April 06, 2020 10:32 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Monday (April 6)

• 3 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Today is “New Beer’s Eve,” apparently. Please celebrate responsibly. Now, let’s 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 an audio/visual learner, check out The Get More Smarter Show or The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter.

BECAUSE CORONAVIRUS…

*Colorado Coronavirus info:
CDPHE Coronavirus website 

*Daily Coronavirus numbers in Colorado:
http://covid19.colorado.gov

*How you can help in Colorado:
COVRN.com

► Big news outlets across the country are digging in on the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, and the conclusion is basically the same everywhere: #FAIL

Here’s a sampling of that coverage:

From The Washington Post:

Despite these and other extreme steps, the United States will likely go down as the country that was supposedly best prepared to fight a pandemic but ended up catastrophically overmatched by the novel coronavirus, sustaining heavier casualties than any other nation.

It did not have to happen this way. Though not perfectly prepared, the United States had more expertise, resources, plans and epidemiological experience than dozens of countries that ultimately fared far better in fending off the virus…

…The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak of the coronavirus in China on Jan. 3. Within days, U.S. spy agencies were signaling the seriousness of the threat to Trump by including a warning about the coronavirus — the first of many — in the President’s Daily Brief.

And yet, it took 70 days from that initial notification for Trump to treat the coronavirus not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but as a lethal force that had outflanked America’s defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens. That more-than-two-month stretch now stands as critical time that was squandered.

From The Associated Press:

The government’s stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment is nearly drained just as the numbers of people infected with the coronavirus and in need of critical care is surging. Back in January, the first alarms were sounding about the outbreak in China. In time, it would become a global pandemic. An Associated Press review has found that the Trump administration squandered precious months before bolstering the federal stockpile of urgently needed medical supplies and equipment.

From Max Boot in The Washington Post:

Until now, I have generally been reluctant to label Donald Trump the worst president in U.S. history. As a historian, I know how important it is to allow the passage of time to gain a sense of perspective. Some presidents who seemed awful to contemporaries (Harry S. Truman) or simply lackluster (Dwight D. Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush) look much better in retrospect. Others, such as Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson, don’t look as good as they once did…

…This fiasco is so monumental that it makes our recent failed presidents — George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter — Mount Rushmore material by comparison. Trump’s Friday night announcement that he’s firing the intelligence community inspector general who exposed his attempted extortion of Ukraine shows that he combines the ineptitude of a George W. Bush or a Carter with the corruption of Richard Nixon.

From Frank Bruni of The New York Times:

Do you remember the moment when President Trump’s bearing and words made clear that he grasped not only the magnitude of this rapidly metastasizing pandemic but also our terror in the face of it?

It passed me by, maybe because it never happened.

In Trump’s predecessors, for all their imperfections, I could sense the beat of a heart and see the glimmer of a soul. In him I can’t, and that fills me with a sorrow and a rage that I quite frankly don’t know what to do with.

From Vox.com:

President Donald Trump’s failure to respond to the coronavirus pandemic didn’t begin with the administration’s inability to send out the millions of test kits and the protective medical gear for health care workers that experts say are needed to tackle the crisis. It didn’t start with Trump’s bungled messaging downplaying the crisis even as it’s worsened, nor with his mid-March insistence that social distancing measures could be lifted by Easter (he later backpedaled).

It began in April 2018 — more than a year and a half before the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the disease it causes, Covid-19, sickened enough people in China that authorities realized they were dealing with a new disease.

And how has Trump responded to this criticism? Exactly as you would expect:

Advertising in the Failing New York Times is WAY down. Washington Post is not much better. I can’t say whether this is because they are Fake News sources of information, to a level that few can understand, or the Virus is just plain beating them up. Fake News is bad for America!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 6, 2020

► Governor Jared Polis is fighting it out with the federal government as Colorado rushes to get enough ventilators to patients. From The Denver Post:

Colorado was making a deal with a manufacturer for an order of much-needed ventilators when the Federal Emergency Management Agency swooped in and took it themselves, Gov. Jared Polis told CNN on Friday night.

It was one thing for states to be competing among themselves for vital resources to fight the novel coronavirus, Polis said. Now they’re competing against the federal government, too.

“Either be in or out,” Polis told CNN’s Don Lemon. “Either you’re buying them and you’re providing them to states and you’re letting us know what we’re going to get and when we’re going to get them. Or you stay out, and let us buy them.”

Prior to Polis’ comments, CNN reported that Colorado had an order canceled for 500 ventilators, among other supplies, because the items were being bought by FEMA. A congressional source told CNN that Colorado was told it was not on the priority list and the state would have to find its own supplies.

Meanwhile, Gov. Polis is asking the federal government for more help as a fourth big coronavirus response legislative package begins to take shape.

► Michael Atkinson, the former intelligence community inspector general, is speaking out after being fired late Friday by President Trump. From CNN:

The former intelligence community inspector general, who informed Congress of the whistleblower complaint that led to President Donald Trump’s impeachment, said Sunday that he believes Trump fired him for doing his job.

Michael Atkinson said in a statement that he was “disappointed and saddened” by Trump’s decision to oust him on Friday, with the President stating that Atkinson did not have his “fullest confidence.”

“It is hard not to think that the President’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial Inspector General, and from my commitment to continue to do so,” Atkinson wrote.

CNN’s Chris Cillizza explains why Atkinson’s firing is a big, BIG deal.

If you’re looking for political news that isn’t about Coronavirus, it’s available right after the jump…

SERIOUSLY, THERE WILL BE NON-CORONAVIRUS NEWS MOMENTARILY…

► As The Associated Press reports, President Trump is running out of places to divert attention as Americans look at the federal government’s poor coronavirus response.

Meanwhile, Democrats are finding that making negative ads against Trump’s re-election is as easy as just recording Trump’s own words.

► As Politico reports, President Trump’s brief uptick in public support has already dissolved:

Support for President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has diminished over the past two weeks, according to a new survey, with a majority of Americans now disapproving of his response to the public health crisis.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday reports that 52 percent of respondents disapprove of his management of the deadly outbreak, while only 47 percent approve.

► Governor Jared Polis will take questions from the public during a live, televised “town hall” meeting on Tuesday.

► Would Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) throw President Trump under the bus if it helped his 2020 re-election bid? Maybe we should rephrase that. Could Sen. Cory Gardner throw President Trump under the bus if it helped his 2020 re-election bid?

The next time Gardner gets together with first son-in-law Jared Kushner, there could be an awkward handshake involved.

► Remember: Connect for Health Colorado has extended the emergency enrollment period for health insurance coverage through April 30.

► Coloradans are pretty good at social distancing. Colorado’s air quality is thankful.

HERE IT IS: POLITICAL NEWS THAT IS (MOSTLY) NOT ABOUT CORONAVIRUS…

► New polling data from Florida suggests that President Trump is losing in his new home state to former Vice President Joe Biden:

FL poll via UNF:

Biden 46%, Trump 40%

Trust Trump to give reliable COVID info? 41% yes & 58% no (-17%)
Trust DeSantis: 55-41% (+14)

Trump approve/disapprove on coronavirus: 45-53% (-8)
DeSantis approve/dis: 51-46% (+5)
Fauci approve/dis: 85-6% (+79)https://t.co/QnDpkrI0C6

— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) April 6, 2020

► As for Biden, the Democratic frontrunner has informed fellow Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders that he has begun the process of vetting potential candidates for Vice President. Biden has promised to select a woman to be his running mate.

► If you are going to recruit a candidate for the state legislature, you should definitely make sure that said candidate is actually registered with the correct political party.

► Never one to dismiss a grudge, President Trump is taking every opportunity to kick former Attorney General Jeff Sessions — who is again running for U.S. Senate in Alabama — square in the nuts. As CNN explains:

President Donald Trump’s campaign has sent a letter to Jeff Sessions demanding the former attorney general stop using Trump’s name in his campaign materials for his US Senate bid.

“We only assume your campaign is doing this to confuse President Trump’s loyal supporters in Alabama into believing the President supports your candidacy in the upcoming primary run-off election. Nothing could be further from the truth,” wrote Michael Glassner, chief operating officer of the Trump campaign, to Sessions in the letter obtained by CNN and first reported by The New York Times.

Trump has long held a grudge against his former attorney general, whose recusal from the Russia investigation in early 2017 led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.

► How do you campaign for public office during a quarantine?

► More than 100 municipal elections in Colorado will be held on Tuesday.

► As The Colorado Independent reminds us, state lawmakers still need to pass a budget — coronavirus or not.

► A big win for renewable energy in Kansas, of all places.

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► Classy.

New trump campaign email asks for campaign contributions to help him fight coronavirus pic.twitter.com/lyrba9SAgN

— Sam Stein (@samstein) April 6, 2020

► Again: Running the government “like a business” does not work.

► Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be…

ICYMI

► Congressman Joe Neguse (D-Lafayette) is working on making sure the Post Office has the resources to continue operations.

► Check out the latest episode of The Get More Smarter Podcast, featuring a legislative update with House Majority Leader Alec Garnett:

For more political learnings, check out The Get More Smarter Show or The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to give Colorado Pols a thumbs up on Facebook and Twitter. 

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