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August 19, 2015 01:06 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Aug. 19)

  • 13 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

gmsmaverickHappy National Aviation Day! It’s time to 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…

► Continuing his cringeworthy GOP Alienation Tour, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump made big strides backward if his goal was ever securing the pivotal Hispanic vote–via the O’Reilly Factor last night:

Donald Trump clashed with Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday night over the part of his immigration plan that would take away citizenship from the children who were born in the United States but whose parents came to the country illegally.

Under the 14th Amendment, O’Reilly told Trump on “The O’Reilly Factor,” mass deportations of so-called birthright citizens cannot happen.

Trump disagreed, and said that “many lawyers are saying that’s not the way it is in terms of this.”

Not sure who those lawyers are, but this won’t win Trump any votes he doesn’t already have by the proverbial short hairs.

► Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee in his infinite wisdom declared that Martin Luther King would be “appalled” by the Black Lives Matter movement. And he knows this how exactly?

Ben Carson’s stop in Durango yesterday scared up a big crowd by Southwest Colorado standards, but left Durangoans worried about the future of polluting mines above Silverton with little reassurance:

Carson said he opposed Superfund status for Silverton as it might hurt the town’s reputation.

Safe to say, the 70,000+ people living along the Animas River don’t really care about Silverton’s reputation. They care about clean water.

► And the latest “gotcha” attempt on Hillary Clinton over her email services turns out to be old news. Rest assured, Trey Gowdy and friends will keep trying.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Colorado lawmakers started the process of examining racial profiling by police in our state. With any luck, you’ll see more legislation next year.

► Energy industry surrogates decrying proposed new methane rules should consider the fact that Colorado already has stricter rules in place–and it hasn’t “killed” anybody’s job.

► A BLM meeting yesterday in Golden debating coal production was mobbed by industry surrogates and political astroturf groups. A few enviro groups got their point across edgewise too.

► A judge has ruled in favor of now-Denver Councilman Rafael Espinoza in his long fight to protect an historic house in Jefferson Park from beng scraped off for new townhomes.

► The ACLU is challenging Greeley’s restrictions on panhandling.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Former El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa left the El Paso County Sheriff’s office in very, very, very bad shape.

ICYMI

► Jeffco recall organizers smash petition goals, validate over twice the signatures needed. Game on!

Get More Smarter by liking Colorado Pols on Facebook!

Comments

13 thoughts on “Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Aug. 19)

  1. Alan Grayson thinks we should expand Social Security benefits. 

    Up until now it's been DC CW that we can't. 

    Maybe if someone from CO joined Grayson and Warren and Sanders and Merkeley then the idea would be more feasible. Or maybe everyone in CO hates those loser Humphrey acolytes and is dying to make fun of their idiotoc idealism. 

    Maybe we should keep discussing gay marriage and the EPA and how big your magazine can be.

    Who knows which is the better policy for Americans? Is expanding benefits better than cutting benefits and sending the elderly and poor into the streets?

    Alan Grayson wants to push the issue, and I applaud him for it.

  2. Trumps claims he has lawyers who say birthright citizenship wouldn't hold up in court if he chose to end it, assuming by legislation rather than fiat, despite the 14th amendment. In other words that the 14th amendment wouldn't hold up in court. This was too much nonsense even for O'Reilly which is a very high bar indeed. I think Trump may need new lawyers as well as new investigators. Remember the ones who were going to get right back to us with proof that Obama isn't an American born citizen? But I doubt he's actually got any lawyers or investigators working on these issues.

    A cynical adviser of his who was on MSNBC today said it doesn't matter if legislation to end birth right citizenship would be struck down in court. All that matters is that Trump is taking this strong, passionate position on something so many Republican voters feel passionately about. I suppose you can apply this to how he'd get Mexico to pay for a wall, where his illegal immigrant crime stats come from or stats on illegal immigration over the southern border period (it's been negative for years now with more leaving than entering that way) how he'd get better international deals. None of the reality of it matters so naturally there's no need for details. 

    Well, that's not quite true. The phony staged Reality TV aspect of his campaign is actually all that matters. Considering how much attention most voters pay to reality TV versus politics? He's on to something. It won't get him to the WH but he's milking the ride for all it's worth and probably giving us an end result that will defy all conventional wisdom as it applies to what kind of candidate wins the GOP nomination. 

    1. Trump's polling will probably start downwards if Fox can change the viewers perception of him to consistently negative.  Their demo is pretty much ignorant (but angry) sheeple, anyway.  

      What would be funny is if O'Reilly's audience turns on him for attacking Trump.  Now that would be interesting!

      1. I'm beginning to feel a little panic over the monster they've created among the media. All the media from Fox to MSNBC. They seem to be realizing that while Trump was great for everybody's ratings, things aren't going according to the old formula where there's no harm in goosing ratings by giving the crazy bloviator lots of coverage because it's just for fun.

        And you know what's really weird about Trump? Not that his offensive or just plain ridiculous remarks don't shake that 25% who love him. That makes perfect sense. But neither do reasonable remarks no other conservative could get away with. His numbers didn't go down after he said most of what Planned Parenthood does is really very good. Can you imagine what the rightie reaction would be if Jeb said that? They didn't go down after he said no he wouldn't scrap the whole Iran deal either. 

        Makes you wonder just who those 25% of Republicans who love this guy no matter what he says are.  What do they believe? Do they even have any coherent policy agenda or are they just into the "You're fired" guy, the persona they know from reality TV?  Whoever they are, they seem to be both Trumps ceiling and his floor. I don't see him getting beyond them. But how is it going to affect the rest of the field? Will the establishment candidate actually not win the nomination this time? Will it be someone somewhere in between establishment and all over the map, doesn't know WTF he's talking about Trump? Which way will Fox jump?

        Oh and  remember that conspiracy theory that gets mentioned once in a while, that he's secretly doing all this to screw the GOP and help HRC, the Clintons being his buddies? Report from my mom who got sick of all Trump and HRC's e-mails all the time on the cable news and switched to one of the fluffy morning shows… Trump daughter Ivanka and Chelsea Clinton, both married to nice Jewish boys, are BFFs. And of course you can't have a really good wacko right wing conspiracy without Jews involved.wink 

        1. Wow — That's a lot to take in! 

          On Trump getting away with saying anything — that tells me his 25% aren't ideologues, but more simply fed up with everyone, Republican Party too.  Seems it doesn't matter what Trump says, it's the mere fact that he's sticking it to the establishment is what they want from him: "I'm sick and tired and won't take it anymore" from Network, remember?

          But, yes, Trump is sticking a knife in the stomach of the GOP, and they are bleeding profusely at the moment.  Scott Walker is going to try the same approach, imitating Trump's positions as well as his "passion", even offending one of his billionaire backers by flip-flopping on a pet issue.  We'll see if any supporters peel off from Trump or the other candidates, or Walker just stumbles out of the race when people see the con he's trying to play.

          But Ivanka and Chelsey BFF's — that's Yuge!  No wonder they think Trump is a stalking horse for Clinton.  Whatever works to hasten the demise of the current powers controlling the GOP is ok by me. 

    2. The "legal" argument over this works about as well as the one that sovereign citizens use to claim they owe no taxes. Here's how it goes.

      The 14th Amendment says that all persons born or naturalized in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the US. By coming here illegally, undocumented immigrants have not submitted themselves to the jurisdiction of the US, and so their children aren't automatically citizens. This, of course, has never been the ruling of any court in the land…

      And now you know.

      1. In reality everyone, including those here illegally, is subject to our jurisdiction except for diplomats. Everyone else must obey all laws. Diplomats alone have diplomatic immunity.  The purpose of this clause is to make clear a special exception from birthright citizenship for the children of diplomats born on US soil. Since diplomats and their families are the only ones present in our country not considered to be under our jurisdiction, only their children do not become citizens by birth right.

        In any case, anyone attempting to prove that those who enter illegally are not under under US jurisdiction would have to go through the court system to prove that to be accurate. Since legal precedent makes it so obvious that, yes, those here illegally, tourists, anyone except those holding diplomatic immunity have always been considered subject to our laws with prosecutions and convictions to prove it, it is extremely unlikely (more like impossible) that any such challenge would get anywhere. At best, a lower court would make the obvious ruling against and higher courts would let the ruling stand without bothering to waste their time taking it up. No doubt that explains why no court in the land has ever made any such ruling.

        I'm going to hit post and hope that either I've done a really careful job of scanning for errors or the edit function appears. I am at least getting the red lines for spelling errors.

  3. An interesting twist just occurred to me. If those entering our country illegally really aren't subject to US jurisdiction, then they wouldn't be subject to our laws and therefore wouldn't be here illegally after all since, in their cases, legality wouldn't apply. You can't very well be guilty of breaking US law, including immigration law, if laws don't apply to you because you aren't under US jurisdiction. That's why diplomats, not under US jurisdiction on account of diplomatic immunity, park wherever the hell they want and never have to worry about tickets. 

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