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September 30, 2015 12:02 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Sept. 30)

  • 1 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

MoreSmarterLogo-300x218So long, September. 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…

► It’s beginning to look like Congress won’t be able to come to agreement on a funding plan for the Aurora VA Hospital project. As Mark Matthews writes for the Denver Post:

With only days left to act, federal lawmakers failed Tuesday to reach a deal on how to finish construction of a VA hospital in Aurora that has made national headlines by busting its budget by more than $1 billion.

At issue is the final $625 million the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says it needs to complete the facility. The VA has spent about $1 billion on the $1.675 billion project, but it needs permission from Congress to spend an additional $625 million — and soon.

If Congress doesn’t grant that permission by early October, VA officials have warned the project will run out of money and construction would grind to a halt.

While the Senate has approved a plan to pay for completion of the Aurora Hospital, the effort is being held up in the House by Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, who wants to ensure that he gets his pound of flesh from the VA first. This is not good news for Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora), who has been reduced to repeating Rep. Miller’s talking points while the clock ticks down. Coffman may hold the title of Chair of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee for the House Veteran’s Affairs Committee, but he has done virtually nothing to move along an important project in his own district.

 

► Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has built his political career on the basis of being a giant pain in the ass in Congress, and his boorish antics are finally catching up to him. Senate Republicans are openly attacking Cruz and setting him up for blame in the event of a government shutdown. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says that Cruz is “pretty much done for in the Senate.”

 

 

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► State Sen. Tim Neville is starting to talk about his platform as he prepares to officially announce his campaign for U.S. Senate on Thursday.

 

► Mitt Romney says he will back whomever emerges as the Republican nominee for President, but he doesn’t think that candidate will be Donald Trump. We’d be tempted to argue here, but then again, Romney is something of an expert on not winning national elections.

 

► Is history about to repeat itself where the Republican Party is concerned? Author and scholar Geo­ffrey Kabaservice explains in an op-ed for the New York Times:

As preposterous presidential candidates dominate the polls and extremists topple congressional leaders, the Republican Party is headed for a replay of the catastrophic Goldwater revolt of the early 1960s. It may be an entertaining spectacle, but it’s dangerous…

…Years ago, I wrote a history of the Republican civil war between the moderates and radicals of the Goldwater era. I’m sufficiently alarmed, watching history repeat itself, that I now work as a research consultant for the Main Street Partnership, an organization of over 70 members of Congress who represent the moderate-conservative wing of the Republican Party. Their rivals are members of the Freedom Caucus, who would rather close the government than compromise.

Once again, the battle is between Republicans who want to govern and those who don’t. The radicals have no realistic alternative solutions of their own. Even to contemplate the negotiations and compromises such policies entail would sully their ideological purity.

 

► The Republican National Committee and the University of Colorado would be wise to just go ahead and open up more seating for the Oct. 28 GOP Presidential debate in Boulder.

 

► California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy is considered the frontrunner to become the next Speaker of the House, but is he really ready for a job this big? Perhaps outgoing speaker John Boehner is also wary of McCarthy; there are reports that Boehner was trying to recruit Rep. Trey Gowdy as his successor.

 

► The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is rolling out new regulations on pesticides and petroleum emissions. Republicans are warming up their wrists for another round of serious fist-shaking.

 

► The Colorado Department of Transportation is outlining its plan to institute a new toll-lane on I-70 intended to ease congestion during the busy ski season. The eastbound toll-lane is scheduled to be ready to open by the end of December, and will only operate during peak traffic hours. The toll-lane is expected to save drivers about 30 minutes on their drive back to Denver, though it may cost as much as $30 for the privilege.

 

 

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Denver voters will be a hot commodity in SD-31, where three Democrats are running strong races to succeed term-limited state Sen. Pat Steadman.

 

► The director of a charter school in Jefferson County is under fire for using school district resources to campaign against a November recall election.

 

ICYMI

► Aurora Sentinel editor Dave Perry gets all sentimental-like as he thinks back on all the stuff he has seen over the years.

 

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One thought on “Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Sept. 30)”

  1. Speaking of McCarthy and no, Dems don't do this too.

    After Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) admitted that Republicans lied about the purpose of the Benghazi investigation, several top Democrats are calling out the House Republicans’ abuse of power and calling for an immediate end to the investigation.

    Rep. McCarthy got flustered during an interview with Sean Hannity and blew the worst kept political secret in Washington. He admitted that the Benghazi investigation is all about digging up mud on Hillary Clinton.

    The ranking member of the Select Committee on Benghazi, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) said, “This stunning concession from Rep. McCarthy reveals the truth that Republicans never dared admit in public: the core Republican goal in establishing the Benghazi Committee was always to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and never to conduct an even-handed search for the facts. It is shameful that Republicans have used this tragedy and the deaths of our fellow Americans for political gain. Republicans have blatantly abused their authority in Congress by spending more than $4.5 million in taxpayer funds to pay for a political campaign against Hillary Clinton.”

    http://www.politicususa.com/2015/09/30/democrats-call-benghazi-investigation-mccarthy-admits-fraud.html

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