November 22, 2024 10:20 AM UTC
Get More Smarter on Friday (Nov. 22)
1 Comments- by: Colorado Pols
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on this day 61 years ago. Let’s Get More Smarter! If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example). If you are more of an audio learner, check out The Get More Smarter Podcast.
FIRST UP…
► Former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for Attorney General on Thursday in light of more potential evidence connecting him to sexual encounters with underage girls…and also because it was painfully obvious that he had zero chance of being approved by the Senate for the top law enforcement job in the land. Congressperson Lauren Boebert will need to find someone else to sit with during lunch breaks.
President-elect Donald Trump wasted little time in tossing out a new name for AG: Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. From The Washington Post:
Bondi, 59, is a longtime Trump loyalist who served on the defense team during his first impeachment trial. Her selection to be the country’s top law enforcement official follows a presidential campaign in which Trump criticized the justice system as “weaponized” against him and vowed retribution in a second term…
…In 2010, Bondi became the first woman to be elected Florida attorney general and served two terms. She serves in leadership roles with the Center for Litigation and the Center for Law and Justice at the America First Policy Institute. Her selection for a Cabinet role reinforces the right-wing think tank’s status as a leading source of political appointees for Trump’s second term. The group helped lay the groundwork for a second Trump term but avoided the type of backlash levied against a similar effort, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
She is also a partner at Ballard Partners, a powerhouse lobbying firm where Trump’s incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles once worked. The firm’s website lists Bondi as chair of the corporate regulatory compliance practice. She was registered to work for the Qatari Embassy in Washington on “efforts to combat human trafficking” during parts of 2019 and 2020, Justice Department filings show. She also lobbied for General Motors and Amazon. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Bondi played a leading role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, appearing at news conferences and on television to press his false claims that voting fraud had rigged the election in Joe Biden’s favor. Like many of Trump’s other Cabinet choices, Bondi built her national profile with appearances on Fox News.
It seems that the best way to get nominated by Trump for a top job in his administration is to either live in Florida or make regular appearances on Fox News. If you can check both of those boxes, you’re golden.
The New York Times has more on Bondi’s, er, qualifications.
► Elsewhere, Philip Bump of The Washington Post notes that Gaetz now holds the unofficial record for fastest withdrawal after being nominated for a cabinet-level position. So, Gaetz can put that on his resume.
POLITICO explains that the Gaetz fiasco is a wake-up call for Trump, who is not (yet) an all-powerful dictator.
► Danielle Jurinsky, the nutball Republican city council member from Aurora, is boasting about her involvement in a potential mass deportation plan. As Cassandra Ballard writes for The Aurora Sentinel:
The Aurora City Council member who promoted the disputed Venezuelan gang narrative that drew Donald Trump to Aurora in October told city officials the president-elect’s administration has contacted her about implementing mass deportations.
“Operation Aurora is coming,” Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky said during the Nov. 14 meeting of the Aurora City Council Public Safety meeting. “On a very serious note, there seems to be a disconnect with the incoming administration and the City of Aurora. So I hope that we are taking this seriously.”…
…At the end of the Aurora committee meeting, Jurinsky said the forming Trump Administration wants contact with Aurora.
Jurinsky also suggested having Aurora Police Sgt. Marc Sears appointed as a police department leader for Operation Aurora. Sears leads one of two Aurora police unions, the Fraternal Order of Police. Jurinsky said she was confident in his ability to spearhead the initiative.
Jurinsky is largely responsible for promoting the nonsense narrative last summer that Venezuelan gangs had taken over the City of Aurora and its apartment buildings. Aurora Police have repeatedly said that Jurinsky is full of shit.
► Navigator Research released its post-election report to help explain why Donald Trump is going to be the 47th President of the United States:
Among 2024 voters, the state of the national economy and the level of inflation were seen as reasons to support Trump by double digits.
Trump held a 12-point advantage among the 2024 electorate on the state of the national economy (40 percent more of a reason to support Harris – 52 percent more of a reason to support Trump) and a 13-point advantage on the level of inflation (52 percent) than more of a reason to support Harris (39 percent). Among “swing voters” — those who did not rule out voting for Trump or Harris from the start of the campaign, and whom Trump won by 8 points — Trump held a 39-point advantage on the level of inflation being more of a reason to support him (23 percent more of a reason to support Harris – 62 percent more of a reason to support Trump) and a 37-point advantage on the state of the national economy being more of a reason to support him (24 percent more of a reason to support Harris – 61 percent more of a reason to support Trump).
► In its “Unaffiliated” newsletter, The Colorado Sun explains how Colorado Democrats are working on strengthening relationships with labor unions:
The labor movement’s relationship with Democrats has been on the rocks in recent years, hitting a low point at the end of the 2024 legislative session when Polis vetoed three of their priority bills. During a May protest on the steps of the Capitol, hundreds of demonstrators shouted “shame on Polis!,” some wearing “Polis failed workers” T-shirts as they gathered under a banner that said “Governor Polis turned his back on us.”
“Colorado Democrats performed uniquely well in this election,” state Rep. Javier Mabrey, D-Denver, said Tuesday, “and this is where we get a chance to put up or shut up. Which side are you on, Colorado Democrats? The power is completely in our hands.”
[A rally this week] was built around unveiling a bill that will be introduced during next year’s legislative session that would make it easier for unions to organize in Colorado.
The bill would drop a barrier before unions and employers can negotiate whether all employees should have to pay representation fees to the union, whether they are part of the union or not. Right now, those negotiations can only happen after a vote of employees, and it requires as much as 75% support to pass.
That vote is in addition to the simple majority vote required to form a union in the first place. The requirement is unique to Colorado and is part of the Labor Peace Act, a 1943 state law.
The Colorado Chamber of Commerce is already pushing back against this proposal, which tells you everything you need to know.
Click below to keep learning things…
Check Out All This Other Stuff To Know…
► State Sen. Janet Buckner (D-Aurora) will resign her position on Jan. 9 in order to “prioritize her family and health.” Buckner, who is in her late 70s, has served in the state legislature for 9 years.
9News has more on the vacancy problem in the Colorado legislature.
► Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick to become Secretary of Education, has a sex scandal of her own involving “ring boys.” McMahon is the former CEO of World Wresting Entertainment (WWE).
► Congressman-elect Jeff “Bread Sandwich” Hurd has an idea for something to do in Congress…which is just something his predecessor supported. Hurd wants to bring the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) back to Grand Junction. From The Colorado Sun:
“Grand Junction offers proximity to public lands and better access to stakeholders and it ensures that taxpayer dollars are being used more efficiently,” Hurd said in an interview with The Sun this week. “I would expect that would improve accountability when it comes to land management decisions. I think decentralizing agencies like the BLM creates an opportunity to better engage local stakeholders and taxpayers. I expect we will be hearing more about this in 2025.”
President-elect Donald Trump moved the BLM’s headquarters to Grand Junction in 2020, but President Joe Biden returned the land management agency to Washington D.C. in 2021. Polis on Thursday morning posted on X that he supported moving the Interior Department and Forest Service headquarters to Colorado.
Hurd said he hopes to be a representative “who will listen and who will engage.”
Hurd will “listen” and “engage” — so long as you are first sequestered inside a special room.
► Since everything old is new again, it looks like we’re also back to fighting over the location of Space Command. As John Aguilar and Nick Coltrain report for The Denver Post:
An intense persuasion campaign is heating up across more than 1,200 miles, from Colorado Springs to Alabama, as both states’ congressional delegations battle over landing the permanent headquarters of the U.S. Space Command.
Colorado’s elected officials want to keep the command at Peterson Space Force Base, where it has been based since the service was revived in the summer of 2019 under then-President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Alabama’s delegation to Congress is gunning to get the command headquarters to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, where Trump had moved it in the waning days of his first term in the White House.
That order was overturned by President Joe Biden — a decision that kept the service in Colorado Springs, where the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce estimates it supports nearly 1,400 jobs and has a $1 billion impact on the local economy.
“It’s a fully operational and capable command,” U.S. Rep. Jason Crow said in an interview with The Denver Post. “It continues to build out and perform the mission it is supposed to. We simply can’t move it — we will jeopardize our national security if we do.”
But in a preview of what could be a tough scrap ahead, Republican U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama this week told a local TV station that he was confident President-elect Trump “will move it back, and I think, very early in his first few days.”
This is so dumb. Can we just leave it where it is and move on?
► Colorado Republicans are still trying to convince themselves that they can be competitive in Colorado because of some new data, or whatever.
► A proposed ban on hunting mountain lions failed at the ballot in 2024, but supporters say it could come back in the future.
► POLITICO reports on the very bad vibes in the Pentagon regarding Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense:
The release of a police report with graphic details of sexual assault allegations against Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be Defense secretary, is stoking concerns among current and former Defense Department officials that the agency could backslide on efforts to put an end to those abuses in the military.
Officials fear that Hegseth, whose nomination had already caused controversy due to his opposition to women serving in combat, could also hurt efforts to recruit women into the military.“When you have a leader that has already been credibly accused of sexual assault and then already has other signals in his background that he’s not concerned about the contributions that women can make to national security, it could create bad signals up and down the chain of command,” said one Defense Department official, who like others was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I imagine there is already profound fear and anxiety among women in uniform.”
In 2017, a woman told police that Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Army veteran, sexually assaulted her after barring the door to her hotel room and seizing her cell phone. The police report was released to the media on Thursday. Hegseth, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, was never charged.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Things are going great in Trumpland!
► Hate crimes targeting LGBTQ individuals in Colorado nearly doubled between 2019 and 2023. Come on, people: We’re better than this.
► As Westword reports, red flag laws ARE used in so-called “second amendment sanctuary counties” in Colorado…but they are employed much less frequently than in other parts of the state.
► Noelle Phillips of The Denver Post explains Denver’s persistent brown cloud:
It’s the time of year when temperatures drop and the air stagnates, said Scott Landes, lead air quality meteorologist at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The winter pollution season lasts from Oct. 31 to March 31.
“During the winter months, we see a build-up of pollutants near the Earth’s surface because it can’t escape into the atmosphere,” Landes said.
Those pollutants are mostly fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5. Fine particulate matter is caused by the same sources as summer ozone pollution — automobile traffic and industrial production, Landes said. In the summer, wildfire smoke also causes particulate matter to hang in the air.
A steady snow is apparently good for clearing out the brown haze, but that sort of weather isn’t expected in Denver until at least next week.
► Colorado is making it easier to see when COVID and other viruses are spiking throughout the state.
► As Denver7 reports, Debra A. Johnson — general manager and CEO for RTD — is somehow in line for a $20k raise:
The performance appraisal revealed Johnson’s performance rating was 67 out of 100 points. That placed her within the “meet expectations” category and “qualified her for an adjusted base salary increase between 3.25% and 5.99%.”
The ultimate percentage salary increase will be 4.86%, which adjusts Johnson’s annual base salary from $402,325 to $421,878.
► From CBS4 Denver:
The police chief in Simla, Colorado, Tony Schiefelbein, has resigned from his position this week as he faced a disciplinary hearing for allowing his 17-year-old son to drive a Simla Police Department vehicle. Records obtained by CBS News Colorado show the chief’s son was stopped in Parker in August while driving a Simla police Humvee. Parker is located about 70 miles from Simla.
According to police and court documents and interviews, on Aug. 20, police officers in Parker stopped a black 2009 Humvee registered to the Town of Simla.
Parker police records say the vehicle was being driven by a 17-year-old, the son of Simla’s police chief. Parker police cited the teenager for knowingly possessing a vehicle equipped with red or blue lights and careless driving.
This is the biggest news to hit Simla since…we’ll be honest, we didn’t know Simla even existed until 10 minutes ago.
Say What, Now?
What. The. Fuck? Click here to watch as former Congressman Matt Gaetz’s wife sings “God Bless America” at the U.S. Capitol for reasons we can’t explain and then tags Congressperson Lauren Boebert in the social media post.
Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
► This won’t end well:
► HuffPost reports on some rough comments about Donald Trump from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — the man who has been tapped by Trump to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services.
Newly resurfaced audio from Kennedy’s “Ring Of Fire” radio show in 2016 hears him saying Trump is “not like Hitler” because “Hitler had like a plan, you know, Hitler was interested in policy.”
“I don’t think Trump has any of that,” Kennedy added before using the Latin phrase meaning not in control of one’s mind. “He’s like non compos mentis. He’ll get in there and who knows what will happen.”
In other uncovered audio, Kennedy described Trump as a “carnival barker” whose “fear-based” statements encourage fear of Muslims and Black people.
And now RFK is kissing Trump’s ass. What a world.
ICYMI
► Pew Research is out with a very interesting (and long) report on “America’s News Influencers” that is worth perusing for anyone still trying to understand how Trump happened again.
► Check out the latest episode of the Get More Smarter podcast, which you can also now watch on YouTube:
Oh, I do do hope that Ginger Gaetz will make those U.S. Capitol concerts a regularly (dare I even wish, weekly?) event!!!
I would gladly donate my entire Bitcoin portfolio to see Ginger belting out multiple lengthy and soulful renditions of ‘Jesus Loves the Little Children’ while hubby, Trump, and Kristi Noem stand swaying at her side!