Author name: External Outlet

Fighting for a country that doubted them—but never broke them

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In his 99 years on the planet, Ken Akune has been sorted into many bins.

The first was Nisei, the term for second-generation Japanese Americans born in the United States. Akune had lived in both the United States and Japan and his family was divided between the two.

The second bin was “evacuee.”

That was the term given to 18-year-old Akune, his brother Harry and 7,000 other Japanese Americans shipped out to the Granada Relocation Center in Colorado at the start of World War II because of worries about their loyalty. Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 forcibly removed them from their home on the West Coast to a remote plain of sage and dust in southeastern Colorado, known simply as Amache.

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‘A place where silence speaks volumes’: Fort Logan among top Memorial Day sites honoring the fallen

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DENVER (KDVR) — It’s Memorial Day Weekend, and all across the United States, citizens will travel to National Cemeteries to pay tribute to the lives of friends, family, community members or even complete strangers who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving in the U.S. military.

Crowds of people will gather in the burial grounds, but not a peep will be heard as a moment of silence is held for the fallen.

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Colorado gets 210 year sentence for sexual abuse of boys at Haiti orphanage

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DENVER (KDVR) — A Colorado man received a sentence of 210 years in prison for sexually abusing numerous children in care at the orphanage he founded and directed in Haiti, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday.

The man, identified as 73-year-old Michael Karl Geilenfeld, most recently lived in Littleton. He founded St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in Haiti in 1985.

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Trump’s $600M war chest breaks records, fuels GOP surge toward midterms

TownHall.com, Approved, National / / , , ,

In a powerful show of momentum heading into the midterms, President Donald Trump’s political operation has amassed a substantial war chest of hundreds of millions of dollars. With grassroots enthusiasm at an all-time high and donors large and small fueling the charge, Trump’s team is positioned to reshape Congress and support candidates who will stand up for conservative values, secure borders, and economic freedom.

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Buck: Woke school policies now sweeping Middle America

The Wall Street Journal, Approved, National / / , , , , ,

One question persists in American education: How pervasive are the stories of kindergartners learning about transgenderism or high-schoolers waving Hamas flags in hallways? Among the four million teachers in the U.S. there will inevitably be cranks and ideologues who mistake their lectern for a pulpit. Examination of a typical American school district in a typical American town reveals that the progressive mismanagement of school districts extends beyond the dark-blue borders of San Francisco and Portland, Ore.

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Tech industry outcry stalls Colorado’s AI law as Congress weighs ban on state regulations

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DENVER — U.S. Congress is considering banning states from regulating artificial intelligence for the next 10 years, adding uncertainty to the future of Colorado’s AI law.

In 2024, Colorado became the first state to pass a comprehensive law regulating artificial intelligence.

“A.I. in general is just changing so rapidly all the time,” said State Rep. Brianna Titone, one of the prime sponsors of Senate Bill 24-205.

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Gaines: Colorado Public Radio takes a swing at ‘climate realism’—and misses

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Have you heard of climate realism?  It varies depending on who uses it, but in general the term refers to acknowledging that while fossil fuels are contributing to climate change, it’s not an existential threat demanding immediate, drastic action.  It describes a view that the proper response to climate change is mitigating the downside while understanding that reliable, abundant and affordable energy from fossil fuels prevents a whole host of problems we could have if we simply left them in the ground.

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Memorial Day at Fort Carson reminds us what freedom truly costs

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The first Fort Carson soldier to die in Iraq, Pfc. Jesse Givens, wrote those highly relatable words in his journal. And while his time in the Army was short, his sentiments resonate today, said Fort Carson’s Maj. Gen. David Doyle during a Thursday morning ceremony ahead of Memorial Day. 

“I took an oath to protect my country, not for the sake of saving the world, but for the hopes that my family wouldn’t have to live in a world filled with hate, fear or sadness, a world in which America can triumph,” Doyle said, quoting Givens’ journal. 

Givens died when his tank plunged into the Euphrates River, the general said. The soldier who had served for 15 months was recovered with a small pressed flower from Colorado with him.

Givens’ story is one of 407 represented by names on the memorial stones outside of Gate 1 — all died in the Global War on Terrorism from 2003 through 2019 from Fort Carson. Nationally, more than 7,000 service members died in the conflict. 

Doyle said he expects to spend the weekend remembering those he knew who died in the conflict and he encouraged others to take a moment to also reflect on the sacrifices of service members. 

“When I think about those soldiers that I served with who did not come home, I remember what made them excellent. I remember what made them the best in our country,” he said.

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Hunt: Governor signs laws advancing trans agenda, sparking constitutional challenge

TownHall.com, Approved, Commentary, State / / , , , , , , , , , , ,

Just as a refreshing wave of reality-based, commonsense policy seems to be sweeping the nation, Colorado lawmakers are doubling down on “trans” policies that can only be described as absurd, unconscionable and unconstitutional.

For those of us in Colorado who still believe in parental rights and free speech, the speed at which our state is descending into a dystopian nightmare is terrifying.

Here in Colorado, transactivists control the State House, the Senate, and the governor’s seat. Whatever they want to do, however far they want to push the envelope, they can, and they did this legislative cycle. Some of the bills are so radical that even California’s governor refused to sign similar legislation.

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Denver Public Schools leased schools through shell corporation, hiding almost $1B in off-book financing

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Denver Public Schools has quietly taken on hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term debt without voter approval — money that could otherwise be used to lower class sizes, increase teacher pay or expand student support services, an investigation by The Denver Gazette has found.

The spending comes as contract negotiations between the district and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) have stalled, with union leaders pointing to the district’s failure to fully fund last year’s cost-of-living adjustment.

Educators have repeatedly called for smaller class sizes, better compensation and stronger student support — the very priorities that advocates say are undermined by rising lease payments tied to long-term debt.

To bypass the Colorado Constitution’s ban on assuming public debt without voter approval, DPS officials employed a workaround widely used in public finance circles but little understood by the public: transferring ownership of schools to a corporation, then leasing the buildings back for hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Denver Public Schools leased schools through shell corporation, hiding almost $1B in off-book financing Read More »