October 09, 2017 10:13 AM UTC

Get More Smarter On Monday (October 9)

• 18 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Have a nice Columbus Day/ Indigenous People’s Day. It’s time to 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 a visual learner, check out The Get More Smarter Show.

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► President Trump said last month that he would not require funding for a border wall with Mexico to be tied to DACA legislation. Of course, President Trump says a lot of things. As the Washington Post explains, that was then, and this is now:

The Trump administration released a list of hard-line immigration principles late Sunday that threaten to derail a deal in Congress to allow hundreds of thousands of younger undocumented immigrants to remain in the country legally.

The administration’s wish list includes the funding of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a crackdown on the influx of Central American minors and curbs on federal grants to “sanctuary cities,” according to a document distributed to Congress and obtained by The Washington Post.

As Politico notes, Trump’s Sunday demands are likely to stop DACA legislation before it even gets moving:

On Sunday, Trump called on Congress to build a wall along the southern border — a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, which was premised on tougher immigration policies. But Democratic leaders left the dinner believing that Trump would not demand a border wall in exchange for signing legislation to provide legal status to immigrants who obtained protection from deportation and work permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program…

…The list will certainly turn off Democrats and even Republicans — many of whom have endorsed providing a pathway to legal status for “Dreamers,” or undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors. The White House said Sunday it was not interested in providing citizenship to DACA beneficiaries, even though the main proposals for Dreamers on Capitol Hill would allow a pathway to citizenship.

► President Trump inexplicably picked a fight with retiring Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker in a Twitter tirade on Sunday — a head-scratching decision that highlights Trump’s apparent inability to govern.

Corker did not hold back in his response:

It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.

— Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker) October 8, 2017

Corker was also prompted by Trump’s tirade to speak out in an interview with the New York Times about concerns that Trump could be pushing the U.S. closer to war:

Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged in an interview on Sunday that President Trump was treating his office like “a reality show,” with reckless threats toward other countries that could set the nation “on the path to World War III.”

In an extraordinary rebuke of a president of his own party, Mr. Corker said he was alarmed about a president who acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.”

“He concerns me,” Mr. Corker added. “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.”…

…Mr. Trump poses such an acute risk, the senator said, that a coterie of senior administration officials must protect him from his own instincts. “I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him,” Mr. Corker said in a telephone interview.

According to Corker, his views on Trump are most certainly not a minority opinion:

“Look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here,” he said, adding that “of course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road.”

► As part of efforts to influence the 2016 election, Russian wrench-throwers spent big money on advertisements on Google platforms. Facebook has previously disclosed that Russian-connected groups spent heavily on misinformation ads during the 2016 cycle.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► This year marks the 525th anniversary of the first transatlantic voyage by Christopher Columbus. On October 12, 1492, Columbus sighted land in the Caribbean, and yada, yada, yada…America.

Unless you work at a bank, you probably don’t have the day off of work; if you did, you might be calling it something different anyway. The City of Denver abandoned “Columbus Day” in favor of “Indigenous People’s Day” last October, and as USA Today reports, the trend is growing:

A growing number of cities are abandoning ship and replacing Columbus Day — celebrated Monday — with Indigenous Peoples Day, also known by some as Native Americans Day.

On Thursday, the Austin City Council became the latest community to go that route, approving a resolution recognizing the second Monday of every October as Indigenous Peoples Day and encouraging schools to teach Native American history.

Austin’s move comes after similar action in August in Los Angeles —  the biggest city to boot the holiday from city calendars — and nearly two dozen more places, such as Burbank, Calif., and Bangor, Maine.

You can read more about this in Governing magazine. This is probably also the only time this year that we will provide a link to Governing magazine.

► Vice President Mike “The Prop” Pence carried through with orders from President Trump on a poorly-executed publicity stunt in Indianapolis on Sunday. As Chris Cillizza explains for CNN, Pence’s decision to walk out of an Indianapolis Colts football game — on account of mean football players not standing for the national anthem — was most definitely not a spur-of-the-moment thing:

The Pence protest is a perfect example of Trump as the puppet master of a giant reality show he’s producing. Trump knew that Pence was headed to the Colts game. (The vice president’s office said the trip had long been scheduled.) He believes strongly that the fight he picked with NFL players over whether or not to stand during the National Anthem is a good one for him — and his political base. And so he directed Pence to stage the walkout and make sure everyone knew about it…

…Pence flew to Indianapolis on the taxpayer’s dime to attend an event he was virtually certain he would be leaving in short order. Trump orchestrated it all — even while also spending time in a Twitter spat with Corker and claiming that he wasn’t getting enough credit for all his good work helping the people of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

After the game, San Francisco 49ers player Eric Reid thoroughly annihilated Pence’s PR stunt while being interviewed by reporters:

“My honest reaction … Does anybody know the last time he’s been to a football game?” Reid said, via a video from Jennifer Lee Chan of Niners Nation. “With that being said, he tweeted out a three-year old photo of him at a Colts game so with the information I have the last time he was at a Colts game was three years ago. So this looks like a PR stunt to me. He knew our team has had the most players protest. He knew that we were probably going to do it again.

“This is what systemic oppression looks like. A man with power comes to the game, tweets a couple of things out and leaves the game with an attempt to thwart our efforts. Based on the information I have, that’s the assumption I’ve made.” [Pols emphasis]

Well played, Mr. Reid. Well played.

► Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz summed up the absurdity of the Pence PR stunt in a Tweet on Sunday:

Children’s Health Insurance Program expired, insurance rates going up. Millions of Americans without electricity. So, obviously, this. https://t.co/DCFuYlNkx8

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) October 8, 2017

► Senate Republicans are quietly admitting that they aren’t going to repeal Obamacare anytime soon.

► A new plan to change the redistricting/reapportionment process in Colorado is running into the same problems that torpedoed a similar effort in early 2016.

► Here’s what happens when you try to connect to Steve Bannon’s hotel room.

► Colorado gun control activists are embracing a proposal to ban so-called “bump stocks” for semi-automatic weapons.

► Senator Michael Bennet (D-Denver) offers some empathy for his Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate:

“I feel sorry for my Republican colleagues, because they have no idea from day to day what Donald Trump is going to say about them, and it makes it very hard for them to do their jobs,” Bennet told Colorado Politics.

► Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is in India this week as part of a trade mission organized by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

► Republican Polly Lawrence raised about $90,000 in her first full fundraising quarter as one of several GOP candidates running for State Treasurer. 

► More local organizations hurt by an inadvertent mistake in legislation — which Senate Republicans refused to fix in a special session last week — are speaking out about their concerns.

► The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel takes an early look at some key legislative races in 2018.

► Longtime Democratic politico Wallace “Wally” Stealy died in Pueblo on Friday.

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► Erik Prince, the founder of the security consulting firm Blackwater, is apparently considering a bid for Senate in Wyoming. Prince is being recruited by Steve Bannon to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. John Barrasso.

► Donald Trump, Jr. tried to go after comedian Jimmy Kimmel via Twitter. It didn’t work well.

ICYMI

► Diane Carman takes on Colorado Republicans and their alignment with the NRA in a column for the Denver Post. 

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