A yearslong effort to purchase two of the most powerful water rights on the Colorado River has cleared another hurdle after the state water board agreed to manage the rights alongside Western Slope water officials. The Colorado Water Conservation Board voted unanimously Wednesday night to accept the two water rights tied to the Shoshone Power Plant into its environmental flow program. The approval is a critical piece in the Colorado River District’s $99 million deal with the owner of the aging plant in Glenwood Canyon Xcel Energy but the deal has faced pushback from Front Range water providers that fear the change could impact their supplies. Backers of the deal aim to make sure the water now used by the small hydroelectric plant and then put back in the river will always flow westward. “The importance of today’s vote cannot be overstated as a legacy decision for Colorado water and the Western Slope,” Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River District, said in a news release. “It secures an essential foundation for the health of the Colorado River and the communities it sustains.” Colorado water officials hailed the decision as a monumental achievement for the state that will help protect the river and its ecosystem. The state’s instream flow program allows the Water Conservation Board to manage dedicated water rights for the health of rivers, streams and lakes. “Acquiring the Shoshone water rights for instream flow use is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to preserve and improve the natural environment of the Colorado River,” Dan Gibbs, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, said in a news release. One of the main sticking points during the hourslong meeting Wednesday was whether the board should manage the water rights with the River District. That would include decisions on how and when to require upstream users like Front Range utilities to send more water downstream. Generally, the board is the sole manager of water rights in its instream flow program, which the Shoshone rights are now a part of. Several Western Slope entities said they would withdraw their financial support from the purchase if the Colorado River District was not allowed to co-manage the right with the board. Local governments and other organizations across the Western Slope promised more than $16 million toward the purchase. Front Range water providers argued that the statewide board is the sole authority that can manage such rights and should have final decision-making power. The water board instead approved the co-management strategy, which means that the two authorities will decide together how to act when there is not enough water to meet the right’s obligations. The Colorado River District a taxpayer-funded agency that works to protect Western Slope water wants to purchase the Shoshone rights to ensure that water will continue to flow west past the plant and downstream to the towns, farms and others who rely on the Colorado River, even if the century-old power plant were decommissioned. A stream of Western Slope elected officials, water managers and conservation groups testified in support of the deal and the rare opportunity it presented. “The Shoshone call is one of the great stabilizing forces on the river a heartbeat that has kept our valley farms alive, our communities whole and our economies steady even in lean years,” Mesa County Commissioner Bobbie Daniel said, urging the board to approve the plan. The meeting on Wednesday came after weeks of extensive mediation between the River District and Front Range entities. However, the representatives from opposite sides of the Continental Divide could not come to a consensus on a way forward. Representatives from Front Range utilities have said repeatedly that they supported the purchase as a whole, but they stated concerns about the purchase changing the status quo on the river. The water rights connected to the plant are the oldest major water rights on the main stem of the Colorado River, which means that they must be fulfilled before any rights established afterward. Those include more junior rights held by Front Range utilities to divert water from the river and bring it under the Continental Divide to their customers. The plant’s rights can command up to 1, 408 cubic feet of water per second year-round, or about 1 million acre-feet a year enough water for 2 million to 3 million households’ annual use. The Water Conservation Board’s approval is one of several that must be acquired by the River District. The deal now must go through the state’s water court and its Public Utilities Commission. Along with the $16 million coming from Western Slope entities, the district will pay $20 million and the Water Conservation Board allocated another $20 million. The financial plan also includes $40 million awarded under the federal Inflation Reduction Act by the Biden administration, but that money remains frozen as part of the Trump administration’s broad halt to spending by the previous president.
https://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/2025/11/20/colorado-river-shoshone-water-rights-vote/
Tag Archives: taxpayer-funded
Leftist Judges Rule Pedophile Has Constitutional Right to Taxpayer-Funded Sex Change Procedures
**Leftist Judges Rule Pedophile Has Constitutional Right to Taxpayer-Funded Sex Change Procedures**
*Moonbattery* | November 5, 2025 | Dave Blount
Posted by Morgana
The lunacy imposed by leftist judges is beyond parody: A federal judge has ruled that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) must provide laser hair removal, facial feminization surgery consultations, and voice therapy for a convicted pedophile who now identifies as transgender.
The inmate, identified as 47-year-old Brian Buckingham, was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing his 10-year-old son and producing child pornography.
For probably the first and hopefully the last time in human history, behavior like this is not considered to warrant the death penalty. These days, it warrants taxpayer-funded luxuries in support of what some describe as sexual depravity. Buckingham now calls himself “Nani Love.”
The pedophile’s lawyers argued that he has a constitutional right to force taxpayers to cater to his sexual identity and treatment needs.
In a September ruling, Magistrate Judge David Christel determined that Buckingham was “likely to succeed” in arguing that the BOP’s denial of treatment constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
The authors of the U.S. Constitution would likely gasp in horror at how their words have been interpreted and applied.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez later adopted Christel’s recommendation, issuing an order that directs the Bureau of Prisons to arrange consultations for the requested cosmetic procedures within 30 days.
We are effectively ruled from the bench by judges whose decisions many find deeply troubling.
(Excerpt)
Read more at moonbattery.com.
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**Topics:** Health/Medicine; Local News
**Keywords:** David Christel, Ricardo Martinez
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https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4350991/posts
Trump Officials Pledge to ‘Protect Unborn Life at All Stages’
Trump Administration Officials Reaffirm Commitment to Protect Unborn Life at Geneva Consensus Declaration Anniversary
At the five-year anniversary event of the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a coalition of 40 nations affirming that there is no international right to abortion, Trump administration officials reiterated their dedication to “protect unborn life at all stages.” The declaration aims to expand health and well-being for women while protecting the sovereign right of nations to support health, life, and family through national policy and legislation.
The Institute of Women’s Health hosted members of Congress, Trump administration officials, and global leaders to celebrate the milestone. A letter from President Donald Trump was read during the event, in which he pledged to “never waver in protecting the sanctity of every human life.”
“My administration is steadfastly devoted to restoring a culture that values the inherent dignity of every child and to upholding the eternal truth that every person is created in the holy image and likeness of God, with infinite worth and boundless potential,” President Trump wrote.
Jim O’Neill, Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, expressed pride in the Trump administration’s decision to rejoin the Geneva Consensus Declaration in January after the Biden administration’s departure from the coalition of pro-life countries.
“The denial of fundamental truths can destroy nations from within,” O’Neill said. “At the root of the evils we face—murder in the womb, the blurring of lines between sexes, and radical social agendas—is a hatred of nature as it was designed for life, the way it was meant to be lived. This ideology does not just deny biology. It declares war against it.”
O’Neill emphasized the administration’s commitment to putting the declaration’s principles into action to protect life at all stages. “President Trump reinstituted the Mexico City Policy. Taxpayers will not be forced to fund entities that provide or promote abortion as foreign family planning,” he stated.
He added, “We’ve removed transgender flags from all federal buildings. Only one flag flies above our embassies, and that is the American flag. We’ve ended taxpayer funding for the mutilation of children and radical indoctrination. Children should not be subjected to life-altering, irreversible damage and sex-trait modification.”
O’Neill promised that the Trump administration will continue advancing the Geneva Consensus Declaration’s principles on the global stage.
“Taxpayer-funded organizations and bureaucrats have sadly long undermined sovereign nations by imposing radical social agendas around the world. The era of taxpayer-funded neocolonialist promotion of leftist ideologies has come to an end, and our work is just beginning,” he said.
Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau highlighted the State Department’s top priority of recognizing national sovereignty.
“I think it’s so important for us all to recognize that the international community has no right to tell anyone of our country what our policy should be on these issues of family and women’s health,” Landau said. “Each nation-state has the right to determine, within its own borders, the policy it decides to pursue on social and cultural issues, like those affecting the family.”
Landau expressed solidarity with the Geneva Consensus Declaration’s “focus on women’s health and its commitment to families as the core of our communities and our countries.”
“We’re created in the image of God. We have families. Families build out into communities, into nations, and ultimately the world. And so, the family is ultimately the manifestation of God’s grace,” he explained. “I think it’s so important that we are all recognizing the importance of the family. This is something, frankly, that declining birth rates in so many parts of the world pose a huge problem facing humankind, and so I respect and welcome focus on these issues.”
Committed to restoring the principle of national sovereignty as central to international relations, Landau said, “Just as President Trump says he wants to make America great again, he expects the leaders of your countries to want to make your countries great again—whether it be Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, Cameroon, Egypt, or Paraguay.”
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), a staunch pro-life advocate, expressed gratitude for the Trump administration’s respect for life in the womb.
“The Geneva Consensus Declaration, in my opinion, is an engraved invitation to each and every one of us to seriously recommit and rededicate ourselves to the best of our ability in our home countries, as well as in the international forum,” Smith said.
Smith also urged the Trump administration to intensify efforts to investigate the abortion pill and its negative side effects experienced by many women.
“In the developing world, when a woman starts hemorrhaging, it’s often a death sentence, and she’ll die quietly and horribly in her town or in her hamlet, and nobody will know,” he explained. “There’ll be no statistical gathering for these horrible effects, and that woman will die. I’m very concerned about how everyone looks the other way on the international stage about the abortion pill.”
Addressing United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Smith questioned, “Do you know how the pill works? It starves the baby to death. You and I, Mr. Secretary-General, worked on global hunger. I believe deeply in mitigating world hunger, and yet we have a situation where we’re causing hunger to the point of starvation.”
The event underscored the Trump administration’s dedication to reaffirming national sovereignty, protecting life at all stages, supporting families, and opposing international imposition of social agendas that contradict these values.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/10/25/trump-admin-congress-celebrate-five-years-declaration-establishing-global-right-life/
Chris Hansen Shares What He Saw After ICE Ride-Along Targeting Illegals Who Threaten Children
Chris Hansen, host of the investigative series “Takedown,” appeared Wednesday alongside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), highlighting the agency’s active efforts to remove “criminals out of this country.” Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the administration has prioritized cracking down on illegal immigration and conducting mass deportations.
“In the last month, we have caught 45 predators seeking to exploit children. Seven of those were for a new investigative series we have going on with ICE ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations],” Hansen said. “They go out after these people who are here illegally but have also been convicted of crimes against children.”
Hansen recounted a case involving a convicted sex offender from Mexico who lived next to a daycare facility and just three blocks from a school. “And as we’re doing this, anti-ICE protesters are rallying outside ICE headquarters with no idea as to what we just did,” Hansen added.
Fox’s Jesse Watters noted, “The activists don’t like ICE outside of schools.” Hansen responded, “But it’s OK to have a registered sex offender next door to a daycare facility.”
Under Trump’s push for mass deportations, ICE has conducted raids in major cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City—areas often known as “blue cities.” Despite voters in 2024 ranking the border crisis as a top concern under the Biden administration, Democrats have criticized the deportations and defended some illegal immigrants.
In April 2024, Democrats rallied behind alleged MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, demanding the administration bring him back to the U.S. after he was deported to El Salvador. While some Democrats showed support for Garcia on social media, others, including Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, took taxpayer-funded trips to visit him in El Salvador before his return to the United States.
Watters asked Hansen about his experience in the field with ICE and whether agents shared any insights. Hansen said, “They are very happy to have their hard work shown. These are dedicated men and women who are trying to get criminals out of this country. We’re not talking about somebody who didn’t check a box here. We’re talking about criminals.”
He continued, “We watched in New Mexico one early morning as they arrested a man under investigation for sexually assaulting children in the home at the time. And this guy is in the country illegally.” Hansen emphasized the role of ICE agents in protecting children, “the most innocent asset we have in this society,” and noted their pride in the work they do.
Concerns about migrant children under the leadership of former President Joe Biden increased in summer 2024 after whistleblowers such as Tara Rodas testified against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Rodas brought attention to issues within the Office of Refugee Resettlement, including the vetting of sponsors for migrant children.
In September 2024, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General released a report stating that ICE could not “monitor all unaccompanied migrant children” released from the custody of DHS and HHS amid the ongoing border crisis.
Human trafficking experts, including Ali Hopper, President and founder of GUARD Against Trafficking, have continued to raise concerns with lawmakers about missing migrant children and sex trafficking risks in the U.S. In July 2024, Hopper testified before Congress, revealing that the Biden administration allegedly missed 65,000 calls from migrant children to a hotline established to report safety concerns.
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https://dailycaller.com/2025/10/16/chris-hansen-ice-ride-along-targeting-illegals-threaten-children/