April 30, 2018 12:15 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Monday (April 30)

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• by: Colorado Pols

The 2018 Primary election is eight weeks away. 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 2018 Colorado legislative session only seems like it has been going on forever. John Frank previews the final 10 days of the session for the Denver Post:

The General Assembly’s to-do list includes: a measure to stabilize the crippled state pension systemthat covers 1 in 10 Coloradans; an effort to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into improving the state’s roads and highways; the renewal of a commission tasked with defending civil rights; two ballot measures that revamp how political districts are drawn; and more.

At the same time, Democrats in the state Senate are again pushing to expela Republican lawmaker for harassment after new credible allegations surface. The Democrats’ action amplifies the partisan tension in the Capitol.

More than 700 bills have been filed during this legislative session.

► Get ready for a trade war, as the New York Times reports:

A few weeks ago, it felt as if a trade war pitting the United States against allies like Australia, Canada and the European Union was over before it even began. The Trump administration dispensed so many temporary exemptions to steel and aluminum tariffs that many countries figured the threats were just political theater.

But with only days left before the exemptions expire and punitive tariffs take effect, it’s dawning on foreign leaders that decades of warm relations with the United States carry little weight with a president dismissive of diplomatic norms and hostile toward the ground rules of international trade.

What began as a way to protect American steel and aluminum jobs has since become a cudgel that the Trump administration is using to extract concessions in other areas, including car exports to Europe or negotiations to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada.

As a May 1 deadline looms, the decision on whether to grant permanent exemptions to the steel and aluminum tariffs, and to whom, appears likely to come down to the whims of President Trump, who has seesawed between scrapping and rejoining global trade deals.

Chinese officials are signaling that they will oppose two of President Trump’s top trade priorities.

► Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado Springs) is making a final effort to make the June Primary ballot via a federal courtroom today. Ernest Luning has more for the publication formerly known as the Colorado Statesman. Lamborn is appealing a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that invalidated enough of his petition signatures to keep him off of the Republican Primary ballot.

► Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Robinson (Mitt Romney’s Nephew) was a guest on The Get More Smarter Show last week. Check out the full interview here.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► The Washington Post profiles a major GOP political donor whose name you might want to be familiar with: Richard Uihlein.

► Senator Cory Gardner remains skeptical about news that North Korea may be willing to shutter its nuclear weapons program.

► Colorado’s marijuana industry is pushing officials in Texas to back off on restricting the sale of CBD. From Hemp Industry Daily:

The confusion started in March, when the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) announced a draft plan to yank CBD products from shelves — even if they contain no THC and aren’t marijuana derivatives.

Public comment on the issue has closed. The final decision will be made by the agency’s commissioner, Dr. John Hellerstedt.

A spokeswoman for the agency told Hemp Industry Daily that CBD is an adulterant that can’t be added to foods and is not a legal nutritional supplement.

The word of the day is ‘adulterant.’

► NBC News reports on a divisive Republican Primary in Indiana for the right to take on incumbent Sen. Joe Donnelly in November:

Drunken driving, self-dealing and false advertising.

Those are just some of the charges voters here are sifting through in a brutal three-way Republican primary that will determine who gets to take on Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., in November. That contest on May 8 is one of a handful across the country that will determine which party controls the Senate next year, and Republicans believe they have a good shot at winning the seat.

The primary in Vice President Mike Pence’s home state has turned personal largely because there’s hardly a whit of policy difference among the three GOP candidates — Reps. Todd Rokita and Luke Messer, and former state Rep. Mike Braun. They’re all against abortion, taxes and the growth of entitlement spending, and they’re all doing their best to portray themselves as the second coming of President Donald Trump.

► Politico reports on a similar Republican battle underway in Ohio:

Republicans’ latest special election headache is unfolding in central Ohio, where a chaotic primary has divided the party and stoked fears of losing another seat in Donald Trump territory to Democrats.

The race pits the two wings of the House Republican Conference against each other, going all out to nominate rival candidates. On one side is the scrappy co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Jim Jordan, who is lining up behind Melanie Leneghan, a self-described Trump Republican. Jordan is going up against former Rep. Pat Tiberi, a close ally of GOP leadership who resigned from his seat in January and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from his old campaign account to boost state Sen. Troy Balderson as his successor.

A week before the primary, the super PAC arm of the Club for Growth, a longtime conservative antagonist of business-backed Republicans like Tiberi, is jumping into the 10-candidate race with TV ads attackingBalderson, Club strategists told POLITICO.

► 9News fact-checks a television ad promoting Democrat Michael Johnston for Governor.

► Colorado Lieutenant Governor Donna Lynne probably won’t be the Democratic nominee for Governor, but she has a new tattoo that is a permanent reminder of her 2018 campaign.

► Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is backing state Rep. Joe Salazar in Colorado’s Democratic Primary for Attorney General.

► Legislation dealing with changes to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission has become quite the conundrum.

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► The Washington Post explains why it is such a nightmare to hire employees in the Trump administration:

Credentialed candidates have had to prove loyalty to the president, with many still being blocked for previous anti-Trump statements. Hundreds of national security officials, for example, were nixed from consideration because they spoke out against Trump during the campaign. But for longtime Trump loyalists, their fidelity to the president is often sufficient, obscuring what in a more traditional administration would be red flags.

The failed nomination of Ronny L. Jackson, the president’s physician, to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs was the latest example of the sometimes haphazard way Trump unilaterally elevates people with whom he has a personal rapport.

Speaking of Ronny Jackson, the President’s former physician will not return to his previous job after his short-lived nomination to head up the Veteran’s Administration.

► The “mystery” of the disappearing White House tree has been solved.

ICYMI

► Steve Lebsock is/was living it up in Las Vegas. 

► Click here to watch The Get More Smarter Show and an interview with Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Robinson (Mitt Romney’s Nephew).

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