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July 06, 2015 12:50 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Monday (July 6)

  • 8 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

MoreSmarterLogo-300x218Seriously, you can stop lighting fireworks now. Let’s Get More Smarter with Colorado Pols! If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example).

 

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

Douglas County officials are looking toward their next step in defending their nonsense “voucher” program after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled last week that programs were discriminating on religious grounds when they weren’t flat-out stealing taxpayer money. As Eric Gorski writes for the Denver Post:

In rejecting the vouchers, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Nancy Rice cited Colorado’s “stark constitutional provision” forbidding the use of public money to fund religious schools. That, she wrote, is exactly what the Douglas County initiative does, essentially working as a “recruitment program.”

Legal experts agree the U.S. Supreme Court typically does not get involved in state constitutional questions. But they differ on whether the circumstances of the Douglas County case put it in a different league.

Heather Weaver, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, an original plaintiff, said there is “really no grounds” for an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

► In the “Ship’s That Already Sailed” department, opponents of LGBT rights and same sex marriage are planning a couple of idiotic ballot measures for 2016. We’d encourage the political geniuses behind these measures to take another look at just how dramatically these issues have shifted over the last decade. If you’d rather not read words, check out this amazing graphic from the New York Times.

 

Get even more smarter after the jump…

 

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

Despite the impression you might get from new Texas schoolbooks, Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan is not the name of a bad 80s band. As the Washington Post explains:

Five million public school students in Texas will begin using new social studies textbooks this fall based on state academic standards that barely address racial segregation. The state’s guidelines for teaching American history also do not mention the Ku Klux Klan or Jim Crow laws.

And when it comes to the Civil War, children are supposed to learn that the conflict was caused by “sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery” — written deliberately in that order to telegraph slavery’s secondary role in driving the conflict, according to some members of the state board of education.

Slavery was a “side issue to the Civil War,” said Pat Hardy, a Republican board member, when the board adopted the standards in 2010. “There would be those who would say the reason for the Civil War was over slavery. No. It was over states’ rights.”

As the old saying goes, those who fail to learn from history…something, something.

Speaking of terrible education policy, an effort to recall three conservative Jefferson County School Board members kicks off on Wednesday at Jeffco Fairgrounds. 

► Congressman Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) is in deep trouble as he looks ahead to 2016. It’s never good for re-election when your wife is the primary figure in one of the biggest political scandals in Colorado history. Coffmangate!

► You’ve probably heard Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric by now; 9News tracked down the 2012 Miss Colorado winner to get her opinion, for some reason.

► Longtime Denver political activist Ellis McFadden died on Saturday after fighting esophageal cancer. The legislature has declared July 2nd “Ellis McFadden Day.”

 ► Remember, kids: Campaign finance filings are not just suggestions.

 

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Guess who is still grandstanding about the VA Hospital mess in Aurora? If you selected Rep. Mike Coffman, Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee under the House Veterans Affairs Committee, you win a prize. Coffman is upset because, as he says, “the VA won’t hold itself accountable.” Neither will the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, apparently, so they’ve got that in common.

GQ Magazine has decided that Rep. Jared Polis (D-Boulderish) is not the worst-dressed Congressperson in history.  

 

ICYMI

► Congressional Republicans are bringing back the “Fiscal Cliff.” 

 

Get More Smarter by liking Colorado Pols on Facebook!

Comments

8 thoughts on “Get More Smarter on Monday (July 6)

  1. Could you produce some evidence that Coffmangate has put Mike Coffman in serious trouble? Besides a link to your own assessment?  Something pointing to this scandal having reached the kind of proportions necessary in the eyes of the general public to seriously affect his congressional race? 

      1. Also this is from before his last election and it sadly had no negative effect then. Before that he got elected despite all of his embarrassing birther comments, apologies for birther comments, apologies for apologies for birther comments ad infinitum. Colpols does tends to get overly hyped about this kind of thing.

        1. My POV is different. I see these things as very damaging, but our local media and local political chattering class doesn't do enough to get the full value from them. I blame you for this, but I also blame myself. We should all be talking about Coffman's misdeeds, and doing more about them at election time, but we don't. The local media watches Coffman squeak by and conclude that's what the people want.

          I think we're all just lazy, and if we did our jobs, Coffman would be toast. That's why I'm gonna fight like hell for Morgan Carroll if and when she gets in this thing.

          1. Ummmm…. we all do talk about this stuff all the time. In order to make  a dent you need these things to blow up in the mainstream media/popular culture and stay blown up over time. That's what it takes to make a major public impact.

            Talking to each other, our neighbors, writing letters to newspapers that a handful of people read, echo chambering with our friends on our blogs and FB doesn't get the job done. So you can blame yourself if it makes you feel better. But that's really not how it works anymore.

            You need a coalition of big money and pols with balls to make a public impression. There was nothing vaguely grass roots about getting the Swift Boat narrative or the birther narrative or, here in Colorado, the NRA funded recall effort into the public consciousness. If big Dem supporting money and Dem pols don't have the balls to take advantage of any of what we're saying about Coffman, the media won't care and it won't be a blip on the average voter's screen.

            R pols are much better at this because the one thing they don't lack is the balls to attack. Anyone. They'll even gleefully attack multiple amputee vets as being soft on terror without worrying for second about looking like SOBs. Our D pols and their donors and ops are still too busy being afraid of looking mean or unpatriotic or soft to have the nerve to point out the legit. We can only do so much without them. I don't feel guilty at all. Just exasperated.

      2. It does, however, help to explain why the Coffmans live in two different houses. Perhaps he cannot be trained away from this disgusting habit.

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