Harry Reid

Reader: Immigration report about costs of law ignores costs of not enforcing it

Last week, Melanie Asmar shared an immigration report estimating the cost of Colorado's "show me your papers" law at $13 million. But the price tag on porous borders and a flood of illegal immigrants depleting American resources is much higher, maintains one particularly passionate commenter. Here's ... More >>

Online poker kings get cashed out

Killing livelihoods and a $2.5 billion industry, the feds attack Internet gambling

The problems with SOPA and its sweeping side effects

Remember that mixtape you made for your high-school sweetheart? Or that time you taped a movie off cable? Turns out you were breaking the law, pirating copyrighted materials without permission. While the statute of limitations has probably long passed on your crimes of teenage passion, entertainme ... More >>

Project New West gives Colorado's Democratic powers a Vegas respite from Occupy Denver

Hickenlooper.​Amid the regrouping of Occupy Denver, which was booted out of Lincoln Park but is still growing as a movement, the state's official Democratic political power brokers are in Las Vegas, at "Project New West Summit: A Roadmap for the West in 2012," which today includes an appearanc ... More >>

Doug Lamborn's Barack Obama-tar baby remark: Intentionally racist or harmless?

Lamborn.​As we reported yesterday, Doug Lamborn said that being associated with Barack Obama was like touching a tar baby during a Friday radio appearance -- a gaffe for which he's now apologized. But did he need to? An editorial in the Colorado Springs Gazette suggests it was really no big de ... More >>

Ken Salazar's salary at center of David Vitter ethics complaint, CREW tells Keith Olbermann

Ken Salazar.​During last night's sophomore edition of Countdown on Current TV, Keith Olbermann featured an extended segment about Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filing an ethics complaint against Louisiana Senator David Vitter. But the man in the middle of the cont ... More >>

Top 10 flipping the bird moments in honor of Shane Boor, whose finger case has been dropped

​Shane Boor, who faced harassment charges for flipping off a state trooper, is free to let his finger fly again. The Colorado State Patrol requested that the matter be dropped after the ACLU let it be known the organization would defend Boor's right to express himself digitally -- just like th ... More >>

Michael Bennet dubbed powerful education force by Time magazine

Michael Bennet.​"School of Thought: 11 Education Activists for 2011," just published by Time magazine, contains some predictable names (Michelle Rhee) and some surprising ones (Jeb Bush?). But the highest ranking elected official cited is Senator Michael Bennet, who's been getting a gusher of ... More >>

Michael Bennet the next Al Franken?: Read Republican Party chair Michael Steele's op-ed

Michael Steele.​Michael Bennet's camp knows turnout will decide if he retains his Senate seat or loses it to Ken Buck -- and so does Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele. In conjunction with the launch of NoMoreFrankens.com, a website using the SNL performer turned Minnesota s ... More >>

Dan Maes: Will he sink other Republicans or become an "embarrassing afterthought?"

Dan Maes.​Yesterday, Dan Maes spokesman Nate Strauch confirmed that the Maes campaign fell over $400,000 short of its $500,000 fundraising goal on Friday -- and this after he raised just $14,000 during the previous reporting period. It's the latest setback for Maes -- and political consultant ... More >>

Immigration rally in favor of DREAM Act tries to prove people power stronger than politics

​At 4 p.m. today, a rally will be held in support of the DREAM Act, a proposal that would allow select undocumented students who've lived in America for at least five years and graduate from a U.S. high school the chance to earn legal residency status. The measure faces steep obstacles -- but ... More >>

Jane Norton will get at least one endorsement during Sarah Palin speech -- from Hugh Hewitt

"Either way, I'm a winner."​Yesterday, we told you about bickering between Republican senatorial hopefuls Ken Buck and Jane Norton over Sarah Palin's Denver appearance on Saturday. Buck said it would be rude of Palin to endorse Norton, which the grapevine says she plans to do, the same day as ... More >>

Carl Fuermann's quest to fix oil spill with meditation has its doubters

Bet Carl is very zen about the criticism.​Today's nominee for best article ever goes to the Boulder Daily Camera piece about Carl Fuermann, a staffer in the CU registrar's office who thinks the gulf oil spill can be resolved if people all over the world meditate to make the rig's blowout preve ... More >>

Arizona immigration bill: Colorado students plan afternoon protest walkout

An image from ColoradoImmigrant.org featuring participants from a previous event.​Yesterday, Denver Public Schools announced on a ban on all work-related travel to Arizona due to the recent passage of a controversial immigration bill that Republican gubernatorial hopeful Scott McInnis digs and ... More >>

Dick Wadhams on health care: "America will be in great political turmoil after the passage of this bill -- and I think that's good"

"No, I'm not being facetious."​The U.S. House's passage of a massive health-care bill President Barack Obama is planning to sign into law today is already having plenty of political impact locally, with the Gun Owners of America targeting Dem Betsy Markey, who voted for the measure (after voti ... More >>

Health care summit: Democrats and Republicans agree the policy that led to Jennifer Lathan's $37 million verdict against Assurant Health must go

Assurant Health CEO Don Hamm told Congress his company saved $150 million by rescinding policies.​Last week's summit on health care reform in Washington produced the expected speechifying and little consensus on what's to be done. But there's one point that Democrats and Republicans echoed eac ... More >>

Michael Bennet and health care: Live by the public option, or die by it

"Hey, Barack. Remember that public-option thing you used to be so hot on?"​Colorado's Michael Bennet is widely seen as being among the most vulnerable Democratic senators in advance of the November 2010 election -- hence President Barack Obama's fundraising visit to Denver last week before a p ... More >>

Jared Polis, health-care hero? Democracy For America thinks so

"Me a hero? Ah, shucks."​As President Barack Obama prepares to make his first State of the Union address tonight, the promise of a health-care bill actually earning passage looks pretty sick thanks to the election of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown -- a man who Colorado candidates Scott McIn ... More >>

Scott McInnis, Jane Norton portray themselves as Scott Brown 2.0

"See, my name is Scott, and his name is Scott. Which makes us both Scotts. Get it?"​Republican Scott Brown's comfortable victory last night in the Massachusetts Senate race has proven that, this year, anyhow, Republicans are capable of winning anywhere. Jon Caldara for Congress in Boulder, any ... More >>

Bill Ritter, Scott McInnis and Ken Salazar's statements: Spin-a-go-go!

"I'm gonna talk -- but I'm not really gonna say anything."​Update, 2:26 p.m.: Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton has jumped into the commenting-on-Bill Ritter fun. Look below for her take. Update, 2:13 p.m.: New statements just in about Ritter's withdrawal from Senator Mark Udall and Rep ... More >>

Michael Bennet bets his job on healthcare: Brave or stupid?

A single word from Senator Michael Bennet has simultaneously thrilled his supporters and emboldened critics who think he's might an incredible strategic blunder. That word is "yes." This weekend, Bennet appeared on CNN's State of the Union program, and when interrogator Jon King asked if he'd stil ... More >>

Feeling the power of ColoradoPols

Dick Wadhams.​Locals who want to know the latest political scoop know they'll find it first at ColoradoPols.com, a website whose power and reach is obvious even when the information it passes along doesn't pan out. Case in point -- rumors that Colorado Republic Party head Dick Wadhams might be ... More >>

Did the spontaneity-free climate-change rally in Greeley have a Mr. Burns touch?

As we pointed out yesterday, a climate-change rally in Greeley on Wednesday didn't exactly qualify as a grassroots uprising, given the participation of EnergyCitizens.org, an affiliate of the American Petroleum Institute, which opposes legislation to cap greenhouse gases recently passed by the U.S. ... More >>

What Robert Redford and fellow lefties are up to at the Project New West summit

A Flickr photoRobert Redford, who's probably had some work done.​Today and tomorrow, political heavy hitters of the progressive persuasion throughout the region are meeting at the Colorado History Museum as part of the 2009 Western Summit, sponsored by Project New West, an organization that de ... More >>

Denverites ready to celebrate Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court confirmation

Sonia Sotomayor, in an image from the White House's website.​Sonia Sotomayor, whose ruling about nunchucks is part of this week's Jared Jacang Maher feature article about Thornton cop Kevin Orcutt's police-oriented nunchaku design, hasn't been officially confirmed as a Supreme Court justice at ... More >>

To defeat the evil health-care legislation, Republicans will target a lawmaker near you

They're coming for you, Betsy Markey.​Politico reports this morning that the battle over President Obama's health care-reform bill will be waged, and won, during the upcoming August recess. And Republicans is already identifying Colorado Democrats it believes it can persuade to stiff-arm the p ... More >>

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Bill Clinton at the DNC

Bill Clinton's speech at the DNC

Delegating Denver #32 of 56: Nevada