All posts tagged Colorado

COLO. DAY OF PRAYER DEEMED AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL ‘GOV’T ENDORSEMENT OF RELIGION’ BY JUDGES

Colorado Court of Appeals Rules Day of Prayer Unconstitutional | FFRFAtheist activists are cheering after the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that proclamations made by the state’s governors over the past few years in favor of a state Day of Prayer were unconstitutional.

From 2004 to 2009, the state’s former governors, Bill Bitter and Bill Owens, made official pro-Colorado Day of Prayer statements that the three-judge panel ruled against. The case, which was brought by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a secular non-profit that frequently fights faith in the public square, will certainly make waves among the faithful.

The Denver Post provides a recap of the legal drama:

The legal challenge to the Colorado Day of Prayer was made in 2008 against Gov. Bill Ritter by the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation. The foundation also won a federal case in 2010, FFRF v. Obama, in which a U.S. district court ruled the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. In 2011, however, the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found the foundation had lacked standing to make the case. Yet the Colorado appellate court affirmed FFRF’s standing.

The prayer day proclamations were particularly problematic, the judges said, because they included Bible verses and religious themes that were seen as state endorsements of religion. Thus, they ruled that the statements constituted a violation of Colorado’s state constitution, as they purportedly favored the people who engage in prayer among all others.

Colorado Court of Appeals Rules Day of Prayer Unconstitutional | FFRFImage Credit: Colorado National Day of Prayer web site

“In doing so, they undermine the premise that the government serves believers and nonbelievers equally,” wrote Judge Steven Bernard in a 73-page decision, The Post reports (read the ruling in its entirety here).

Overall, the judges found the Colorado Day of Prayer proclamations to be “predominately religious” and a “government endorsement of religion over non-religion.”

“We’re exulting over the fact that reason has prevailed, and constitutional rights have been affirmed,” gushed Annie Laurie Gaylor, the co-president of the FFRF.

The ruling didn’t include National Day of Prayer statements that were made by the governors. The appeals judges have sent the case back to a trial court, where a decision surrounding whether Colorado governors should be banned from making future prayer statements will be made.

Eric Brown, a spokesman for Gov. John Hickenlooper, says that the state will consult with Attorney General John Suthers to weigh whether the decision should be appealed.

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REPORT: RUSSIAN TROOPS TO ‘SEIZE’ CIA FACILITY IN ELABORATE WAR GAME… ON U.S. SOIL

Report: U.S. and Russian Military to Engage in Anti Terrorism Exercise on U.S. Soil

(Photo: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation)

Via: The Blaze

According to reports, the U.S. and Russian military will be engaging in an anti-terrorism exercise that will involve Russian paratroopers using U.S. weapons to “take and hold” the main facilities of the CIA and Denver International Airport in Colorado and the National Security Agency in Utah.

(Related: Learn about the hypothetical ‘war games’ the U.S. and China have been playing)

The European Union Times has more on the report announcing this exercise from the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation:

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Alexander Kucherenko publically announced this 24-21 May “anti-terror drill” this Friday past noting that this will be the first time Russian airborne forces have held exercises with the US airborne forces on US territory. Colonel Kucherenko stated, “According to the exercise scenario, soldiers of the two countries will hold a tactical airborne operation, including the reconnaissance of imaginary terrorists’ camp and a raid. After the operation, a helicopter will evacuate the soldiers.” He further added that Russian airborne troops would be training with US special service weapons in these drills in Fort Carson, Colorado.

Puzzling to Russian military analysts about this exercise, this report says, are that according to the American plans, Russian airborne troops (using US weapons that they had previously trained with at Fort Carson) will fly to and then parachute from their planes having the objectives of seizing the CIA’s main computer facility in Denver, the NSA’s main computer facility in Bluffdale, Utah, and taking control of main runways and terminals of the Denver International Airport.

The purpose of seizing the Denver International Airport, this report continues, is for the evacuation of the key personal and equipment previously “freed” from the CIA’s Denver base, and the NSA’s base in Utah, who were, supposedly, under “imminent threat” from an unspecified enemy, according, that is, to the American scenario for this war game.

[...]

Also interesting to note, this report says, is that this entire exercise will be overseen by the “drone army” owned and operated by the University of Colorado who have over the past few years has applied for and obtained over 100 Certificate of Authorization’s (COA) from the US government to fly their pilotless surveillance aircraft for reasons still as yet unknown.

(Related: Where are the 63 drone sites approved by the FAA in the U.S.?)

Business Insider notes this is the first time the Russian military will have been invited onto U.S. soil for a military drill.

Report: U.S. and Russian Military to Engage in Anti Terrorism Exercise on U.S. SoilRussian military engaging in an anti-terrorism drill. (Photo: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation)

Worth noting is Russia earlier this week launched military exercises in collaboration with the Chinese navy. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the six days of drills, which began Sunday, feature simulated anti-aircraft, anti-submarine and search-and-rescue operations, including electronic countermeasures and other sensitive technologies.

Retired major general Yin Zhuo said it shows a high degree of trust between the sides.

“It’s an excellent exchange for China to be able to drill jointly in such sensitive areas,” Yin told CCTV.

China’s Defense Ministry said China was sending two submarines and 16 ships to take part, including destroyers, escort vessels and hospital ships. The deputy chiefs of the countries’ navies oversaw the start of drills in the northeastern Chinese port of Qingdao, the home of China’s northern fleet.

The U.S. and the Philippines are also engaging in war games, a drill which Reuters reports China saying last week would raise potential confrontation.

The Blaze has reached out to the CIA and the University of Colorado to confirm the reports and gain more insight into the potential exercise. We will update this story with any response we receive.

Update: A spokesperson with the University of Colorado-Denver has responded to The Blaze saying they have not heard of such an exercise where drone technology operated by the university would be used. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Media buzz as US confirms Russian troops to train on American soil

(AFP Photo / Mikhail Mordasov)

(AFP Photo / Mikhail Mordasov)

Via: RT

The US has confirmed that Russian troops will carry out joint anti-terror drills on American soil in May. Reports of the unprecedented initiative had triggered hysteria in American public debate, with claims of the US fraternizing with “the enemy.”

Commander Wendy L. Snyder, US Defense Press Officer for policy told The New American in an e-mail the Russian soldiers will be invited by the US government.

This is part of a “formal bilateral exchange program between the US and Russia that seeks to develop transparency and promote defense reform,” she wrote.

Around twenty airborne Russian troops with arrive in Fort Carson, Colorado to take part in the training program targeting “terrorists”. It will be the first time Russian soldiers have conducted military training on American territory.

However, the landmark news of the Russian troops’ arrival was not greeted with enthusiasm by everyone. Fear-mongering reports in US media called the exercise “a front” for the Russians to turn US weapons against the Americans and “take and hold Denver airport.”

Citing an erroneous report that it said came from the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, US website theblaze.com claimed just that.

“Russian airborne troops (using US weapons that they had previously trained with at Fort Carson) will fly to and then parachute from their planes having the objectives of seizing the CIA’s main computer facility in Denver, the NSA’s main computer facility in Bluffdale, Utah, and taking control of main runways and terminals of the Denver International Airport,” the publication wrote.

The report goes on to say the exercise is for the “evacuation of the key personnel and equipment previously ‘freed’ from the CIA’s Denver base.”
There is currently no information either in English or in Russian that describes such a drill on the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation website.

It is unclear where these reports originated, as RT verified with Russian Airborne Forces spokesperson Col. Aleksandr Kucherenko that he had said nothing pertaining to the capture of Denver airport.

RT reported on the story on Wednesday, citing Kucherenko who announced that “Airborne troops from Russia and the United States will hold joint anti-terror drills in the US state of Colorado between May 24 and 31.”

Besides the military drills, the Russian soldiers are expected to get a taste of local life at a baseball game in Colorado Springs.

Foreign troops operating and training in the United States have been a continuous bone of contention in American public debate.

Paul Watson, writing for prisonplanet.com says that their presence touches upon latent fears of “global UN peacekeeping troops being used to quell unrest inside America.”

Drills involving outside troops also raise worries that the US would have to “rely on foreign mercenaries to restore order, confiscate weapons or even incarcerate citizens during a national emergency, because of the likelihood that Americans would refuse to carry out such orders against other Americans,” Watson writes.

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Obama’s Shameful War on Youth

President Obama’s taxpayer-financed re-election campaign roared into Colorado last week after tax-payer financed stops in North Carolina, Iowa and elsewhere. But give the man credit: Obama has achieved a near impossible contradiction by embodying and popularizing a new oxymoron. The abuse of Air Force One as a campaign platform is both stunning and blatant—and a transparent hypocrisy that only Obama could get away with.

President Barack Obama waves after speaking at the Coors Events Center on the CU-Boulder campus. (Photo by Casey A. Cass/University of Colorado)

The occasion for his Colorado campaign stop was another shot fired in his war on youth. That war has not received as much press attention as the Republicans’ alleged “war on women,” but that is not hard to understand. The first is real but ignored by the press, while the other is a rhetorical fabrication that serves the interests of the Obama campaign. No surprises here.

The “youth vote” is supposedly deep in Obama’s pocket, and suggesting otherwise is too heretical to disturb the slumber of the herd of lambs that passes for a bulldog press these days.

But let’s consider the crown jewel of the Obama campaign’s “youth appeal,” his pandering to college students who have large and growing student loan debts.

This past week Obama came west to speak on the campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. What was the message offered by this paragon of social conscience? It was a straight-forward appeal to naked, monetary self-interest:  “Help me persuade the Republicans in Congress to extend the low interest rates on your student loans.”  How does that stack up against John Kennedy’s appeal to join the Peace Corps?

And how will this change to lower interest rates be managed without increasing the federal deficit? Obama proposes to fund this gift to students by increasing taxes on the people who create the jobs in our economy—small business. Again the hypocrisy: students are asked to rally for lower interest rates on their student loans by ignoring or denying the very predictable impact on jobs—their parents’ jobs, their neighbors’ jobs, and yes, their own future jobs.

In contrast to his 2008 “Hope and Change” appeal, the Obama campaign is now reduced to appealing to youth’s fears— well-founded fears of graduating with dismal prospects for a good-paying job.  According to a recent survey, over half of recent college graduates are either unemployed or underemployed. Will they blame George Bush or Obama’s anti-economy?

What’s that old saying among salesmen? “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” But college graduates with an average of $25,000 in debt — and their worried parents — want more than sizzle on their plate, especially if the “Obama sizzle” is the Blame Bush mantra that has lost its flavor. Obama hopes students and their parents will forget not only Obama’s anti-jobs policies but also the fact that college tuition has risen 25% in the three years since his election.

The missing steak is starting to be noticed by young voters.  Obama’s pollsters are telling him about declining enthusiasm among the under thirty audiences compared to the feverish activism of 2008. Here’s a hint to David Axelrod: Students would not be so worried about the loan rates if they had any confidence in the Obama anti-economy.

“Follow your dreams,” Obama told the students assembled in Boulder last week. Well, it may be news to Obama and his team, but here in Colorado, few students have dreams of becoming community organizers funded by federal government grants.

College students have dreams of good jobs in the real world, but unfortunately for Obama’s campaign, those dreams are threatened by Obama’s anti-economy. Young voters are discovering that it is literally true that Obama does not care about job creation—unless it is a government funded job.  It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in economics to follow the dots between Obama’s planned tax increases and declining job creation in the world of America’s job creators, small business.

In any other era, a political appeal to naked self-interest on a college campus would be deemed crass and embarrassing, but to Obama, college youth are just one more voting block to be bribed with government goodies. But young people understand that after adding $5 trillion in new federal debt, Obama’s anti-economy is just not working.

What if you’re under thirty and NOT going to college? Good luck getting a good blue collar job in Obama’s world, where unemployment in the construction trades is above 20%.  But, hey, Obama’s EPA is hiring more lawyers, and we all know how “jobs-friendly” they are!

When a young voter in Michigan or Ohio or Florida fills up the gas tank on his Mini Cooper, is he thanking Obama for deliberately driving up gas prices to $5 a gallon? Or is he asking himself, “Do I really need a president who hopes for European gas prices of $8?”

Obama’s war on youth is the war of low expectations: instead of a nation of young entrepreneurs, Obama wants a nation of young bureaucrats — government clerks, poultry inspectors and IRS agents.  Yes, Uncle Obama can help you get a government grant if THAT is following your dream. But young Americans’ dreams are bigger than that.

“Hope and change”? Today’s young voters are starting to look at Obama’s anti-jobs economy and realize they need to PRAY for change.

In 2008, Obama’s promises seemed fresh and appealing to young voters. But in 2012, they will look instead at the cold reality of Obama’s abysmal performance.

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Trevor Loudon to Speak in Colorado Springs, April 9

Trevor Loudon

Due to popular demand, I will be back in Denver, Colorado to speak on Thursday, April 5.

Trevor Loudon Author of Barack Obama and the Enemies Within Monday, April 9th Denny’s 8125 N Academy Blvd Colorado Springs, Co. 80920 Doors open at 6 pm with limited seating Presentation at 6:45 pm Food & drink available on individual basis Admission Free. Bucket will be passed to cover costs.
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Illegal Aliens Caught Voting and Stealing Elections In Florida In Vast Numbers

Via: ALIPAC1Illegal Immigrant voters along with immigrants that are prohibited from voting have been detected voting in Florida. This joins confirmed reports of sizable numbers of non citizens voting in Georgia and Colorado! Each illegal alien or non citizen immigrant that registers to vote is committing a felony. Each illegal alien or non citizen immigrant that votes and thus steals a vote from an American citizen is committing another felony. The problem is that the states do not check to see if voters are in the US as immigrants or legally and the illegal immigration amnesty supporters know this. Our elections are virtually defenseless at this time and illegal aliens stole elections west of the Mississippi for corrupt politicians like US Senator Harry Reid just like William Gheen of ALIPAC predicted on election day 2010 on Fox News. Please send copies of this videos to your Federal and State lawmakers and candidates for public office.

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DEA: Wannabe Cartel Hit Squad Included Former U.S. Soldiers

1st Lt. Kevin Corley, left, and Sgt. Samuel Walker, right, following their arrest in Laredo, Texas, where they planned to work as assassins for the Zetas cartel. Photo: Police handout

A DEA sting operation targeting a cell of would-be cartel assassins ended in a violent warehouse showdown over the weekend. Among their ranks: one active-duty Army soldier, and one former G.I. According to a criminal complaint released yesterday in federal court (.pdf), the showdown occured around 12:30 p.m. Saturday as armed federal agents closed in on the group, who had just arrived at a warehouse in the border city of Laredo, Texas; traveling from Colorado Springs and the nearby Fort Carson military base. They believed they were meeting with members of the Zetas — in reality,undercover DEA agents. The assumed plan: Receive instructions before raiding a ranch holding 20 kilos of stolen cartel cocaine, and then killing the (phony) cocaine thief. During the bust, Jerome Corley of South Carolina was killed by the agents, and three others, including Corley’s 29-year-old cousin, a former Army officer, were arrested. The dramatic end concluded a larger plot dating back more than a year. According to the complaint, the group planned to help smuggle cocaine from Mexico, and then funnel guns back to the “cartel.” The former Army officer and Afghanistan veteran, 1st Lt. Kevin Corley, Jerome Corley’s cousin, also offered to assist the undercover agents in carrying out contract killings. Joining Corley for the operation was an active-duty soldier, 28-year-old Sgt. Samuel Walker, also of Colorado Springs. Not only that, but the former lieutenant planned to capitalize on his military service by providing “tactical training for cartel members, including approaches, room clearing, security, and convoy security,” according to the complaint. Now, it’s not known exactly what happened leading up to the shooting, or if the group was armed or resisted arrest. But according to the complaint, inside the group’s vehicle were two scoped semi-automatic rifles, a scoped bolt-action rifle with a bipod, ammunition and a hatchet which authorities say was intended to “dismember the body” of a victim at the ranch. The weapons, according to the complaint, were intended to “prove to the undercover agent they were serious about performing the contract kill.” Before making the trip from Colorado, authorities say Corley also told an undercover agent that he bought the hatchet to dismember his victim, and had acquired a “new Ka-Bar knife to carve a ‘Z’ into the victim’s chest” — Z for Zetas. Corley had also built up something of a working relationship with the agents. The complaint says he had already delivered, for $10,000, two scoped AR-15 rifles, an airsoft rifle — for training purposes — and five stolen ballistic vests. In December, he sent a copy of an Army tactical guide to agents, and considered stealing other weapons from military posts and then selling them. Another accused conspirator, Calvin Epps of South Carolina, told authorites he had access to grenades through a willing accomplice in the military. “Kevin Corley thoroughly explained military tactics and told undercover agents he could train 40 cartel members in two weeks,” the complaint alleges. Authorities added that Corley “had already discussed this opportunity with several experienced soldiers in his platoon who expressed interest in working with the cartel.” The complaint also says Corley claimed to have two teams prepared: one to help train cartel gunmen and another to carry out “wet work” — assassinations. Corley was discharged from the military at Fort Carson, Colorado, on March 13. Less than two weeks later, the first “wet work” operation was set to begin. Accompanying Corley was 28-year-old Army Sgt. Samuel Walker, also of Colorado Springs, Jerome Corley and 29-year-old Shavar Davis of Denver. Epps, along with two other South Carolina-based conspirators, had already been arrested during a similar sting outside Laredo. Corley’s would-be hit squad, meanwhile, kept up contact. However, it would end with one of their members killed.

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Ron Paul supporters plunge Denver GOP meeting ‘into madness’ [VIDEO]

Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas speaks during a rally, Friday, March 9, 2012, in Topeka, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

In Colorado on Saturday morning, video correspondent Kelly Maher videotaped a meeting of the Denver County Republican Assembly. When a group of Ron Paul-pledged delegates arrived, she told The Daily Caller, things got crazy — and Coloradans may have caught a sneak peek of Republican events to come later this year.

Maher told TheDC on Thursday that trouble was likely, and that she would be rolling video.

“The Ron Paul chair here went around the GOP chair and committed $900 worth of security from the Denver Police,” she warned. “And now they’re sending out strategy emails on how to ‘shanghai’ the assembly.”

And shanghai they did. The meeting, Maher said afterward, “descended into madness” when Paul’s supporters “started screaming from the floor.”

Maher told The Denver Post after the meeting that “the Ron Paul people showed up with an alternate set of rules and calendar for the day.”

“[One woman] was standing at the mic and kept demanding to be recognized. She kept calling ‘point of order,’ and that was the first yelling. Once the rules were adopted, the Ron Paul people demanded they be read aloud.”

“So [chairman] Danny [Stroud] called up [secretary] Brett [Moore] to read them, which made everyone flip out again because he did it in his ‘fast reader’ voice (he used to be the reader for the state House.)”

Watch:

“If what we saw at the Denver County assembly is a harbinger of what we’re going to see at state and national levels,” Maher concluded, “definitely keep one eye on the news.”

UPDATE: Denver County GOP chairman Danny Stroud sent TheDC a statement about Saturday’s meeting, saying among other things that “we can never let passion trounce on the rights of others. Unfortunately, that was exactly what was attempted at the Denver GOP Assembly.  A small, loud group attempted to hijack the assembly and trample on the rights of those who took time out of their busy lives to participate in the political process.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/11/ron-paul-supporters-plunge-denver-gop-meeting-into-madness-video/#ixzz1os3Qp48a

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Tancredo: One language will unify us

By Tom Tancredo

Former Congressman Tom Tancredo

I am constantly baffled by the contradictions among our cultural and media elites when it comes to proposals for establishing the English language as the official language of our nation. Although they admit the necessity of English proficiency for both educational and economic advancement, they habitually oppose any policy proposal to establish English as our national language.

No law can or should compel individuals to give up their native tongue, and no one is proposing to do that. Yet clearly, there are steps we can take to encourage acquisition of essential English language skills by immigrants and newcomers. That is what a bill in Congress, the English Language Unity Act, seeks to do. It requires that all official business of the federal government be conducted only in English.

A study sponsored by the Denver Public Library in the last five years found that about 75 percent of Hispanic families are bilingual at home. That should surprise no one. First-generation immigrant families have historically been bilingual, whether Italian, Ukranian, Vietnamese or Pakistani. The problem is not foreign languages spoken in private homes.

US states where English is an official language

US states where English is an official language

Increasingly, the problem is the lack of incentives for new arrivals to learn the English language while at the same time there is a proliferation and celebration of native languages and cultures in school classrooms and the popular media.

The fact is, the conduct of official government business in foreign languages — at the federal, state or local level — sends the wrong message to new immigrants, legal or illegal. That practice tells new arrivals it is OK to retain your native tongue and postpone learning English. The message is: “We will accommodate you.” That is a message previous generations of immigrants did not hear, and it is a message that undermines and obstructs assimilation.

Why should any foreign national — whether tourist, foreign student, business traveler, or immigrant — be offended by the requirement that they conduct official government business in English? What other country of the world makes it so easy not to learn the native tongue? Can you do business with the Mexican government without learning Spanish or using a translator? Can you do government business in Poland while speaking Spanish? Can you do government business in France while speaking Farsi?

Countries where English is an official or de f...

Countries where English is an official or de facto official language

The proposed federal law would affect only official federal government business and government documents, not private businesses or other institutions. Banks, auto dealers and other commercial enterprises would still be free to advertise and do business in other languages if they choose, and customers are free to patronize those businesses or not. That’s freedom of association and freedom of choice.

Government business is a different matter entirely. Conducting official government business in foreign languages makes no sense except as a pandering to the cult of multiculturalism.

Everybody understands that lack of English language skills is a major barrier to the social and economic advancement of immigrants, yet proposals to promote this goal are routinely slandered as “xenophobic.” A true xenophobe would want to hold foreign-born individuals back, not help them move forward with additional incentives for learning English.

In the political arena, is it not contradictory to require naturalized citizens to pass an English language exam but then offer bilingual ballots for the act of voting? Such a policy strongly implies that the English language exam for citizenship is only symbolic, not substantial. But how can new citizens participate fully in debates and discussions about issues and candidates if they really can’t read, write or speak English? Providing a ballot in a foreign language sends a confusing and hypocritical message: “We want your vote, but not your participation.” A mailed-in foreign language ballot is about as American as a Yugo assembled in Brazil.

No one law can fix this problem, but the federal government can set a good example. The English Language Unity Act is a good first step.

Tom Tancredo is a former congressman from Colorado.

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Protestors gather in Aurora to protest ICE crackdown

More ICE agents in Denver as part of crackdown

AURORA – Dozens of people told federal immigration agents on Friday to get out of the Aurora Detention Center.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are spending 24 hours a day at the jail, screening all of the people that come in on their legal status.

“We do not want ICE in our communities,” Julie Gonzales with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition said.

Those that found themselves in front of Aurora City Hall Friday, found themselves against a new strategy by Immigration agents at the Aurora Detention Center.

“This is going to break community trust in law enforcement,” Gonzales said.

Keep reading…

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