April 07, 2020 10:31 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Tuesday (April 7)

• 4 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Happy Passover Holiday…oh, wait, it’s only Tuesday. 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

► Governor Jared Polis addressed Coloradans on Monday evening in a rare speech covered live by every local news outlet. The big news from Polis’ speech is that a statewide “stay at home” order has been extended until April 26. As 9News reports:

Polis said the reason for April 26 date is because, based on data, staying at home is “our best chance, our only realistic chance to avoid a catastrophic loss of life the death of thousands of our friends, neighbors and family members.”

Polis encouraged Coloradans to continue to do their part: stay home, wear a mask when going out for critical items and practice social distancing.

“The federal government is literally paying us to stay home,” Polis added.

He said April will be known as the “lost month,” and said this generation has been called upon to sacrifice – temporarily – our way of life so we can return to normal.

Polis gave a nod to scientists at Colorado State University (CSU) for their work on a possible vaccine or cure and thanked other countries for personal protective gear donations.

Polis will answer viewer questions during a live televised “town hall” meeting tonight at 7:00 pm. Check this link from 9News for information on how you can submit a question.

► If we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic, this would be the biggest story of the month. Wisconsin is holding its Primary Election today after the Wisconsin Supreme Court overruled the state’s Governor and gave their stamp of approval to voter disenfranchisement. From Vox.com:

The Supreme Court’s Republican majority, in a case that is literally titled Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee, handed down a decision that will effectively disenfranchise tens of thousands of Wisconsin voters. It did so at the urging of the GOP.

The case arises out of Wisconsin’s decision to hold its spring election during the coronavirus pandemic, even as nearly a dozen other states have chosen to postpone similar elections to protect the safety of voters. Democrats hoped to defend a lower court order that allowed absentee ballots to be counted so long as they arrived at the designated polling place by April 13, an extension granted by a judge to account for the brewing coronavirus-sparked chaos on Election Day, April 7. Republicans successfully asked the Court to require these ballots to be postmarked by April 7.

All five of the Court’s Republicans voted for the Republican Party’s position. All four of the Court’s Democrats voted for the Democratic Party’s position.

The decision carries grave repercussions for the state of Wisconsin — and democracy more broadly. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg notes in her dissent, “the presidential primaries, a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, three seats on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, over 100 other judgeships, over 500 school board seats, and several thousand other positions” are at stake in the Wisconsin election, which will be held on Tuesday. Of all these seats, the state Supreme Court race, between incumbent conservative Justice Daniel Kelly and challenger Judge Jill Karofsky, is the most hotly contested…

…Tens of thousands of voters are not expected to even receive their ballots until after Election Day, effectively disenfranchising them through no fault of their own. [Pols emphasis]

These days, Republicans aren’t even pretending that they aren’t actively disenfranchising voters.

► President Trump has fired his second inspector general in less than a week. As The Washington Post reports, Trump booted the IG who was supposed to be watching over the $2.2 trillion spending package approved by Congress last month.

► CNN checks the facts on President Trump’s latest coronavirus talkathon.

► How do you run a U.S. Senate campaign during a coronavirus lockdown? What’s it like to be in charge during a time of crisis? How will you get your hair cut? We ask former Gov. John Hickenlooper these questions and more in the latest episode of The Get More Smarter Podcast.

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…

► The U.S. Treasury departments wants Congress to write a check for another $200 billion so that it can keep chugging along with a coronavirus small business loan program that has proven to be very popular.

► President Trump is aggressively hawking the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for coronavirus even though actual doctors and scientists say there is no proof it is effective against COVID-19 and might even be harmful to your health. Politico backtracked to figure out where Trump came up with this preposterous idea; you won’t at all be surprised to learn that it came from Twitter.

Oh, and you’ll never believe who has a stake in a company that manufactures hydroxychloroquine. We’ll give you one guess…

► Coronavirus cases in Colorado may be slowing, as The Denver Post reports:

The spread of the novel coronavirus in Colorado is beginning to show signs of slowing even though confirmed cases in the state continue to rise, state health officials said Monday.

Testing has confirmed 5,172 COVID-19 cases in the state and 150 deaths, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment officials announced. Around 17,000 to 18,000 Colorado residents are believed to be infected, state health director Jill Hunsaker Ryan said, emphasizing that the cases confirmed by tests represent just a portion of the overall infections…

…Despite the continuing uptick in cases, state health officials on Monday said Colorado’s early social distancing measures were beginning to pay off and they estimated about 1,200 potential COVID-19 cases in Colorado have been prevented.

“We’ve certainly seen that the cases every day seem to be increasing, but not at an exponential rate,” said Eric France, chief medical officer of the Department of Public Health and Environment. “We’ve also seen cases potentially plateauing in the hospitals, and we’re hoping that is a trend that will continue for the week coming forward. It would be a bright light, essentially, pointing to all the physical distancing work that’s happened over the prior weeks.”

Before you get too excited, remember that a continued lack of testing means that officials don’t have a true measure of the extent of infections.

► British Prime Minister Boris Johnson remains in intensive care at a hospital in England as he battles the coronavirus.

► The office of Rep. Jason Crow (D-Aurora) has started a thank you card program for essential workers in Colorado. Visit Thank Yous to Local Heroes for more information.

► House Republican leaders in Colorado would really like it if COVID-19 would let them know when it was done infecting people. Any Republican who is following the lead of House Minority Leader Patrick Neville will be in for a rude awakening in a few months.

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

► Brian Watson, the Republican nominee for State Treasurer in 2018, has more to worry about than just social distancing these days. As BusinessDen reports:

The CEO of Denver-based real estate firm Northstar Commercial Partners said the FBI seized items from him on Thursday as part of an apparent ongoing investigation.

Brian Watson, who was also the Republican nominee for Colorado state treasurer in 2018, said in an email sent to business partners and family members that the agents who visited him at his home “started to accuse me of fraud, misappropriation of funds, etc. in relation to our Amazon data centers.”

“I was shocked to hear this, as I do not know of any such fraud, and explained to them I could not discuss this as I was under a strict confidentiality agreement with Amazon,” he wrote. “They then served me papers, confiscated both my laptops and cell phone, and left my home.”

We have absolutely no knowledge of this story beyond what is available in the link above, but can we all agree that this is a really horrible sentence? “I do not know of any such fraud.”

We also can’t say that we are terribly shocked to hear about an investigation like this involving Watson. As we wrote on more than one occasion, Watson is shadier than your grandmother’s willow tree.

► You can officially call Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) an underdog in 2020. As Roll Call reports:

GOP Sen. Cory Gardner should be regarded as an underdog in Colorado, where the race has moved to Tilts Democratic from Toss-up. Republicans are confident they have the better candidate in the likely general election matchup between the senator and former Denver mayor/former Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, but the numbers are working against Gardner.

He’s been trailing Hickenlooper for months, and it will be difficult for him to climb back with the state’s political lean working against him. Trump lost Colorado by 5 points in 2016, and he’ll likely struggle there again. Gardner can win this race but to continue rating it a Toss-up would be overstating his chances of winning a second term.

► White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham is supposed to be leaving that post today so that she can return to the press shop behind First Lady Melania Trump. As Chris Cillizza explains for CNN, Grisham was pretty terrible at her temporary job:

Grisham began serving as White House press secretary on July 1, 2019. In the 288 days between that day and Tuesday — when, as CNN has reported, Grisham is leaving the job to return to her prior post running first lady Melania Trump’s press shop — Grisham held a total of 0 “daily” press briefings. None. Zilch. Nada…

…What Grisham never seemed to care about is that the White House press secretary was long seen as having two bosses: the President and the American public, who, not for nothing pay the salary of the press secretary. Balancing the interests of the administration and what the public deserved to know was always a challenge for past press secretaries. But they tried to find that balance — most times.

Not so with Grisham. She took the job knowing that she had only one boss: Donald Trump. She agreed to a role that fundamentally undermined the idea of what a White House press secretary should and could do.

Grisham’s legacy won’t be killing the “daily” press briefing. It will be of making a mockery of the entire job of White House press secretary.

► The anti-vaxxers in the Colorado Republican Party are still chugging along, nevermind that a coronavirus vaccine would be really, really useful right about now.

► Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush turned in a whopper of a fundraising quarter in Q1 as she pursues the Democratic nomination in CO-3.

► Today is Election Day in Colorado for about 100 municipal districts.

► The “temporary” head of the Bureau of Land Management just keeps hanging around.

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► President Trump is now yelling at Fox News reporters for asking questions instead of just blindly offering praise.

► First son-in-law Jared Kushner just might be the most dangerous man in America. He’s like a supervillain without any superpowers or special knowledge.

ICYMI

► Look, up in the sky! It’s…Supermoon!!!

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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