Author: Paula Noonan
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Not-so-public comment in Douglas County | Paula Noonan
Let’s do some high and low history. First, the high history. England’s King George III didn’t like the complaining he heard from the American colonies, so he went to war to shut the people up. President Donald Trump doesn’t like to hear from the U.S. Congress when he can have his own way without their…
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Boulder’s bleak oil-and-gas legal entanglements | Paula Noonan
Good neighbor policy in the fossil-fuel-energy industry stops at Boulder’s door. If any other county or municipality decides to rumble with Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy over their legal exposure to climate lawsuits, those entities will no doubt face “Bleak House” type legal entanglements also. Charles Dickens’ Bleak House records the estate case of Jarndyce…
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Will President Trump’s emissions ‘progress’ turn into pollution regression? | Paula Noonan
Will President Donald Trump allow gasoline producers to put lead back in petrol? Will he declare by executive order fuel engines no longer need catalytic converters? Just wondering how far he will take his environmental policies before his four years in office are up. Trump’s 2025 executive order to reconsider the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)…
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Will Colorado’s Trump-and-Polis-approved education grift-gift continue? | Paula Noonan
If President Donald Trump says it’s free money and Gov. Jared Polis says it’s free money, is it really free money? Both the president and governor claim the Great Big Beautiful Bill’s voucher for education scholarships is “free money.” The rest of us know there’s no such thing as “free money” in government programs. The…
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Grassroots-backed study an excellent basis for game-changing health care program | Paula Noonan
Nibble here, nibble there. That’s how the federal government and the state have set our nation’s health care policy. President Harry Truman’s effort after World War II to bring universal health care to the United States failed. Now we have what we have. There’s Medicaid and Medicare, two government-funded programs. In Colorado there’s also the…
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Taxpayer money squandered in conservative school districts defending selves from lawsuits | Paula Noonan
Elizabeth School District, with 2,666 students, has refined the art of wasting dollars on faulty lawsuits. Last year, the district lost an open meetings case when it imprudently failed to properly notify the public of agenda items. That suit ran up an $80,000 bill that could have been settled for much less. This month, the…
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Let’s find out who’s up to the gubernatorial task post Polis | Paula Noonan
Gov. Jared Polis is bold and his policies are bolder than bold. That’s the paraphrase of his State of the State speech to open the 2026 General Assembly and start off his last year in office. His sweeping review of his many accomplishments took some swipes at media who doubted his home-run-hitting prowess. He noted…
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U.S. careening off the rails under Trump’s stewardship | Paula Noonan
Does anyone in Colorado or the United States feel like life is anywhere near normal anymore? Our aberration is not from a pandemic. It’s from our government. It’s at war with us, the people. Let’s take Renée Good’s tragic fate. She dropped off her son at school. She stopped where ICE agents were standing on…
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Lack of accountability in state standardized testing system | NOONAN
The General Assembly kicks up its heels this month along with the National Western Stock Show. Both should offer some exciting bull rides. Last General Assembly produced one interesting bill on K-12 public education. It’s HB25-1278 on the education accountability system. It offers an opportunity for long awaited solutions to festering problems that affect use…
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Peddling poor pay at Casa Bonita, ‘South Park’ creators a self-satire | NOONAN
Trey Parker and Matt Stone of the now fabled show “South Park” took on a rebuild of Casa Bonita in Lakewood out of nostalgia for the pink colored restaurant-entertainment center on West Colfax. They also took on Paramount, the media conglomerate, over the “South Park” property, winning a $1.5 billion jackpot for streaming rights and…