May 26, 2016 02:06 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Thursday (May 26)

• 6 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

If at first you don’t succeed…just keep filing lawsuits until a judge gives up. 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…

► Wednesday witnessed the debut of the Get More Smarter Show, and today you can watch the second part of an interview with Gov. John Hickenlooper about his new memoir.

► For now, at least, there are officially 5 Republican candidates running for U.S. Senate. A district court judge ruled on Wednesday that Ryan Frazier won’t have to drop out of the race because of a lack of valid petition signatures. As John Frank reports for the Denver Post, the GOP Senate field is starting to get a bit nasty with just weeks to go before mail ballots are sent to Primary voters — and Darryl Glenn isn’t happy about having so many opponents:

One-time longshot Darryl Glenn, buoyed by the recent endorsement of the prominent Senate Conservatives Fund, continued to spit fire at his challengers in a Colorado Public Television debate Wednesday in which he suggested three of themonly qualified for the ballot because of “judicial activism.”

The action unfolded as Ryan Frazier won a court battle to secure a spot on the ballot a minute before the debate started. A Denver judge issued a ruling that allowed the state to count signatures on Frazier’s petitions from voters who didn’t update their registration, saying it met the “substantial compliance” standard in law.

Blaha and Jon Keyser needed judicial orders to qualify for the race after their petitions contained mistakes that prompted the state to initially reject them. Glenn, who won his slot in the race at the state Republican Party convention, suggested the judge went too far.

“The court should only look and determine whether or not the secretary of state did its job,” said Glenn, an El Paso County Commissioner running a bare-bones campaign. “This whole substantial compliance standard needs to be thrown out.”
He didn’t appear to know that state law explicitly requires the court to use the “substantial compliance” standard.

► Former Republican Senate candidate and current state Sen. Tim Neville is backing Robert Blaha for U.S. Senate. It probably has nothing to do with the fact that Neville’s son, Joe Neville, is now running Blaha’s campaign.

Blaha, meanwhile, has decided that it would be advantageous for his Senate campaign if he tries to “out-Trump” Donald Trump. Perhaps Blaha is drinking the same Kool-Aid as Trump staffers who insist that His Hairness is echoing the sentiments of the American people in his calls to ban Muslims from the United States.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► The Shirtless Sheriff is back in the news. As the Colorado Springs Gazette reports:

Former El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa was indicted Wednesday on felony counts of extortion, witness tampering and kidnapping, marking a stunning conclusion to a probe conducted in secret over the past two years.

Also charged by an El Paso County grand jury were former Undersheriff Paula Presley and former Commander Juan “John” San Agustin – central figures in conspiracies alleged against the sheriff by top-ranking employees.

The three are expected to be advised in El Paso County District Court in the days ahead, officials said. Bond for the trio was set at $10,000 apiece. If convicted of the most serious charges, they could face prison time.

Former El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa resigned from his job just a few weeks before term limits officially forced him out of office…though the massive scandals that surrounded his final year(s) in office probably would have forced an early exit anyway.

► Donald Trump has clinched enough delegates to secure the Republican nominee for President. Hopefully media outlets can now stop calling Trump the “presumptive” nominee for the GOP.

In other Trump news, the candidate has fired Rick Wiley as his national political director when the former campaign manager for Scott Walker’s Presidential bid had trouble making nice with the Trumpians.

► Colorado Republican Party Chair Steve House is doing his best to censor any potentially negative conservative bloggers from attending the National Republican Convention. Blogger Kathryn Porter won’t get to go to Cleveland in July, which means she’ll probably also miss the big GOP blowout party featuring the band “Journey.”

► Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is sticking to her story about using a private e-mail server during her time as Secretary of State.

► The battle for the Democratic Presidential nomination has created some bitter feelings between supporters of Hillary Clinton and rival Bernie Sanders. Here in Colorado, Democratic congressional candidate Morgan Carroll has managed to avoid the Clinton-Sanders battle as she looks ahead to a November showdown with incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Coffman.

► Senator Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) has introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate that would allow airports to move their security checkpoints to different locations.

► The Longmont Times-Call has a good update on the issue of selling liquor in grocery stores.

► Just in case you needed another reason not to move to Colorado Springs…

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► House Speaker Paul Ryan is trying to convince conservative colleagues to stop saying stupid shit about LGBT rights

► Donald Trump tells Jimmy Kimmel that he sometimes pretends to be other people.

ICYMI

► Get more Get More Smarter Show.

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