Politics
Lawsuit filed by 18 disabled patients of Pueblo Regional Center who were strip-searched
PUEBLO, Colo. – Eighteen disabled people housed at the troubled Pueblo Regional Center and their families are suing Colorado’s governor, the Colorado Department of Human Services and a handful of former and current employees over claims they were illegally strip-searched in March 2015.
The plaintiffs and their attorneys say almost a dozen CDHS employees illegally strip-searched people housed at the center, which is operated by CDHS, without consent or a warrant. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Pueblo District Court. Continue reading
University of Colorado-Boulder students launch petition to block Milo Yiannopoulos’ campus visit
BOULDER, Colo. – Students at the University of Colorado-Boulder have launched an online petition to have the university’s chancellor to block a planned speaking engagement in January by “alt-right” British personality Milo Yiannopoulos.
The writer, who is the technology editor at Breitbart News and was banned from Twitter earlier this year for a instigating and participating in a prolonged attack against actress Leslie Jones, is in the midst of a speaking tour at universities across the country.
He is scheduled to speak at CU-Boulder on Jan. 25 at at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs the next day.
CU-Boulder’s student chapters of the College Republicans and Turning Point USA invited him for the engagement, which was approved by Chancellor Phillip DiStefano.
“Personally, I feel strongly that discrimination and harassment have no place on our campus,” DiStefano said, in part, in a news release announcing Yiannopoulos’ visit. “With that said, we must support the free exchange of ideas.”
The president of the CU College Republicans said Yiannopoulos was invited “so that students could hear about social justice issues in a unique format.”
But other students aren’t happy with the visit by the figure who has himself said he has ties to the “alt-right” – a relatively new label for conservatives who also mix in facets of racism and white nationalism into their beliefs.
The petition, launched at Change.org, says Yiannopoulos “complains about ‘liberals’ and ‘feminazis’ suppressing his free speech while raking in thousands of dollars on his university speaking tour.”
“Yiannopolous is not a journalist according to any respectable definition of that word; he is a racist, sexist, reactionary opportunist who makes a comfortable living off sensationalism,” the petition says. “To deny him the privilege of speaking at our esteemed university is not to infringe on his (or anyone’s) freedom of speech.”
Yiannopoulos has already seen two universities cancel his visits, and another was postponed.
Sign up for Denver7 email alerts to stay informed about breaking news and daily headlines.
Colorado ‘Hamilton Electors’ file appeal in 10th Circuit in continued attempt to not elect Trump
DENVER – The two Colorado electors who saw their attempts to get a state law that requires them to vote for the winner of the state’s popular vote for president dashed by a federal judge Monday filed an appeal Tuesday in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Monday, U.S. District Court of Colorado Judge Wiley Daniel denied Polly Baca and Robert Nemanich’s motion for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the state law that now requires they vote for Hillary Clinton, since she won Colorado’s popular vote. Continue reading
More than 20K ballots in Colorado not counted because of signature discrepancies, ID problems
DENVER – More than 21,000 General Election ballots in Colorado weren’t counted because voters either failed to verify discrepancies in their signatures, didn’t sign their ballots or didn’t verify their registration with a form of identification.
The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office certified the state’s election results late last week.
The certified results show 2,859,216 ballots were cast – a number that differed from a spreadsheet released by the office Dec. 5 – before the results were certified – that showed more than 2.88 million ballots had been counted.
The 2016 General Election was the first presidential election in which Colorado used a mail-in ballot system. Registered voters were mailed a ballot weeks before Election Day and had to either mail them back or drop them off at their county clerk’s office or drop-off locations.
Each ballot required a signature that matched the signature on the person’s voter registration form in order to minimize any possible voter fraud. If there were discrepancies, those people had eight days to verify their signatures with their local county clerk after Election Day, lest their ballot not count.
Lynn Bartels, a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State’s Office, said there were a total of 21,408 ballots that were mailed in or dropped off that weren’t counted because of the various discrepancies.
Ballots with signature discrepancies amounted to the largest group that weren’t counted; 16,209 ballots had signatures that weren’t verified.
A total of 2,606 ballots weren’t signed at all, and Bartels said 2,593 ballots weren’t counted because no identification to verify a person’s registration was provided.
Many of the ballots not counted because a person’s identity wasn’t verified likely came from people who registered through voter registration drives or who registered late and needed to provide a copy of a U.S. or Colorado ID in order for their vote to count.
The Secretary of State’s Office turns over the ballots whose signatures weren’t verified to local district attorneys across the state. It is up to them to pursue any possible voter fraud cases, though none have so far been announced.
Despite the somewhat large number of ballots not counted, Colorado still saw a voter turnout of 74.5 percent – up from just under 71 percent in the 2012 presidential election.
Gov. John Hickenlooper has already signed off on the presidential election results and the U.S. Senate race won by Michael Bennet, and has 30 days from Dec. 8 to sign off on the rest of the results. If he fails to do so, the measures passed by voters will become law automatically after the 30-day period.
Sign up for Denver7 email alerts to stay informed about breaking news and daily headlines.
New laws on medical aid in dying, minimum wage, HOV lanes, medical marijuana in effect
DENVER – A handful of Colorado laws will take effect either by the end of this month or as of Jan. 1 next year that will bring major changes for drivers, workers and the terminally-ill, among others.
PROPOSITION 106 – MEDICAL AID IN DYING
The first law to come into effect is likely to be the “right-to-die” measure, Proposition 106, which was approved by voters in the Nov. 8 General Election.
Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams certified the state’s election results and signed off on the measure late last week.
Now, Gov. John Hickenlooper has 30 days to sign the measure, and other successful ballot measures, into state law. Should he not sign off on the successful measures, they will automatically become law after the 30-day deadline.
But Hickenlooper is expected to sign Proposition 106 by the end of the month.
Voters approved Proposition 106 by 64.9 percent. Terminally-ill patients seeking end-of-life prescriptions will be able to start requesting them as soon as Hickenlooper certifies the results.
The proposition would change Colorado statutes to allow any “mentally-capable” adult aged 18+ with a diagnosed terminal illness that leaves them six months or less to live to receive a prescription from a licensed physician that can be taken voluntarily to end their life.
The person’s primary physician and a secondary physician would both have to confirm the person has six or fewer months to live, and would also have to be deemed mentally-capable enough to make the end-of-life decision by two physicians as well.
The change in statute would create immunity from civil or criminal lawsuits, as well as from professional discipline, for the physicians aiding the patient in dying. Under current law, those physicians face felony manslaughter charges for doing so.
But it would also be a class-2 felony for anyone to tamper with a request for the end-of-life medication or coerce a patient into making an end-of-life decision
Colorado is the fifth state to legalize similar measures. Oregon, California, Vermont and Washington already have similar laws on their books. Montana’s law books leave the question open as to whether such measures are legal in the state.
Read more on Proposition 106 here.
MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE KICKS IN JAN. 1
Another ballot measure that will go into effect almost immediately will be the state minimum wage hike – which was approved by 55.4 percent of voters in November under its ballot moniker, Amendment 70.
Starting Jan. 1, the statewide minimum wage will change to $9.30 per hour for non-tipped workers. It will rise by $0.90 per hour each year until it reaches $12 an hour on Jan. 1, 2020.
The current minimum wage for non-tipped workers is $8.31 per hour and $5.29 for tipped workers. Starting Jan. 1, tipped workers will make $6.28 per hour. Colorado law mandates tipped wages remain set at $3.02 less than non-tipped wages.
By 2020, the minimum wage for tipped workers will be $8.98.
The current federal minimum wage is set at $7.25 per hour for non-tipped workers and $2.13 per hour for tipped workers.
Starting in 2021, the minimum wage will again be tied back to the state’s consumer price index, though Amendment 70 would change the constitution to prevent a decrease in the minimum wage if the cost of living falls.
THREE-PERSON HOV LANE REQUIREMENTS START JAN. 1
Also beginning on New Year’s Day will be the three-person requirement in order to use the HOV express lanes between Denver and Boulder.
Currently, drivers only need one passenger to use the lanes, but the Colorado Department of Transportation made the new plans to require an extra passenger in 2013.
CDOT told Denver7 earlier this month the three-person requirement will keep the lanes from getting too crowded, and that toll revenue generated by users will help offset the costs of building and maintaining the lanes.
Anyone who breaks the new three-person rule is subject to a $250 fine.
Resources for finding carpoolers can be found here.
NEW RULES FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA GROWERS, CAREGIVERS
Also set to become effective Jan. 1 are new rules for medical marijuana growers and primary caregivers for medical marijuana patients passed in a bill in 2015.
The rules were part of the bill that targeted people selling illegal marijuana by implementing more oversight over growers.
Starting Jan. 1, primary caregivers will be the only person allowed to grow and provide medical marijuana to a patient if they utilize a caregiver. Licensed medical marijuana growers will also be allowed to sell medical pot.
But the primary caregivers growing medical marijuana will have to register the location of their grow, their patients’ registration numbers in the medical program and plant counts with the state.
Transporters will also have to tell the state the number of plants or amount of medical marijuana going to each patient, as well as who the product is going to.
Primary caregivers will also be limited to growing and transporting up to 36 plants unless their patients have an extended plant count. They will be limited to 99 plants even with the extended count.
Also included in that bill and set to go into effect Jan. 1 is a voluntary patient registration for people growing more than six plants. They are allowed to grow up to 99 plants. The law says any information from voluntary registrants will be kept private, though their grow locations would be verified by the state.
The law says most of the new facets going into effect Jan. 1 are aimed at protecting growers and patients from law enforcement operations targeting illegal grows, after some agencies voiced concerns over a lack of knowledge of who was growing legally and who wasn’t.
Sign up for Denver7 email alerts to stay informed about breaking news and daily headlines.
Millions in grant money from Colo. to fund studies on marijuana driving impairment, other subjects
DENVER – Driving impairment studies on marijuana users are among seven Colorado-based research projects granted a total of $2.35 million in public research grant money by the state Department of Public Health and Environment.
The department announced the grant money Tuesday. It will go to seven different projects undertaken by researchers at various Colorado universities to study marijuana and its effects on various groups of people.
The largest grant is for a project to study driving impairment in occasional and heavy marijuana users. The project’s leads are a University of Colorado School of Medicine researcher and an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Public Health. The project received $843,000 for its three-year expected duration.
The next-largest grant is $839,000 for three years, which was awarded to an assistant professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder to study the effects of “dabbing” on users, and includes driving impairment and cognitive functioning research.
Also funded by the grants is a study to determine how long THC remains in breast milk (2-year, $186,500); an analysis of recreational marijuana use among college students before and after legalization (2 years, $186,500); a study on usage and effects of marijuana on older Coloradans (1 year, $97,500); a study on the effects of edibles (1 year, $97,500); and a study on the cardiovascular effects of marijuana on people with cardiovascular issues (1 year, $99,000).
“This research will be invaluable in Colorado and across the country,” said Dr. Larry Wolk, department executive director and chief medical officer, in a news release. “The findings will inform our public education efforts and give people additional information they need to make decisions about marijuana use.”
The department said 58 applications were initially received for the grants.
A full list of the grants and the research projects can be seen below.
Sign up for Denver7 email alerts to stay informed about breaking news and daily headlines.
Colo. Sen. Cory Gardner calls for permanent cybersecurity committee amid Russian hacking allegations
DENVER – Colorado Senator Cory Gardner is among more than a dozen Republicans calling for the U.S. government to probe the possible influence of Russian hackers on the General Election, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s denials that Russia is involved.
Gardner, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy, issued a news release Monday again calling on the Senate to create a permanent committee on cybersecurity.
His call for the creation of the committee comes on the heels of a report by The Washington Post in which anonymous sources told the paper the CIA had concluded Russia intervened in the election in order to help Donald Trump win the presidency, and that people connected to the Kremlin provided WikiLeaks with emails hacked or phished from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.
On the same day as The Post’s report went to print, President Barack Obama ordered an intelligence review be conducted and delivered to his desk by the end of his term that investigates Russian hacking allegations.
At least a dozen other intelligence agencies and several House and Senate committees have come to the same, or similar conclusions.
“Recent reports from our intelligence community concluded that Russia attempted to influence the U.S. presidential election, serving as yet another reminder of the hose of emerging threats in cyberspace,” Gardner said in Monday’s new release. “These allegations must be thoroughly investigated, and I will continue to work with my colleagues to address the sanctioning of Russian and specifically, bad actors identified following an investigation.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday said that “Russians are not our friends” and condemned the actions by the allegedly Russian-linked hackers. He said the Senate Intelligence Committee will be investigating.
House Speaker Paul Ryan also said the House Intelligence Committee will investigate the alleged hacking, but said the investigation “should not cast doubt on the clear and decisive outcome of this election” or involve “partisan” politics. Ryan said any Russian intervention into the U.S. election would be “especially problematic.”
President-elect Donald Trump, however, continued to deny and downplay any alleged involvement by the Russians, calling the allegations “ridiculous.”
Unless you catch “hackers” in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn’t this brought up before election?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2016
He took to his soapbox of choice, Twitter, Monday morning to say “it’s very hard to determine who was doing the hacking” unless the hackers are caught in the act, though forensic analysts are often able to determine the source of hacks long after they are done.
He also continued to chastise Hillary Clinton in regards to the hacks. “Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card,” Trump tweeted. “It would be called conspiracy theory!”
Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2016
When The Post’s story published Friday, Trump’s team dismissed the CIA assessment in a news release, saying it was from “the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”
Gardner was among the first Hill Republicans to call for inquiries into and consequences for any alleged Russian hacking in October, when the U.S. first officially blamed Russia for the hacks.
At that time, Gardner said he wanted to introduce legislation to impose sanctions on Russia for its cyber activities, though he at the time pointed to the Obama Administration as being partially at fault, saying it failed “to take the cyber threat seriously.”
He also called for the creating of a cyber threat committee in July 2015 in regards to Chinese hacking.
Click to watch my comments at AEI last week calling for creation of cyber select committee: https://t.co/aFLKE6PsX3 https://t.co/4IxpgfsZW9
— Cory Gardner (@SenCoryGardner) July 30, 2015
Though no new legislation has been introduced yet, his office said he is continuing to work with committee members and other senators to do so.
Powerful Senate Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham have both joined the Senate’s investigation.
One of Colorado’s electors joined a host of others Monday in calling for a full intelligence briefing on the alleged Russian hacking before they cast their votes Dec. 19.
Sign up for Denver7 email alerts to stay informed about breaking news and daily headlines.
Donald Trump’s criticism of union leader on Twitter leads to question of his social media influence
DENVER — President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter Wednesday night to slam the Indiana union leader who criticized him over what he called the “dog and pony show” deal to keep hundreds of Carrier Corporation jobs from moving to Mexico.
“Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers,” Trump tweeted. Jones represents union members who work at Carrier’s Indianapolis plant.
Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2016
He sent another tweet minutes later saying the union would have kept the jobs in Indiana if the union “was any good” and that it should “spend more time working-less time talking.”
If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana. Spend more time working-less time talking. Reduce dues
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2016
Jones told The Washington Post Tuesday that Trump “lied his ass off” about the deal, which has been in the making for months.
Trump originally said his deal, which gives the company a $7 million tax break from Indiana over the next 10 years, would save 1,100 jobs. But Jones said the truth was that only 730 jobs were saved and that more than 1,200 were still going to Mexico.
OTHER TRUMP BUSINESS TWEETS THAT HAD EFFECTS
He also previously, and falsely, accused Ford Motor Company of moving to Mexico, though it said it was only planning to move a single production line.
The president-elect’s recent business-related tweets have led many to question their effects on deals in the business world.
On Dec. 6, Trump claimed that a Boeing contract to build updated Air Force One planes would cost “more than $4 billion,” to which he added, “Cancel order!”
Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2016
He tweeted the message less than a half-hour after a Chicago Tribune story posted online in which Boeing’s CEO cast doubts on Trump’s international business plans.
Boeing stock temporarily lost about $1 billion in value, though it had recovered to values similar to the day’s opening by the end of trading.
The $4 billion value is also in doubt, as Boeing confirmed it was under a $170 million contract to aid in building the new aircraft. A government spokesperson said the final details of the cost of the deal were still being developed.
Trump also tweeted in the past week about a “deal” with Japan-based SoftBank that he says is a $50 billion investment and he says will bring 50,000 jobs to the U.S. But that tweet, too, has had holes poked in it.
Masa (SoftBank) of Japan has agreed to invest $50 billion in the U.S. toward businesses and 50,000 new jobs….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2016
The $50 billion is part of a previously-announced investment by the company, who said previously that it was investing $100 billion in worldwide tech companies, according to the New York Times. Some of the fund also comes from Saudi Arabia, and Foxxconn – a Taiwan-based technology company – is also said to be involved in the deal.
TRUMP ACCESSIBLE IN NEW WAYS
Trump has arguably been the among the most-effective Twitter users, especially among politicians.
He has 17 million followers on the social networking site, though the true number of active users remains unknown.
He also, at times, is extremely accessible for a major politician via the network. He often manually retweets regular users, and has said he uses Twitter to get “important things” out “much faster than a press release,” as he told NBC Tuesday.
But he has not held a news conference in months, so traditional news outlets have at times been forced to rely on his social media feeds and surrogates for information directly from the source.
President Barack Obama has also held fewer news conferences toward the end of his presidency. And though he was the first president to have a Twitter account, he rarely interacts with the public like Trump.
White House access has decreased steadily over the years. The public used to be able to walk right up to the White House doors, but as security concerns grew over the years, they were pushed back to the White House front lawn.
Perimeters were installed over the years, and the Secret Service started guarding the home at one point in the late 1800s. They started protecting the president after President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901, according to research by The Washington Post.
The military protected the White House during the two world wars, and gates to the White House were closed to the public for good during World War II.
Eventually, traffic along Pennsylvania Avenue was closed altogether after a series of security breaches during Bill Clinton’s first term and the Oklahoma City bombing.
Tours are still allowed, but have been restricted since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.
Now, people going on tours of the president’s home must go through Congress in order to arrange one.
Sign up for Denver7 email alerts to stay informed about breaking news and daily headlines.
Report: Colorado’s VA hospitals got 2 and 3-star ratings out of 5 in internal VA reports
AURORA, Colo. – Colorado’s two Veterans Affairs medical centers received two and three stars out of five in a secret rating system the Department of Veterans Affairs has in place.
USA Today on Wednesday published the never-before-see star ratings Wednesday after obtaining the internal documents. Five stars were assigned to the best hospitals, while one star was given to the worst.
The documents show Denver’s VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System was given two stars and the Grand Junction VA Medical Center was given three stars in the most-recent reports available for both hospitals, from the fourth quarter of 2015.
Data from the second quarter of 2016 was released to USA Today for centers rated with either one or five stars, but centers that got two, three, or four-star reviews saw no new data released.
Many of the lowest-performing centers, according to the internal ratings, were centered in Texas and Tennessee; the Dallas, El Paso, Nashville, Memphis and Murfreesboro centers all received one-star ratings in the second quarter of 2016. The much-discussed Phoenix VA also received one star.
Most of the top-performing centers that received five stars were situated in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, according to the data.
USA Today says the ratings are determined by “dozens of factors” that include death and infection rates, wait times and complications suffered by patients that could have been avoided.
VA Undersecretary for Health David Shulking told the paper the rankings are considered an “internal improvement tool.”
“My concern is that veterans are going to see that their hospital is a ‘one’ in our star system, assume that’s bad quality and veterans that need care are not going to get care,” he told USA Today. “And they’re going to stay away from hospitals and that’s going to hurt people.”
The VA said 120 of 146 hospitals rated on the scale have shown improvement since July 2015, though Shulking declined to specify which hadn’t aside from the one-star Detroit VA.
Veterans Affairs has been closely scrutinized across the country because of wait times and patient deaths, among other things.
Colorado’s specifically have also come under fire over the past two years.
A September federal report found the department’s lack of oversight and “gross mismanagement” in Aurora added hundreds of millions in costs to the new hospital.
And just last month, a VA employee who blew the whistle to Congress that the department was using unauthorized wait lists for mental health care resigned after alleged retaliation.
A new billboard has gone up in Denver that says, “VA is Lying, Veterans are Dying.”
Last year, the Grand Junction center stopped performing several surgeries and procedures after two patients died over a nine-month period and several other patients suffered complications.
Shulkin told USA Today that veterans shouldn’t have to wait for care, and that the number of them waiting for more than a month for care has dropped from nearly 60,000 to 600 since he took over the department in July 2015.
Sign up for Denver7 email alerts to stay informed about breaking news and daily headlines.
2 Colorado electors file suit in hopes of not voting for Clinton as anti-Trump movement continues
DENVER – The long-shot attempt by two of Colorado’s Electoral College voters to put someone in the White House not named Donald Trump grew short legs Tuesday when the electors filed a lawsuit against Colorado’s secretary of state, governor and attorney general saying they shouldn’t have to vote for Hillary Clinton as state law requires.
Robert Nemanich, of Colorado Springs, and Polly Baca, a former state senator from Denver, filed the suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court of Colorado after a week of posturing – saying they would work with other electors from across the country to make someone other than Trump president. Continue reading