April 15, 2016 11:23 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Friday (April 15)

• 6 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Lucky for you, your taxes aren’t officially due until Monday; you’ll have lots of time to finish up during Snowmageddon this weekend. 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…

► Rain! Snow! Rainsnow! We might get buried by snowfall this weekend…or maybe it’ll just rain a lot. The Colorado Pols’ “Triple-Doppler With Cheese” shows lots of blue ‘Ls’ and red ‘Hs’ swirling around the Metro Denver Area. Let’s hope they don’t smash into each other and form a big purple ‘K.’

► Earlier this week we suggested that you avoid Greenwood Village today, where supporters of Donald Trump were planning a rally in front of the State Republican Party HQ to protest getting their asses kicked at the GOP State Convention on Saturday. That rally has since been moved to the State Capitol, scheduled to take place today at 3:00 pm. You might want to avoid the State Capitol this afternoon, unless you just want an autograph from Larry Wayne Lindsey, who is apparently a famous viral video guy, or something. His Hairness is fully supportive of this, BTW:

Big protest march in Colorado on Friday afternoon! Don’t let the bosses take your vote!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 14, 2016

If you do make it over to the Capitol building, you’ll have your choice of places to stand and shake your fist. An “anti-corruption” group called Represent.Denver is also planning on some sort of rally this afternoon. Apparently today is “Good Government Restoration Day.” Don’t feel too bad; we forgot to pick up a greeting card, too.

Oh, and supporters of the Colorado Republican Party are still planning to rally in Greenwood Village today, for some reason.

► Loan Sharks! Lobbyists for the shady high-interest loan industry are once again trying to convince legislators to debate a late-session bill that would allow them to jack up interest rates for so-called “supervised” personal loans. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this legislation, and those who support it, as we have done ever since being inundated with Payday Lending spam back in 2009.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Michele Fry was one of several Democrats running in HD-6 (Rep. Lois Court is term-limited) up until Thursday, when the Secretary of State’s office informed her campaign that she failed to submit enough valid petition signatures to make the June Primary ballot. Fry sent a classy email to supporters today where she accepted her fate with grace:

I will not dwell on what could have been, but instead thank each and every one of you for the trust and confidence you placed in my candidacy.

If there is such a thing as political karma, and we believe there is, then Fry will be back on the campaign trail someday soon.

► Democrats in Congressional District 3 will meet tonight in Loveland to choose their preferred candidate to challenge Republican Rep. Scott Tipton. Former state Sen. Gail Schwartz should have little trouble coming out on top tonight. 

Meanwhile, Tipton is making noise about his support for measures in Congress that are intended to “de-fang” banking laws created in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

► A Colorado Pols reader writes an excellent diary about some of Tipton’s other pet causes.

► The five remaining Republican candidates for U.S. Senate took part in a candidate forum in Colorado Springs on Thursday. As Megan Schrader reports for the Colorado Springs Gazette, all of the candidates worked hard to demonstrate their love for firearms.

► Senator Michael Bennet (D-Denver) met with President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee on Thursday, as the Denver Post reports:

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet met Thursday with Barack Obama’s pick for the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Colorado Democrat said in a statement afterward that he’s not ready to officially support Merrick Garland’s nomination — though he spoke glowingly of his former colleague at the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Our job in the Senate is to learn about Judge Garland’s record, conduct hearings, and vote to confirm or deny his nomination,” Bennet said. “Because he is thoughtful, thorough, and well-respected across the political spectrum, obstructing a fair process, much less refusing to meet with him, makes no sense.”

Bennet’s hesitation in officially backing Garland, however, may just be a formality, as political realities suggest the Colorado lawmaker is more than likely to vote for Garland, currently the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

► President Obama will deliver the June 2 commencement address at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

► Marianne Goodland of the Colorado Independent takes a deeper dive into the ingredients that make up the 2016 state budget. That sounded a lot more disgusting than intended.

► Democratic Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders took part in a debate in Brooklyn last night, just a few days ahead of the April 19th New York Primary. Our friends at “The Fix” lay out the winners and losers from last night, declaring the debate a victory for Clinton.

► Republican leaders are getting more seriouser about rewriting the rules at the National Republican Convention in Cleveland. From Politico:

The Republican National Committee is expected to debate a proposal next week that would dramatically shift the balance of power at this summer’s convention — and impose a new rulebook for selecting the party’s nominee.

The proposal, which will top the agenda during a meeting of the Rules panel at the RNC’s annual spring meeting in Hollywood Beach, Fla., would fundamentally alter how the convention is conducted, further empowering the delegates to determine the course of the proceedings.

It amounts to not just a changing of the rules but of the rulebook itself, with far-reaching implications, potentially impacting whether party insiders will be able to draft a so-called “white knight” — someone currently not running who would play the role of savior at a deadlocked convention.

The proposal is the brainchild of Solomon Yue, an RNC officer and Rules Committee member from Oregon. It would replace the system used at Republican national conventions for decades, which mimic those used by the U.S. House of Representatives, with Robert’s Rules of Order, a design that’s often used to oversee civic and organizational meetings.

Yeah, this isn’t going to end well.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► The State of Mississippi is hell-bent on making sure that nobody ever wants to visit ever again. Just days after Gov. Phil Bryant signed a controversial bill that permits discrimination against LGBT residents and visitors, he penned his name to another piece of legislation that expressly allows you to carry guns in churches. Perhaps we can convince Donald Trump to build a wall around Mississippi, too.

► Tired of politics in the United States? At Least You’re Not in Brazil.

ICYMI

► Come to Denver for a “Colorado Pols Meetup” on Saturday. Here’s the details.

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