September 14, 2018 10:40 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Friday (September 14)

• 13 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

This will all be over in 53 days…and then we can start talking about 2020. 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 can start to panic now. Well, panic more, anyway.

Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for Donald Trump, will apparently cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller despite Manafort’s prior insistence that he wasn’t going to make a deal. From the Washington Post:

President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is pleading guilty Friday to two criminal charges under terms of a plea deal that includes his cooperation as a potential witness for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

The decision by Manafort to provide evidence in exchange for leniency on sentencing is a stunning development in the long-running probe into whether any Trump associates may have conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

Manafort’s defenders have long insisted that he would not cooperate with Mueller, and didn’t know any incriminating information against the president.

Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said at the beginning of Friday’s plea hearing that Manafort has agreed to cooperate with investigators.

Manafort’s second trial was scheduled to begin next week. Instead, Manafort will plead guilty on two charges: Conspiring to defraud the United States and conspiring to obstruct justice.

As Philip Bump notes in a separate story for the Washington Post, Manafort is now the fifth member of Trump’s 2016 campaign team to plead guilty to criminal charges.

Feinstein said on Thursday that she had referred the matter the the FBI.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► As the Colorado Independent reports, farmers in Colorado are concerned about efforts in Congress to significantly limit SNAP benefits (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as “food stamps.”) For obvious reasons, any reduction in SNAP benefits would hurt the bottom line of farmers.

► Signs of a failing campaign: You go to Sterling, Colorado for a meet-and-greet, and only two people show up. Thus is life for Republican gubernatorial candidate Walker Stapleton.

► Congressman Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) was never behind in any public poll while defending his seat…until 2018. A poll by the New York Times, made available in real time, shows Democrat Jason Crow with a significant lead over Coffman. This is the second public poll this year to show Crow leading Coffman in CO-6.

► Congressional Republicans are essentially daring President Trump to shut down the federal government ahead of the mid term elections. From Politico:

GOP leaders believe they’ve found a way to thwart President Donald Trump’s latest shutdown threats: Send him a funding bill that’s impossible to resist.

Capitol Hill leaders on Thursday announced a mammoth fiscal 2019 spending deal that achieves one of the Trump administration’s top priorities — the Pentagon’s first on-time spending bill since 2008. But there’s a catch. The same package also funds some of the government’s most sprawling agencies at levels that are billions of dollars more than Trump requested. And if Trump refuses to sign it, much of the government, including parts of the Pentagon, would shutter.

“You effectively shut down the whole government,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a senior appropriator, said of the funding deal he helped shape.

Spending leaders from both parties detailed the strategy for the first time Thursday, just 17 days before government spending runs out. The Senate is expected to easily approve the package next week.

If this spending bill is approved, it would keep the government running for almost three whole months! In this scenario, the next funding deadline would be December 7.

► There is yet more evidence that President Trump’s trade war is causing serious economic damage in the United States.

► As Judith Kohler reports for the Denver Post, efforts to get full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) are moving forward:

A congressional committee approved a bill Thursday that would permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program Colorado outdoor businesses and conservation groups say is crucial to the state’s outdoor heritage.

The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources voted for a compromise that would renew the fund, which is set to expire Sept. 30. The Land and Water Conservation Fund, established by Congress in 1964, has funded trails, city parks, fish and wildlife habitat restoration and other projects nationwide.

In Colorado, LWCF has generated more than $268 million for conservation and outdoor recreation projects since it began. The money has been used to acquire land or easements to conserve important fisheries and improve access to public lands, said Tim Brass, the Colorado state policy director for the sportsmen’s group Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.

“From a sportsmen’s perspective, I don’t think there’s a better program for funding access to public lands out there,” Brass said. “We hear time and time again about the lack of access to public lands. It is the No. 1 barrier to folks continuing their sporting traditions.”