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Jake Tapper 1, Ron Johnson 0

“The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable.”

“These parents know they’re breaking the law.”

The police officers who shot Ryan Ronquillo were in compliance with department policy and will not be disciplined, the Denver Police Department announced Thursday morning. The ruling, which comes after an extended secondary investigation by multiple agencies, is the same as that made by Denver’s district attorney more than a year and a half ago, devastating Ronquillo’s family.

Since January 2, a crew of self-proclaimed militiamen have occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon. The occupation is a reaction to the sentencing for arson of Dwight and Steve Hammond, local ranchers who have become symbols of the Sagebrush Rebellion over the last two decades. But the action goes far beyond just one family’s fight with the federal government. It’s an escalation of a Westwide insurgency sparked by the Bundy Ranch standoff in 2014.

I thought of posting three hours of the twelve hour long Norwegian fireplace video broadcast for these next few slow news days but decided against it. So here instead is a remarkably odd antique Christmas card from the 1800’s Victorian Era.

Denver University is “the oldest independent institution of higher education in the Rocky Mountain region,” its website boasts. Absent from the page detailing the university’s rich history is the fact that female faculty have been paid less than their male counterparts for more than a century.

In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act — a Civil Rights Era law that ensured minorities would not face discrimination at the ballot box. The court’s decision ushered in a slew of new measures that voting rights advocates say unfairly impact minorities, students and working people — like stringent voter ID requirements, politically strategic redistricting, reduced early voting and limited availability of multilingual ballots. And without the oversight authority it has had since the 60s, the federal government can’t do anything about it.

Twin Peaks Charter Academy blocked senior and valedictorian Evan Young from giving his graduation speech because he refused to remove his gay identity from the script. The decision has triggered a debate about the role that schools – particularly charter schools – can play in limiting students’ freedom of expression.

The South Platte River is running big this year, and the mud in the fields around Sterling is boot-deep. Water is everywhere, overflowing levees near the pastures, corn and hayfields north of town. The swales along roadsides and railroad tracks are swamped, and backyards are squishy, so the ranchers are in the coffee shops, waiting it out.