April 02, 2018 01:17 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Monday (April 2)

• 22 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

If you lived in Canada, there’s a good chance you’d have the day off for Easter Monday.  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…

► The State Senate may actually discuss a resolution to expel Sen. Randy Baumgardner (R-Hot Sulphur Springs) today:

NEW: Senate Democrats said they’ve been told their resolution to expel Sen. Randy Baumgardner will be debated tonight on the Senate floor. They have been calling for a debate daily. Resolution still needs to be introduced. #coleg #copolitics #cogov

— Bente Birkeland (@BenteBirkeland) April 2, 2018

Because Senate President Kevin Grantham has danced around the topic of sexual harassment for many months, you’re probably tempted to say that this news falls into the category of “I’ll believe it when I see it.” On the other hand, what was first reported by KUNC’s Bente Birkeland (whose reporting has broken open most of the stories of harassment at the Capitol) is now also being picked up by the Denver Post, Denver7, and others.

► Congressman Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) didn’t actually call on all future VA Secretaries to resign. He also hasn’t indicated that he’ll actually do anything that he promised about DACA after President Trump torpedoed a bi-partisan attempt at immigration legislation on Sunday.

► Teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky walked off the job today out of frustration with low wages and benefits. Republican economic policies may be largely to blame.

► Sources at the Kremlin in Moscow say that President Trump invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the White House. From the Washington Post:

After the March 20 phone call — in which Trump congratulated Putin for a reelection victory in a vote widely criticized as not free and fair — Trump told reporters that the two leaders had discussed a possible meeting to discuss Syria, Ukraine, North Korea and “the arms race.” He did not mention any meeting venues at that time.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that “a number of potential venues, including the White House,” were discussed.

A Kremlin aide, Yury Ushakov, disclosed the White House invitation in comments to Russian journalists Monday.

“If everything will be all right, I hope that the Americans will not back away from their own proposal to discuss the possibility of holding a summit,” Ushakov said, according to the state news agency RIA Novosti. “When our presidents spoke on the phone, it was Trump who proposed holding the first meeting in Washington, in the White House.”

This news is obviously causing a significant amount of concern among Republicans and Democrats alike.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► A story that you might have seen at Colorado Pols on Friday has picked up traction with other local news outlets. Both 9News and Denver7 report on the furious backpedalling from Alamosa Republicans after a ridiculous social media post that said “Republicans hate poor people.”

► Last week President Trump fired VA Secretary David Shulkin, but over the weekend the White House began insisting that Shulkin had actually resigned instead. Shulkin denies that he resigned, and CNN’s Juana Summers explains why this matters:

When President Donald Trump announced on Twitter last week that Shulkin would depart the agency and that a Defense Department official, Robert Wilkie, would serve as acting secretary, he side-stepped Shulkin’s deputy, Thomas Bowman, who was next in the line of succession. That decision has given new life to the legal debate over how a President can pick a replacement for departing Cabinet secretaries.

The Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 gives the President the authority to temporarily fill a vacancy at a federal agency if the official “dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office.”

The law, however, doesn’t explicitly say if the president still has that authority if the person is fired.

► Student activists in Colorado are taking inspiration from their peers across the country as a new generation of voices makes itself heard.

► You can thank President Trump for a looming increase in prices of consumer goods. As CNN reports:

The Chinese government said that tariffs on about $3 billion worth of US imports are going into effect Monday, hitting 128 products ranging from pork, meat and fruit to steel pipes.

It’s the latest move in escalating tensions between the world’s two largest economies, which some experts fear could turn into a trade war.

Beijing says the new sanctions on 128 US products, which it first proposed 10 days ago, are in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from China and some other countries.

► The online news outlet Deadspin sheds new light on a rapidly-growing story about Sinclair Media and orchestrated efforts to defend President Trump in local media markets:

Earlier this month, CNN’s Brian Stelter broke the news that Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner or operator of nearly 200 television stations in the U.S., would be forcing its news anchors to record a promo about “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.” The script, which parrots Donald Trump’s oft-declarations of developments negative to his presidency as “fake news,” brought upheaval to newsrooms already dismayed with Sinclair’s consistent interference to bring right-wing propaganda to local television broadcasts.

You might remember Sinclair from its having been featured on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight last year, or from its requiring in 2004 of affiliates to air anti-John Kerry propaganda, or perhaps because it’s your own local affiliate running inflammatory “Terrorism Alerts” or required editorials from former Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn, he of the famed Holocaust Remembrance Day statement that failed to mention Jewish people. (Sinclair also owns Ring of Honor wrestling, Tennis magazine, and the Tennis Channel.)

The net result of the company’s current mandate is dozens upon dozens of local news anchors looking like hostages in proof-of-life videos, trying their hardest to spit out words attacking the industry they’d chosen as a life vocation.

Here’s more on this story from the New York Times.

► Republican gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Coffman may not be the worst statewide candidate in Colorado history, but she’s making a run at the title.

► Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Denver) appears to have trouble on her hands in the form of a primary challenge. 

► The Greeley Tribune takes a look at the fate of several oil and gas-related bills in the state legislature.

► You can’t squeeze oil out of rocks, but that doesn’t mean oil and gas speculators won’t continue to try — at the expense of public lands in Colorado.

► An attempted recall of a La Plata County Commissioner appears to be on the verge of failure.

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► President Trump is attempting to Tweet Amazon.com to death. This meddling by Trump, combined with his worrisome trade policies, left Wall Street jittery on Monday. 

► If you were betting on the next top member of the Trump administration to get the axe, you probably wouldn’t get much of a return by wagering on EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

► Republicans in Southwestern Colorado raffled off an AR-15 rifle as a fundraiser, because of course they did.

ICYMI

► Denver Post reporter Brian Eason, who covers politics and the legislature, is taking a buyout and leaving the newspaper.

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