and made a rare decision not to release the poll. It turns out we should have had more faith in our numbers becaue she was indeed recalled by 12 points. What's...

Successful recall elections Tuesday of two Democratic state senators in Colorado were because of “voter suppression, pure and simple,” Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Wednesday. Wasserman Schultz blamed lawsuits filed by opponents of gun control to prevent voters from mailing in ballots, the late announcement of polling locations, and “efforts by the NRA, the Koch brothers and other right wing groups who know that when more people vote, Democrats win.” “The recall elections in Colorado were defined by the vast array of obstacles that special interests threw in the way of voters for the purpose of reversing

The people of Colorado have spoken. In the state’s first ever recall election, voters successfully recalled senators John Morse and Angela Giron over their support of anti-liberty gun control legislation passed earlier in the year, sending a message that the destruction of freedom will not be tolerated – in the state of Colorado. Morse lost by less than 400 votes in his hotly-contested district of Colorado Springs. Giron lost by several thousand in Pueblo. Democrats will still maintain control of the state legislature, although the state’s Democratic governor might be next on the list of politicians to recall. Coloradans fought...

<p>Two Colorado Democrats who provided crucial support for a slate of tough new gun-control laws were voted out of office on Tuesday in a recall vote widely seen as a test of popular support for gun restrictions after mass shootings in a Colorado movie theater and a Connecticut elementary school.</p>

Colorado Springs — Despite the media’s insistence that the Colorado recalls were the first skirmish in a new proxy war between the National Rifle Association and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, the simple truth is that Tuesday’s stunning elections were prompted and won by forces on the ground. At the Stargazers Theatre last night, I sat with those forces as a famous victory unfolded. Speaking after Senator Morse conceded, the recall’s founder, Tim Knight, told the crowd that “you must own your freedom in order to protect and pass it on to your children.” He has spent the last few...

As Twitchy reported yesterday, Democrats were pushing the bogus “voter suppression” meme even before the polls closed in Colorado’s recall elections. According to Politico reporter Byron Tau, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, head of the Democratic National Committee, is the latest Democrat to parrot the absurd talking point. Will other high-profile Democrats follow suit?

Declaring that “we have not given up,” Vice President Biden warned Tuesday that lawmakers who opposed the Obama administration’s proposals to stem gun violence “will pay a political price.” Biden appeared in a White House auditorium to announce that the administration has completed or made significant progress on nearly two dozen smaller-scale executive actions aimed at strengthening existing background checks, improving record-keeping, and providing schools and communities with emergency management plans.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - State Senate President John Morse and Senator Angela Giron were both removed from office Tuesday by voters upset with their stance on gun control. Unofficial final results updated by the El Paso County Clerk at 10:02 p.m. showed 50.96 percent of voters wanted Morse to be recalled. "The highest rank in a democracy is citizen, not senate president," he said at the conclusion of his concession speech, in which he promised to continue his work. Giron, who was winning in the first preliminary data, has also lost. Unofficial results show 56 percent of voters in favor...

State Senate President John Morse became the first Colorado lawmaker to be recalled by his constituents in the state’s 137-year history around 9 p.m. Tuesday night. Less than an hour later, Sen. Angela Giron, also facing a recall due to her support of gun control legislation this year, became the second. [Snip] Morse conceded just after 9 p.m. “It has been an honor to represent the eleventh senate district and to serve as the Colorado state [senate] president,” he told more than 150 supporters at the Wyndham Garden Hotel downtown. “Robert F. Kennedy once said, ‘it is the essence of...

DENVER — Democrats don’t often complain about voter fraud, but the prospect of outside voters taking advantage of an apparent loophole in Colorado’s new election law to participate in the legislative recalls has the bill’s sponsor crying foul. State Rep. Dan Pabon (D-Denver), who sponsored the Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act, said Wednesday that those who say the law allows so-called “gypsy voters” are essentially advocating election fraud. “I think what they’re doing is advertising wholesale voter fraud and asking folks to basically break the law,” Pabon told the Colorado Observer.