Free Republic

Migrant gangs are turning Aurora, Colo., apartment complexes into hellholes, and the Democratic governor is turning a blind eye. It’s an unhappy consequence of being a suburb of sanctuary-city Denver: Venezuelan migrants have spread from the Mile High City, with gang-affiliated ones claiming apartment buildings as their turf, terrorizing residents. One chilling video shows suspected Tren de Aragua members stalking through the complex with guns. Another, from the same complex, shows two men breaking into a unit with a tire iron. Mayor Mike Coffman confirmed that at least two buildings have been taken over, calling it an “organized criminal effort,”...

“Polis dismissed anger over Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua taking over apartment buildings in the Denver suburb of Aurora, calling it ‘imagination’.” I blogged about the violent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang taking over an apartment complex in Aurora, Co. I speculated that “Colorado’s governor — Branch Covidian, gun-grabber, and general tyrant wannabe — Jared Polis will almost certainly tackle this . . . now that it’s gaining negative national attention. He will likely issue a disapproving statement and let this continue.” I was wrong, though he may yet get there. As of now, he is dismissing the video evidence...

From George Orwell’s 1984 comes one of the author’s most memorable lines: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”Well, while the fictional party of Oceania illustrated a society in which the people were to dismiss reality in authoritarian submission, Colorado governor Jared Polis prefers to gaslight us, describing the “evidence of [our] eyes and ears” as a mere figment of our “imagination.” We don’t need to “reject” anything because it’s all just in our crazy heads!Yesterday I wrote a blog on a surreal and terrifying situation in...

Legislation signed by Gov. Jared Polis approves the Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority’s first-ever plan to acquire the Stanley Hotel and develop a new film center onsite.. ESTES PARK — Gov. Jared Polis has signed legislation that modifies a grant program for Colorado’s creative industries to allow the Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority to buy the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. Polis signed the legislation Tuesday at the Stanley Hotel. A lengthy amendment to House Bill 1295 — which extends incentives offered under the Colorado Community Revitalization Grant program and was approved by the Colorado House late April...

Colorado has long drawn on its high-altitude sunshine and wintry winds for energy. Now Gov. Jared Polis (D) is determined to tap into another renewable resource: one simmering under the Centennial State’s surface. “The low-cost workhorses of the clean energy economy will always be solar and wind energy, especially in places like Colorado that have great wind and great sun,” Polis told The Hill in a Zoom interview this week. But as states strive to cut down on fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, they are left with an incomplete solution to the energy transition puzzle and need to...

Denver is a sanctuary city. Last month Mayor Mike Johnson announced he was cutting $45M from city agency budgets to pay for the influx of over 40,000 illegal aliens into the city. Of the budget cuts, $8.4M is being taken from the Denver Police Department. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been targeting Denver by sending illegal aliens to the sanctuary city. Why not? Sanctuary cities said they would welcome anyone, regardless of legal status. Abbott is giving them what they asked for with the added bonus of spotlighting the burden on Texas and other border states created by Biden's border...

'These heroes were callously tossed aside'.. Multiple times already Colorado, led by homosexual Democrat Gov. Jared Polis, has been cited for its "hostility" to Christianity. It happened in the state's attack on the faith of specialty baker Jack Phillips. Then the same issue arose in a fight involving state censorship of a web designer... Both times the state got slapped hard by the U.S. Supreme Court. Now it's another court, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and a division of the state, the University of Colorado, That court now has ruled that CU's Anshutz School of Medicine's policies that...

Jared Bernstein is perhaps the most influential "economist" in the United States. I put economist in quotes, despite his being an academic who has taught the subject and has advised Congress and the highest elected officials in America. I do so because he is a moron. He is such a moron that Paul Krugman himself admires him for his economic insights. He is that bad. ... This is absolutely priceless. And probably the most frightening clip you'll ever watch on the people in charge of the US economy. Jared Bernstein is literally the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers,...

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is drawing harsh criticism for his “Feliz Navidad” holiday message as the state struggles for resources while battling a significant immigration crisis, just days after Denver received 16 busloads of migrants. Polis .. dancing joyfully as he delivered an a cappella rendition of Puerto Rican singer-songwriter José Feliciano’s hit 1970 song ... the cringeworthy clip... “As cringe as this is, it doesn’t begin to compare to the damage you’ve done to this state,” ... “This is one of the worst things I have seen all year. Who walked into your office and said that this was...

Property-tax relief? Hardly. Proposition HH on this fall’s statewide ballot is really about growing government. And it attempts to do that by piggybacking on public outrage over skyrocketing property tax bills. The proposal’s purported property-tax “relief” — served up by Gov. Jared Polis and his legislative allies as one part of their dizzyingly complicated scheme — is a ruse. As with every attempt to play politics with a crisis, there’s a hidden agenda. And that agenda is to snooker Colorado voters into letting the state keep and spend billions of dollars in surplus tax revenue that otherwise would have to...

We’ll say it again now that Gov. Jared Polis has inked his purported “relief” for soaring property taxes: His plan is largely an illusion. Ignore the stagecraft of Wednesday’s signing ceremony for Senate Bill 23-303. It was a nice publicity stunt — the governor and assorted lawmakers turning up at the home of a Commerce City resident who supposedly would benefit. It was all sleight of hand. As we noted here only weeks ago, the Polis plan is as if someone offered to help you pay your bills — then reached into your pocket, grabbed your wallet, pulled out some...

Suppose someone offers to help you pay your bills — then reaches into your pocket, grabs your wallet, pulls out some money and hands it to you. That’s more or less what Gov. Jared Polis and his Democratic allies who run the Legislature have in mind in promising “relief” for Coloradans facing skyrocketing property taxes. Unveiled by the governor at a Monday news conference and introduced the same day in the Legislature as Senate Bill 23-303, the complicated proposal would ask voters on next November’s statewide ballot to pay for a large part of their own property-tax relief. That’s right;...

An “ambitious” climate bill that would speed up Colorado’s decarbonization efforts, incentivize the purchase of electric lawn equipment and streamline the regulation of carbon-sequestration wells passed the state Senate on a Democratic-led party-line vote Friday. Senate Bill 16, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Chris Hansen of Denver, is one of several bills trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that is moving through the Legislature this year, but it stands out for the breadth of sectors and activities that it could affect. An amendment made Thursday to the bill, for example, would fine utilities as much as $20,000 per day for failing...

Former US President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, broke their silence on Friday following Trump’s indictment in relation to hush money he allegedly paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. In a statement posted to social media, Ivanka Trump said, “I love my father, and I love my country.” “Today, I am pained for both. I appreciate the voices across the political spectrum expressing support and concern,” she added. Kushner, who served as a senior advisor to Trump during his time in President, commented on the indictment at an investment summit in Miami. “As an American,...

Jared Kushner, former White House senior advisor and former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, said Friday the “unprecedented” indictment by the grand jury in New York shows the “fear that the Democrats” have of him in the next election. “I think that that shows obviously the fear that the Democrats have of Trump and the political strength that he has,” Kushner said at the FII Institute’s Priority Summit in Miami Beach, Florida. “As an American, it’s very troubling to me to see the Leader of the Opposition party be indicted.” Kushner made these comments at the beginning of his speech about...

Irate customers complained about soaring energy costs at a recent meeting of the Colorado Public Utility Commission. Gov. Jared Polis responded, directing state agencies to do something — to fix a problem he caused. “The Governor has directed the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), which regulates state utilities, and the Colorado Energy Office (CEO) to implement several immediate actions to alleviate the natural gas energy burden on Coloradans,” states a Feb. 6 press release from the governor’s office. “I am laying out ways state entities and utilities can take action to help save people money on their energy costs, to identify...

Last week, Gov. Jared Polis gave his State of the State address before a joint session of the General Assembly and to all Coloradans around the state. As I and other rural legislators listened to his speech, we couldn’t help but notice something so significant to our state barely received more than a brief mention. As the speech lagged on, it was evident the governor was clearly avoiding talking about it. It became the industrial elephant in the room, if you will. In his 70-minute, 8,000-word monologue, the governor mentioned the word “agriculture” one single time. The words “farms” and...

Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former top adviser Jared Kushner has shown no interest in helping the former president navigate a series of storms that threaten to sink his 2024 campaign, according to a new report Friday. Per New York magazine, since the 76-year-old Trump’s Nov. 22 dinner with anti-semitic rapper Kanye West and white nationalist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago became public, Kushner has ignored requests for “help … for public support, even looking for a response” from his father-in-law’s nascent election operation. Meanwhile, the report added, the 41-year-old Kushner has taken to handing out Trump’s phone number for supplicants to...

Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that if the House Republicans subpoena President Joe Biden’s son Hunter the Senate Democrats should investigate former President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Discussing Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), Heitkamp said, “I think – Joe’s got to decide whether he’s going to run again, right? So that’s the interesting thing there. He’s not going to become a Republican. He’s going to continue to do what he’s always done, which is speak his mind and, you know, drive deals, like the Inflation Reduction Act, which was really what...

State this month began an investigation into Michael Willis.. Colorado this month started investigating allegations made in 2019 against a powerful Democrat-appointed official after the Denver Post started digging into the allegations, the Post reported Monday. Colorado director of emergency management Michael Willis, who has played a significant role in the state's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, was "visibly intoxicated" and "struggled to focus on things" as his department responded to a May 7, 2019, school shooting, a state employee told investigators. A different employee also reported that Willis was "wobbly" that day. While both employees originally made their allegations...