October 27, 2021 10:11 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Oct. 27)

• 7 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

If you still have a ballot at home, fill that thing out and take it to a dropbox location. Visit GoVoteColorado.com to check on the status of your mail ballot or to locate a drop box near you. 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 learner, check out The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter. 

CORONAVIRUS INFO…

*Colorado Coronavirus info:
CDPHE Coronavirus website 

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

*How you can help in Colorado:
COVRN.com

*Locate a COVID-19 testing site in Colorado:
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment 

► Children ages 5-11 could be able to get the COVID-19 vaccination as soon as next week, as Colorado Newsline reports.

For the rest of you, boost that thang up!

► Republican State Sen. Kevin Priola is being attacked for being insufficiently right-wing in his political viewpoints. Colorado Republicans apparently remain laser-focused on not ever appealing to average voters in this state.

► Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters is leading her own misguided rebellion in Grand Junction as the few remaining levelheaded Republicans in the area refuse to follow her down the rabbit hole.

Peters, meanwhile, is traveling to speaking engagements wherever she can find a QAnon-friendly crowd.

► Congressperson Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert seems to be moving ever closer to being forced to answer some very uncomfortable questions about her involvement with the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Click below to keep learning stuff…

And Now, More Words…

► Colorado Newsline reports on Colorado Supreme Court hearings related to new legislative redistricting maps. Jesse Paul of The Colorado Sun, meanwhile, looks at the legislative races that figure to be the most competitive in 2022.

► Military officials in the U.S. are warning about a new “hypersonic” weapon being developed in China, as The Washington Post reports:

Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said China’s test of a hypersonic weapons system is “very concerning” — and “very close” to a Sputnik moment as Beijing rapidly expands its military capabilities.

Milley, the United States’ top military officer, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that aired Wednesday that “what we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system.”

As The Washington Post has reported, national security officials were alarmed by the suspected test in August of a nuclear-capable hypersonic vehicle that partially orbited the globe before hurtling toward Earth. As China is in the midst of a rapid expansion of its strategic and nuclear weapons systems, its demonstration of hypersonic and orbital capabilities — first reported by the Financial Times — was less noteworthy to analysts for the technology, which its military has been developing for years, than for the fact that Beijing decided to test it….

…“I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that,” Milley said in an interview for “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.”

► During the Trump administration, Republicans went to great pains to weaken federal agencies such as the USDA and the Bureau of Land Management. As The Washington Post reports, Senate Republicans are still trying to kill the Consumer Product Safety Commission by slow-walking confirmation of key appointees from the Biden administration:

A short-lived Republican majority atop the nation’s product safety regulator — the result of Senate delays in confirming Democratic nominees — recently pushed through dozens of last-minute changes to the agency’s annual plan, slowing work on some safety rules and abandoning at least one enforcement effort altogether.

The changes mean the Consumer Product Safety Commission no longer plans in the coming year to draw up new mandatory rules for preventing suffocation in infant nursing pillows or carbon monoxide poisoning from gas appliances. The amended plan also canceled a pilot project looking at the growing concern over the safety of products found online, rather than in brick-and-mortar stores…

…The Republican push to amend the CPSC’s operating plan ignited a contentious fight over the future direction of a federal agency with the power to force dangerous products off the market and which is responsible for overseeing safety in 15,000 everyday items.

The changes occurred during a brief period in late September when Republicans held a 2-to-1 voting advantage over Democrats on the five-member CPSC board, with two seats vacant. At the same time, three Democratic commissioner nominees awaited Senate confirmation — in part, because of delays created by Republican senators, according to four government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk with the media.

► As The Associated Press reports, The United States has issued its first passport with an ‘X’ marked under “Gender,” a change that came about from a lawsuit filed by a Colorado resident. 

► Former Republican American Constitution Party Republican officeholder/candidate Tom Tancredo has endorsed Republican Erik Aadland for U.S. Senate. Honestly, we can’t be sure if Tancredo’s endorsement even matters anymore.

► Colorado Public Radio reports on the decision by former Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder Pam Anderson to run for Secretary of State. We touched on this subject on Monday.

► Charles Ashby of The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reports on the strange tale of Cindy Ficklin, an aspiring politician who seems to be right at home in the weird world of Mesa County politics:

All traces of a video have disappeared that show Grand Junction resident Cindy Ficklin, a Republican candidate for the Colorado House, saying her decision to run for the Colorado Legislature was because she was upset over not being selected as a finalist in a recent Mesa District 51 school board opening.

Moreover, she’s now denying she ever made that claim.

“I didn’t decide to run for House District 55 as a response to not being selected for school board,” Ficklin said in an email to The Daily Sentinel. “The article makes it sound as if this was just a response to not being selected for School Board. And you know that I was thinking of running for state office long before that.”…

…The video, which appeared on the Facebook page for Stand For The Constitution, a local activist group of which Ficklin is a member, was originally posted on Oct. 18, a day after the school board chose Kari Sholtes from among four finalists to replace Paul Pitton, who resigned last month citing excessive politics facing the nonpartisan school board from some local residents.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Ficklin has been an outspoken critic of mask requirements in schools. Ficklin has also been shaking her fist at the school board over “Critical Race Theory,” which isn’t even taught in Mesa District 51.

► Things seem to be going great in Douglas County, as always:

Here’s video of the tail end of this incident. The woman left on her own, it’s not clear what her intentions were but security cleared the room after this. pic.twitter.com/VXuAK41vxs

— Jessica Gibbs (@JesstheJourno) October 27, 2021

The Denver Post has more on the friction generated by anti-maskers.

► Chris Cillizza of CNN explains how Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is now trying to actually JUSTIFY the Jan. 6 insurrection:

“January 6 was just a riot at the Capitol and if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants,” Greene told [Steve] Bannon…

…But consider what Greene is advocating here. She isn’t saying that January 6 wasn’t as bad as the media says it was. She’s saying that it was an entirely justified action — necessary to “overthrow tyrants” as outlined in the Declaration of Independence.

Which is some argument! Especially when you consider that five people died that day and more than 100 police officers were injured. Or that more than 600 people have been charged with criminal behavior that day.

► Yes. The answer is yes.

Here’s the question, via POLITICO:

► Boulder County and RTD aren’t fighting anymore.

► As The Associated Press reports, the news just keeps getting worse for Facebook.

Say What, Now?

Um, okay:

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► We regularly post links to stories about weird things that get politicians in trouble. Sometimes it’s a Democrat, but let’s be honest: It’s almost always a Republican. As The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

A member of the Utah House of Representatives has been charged with three misdemeanors related to an incident in August involving the shooting of a deer in a residential area.

The Millard County Attorney charged Rep. Travis Seegmiller, R-St. George, with unlawful taking of protected wildlife and two counts of unlawful discharge of a firearm. All three charges are class B misdemeanors, each punishable by up to 6 months in jail and a maximum fine of $1,000.

In August, Seegmiller was accused of shooting a doe as it walked through the yard of a private residence in Washington County. Witnesses said when they went to investigate a gunshot, they saw Seegmiller putting the carcass of a deer into his car. When confronted, Seegmiller identified himself and said he was out of work and needed the meat to feed his family.

Really, dude? Really?

► Researchers at the University of Colorado conducted a study, for some reason, to determine if female legislators across the country are more interested in spending money on government services than their male counterparts.

ICYMI

► Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ron Hanks, ladies and gentlemen!

GOP US Senate candidate/State Rep. Ron Hanks is searching for election fraud.

Legit reasons someone else’s ballot arrives:
-Voter moved/didn’t update address
-Ballot sent before address change

The fraud isn’t getting the ballot. It’s filling it out/sending it back. #copolitics pic.twitter.com/UOuX7jAin6

— Marshall Zelinger (@Marshall9News) October 20, 2021

► This week on The Get More Smarter Podcast, hosts Jason Bane and Ian Silverii interview State Representative/Doctor/Congressional Candidate Yadira Caraveo and ask her if she plans to pick up a fourth job anytime soon. 

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