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February 05, 2016 12:32 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Friday (Feb. 5)

  • 8 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

GetMoreSmarter-SnowBy this time next week, Peyton Manning may be retired from football; here’s hoping he has another Super Bowl ring as a going away present. 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…

► Yes, this is a politics blog, but let’s be honest with our Colorado readers: It’s Super Bowl weekend, and everybody’s talking about the Denver Broncos. As of today, the Broncos are a 5.5 point underdog against the Carolina Panthers. If you ask us — go ahead, ask us — we say Denver wins by seven points.

Meanwhile, Congress is taking part in the annual tradition of making silly regional-based bets to show that they, too, like to watch football. As The Denver Post reports, the friendly wagers include lots of red meat and locally-brewed beer. There’s also this:

Colorado’s two U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner — who can’t seem to do anything without the other — joined forces and put some “pride on the line” against their North Carolina counterparts, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis.

Under the terms of the deal, the freshman senator from the losing state must deliver a speech on the Senate floor that “must give specific shout outs to the Super Bowl champion’s head coach, quarterback, fan base and detail the greatness of the Super Bowl champion’s home state.”

For added fun, the freshman lawmaker from the winning state will get to preside over the Senate chamber during the homage.

Oh, as for Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora)? He’s trying to use this Super Bowl thing to raise money for his re-election campaign, because, of course.

 

► State Senate President Bill Cadman said his prayers to the Koch Brothers on Thursday. During a rally at the State Capitol with Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a political organization founded by the coal-mining billionaires, Cadman was quite frank about the connection between AFP and the State Senate:

“I can tell you this,” Senate President Bill Cadman told an Americans for Prosperity rally at the Capitol, “I don’t think I would be the president of the Senate if it wasn’t for the efforts you and yours did over the previous elections. And we look forward to continuing our partnership with you.”

It’s worth mentioning here that Cadman’s other job is working as a political consultant for Republican campaigns in Colorado and elsewhere. But surely Cadman doesn’t get any extra money from AFP for this work.

 

► Democratic Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders went back-and-forth in a debate in New Hampshire last night. If you missed it, here’s a few takeaways courtesy of Politico.

 

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Colorado Republicans are facing another Primary fight in HD-63 (Greeley-ish). Incumbent Rep. Lori Saine (R-RMGO), will have to defend her seat in a June Primary against Mead Republican Colleen Whitlow.

 

► Durango would like some Superfund, please. Somebody tell Silverton to flip a friggin’ coin or something.

 

► If Republicans are able to keep both chambers of Congress and win the White House in 2016, guess what they want to do first? As Bloomberg News reports:

Republicans in Congress are exploring a way to enact a repeal of Obamacare and other parts of their agenda soon after a new Republican president takes the oath of office in 2017.

Several Republicans said they’re discussing the possibility of adopting a budget this year that would let the next president’s agenda — including top goals like repealing Obamacare — bypass a Democratic filibuster at the very start of the year. Republicans used a similar move early this year to send a bill repealing much of Obamacare and defunding Planned Parenthood to President Barack Obama, who vetoed it.

The strategy would allow Republicans who control the House and Senate to put just such a bill on the desk of a new president if their party wins the White House, without having to grind through months of budget process. To succeed, Republicans need the Senate parliamentarian to let them use rules set by a budget resolution into the next Congress.

“It could be pretty powerful if it works,” said John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican. “We haven’t yet concluded one way or the other.”

So, uh, what happens if this scenario comes true and Republicans do repeal Obamacare? Hell if they know — there is still no GOP alternative proposal for replacing the Affordable Care Act.

 

► Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn is shaking his fist in a particularly aggressive manner in order to air new grievances he has with the Veterans’ Administration in his home city. Lamborn could ask for the Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee (of the House Veterans Affairs Committee) to really dig in on the issue…but Mike Coffman is too busy doing pushups somewhere.

 

► The Bernie Sanders campaign for President claims to have convinced thousands of unaffiliated voters in Colorado to switch to the Democratic Party so that they can properly “feel the Bern.” The Colorado Independent explains:

During a Feb. 3 event for Bernie Sanders in Colorado Springs, field director Josh Phillips told supporters the campaign had convinced 3,000 non-Democratic voters to change their registration and become Democrats before a Jan. 4 deadline so they could caucus for Sanders on March 1.

If true, that’s a majority of voters who made the switch— at least from being unaffiliated— across Colorado in the three months leading up to the deadline.

Between Oct. 1 and Jan. 4, a total of 4,402 unaffiliated voters switched over to the Democratic Party. That’s 769 more than switched from unaffiliated to the Republican side. More registered Democrats actually switched parties to become Republicans in Colorado between those dates than the other way around.

The Independent has more numbers from the Secretary of State on how many voters changed their affiliations before the Jan. 4 deadline. No word on how many times Tom Tancredo may have changed political affiliations before the deadline.

 

► Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Denver) raised another $2 million in the last quarter of 2015, giving him $6.7 million in the bank to start 2016.

 

► Like Schroedinger’s cat, assisted-suicide legislation in Colorado is both dead and alive under the State Capitol.

 

► So-called “right-to-die” legislation was discussed in a State Senate committee on Wednesday. As expected, the Republican-controlled committee spiked the bill after hearing testimony from both sides. Similar legislation is still moving forward in the State House.

 

► Real hunters wear pink.

 

► Denver Mayor Michael Hancock has endorsed Michael Carrigan in a three-way Democratic Primary for Denver District Attorney. This is the first time that a sitting Denver Mayor has endorsed a candidate for Denver DA in at least 20 years.

 

► Jack Shafer of Politico wants to know why the national media hasn’t been tougher on Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of, well, you know. One of the (many) nice things about not having official royalty in America is that we don’t have to bother the children of politicians who have chosen their own path in life. Why should that change?

 

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

BernFace► Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will be seeing this “Bern Face” on the Internet for the next, oh, thousand years.

 

Parental leave legislation has made its way through the State House and now moves on to the State Senate. At least Rep. Kevin Priola gets a breather.

 


ICYMI

► Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson is still talking about his decision to leave the Iowa caucuses early in order to return to his Florida home so he could get some clean clothes. This is not good for Carson, of course. But on the bright side, if Carson is talking about laundry, that means he isn’t being forced to try to articulate actual policy positions.

 

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Comments

8 thoughts on “Get More Smarter on Friday (Feb. 5)

  1. Hillary Clinton touts Henry Kissinger's endorsement of her time as Secretary of State

    I mean, Jesus H. Christ in a Chilean dungeon.

    "I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better than anybody had run it in a long time."

    Dear Ms. HRC: There is being tone-deaf, and then there is not being able to tell the difference between the New York Philharmonic and an abbatoir. What putative progressive—hell, what putative human being—would brag on being endorsed by the most pus-blooded vampire in American public life?

    For the youngsters, Kissinger not only was there for the greatest act of Treason in the 20th Century, but also was there to make the call in killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians the world over. 

    Yeah, baby. Now that's some Bipartisanship.

      1. Gotta go with Zap on this one. A would be progressive bragging about being endorsed as SOS by Kissinger is a lot like bragging about being endorsed on presidential ethics by Nixon. Kissie’s realpolitic, supporting horrible brutal strongmen who suppressed and tormented their own people as long as they were fascist instead of communist or even socialist didn’t work out very well in the long run.

          1. I'm not going to get started on Kissinger and all the chickens that keep coming home to roost as a result of his machinations but that's actually beside the point anyway. Of course it’s another example of HRC's puzzling tone deafness for her to fail to realize that bragging about his endorsement is hardly a smart move if she's looking to ingratiate herself to the progressive Dem base. Liberals hate Kissinger whether you think they should or not and HRC is clearly trying to make herself more acceptable to that demo.

            On the other hand, while the opening of China was a great accomplishment there certainly isn't much of a primary or general election demo left that has strong positive feelings about Kissinger and Nixon so what potential voters does bragging about his endorsement get her in return for pissing Dems off? Apparently you but you were supporting her already.  Most other surviving Kissinger fans are probably Republicans who won't be voting for a Clinton under any circumstances.

            It's another typical HRC tin ear unforced error. Like when she whined about how broke they were when they left the White House while still managing to very publicly live a jet set life style that 99.9% of Americans could only dream of. Not one that's going to amount to much, I'll grant you, but she really does have knack for this kind of thing. 

  2. Now Thom Tillis is the one who says that requiring restaurant kitchen workers to wash their hands after defecating while at work is big government overreach, right?

     

    1. If so, as I recall, the proposal was to do away with that regulation as long as you post a sign stating that your employees aren't required to wash their hands which would pretty much guarantee nobody would eat at your restaurant so I'm not sure how that would help or "free" restaurant owners. And wouldn't being required to post that sign just be replacing one bad old government regulation with another? 

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