Here’s a sentence nobody ever wants to have said about them: It’s not technically treason. 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…
► Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner talked to the Denver Post (sort of) about his decision to sign his name to the now-infamous “Dear Iran” letter. Gardner’s weird, rambling response to a letter that spawned the hashtag #47Traitors did nothing to explain why he thought this was a good idea. Mike Littwin wonders who was more humiliated about this letter — Republicans or President Obama — while dissecting this political disaster for the GOP.
► Speaking of the “Dear Iran” letter, the Denver Post editorial board used a whole five sentences to opine on the issue yesterday. This is the same newspaper, of course, that endorsed Gardner for Senate in 2014.
► The anti-vaxxers in the Colorado legislature have re-emerged on an amendment offered to an otherwise uninteresting naturopathic bill:
Listen here to the Senate dustup over HB1075, turning into a proxy war over vaccines http://t.co/SXwPhFaY9x
— Kristen Wyatt (@APkristenwyatt) March 11, 2015
Get even more smarter after the jump…
SHOULD YOU FIND YOURSELF STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…
► State Rep. Dan Thurlow is surprising both parties at the State Capitol by using his brain to make decisions on important legislation. Thurlow was the only House Republican to vote with Democrats on banning gay conversion therapy in Colorado, which passed through the lower chamber yesterday.
► Republican Rep. Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt tried to convince his colleagues to oppose a ban on gay conversion therapy by circulating a two page letter around the Capitol. As Marianne Goodland writes for the Colorado Statesman, Dr. Chaps was using some interesting logic:
In this bill Democrats “want Big Government to come into your doctor’s office and then into your bedroom. They will mandate in state law that you, forever, must only have sex the same way you did yesterday, and that nobody can ever talk with a counselor about having sex a different way in the future…” he wrote. [Pols emphasis] Finally, he claimed the bill would threaten freedom of the press. Psychotherapists would not be able to distribute books about conversion. “There is a manual for conversion therapy. Many of you, when you swore your oath to defend the constitution, raised your right hand to God, and you placed your left hand on that book,” implying the bill would ban the Bible.
► Colorado Senate Republicans killed a bill aimed at preventing teen pregnancies — even though it was sponsored by Republican Sen. Ellen Roberts and GOP Rep. Don Coram. As Peter Marcus writes for the Durango Herald:
House Bill 1079…would have secured funding for a statewide teen pregnancy- and dropout-prevention education and counseling program that currently exists in only Mesa, Montrose and Delta counties.
The “Get Real” program has been administered for nearly 20 years by Grand Junction-based Hilltop Community Resources, an organization that works with children and families on various human and health services. The “Get Real” program focuses on at-risk youth in the Medicaid system. Case managers meet individually with youth and their families to develop strategies to avoid bad decisions, including teen pregnancy.
The Senate Finance Committee squashed HB-1079 on a 3-2 vote.
► We’re getting tired or writing about these damn microbeads, but at least the bill is finally on the way to the Governor’s desk. State Sen. Larry Crowder (R-Alamosa) would probably prefer to stop talking about them as well.
► Hillary Clinton spoke to the media yesterday over her use of email during her time as Secretary of State. This might have been a bigger story if Republicans hadn’t written that stupid letter to Iran, which sucked all the air out of the room.
► Former Congressman and current Mesa County Commissioner Scott McInnis wants Congressman Scott Tipton (R-Cortez) to find federal money to finish a building at Grand Junction Regional Airport. One way or another, this should qualify as one of the most absurd construction projects in recent Colorado history.
► The State Senate will get another chance to breathe life into the Pay Equity Commission.
OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK
► Do you like to play dress up and carry a bunch of guns around? Colorado Pols has you covered with the latest in “gun nut” fashion.
► In the race for the Republican nomination for President, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and current Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker have emerged as the early frontrunners. Apparently they don’t like each other very much.
► Some residents in El Paso County are worried about the potential dangers of a planned wind farm in the area. Colorado residents dealing with oil and gas wells near their homes are biting their tongues.
► The University of Colorado has the #1 ranked atomic physics program in the nation. We’re not even going to pretend to know what that means, but it sure sounds impressive.
ICYMI
► Fox 31’s Eli Stokols examines the midpoint of the legislative session in his #COPolitics show.
► The editorial board of the New York Times gives a thumbs up to new marijuana legislation in Congress.
Get More Smarter by liking Colorado Pols on Facebook!
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instead of joking about ignorance, let’s get more smarter: it is strictly speaking CU’s “atomic/molecular/optical physics” program that was so ranked, and the source document of the article cited contains a simple summary: “Atomic, molecular and optical physicists work on research projects involving high-power lasers, precision measurements, atom trapping and more.”
the CU department itself has a more down-to-earth lede: “A central theme in AMO science in recent years has been the thrust to understand and control atoms, molecules, and light in new ways that were hardly dreamed about, only a decade ago. ”
Uh, thanks for edumacating us, I guess, kinda, sorta. . . .
if i’d realized this was a snarkfest i wouldn’t have bothered
If you don’t talk down to people, then maybe you won’t get snarked. Some of us snarkers have advanced degrees of our own, and I found your tone (which is always hard to determine in a posting without other cues) to be condescending.
Of course, around here, you may get snarked anyway, just ’cause we can.
The many practical applications of which include measuring the infinitesimally small — like Colorado Republucan legislators’ intelligence?!?
Colorado Springs Utilities board chairman: Humans don’t cause global warming
The same bunch that turned off street lights in my sister’s neighborhood in the Springs and made people pay to have them turned back on. My brother-in-law, dyed in the wool Repub that he is, wouldn’t let her turn theirs back on, said the neighbors’ lights were good enough. She made him buy her a really fancy house in a part of town where the lights are on, paid for from the exorbitant HOA fees. Serves him right, the cheapskate.
As we all know, Scott “Joanie Loves Chachi” Baio is a Z-list “celebrity,” a washed-up has-been never-was, and a complete joke as an “actor.”
So you probably won’t be surprised to learn that he’s also a total dickhead when it comes to politics:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/scott-walker-endorsement-scott-baio-2016-elections-115981.html
Charles was never in charge. Jimmy McNichol, eat your heart out.
That’s okay, DP. from the story in that link, it sounds like his endorsement is a curse.
So Chaps is discussing folks having sex “in a different way in the future?” Who would have thunk it. Maybe 50 Shades of Grey had more effect on him than we thought.
I’m actually really concerned about the fact that Chaps’ wife never appears in public. I’d just like to know that she’s Ok, given how wacko her hubby is.
Is he aware that all kinds of different ways exist right now?
I wouldn’t be surprised if he had first hand experience….