September 06, 2024 10:58 AM UTC
Get More Smarter on Friday (Sept. 6)
0 Comments- by: Colorado Pols
The Denver Broncos are undefeated! Enjoy it while it lasts. 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.
FIRST UP…
► Vice President Kamala Harris continues her surge in polls conducted in key states. As The Washington Post reports:
In a separate Washington Post story for “Early Brief,” Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg explains why she believes the Harris momentum won’t let up anytime soon:
GREENBERG: I don’t think it’s a honeymoon or a bounce, because a big chunk of this movement comes from Democrats. Why would they go someplace else? For me, the question is, can she expand her lead? Because then you get into changing minds. Can she expand her lead another point or two, which some people believe you have to do for her to win the electoral college. That involves getting more independent women, more non-college women. It’s all women. I don’t do a poll where men move. It’s all about the movement among women voters.
► Law enforcement officials continue to investigate this week’s deadly shooting at a high school near Atlanta, Georgia that killed four people and wounded at least nine others. As The Associated Press reports, the father of the suspected shooter has now been arrested:
The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting four people at a Georgia high school was arrested Thursday and faces charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for letting his son possess a weapon, authorities said.
It’s the latest example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings. In April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting. They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021.
Colin Gray, 54, the father of Colt Gray, was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference.
“His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon,” Hosey said.
Both Colin and Colt Gray appeared in court for the first time today. The charges against the elder Gray appear to be the most severe charges ever filed against the parent of a school shooter.
► Meanwhile, Republican elected officials continue to face scrutiny for indifferent responses to the 385th mass shooting of the year in the United States. That list includes Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance, as The Associated Press reports in a separate story:
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said Thursday that he lamented that school shootings are a “fact of life” and argued the U.S. needs to harden security to prevent more carnage like the shooting this week that left four dead in Georgia.
“If these psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance said at a rally in Phoenix. “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.” [Pols emphasis]
The Ohio senator was asked by a journalist what can be done to stop school shootings. He said further restricting access to guns, as many Democrats advocate, won’t end them, noting they happen in states with both lax and strict gun laws. He touted efforts in Congress to give schools more money for security.
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said. [Pols emphasis] “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”
Social media users are also circulating a 2018 video of Lauren Boebert (pre-Congress) in which she shrugged off school shootings in general:
“Do you know how many gun violent deaths there are? Gun related deaths there are in America per year? 15,000. Hmm. A drop in the bucket I’d say.”
We weren’t aware of the existence of this video until now. Boebert no doubt wishes it had stayed that way.
► National Public Radio breaks down the story of a massive Russian propaganda attack on American elections that roped in right-wing influencers in the United States:
Federal officials have accused Russia of using unwitting right-wing American influencers in its quest to spread Kremlin propaganda ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department charged two employees of RT, the Russian state media broadcaster, in a scheme to secretly fund and direct the production of social media videos that racked up millions of views.
The RT staffers, named in the indictment as Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, have been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. They’re accused of funneling nearly $10 million to an unnamed Tennessee company that contracted with online influencers with big audiences…
…Details in the indictment match Nashville, Tenn.-based Tenet Media, including its website description: “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.”
Tenet was founded in 2022 by Lauren Chen, a conservative Canadian YouTuber, and her husband, Liam Donovan, whose X profile describes him as president of Tenet Media. Chen hosts a show on Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV and is a contributor to right-wing activist group Turning Point USA. She wrote opinion pieces for RT in 2021 and 2022.
Tom Nichols of The Atlantic does a deeper dive into the allegations.
Click below to keep learning things…
Check Out All This Other Stuff To Know…
► Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump will square off in their first debate on Tuesday in Philadelphia (assuming Trump shows up). As Dana Milbank writes for The Washington Post, the true test on Tuesday might be about whether Trump can figure out how to explain…himself:
The Trump vs. Trump faceoffs occur with near daily regularity. One moment, the GOP nominee is claiming Harris is a Marxist; the next, he’s claiming that Harris stole all of his policies. One moment, he’s branding President Joe Biden a criminal mastermind; the next, he’s calling Biden a senile fool who can’t lift a beach chair. Here is Trump saying he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025; there he is praising its authors — his once and future advisers.
One day, he’s claiming responsibility for ending Roe v. Wade (which “everybody” wanted overturned). Another day, he’s positing that his administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights.” He submits that women “love me” and “like me a lot” — then shares a crude post about Harris performing a sex act, or embraces the support of Elon Musk, who just reposted with approval the idea that “a republic of high-status males is best for decision making.”
Trump is even debating himself over the debate. He originally accepted the Sept. 10 ABC News debate, then withdrew his acceptance, then reaccepted — only to threaten to withdraw again. While his aides, fearing Trump’s outbursts could hurt him in the debate, were negotiating to have microphones muted when it isn’t a candidate’s turn to speak, Trump argued against the proposition. “I’d rather have it, probably, on,” he said.
The candidate who is not speaking during Tuesday’s debate will — after much discussion — have their microphone muted. This is good news for Trump, who seems to be at his best when nobody can hear him.
Case in point:
Post by @aaron.rupar
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► Here in Colorado, the debate debate is underway in CO-08, where incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo has agreed to two debates with Republican challenger Gabe-ish Evans. It is Evans who would like to debate more often, in large part so that more voters can learn that he actually exists.
► Republicans are trying very, very hard to make “Venezuelan gangs infiltrate Aurora” into an election issue. But as Susan Greene reports for The Aurora Sentinel, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of interest from actual voters:
A quartet of conservative immigration reformers campaigning for Republican 6th Congressional District candidate John Fabbricatore on Thursday dove into the controversy over a disputed narrative that Venezuelan gangsters have overrun Aurora.
The group called for a tighter southern border and, closer to home, a crackdown on what they portray as rampant local violence by members of a Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua, otherwise known as TdA.
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas and Thomas Homan, a former acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the Trump administration, joined Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Rifle, and Rep. Greg Lopez, R-Parker, to stump for Fabbricatore. He is a former regional ICE official trying to unseat Democratic incumbent Rep. Jason Crow, D-Aurora, on an anti-immigration agenda.
The speakers spent much of the evening repeating what police say is a false narrative made repeatedly by far-right Aurora politicians and national media influencers that TdA gangs are overrunning apartment complexes and neighborhoods in Aurora and extorting tenants for rent money. [Pols emphasis]
Democratic Congressman Jason Crow did not mince words in responding to the nonsense in a very direct manner:
He lashed back at the quartet of Republicans for “demonizing immigrants and refugees in a way that…leads to racist, bigoted, hurtful rhetoric.”
“That’s what’s going on here, and it’s frankly disgusting that Jurinsky and Boebert and others will purposely distort and lie just to get them clicks on social media or get some national media attention,” he said.
Crow highlighted his support for bipartisan immigration policies. He also touted his efforts to help secure federal funding to provide services for the recent influx of Venezuelan and other migrants to Colorado, and to offset the costs state and local agencies have incurred because of their arrival.
Jennifer Brown of The Colorado Sun has additional reporting on the “Venezuelan gang” nonsense that seems to back up Crow’s arguments:
At this point, tenants interviewed by The Colorado Sun say they are more scared of white supremacists and people with animosity toward immigrants than they ever were of a Venezuelan gang. [Pols emphasis]
The anti-immigrant backlash and the tendency to equate newcomers to the United States with criminality is nothing new, say sociology and criminology experts, who point out that it’s been happening since the first waves of Irish, Italian and Polish immigrants more than 100 years ago. This is despite the fact that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people who were born in the country, according to decades of research. [Pols emphasis]
The pending presidential election — when immigration is among the most contentious issues in the nation and after more than 40,000 South American migrants have come through Denver alone in the past year and a half — brings even more hysteria to the situation, the experts said.
Elsewhere, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman — whom Crow ousted from Congress in 2018 — has a lot of explaining to do about his own role in pushing these false narratives.
► The New York Times tries to understand how conservative mothers continue to be charmed by a misogynist prick.
► New polling from Navigator Research shows strong support for a national paid family and medical leave program.
► The Cook Political Report is souring on Democratic chances to win the open seat in CO-03, where Democrat Adam Frisch faces Republican Jeff “Bread Sandwich” Hurd:
► Local Republican elected officials who are always happy to support statewide tax and budget cuts are now upset about the repercussions. As Seth Klamann reports for The Denver Post:
Seven Colorado counties filed a lawsuit Thursday accusing the state of illegally taking tax money generated from oil and gas extraction and set aside for local governments.
The suit, which names Gov. Jared Polis and state Treasurer Dave Young, was filed in Denver District Court by several mostly rural counties on the Western Slope, plus metro Denver’s Douglas County. They allege that a bill passed by the legislature earlier this year would “substantially deplete” — if not zero out — a portion of severance tax revenue that’s intended “to offset the impact” of oil and gas extraction.
That bill, the bipartisan House Bill 1413, took $25 million in severance tax funds and directed them to the general fund, which is the state’s primary spending account. It was one of a handful of transfers that aided in balancing the budget.
The counties — Mesa, Douglas, Garfield, Moffat, Montezuma, Montrose and Rio Blanco — are asking a Denver judge to rule that the transfer was illegal and to prohibit transfers in the future that would “deplete” the fund.
At least one Republican legislator, however, isn’t ducking the responsibility:
Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican who also co-sponsored the bill, said he needed to double-check the details of the various funds’ background and details before commenting specifically.
But he said the transfers were necessary.
“None of us on the (Joint Budget Committee) were happy about that, at all,” he said. “It’s just — we got some surprises thrown at us at the very end of the session, and we had to balance that budget.”
Paying for necessary public services costs money. It’s not a weird concept.
► Thanks, President Biden! From Colorado Newsline:
The Federal Aviation Administration has awarded nearly $100 million to fund infrastructure improvement projects at eight Colorado airports.
Announced Thursday by U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, the funding was made available through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Airport Improvement Program, and supplemental grant funding.
► For reasons we don’t need to explain, folks in a Commerce City neighborhood are pushing back against plans from a local company to expand its gasoline storage facility.
Say What, Now?
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Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
► If you listen to the Get More Smarter Podcast, you’re probably familiar with our regular “Gibberish of the Week” feature.
You’ll be hearing this one soon.
► The Onion, for the win!
ICYMI
► Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen (D-Jefferson County) is pushing for Medicare to expand coverage for substance use disorders.
► The “Antifa conference call” claim that right-wing provocateur Joe Oltmann has promoted for years is turning out to be pretty expensive…for Joe Oltmann.
► A broken racist clock is still accurate twice a day:
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