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FIRST UP…
► The U.S. Secret Service says that former President Trump was targeted in an assassination attempt while golfing at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. As The Washington Post reports:
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was unharmed Sunday in what authorities are investigating as another potential assassination attempt, after a man pointed a rifle through a fence around a Florida golf course where the former president was playing.
Police arrested Ryan Wesley Routh, a 58-year-old man most recently living in Hawaii who spent recent years trying to join the war in Ukraine, according to online posts and law enforcement officials. Routh has a criminal history including barricading himself inside a building with a machine gun in 2002, according to public records and news reports. On Sunday, the FBI searched his car as officers looked for clues to a possible motive…
…Around 1:30 p.m., between the fifth and seventh holes, the agent noticed a rifle muzzle poking through the tree-lined chain-link fence surrounding the golf course, Bradshaw said. The agent opened fire, and Trump’s detail rushed the former president to a holding room. The gunman fled in a black Nissan, leaving behind an AK-47-style rifle, two bags and a camera mounted to the fence to record, according to Bradshaw.
► Trump said on Friday that mass deportations of illegal immigrants will begin in earnest if he is elected to another term in the White House — and they will begin in Aurora, Colorado. This is a continuation of the Trump/Vance campaign to denigrate immigrants for political gain. On Sunday, GOP Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance just flat-out admitted that he is making shit up about immigrants in order to scare voters. From The Washington Post:
Just about every part of Sen. JD Vance’s efforts on Sunday to defend his relentless fearmongering about Haitian immigrants was dishonest.
To hear Vance (R-Ohio) tell it — as he told CNN’s Dana Bash and NBC’s Kristen Welker in separate news show appearances — the senator and running mate to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was simply highlighting long-standing concerns that had been ignored by the media. But those concerns hadn’t been ignored, and his focus on the Ohio city of Springfield and its population that came from Haiti was demonstrably a function of the presidential campaign. Which, Vance admitted to Bash, was the point.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people,” Vance said, “then that’s what I’m going to do, Dana, because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast.” [Pols emphasis]
Vance has no problem with outright lying about immigrants, but at least one person involved in the idiotic rumor that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets regrets her actions:
The woman and her neighbor who drove that initial frenzy subsequently admitted that they had no evidence that the story was true. Based on the evolution of the story since the first flurry of claims, it seems clear that rumors about pet-eating — again, a long-standing bit of anti-immigrant rhetoric — were just rumors, ones circulating throughout the small city.
“Why have I talked about some of the things that I have been talking about?” Vance told Bash. “Let me just say this. My constituents have brought approximately a dozen separate concerns to me. Ten of them are verifiable and confirmable” — though, of course, he never mentioned them until his allies focused on making stolen pets a vehicle for casting immigrants as dangerous.
He didn’t articulate what the 10 verifiable (though not verified) stories were, instead pointing to other stories that were circulating in the right-wing media bubble, including one from conservative activist Chris Rufo. As with the initial stories of pets being taken in Springfield, Rufo’s story, which allegedly occurred in a different city, was flatly rejected by law enforcement.
In short, the Trump/Vance campaign is desperate to keep this story alive:
► Jenny Brundin of Colorado Public Radio reports on a Friday rally against a school voucher proposal called Amendment 80:
A coalition of parents, educators and advocates for public schools rallied Friday against a proposed constitutional amendment they say will usher in private school vouchers that they call harmful, destructive and discriminatory.
For 30 years, public school children in Colorado have had the right to attend any public school for free even if they don’t live in that school district under the state’s Public Schools of Choice law. State law also permits families to enroll their children in private school or home school.
Amendment 80 would enshrine those rights to school choice in the constitution, explicitly naming private schools and “future school innovations in education.”
“Colorado voters — do not be fooled by Amendment 80,” said Lisa Danos, an English teacher and librarian from Gunnison. “It does nothing to increase parent choice or improve education in our state.”
► Tired of reading? Then listen instead to the latest episode of the Get More Smarter Podcast, featuring an entertaining interview with Senator Michael Bennet (D-Denver):
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► In case you didn’t lose enough money after buying shares in Trump Media — the company behind the social media outlet “Truth Social” — former President Trump is rolling out a new way to light your money on fire. Tonight, Trump is expected to unveil a new cryptocurrency scam business from Mar-a-Lago. From CBS News:
Former President Donald Trump on Monday is expected to announce the debut of a new cryptocurrency platform called World Liberty Financial that will be controlled by sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
The Republican nominee for president plans to discuss the new venture from his Mar-a-Lago resort on Monday, September 16, at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. In recent weeks, the Trumps have been promoting the endeavor on social media, touting it as “the future of crypto.”…
…Trump’s 18-year-old son Barron, a first-year student at New York University, is identified as the project’s “DeFi visionary,” according to a white paper on the project obtained by cryptocurrency news site CoinDesk. DeFi, short for “decentralized finance,” is a term that refers to financial services offered through public blockchains. [Pols emphasis]
What could possibly go wrong? This ‘X’ thread from journalist Judd Legum explains how Trump’s new crypto business is a massive scam intended to earn the Trump family millions of dollars should he be elected President in November. For example:
Also…are we sure that Trump is still running for President? He was playing golf on Sunday and is focusing his time on Monday preparing to launch a new cryptocurrency thing.
Caraveo, who is seeking a second term representing the closely divided 8th Congressional District, confirmed on Thursday that she and Evans are set to participate in two televised debates — on 9News on Oct. 8, just days before ballots go in the mail, and on Oct. 19 on CBS Colorado.
Evans, however, said that two half-hour debates aren’t enough to explore the disagreements between the two candidates in a race that could decide which party wins the House majority. Last month, Evans’ campaign announced that he’s accepted invitations to four debates and challenged Caraveo to do the same.
For her part, Caraveo’s campaign on Thursday pitched the two debates she’s scheduled as “doubling” the number of times the district’s nominees will meet, compared to the single debate that featured Caraveo and her 2022 Republicans opponent, state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer.
It’s no surprise that Evans wants more debates — he is the challenger in this race, after all — but Colorado voters don’t really need to hear the candidates say the same things four different times.
► As Luning reports in a separate story, the television ads in CO-08 are getting nasty:
The gloves came off Friday in the race to represent Colorado’s toss-up 8th Congressional District.
U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, the Democratic incumbent, and state Rep. Gabe Evans, her Republican challenger, each released TV ads Friday morning focusing on border security — and by early afternoon, both candidates had accused their opponent of lying…
…The candidates’ commercials join a pair of attack ads launched this week by the national Democratic and Republican House campaign committees, respectively. The Democrats’ ad takes aim at Evans’ record supporting an abortion ban, and the Republicans’ ad blames Caraveo for numerous woes associated with the recent influx of immigrants into Colorado.
Here’s Caraveo’s latest ad:
►Jessica Seaman of The Denver Post reports on a troubling trend in Colorado schools:
Colorado school districts dramatically increased their use of out-of-school suspensions as pandemic-era staffing shortages made it harder to fill positions that play a crucial role in keeping children in classrooms, an analysis of state data by The Denver Post shows.
Statewide, districts removed children from their buildings more frequently after in-person learning resumed as overall suspensions reached their highest point in at least 11 years during the 2023-24 academic year.
The increase was primarily driven by schools’ growing use of out-of-school suspensions, which have jumped 25% since the 2018-19 academic year, according to The Post’s analysis.
In those same six years, staffing shortages in Colorado schools more than doubled, making it difficult for districts to keep their buildings open during the height of the pandemic much less meet the growing mental health needs of children post-lockdown.
This is another sad example of staffing shortages in Colorado school districts, which desperately need more financial resources.
► As Jesse Paul reports for The Colorado Sun, 13 state legislative candidates are running for office this fall without any major party opposition.
► As Jacob Heilbrunn writes for POLITICO, right-wing media outlets are once again defending Nazis:
Tucker Carlson may have reached a disturbingly new low when he hosted a two-hour podcast with Darryl Cooper, a Nazi apologist whom he called “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.”
Cooper’s audacious claims that Winston Churchill, not Adolf Hitler, was the “chief villain of the Second World War” and that the Holocaust was essentially an accident prompted widespread indignation on the establishment right. National Review Executive Editor Mark Antonio Wright declared, “No, Winston Churchill was not the ‘chief villain’ of the Second World War,” while Liz Cheney observed, “No serious or honorable person would support or endorse this type of garbage.” Others, such as Bari Weiss, have pointed to Pat Buchanan and his 2008 book Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War as the origin of conservatives’ revisionism about World War II and the Holocaust.
Carlson’s decision to wade into such murky waters shouldn’t be a total shock. Over the past few years, Carlson, like others on the right, have embraced a populist-nationalist streak that has courted some of the darkest forces in American politics. This interview comes only a few months after top MAGA influencer Candace Owens declared that Israel was supplying arms for a “Christian Holocaust”; and two years ago, Donald Trump had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with the white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, though he later said he was unaware of Fuentes’ identity.
But the mounting attraction of today’s America First movement to antisemitism and Holocaust denial has much deeper roots than the rise of Trump or his ideological predecessor Buchanan. It connects to a strain of the radical right that has been present for many decades, one that has nourished hostility to defending democracy at home and abroad. Throughout, a key element of this strain of thinking has been to depict liberals as communists — a tradition many in the GOP continue to follow even if they don’t all understand its radical roots. As Trump inveighs against “Comrade” Kamala Harris, he fits snugly into this tradition.
Remember, friends: If you aren’t sure where to stand in today’s political environment, the safest bet is to figure out who is embracing Nazis and go somewhere else.
► Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold is taking a brief maternity leave following the birth of her first child. Griswold plans to return to work before mail ballots start their journey to voters on Oct. 11.
Some right-wing Republicans seem to be really grasping for meaning from this Donald Trump post on ‘X’:
Here’s the deal: The hashtag is a symbol used in shorthand notation in games of chess to indicate a “checkmate.” Is Trump hinting at something deeper here…or did he just accidentally hit “post” before he finished typing? We’re gonna side with Occam’s razor on this one.
► The wife of Tennessee Republican Rep. Mark Green is accusing her husband of having an affair with a staffer from the Axios news outlet who is nearly 30 years younger than Green. Axios is pushing back demanding that Green’s wife clear the record, saying that his affair was with someone else. This is all very strange.
ICYMI
►Republican Congressional candidate Gabe-ish Evans (CO-08) has an anti-semitism problem in his campaign. As Erik Maulbetsch reports for the Colorado Times Recorder, Evans’s Political Director and top adviser, Jessica Spindle, is apparently a pretty disgusting human being:
Gabe Evans, left, with Jessica Spindle (far right)
[Spindle has] been on staff as Evans’ political director for his congressional campaign since April, but she’s been a relentless sharer of antisemitism, conspiracy theories, and calls for political violence for much, much longer. [Pols emphasis]
She made her most egregious antisemitic post just three months ago, while on Evans’ payroll. On June 14, Spindle publicly posted the infamous “Freedom for Humanity” mural, which depicts antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of naked figures. Spindle shared the post from a conspiracy account called Anonymous, which included a single “Okay” hand sign emoji, a symbol that has been co-opted by the alt-right to indicate white power, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
During the first summer of the pandemic Spindle shared another antisemitic cartoon depicting a puppeteer’s hand controlling marionette strings attached to a mask-wearing man.
Stefanie Clarke, co-founder of Stop Antisemitism Colorado, called for Evans to fire Spindle and urged her school board colleagues to launch an investigation. [Pols emphasis]
“It is beyond appalling for an elected official and high-level political campaign staff member to share such blatant antisemitic imagery — and to include the caption “the most powerful pic I’ve ever seen,”’ is nothing short of outrageously inflammatory, offensive, and dangerous,” said Clarke. “The ‘Freedom for Humanity’ mural is one of the most notorious examples of modern antisemitic propaganda, perpetuating harmful stereotypes that have fueled hatred and violence against the Jewish people for generations.
“We will not stand by and allow antisemitism to be normalized in our political discourse. Congressional candidate Gabe Evans must not only condemn Jessica Spindle and her post, but also immediately terminate her from his campaign. Anything less would signal to the Jewish community that he believes this to be acceptable rhetoric. Further, we urge the Weld Re-8 School Board to launch an investigation into Board Member Spindle’s history of antisemitic posts, including propagating the blood libel and minimizing the universally recognized evil of Adolf Hitler. Someone who harbors such deep-seated venom toward any group of people has no place overseeing the education of Colorado’s children. This incident highlights the urgent need for accountability and education at every level of public service to ensure hate of any kind is never tolerated in our state or our democracy.”
► One of the defining moments of what will likely be the only Presidential candidate debate of 2024 led to a meme that is likely to last in the public consciousness for a LONG time:
September 16, 2024 11:23 AM UTC
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Are we there yet? Almost! The election is now just 50 days away; mail ballots will start heading out to Colorado voters in 25 days. Let’s Get More Smarter! 
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