To quote Laura Helmuth: “The moral arc of the universe isn’t going to bend itself.” 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.
FIRST UP…
► Vice President-elect JD Vance got handed one of the all-time shit jobs: Trying to make a case with Senators for Trump administration nominees such as Matt Gaetz (Attorney General), Pete Hegseth (Defense Secretary), and Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligencia). From The Washington Post:
Vance will be on Capitol Hill today, ushering embattled attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz around Senate offices as the House Ethics Committee decides if they’ll release a report into Gaetz’s alleged sex trafficking and illicit drug use.
It’s a split screen that even the best, most experienced hand would struggle to handle. But for Vance, it’s the latest of what is likely to be many difficult tasks imposed by Trump throughout his term. As we reported last week, one of Vance’s key roles over the next four years will be to work closely with the Senate to ensure Trump’s agenda and priorities move through Congress, especially the Senate.
Few Republicans have come out explicitly offering their support for Gaetz even as outright opposition has softened over the past week as Gaetz and Trump have been calling senators. But it’s going to be a huge lift to convince at least 51 Republicans to let go of their misgivings, dislike and distrust of Gaetz, who overthrew former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) last year and has campaigned against some Republican senators, including Sens.-elect Tim Sheehy of Montana and John Curtis of Utah. Gaetz criticized Sheehy and Curtis during their races and backed their primary opponents, Rep. Matt Rosendale and Trent Staggs, the mayor of Riverton, Utah…
…Vance has only served two years in the Senate and his populist, isolationist and anti-Ukraine-aid posture have put him in the crosshairs of some of his more traditionally conservative colleagues. But Vance built ties with the newer generation of senators, especially those whose election was in part due to Trump’s influence.
We’d say, “Good luck with that,” but we wouldn’t really mean it. In related news, the House Ethics Committee is scheduled to meet today to discuss the potential release of a report about Gaetz.
►Pew Research is out with a very interesting (and long) report on “America’s News Influencers” that is worth perusing for anyone still trying to understand how Trump happened again.
► Democratic lawmakers are looking to eliminate a ridiculous barrier for union organizing in Colorado. As Seth Klamann reports for The Denver Post:
Flanked by dozens of union members, a group of Colorado Democrats unveiled legislation Tuesday to remove a unique barrier to union organizing in the state.
The proposal, which will not be introduced until the legislative session starts in early January, would repeal an 81-year-old requirement that unions in Colorado pass a second election before they can begin negotiating union dues and fees.Colorado is the only state with such a rule, legislators said, and they cast the measure as a way to remove an additional government requirement from union-employer negotiations.
Federal law requires new unions to pass one election to form, though some states have so-called “right-to-work” laws that don’t require all employees in a unionized shop to pay dues or be a member of the union that represents them.
The Colorado legislation, dubbed the Worker Protection Act, will be backed by Denver Democratic Reps. Javier Mabrey and Jennifer Bacon, as well as Sens. Jessie Danielson, of Wheat Ridge, and Robert Rodriguez, also of Denver.
Governor Jared Polis, meanwhile, does not appear to be a fan:
Another showdown with the governor’s office may be on the horizon: In a statement Tuesday, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman said the governor “is proud that Colorado’s labor laws go further than those of the 26 right-to-work states by not only protecting the right to organize but also by providing an avenue to strengthen unions through union security agreements.”
But, Wieman wrote, Polis “is leery of the need for a new bill to open the Labor Peace Act that serves the state and workers so well,” referring to the 1943 state law that includes the second-election requirement. “Any changes to the Labor Peace Act would need to find common ground with employers and businesses and labor,” Wieman wrote, “and the governor is deeply skeptical of this bill without a heavily negotiated, thoughtful and comprehensive process.”
Polis is already in hot water with labor unions after vetoing two union-friendly bills at the end of the 2024 legislative session.
►Westword has more on preparations in Aurora for Trump’s proposed mass deportations of immigrants. Susan Greene reported on the same topic for The Aurora Sentinel.
As we noted yesterday, the odds are very good that you will know someone who will be impacted by mass deportations, given that 1 in 10 Coloradans are immigrants.
► Mike Littwin of The Colorado Sun tries to make sense of Gov. Jared Polis suddenly going to great lengths to defend Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.:
I know I just wrote a column about Jared Polis and his dangerous endorsement of Robert Kennedy Jr. — the nation’s most prominent anti-vaxxer and also a prominent conspiracy theorist, not to mention an infamous dead-bear dumper — as secretary of Health and Human Services.
But since my column — and I’m not taking this personally — Polis has tripled down on his support for Kennedy.
I’m not sure if this is naïveté, stubbornness, willful ignorance — I mean, all the other cool kids think a Kennedy appointment would be a disaster — or, most likely, a belief that this would somehow help him politically.
But whatever Polis’ reasoning, I get angrier every time I think about it…
…Politically, as well as medically, this seems like a large blunder for Polis. Democrats are furious. And I doubt he thinks this would win him any MAGA votes, particularly in a Democratic primary for one job or another. You’d think he’d stop talking about it, but he’s out there praising Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, for saying he would have an “open mind” on Kennedy’s nomination. [Pols emphasis]
Polis isn’t naïve. He knows RFK Jr. has claimed vaccines are linked to autism and that fluoride should be removed from drinking water. Last year he said COVID-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon to spare Chinese and Jewish people but harm Black and White people.
The governor wants to push past that, hoping RFK Jr. can fulfill his promises to “make America healthy again.”
“RFK is not a pharmaceutical lobbyist,” Polis said in an interview with 9NEWS. “As you indicated, he has a lot of false things that he has said and does say. Can he separate those incorrect personal beliefs from the work he does on chronic disease, nutrition, and taking on big pharma? For the sake of our country, I hope so.”
“Do you think he’ll be able to?” 9NEWS reporter Marc Sallinger asked Polis.
“That’s a valid question,” Polis said.
► We’ll just go ahead and leave this here (via Vox):
►New polling results in Colorado show that voters are generally positive about the future…aside from the influence of political parties.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced Wednesday that transgender lawmakers and staff would be barred from bathrooms not corresponding to their “biological sex.”
“All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex,” Johnson said. “Women deserve women’s only spaces.”
Johnson’s decree followed an uproar among Republicans over incoming Democratic lawmaker Sarah McBride, who will become the first-ever transgender member of Congress next year after winning Delaware’s sole district this month. [Pols emphasis]
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) demanded that Johnson disallow McBride from using women’s bathrooms and gym facilities in the Capitol, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) even suggested she would physically fight McBride for using the ladies’ room.
► If President-elect Donald Trump still plans on shuttering the Department of Education, he’s has nominated the person to help him do it. From The New York Times:
Trump on Tuesday tapped Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive who ran the Small Business Administration for much of his first term, to lead the Education Department, an agency he has routinely singled out for elimination in his upcoming term.
A close friend of Mr. Trump’s and a longtime booster of his political career, Ms. McMahon had been among his early donors leading up to his electoral victory in 2016 and has been one of the leaders of his transition team, vetting other potential appointees and drafting potential executive orders since August.
In Ms. McMahon, 76, Mr. Trump has elevated someone far outside the mold of traditional candidates for the role, an executive with no teaching background or professional experience steering education policy, other than an appointment in 2009 to the Connecticut State Board of Education, where she served for just over a year.
But Ms. McMahon is likely to be assigned the fraught task of carrying out what is widely expected to be a thorough and determined dismantling of the department’s core functions. And she would assume the role at a time when school districts across the country are facing budget shortfalls, many students are not making up ground lost during the pandemic in reading and math, and many colleges and universities are shrinking and closing amid a larger loss of faith in the value of higher education. [Pols emphasis]
This should put an end to dumb social media rumors that Colorado Congressperson Lauren Boebert was going to get tapped to lead the Department of Edumacation.
► President-elect Trump made another absurd appointment, as POLITICO explains:
Trump has chosen Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician and TV personality known as Dr. Oz, to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
During the pandemic, Dr. Oz, 64, pushed unproven theories about Covid-19 cures, including hydroxychloroquine, that caught Trump’s eye. In 2022, Oz ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, losing to now-Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).
“Dr. Oz will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday. “Dr. Oz will be a leader in incentivizing Disease Prevention, so we get the best results in the World for every dollar we spend on Healthcare in our Great Country.”
Crudité!
► Colorado Public Radio reports on a new plan from Gov. Jared Polis to move Coloradans away from vehicles where possible:
Polis on Tuesday said the state needs to massively and quickly expand public transit service and make it easier for Coloradans to walk and ride their bicycles to drastically reduce its reliance on cars and slash climate emissions.
“This saves people money, reduces traffic and cuts pollution,” Polis said at a press conference where he was flanked by legislative and environmental advocacy allies. “Today, too many Coloradans simply don’t have a safe, convenient alternative to driving for daily tasks, whether it’s getting to work or going to the grocery store.”
Colorado has made significant progress in meeting its climate goals, but the state’s reliance on cars has made reducing transportation emissions particularly difficult despite the growing popularity of electric vehicles. The Polis Administration’s “Colorado Transportation Vision 2035” document is meant to address that shortfall and builds on several climate, housing and transportation policies and laws it’s drafted or supported in recent years.
Those include a parking reform law that could unlock denser housing development, new fees on rental cars and oil and gas drilling that will fund transit, and the abandonment of several planned highway expansions in favor of new bus rapid transit lines.
► Congressman Joe Neguse (D-Boulderish) was re-elected to his leadership post in Congress. Neguse ran unopposed for the position of Assistant Democratic Leader.
►Erie residents won a battle, but not the war, to prevent oil wells that would extend for five miles underneath the town.
► On the topic of racing to finish up stuff before the end of the Biden administration, here’s POLITICO:
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is on an urgent mission: get as much high-tech spending out the door before Donald Trump takes office.
The Biden administration is aiming to commit nearly every unspent dollar in its $50 billion microchip-subsidy program before President-elect Donald Trump takes over in January, an effort that would effectively cement a massive industrial legacy before the GOP can reverse course…
…The effort to spend her department’s full CHIPS Act budget would put a capstone on a signature Biden economic policy.
Jimmy Kimmel said Republican lawmakers are already capitulating to Donald Trump after the president-elect named a series of toxic Cabinet nominees, such as former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for attorney general.
Kimmel played a supercut video of Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) trashing Gaetz. In one clip from last year, Mullin said Gaetz showed off videos of women he’d slept with and bragged of taking erectile dysfunction medicine and energy drinks…
…Kimmel rolled a clip of Mullin singing a new tune, admitting that Gaetz was facing “an uphill battle” but indicating he might ultimately support him.
“If it’s what the president wants, we’re gonna do our due diligence,” Mullin said, except those last two words came out as “dill diligence.”
“You do your dil diligence, you dildo,” Kimmel said. “No shame. No shame whatsoever.” [Pols emphasis]
► President-elect Donald Trump has selected a Coloradan as his nominee for Secretary of Energy, and it’s bad fracking news: Chris Wright, CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, was selected to the position held by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry during Trump’s first administration. There’s not a lot of ambiguity here; the only climate-related questions Wright will concern himself with involve whether to prioritize traditional drilling techniques or focus on fracking. As Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, told The Denver Post: “I can only assume his favorite place in Colorado is the Great Sand Dunes because that’s the only pile of sand big enough to bury his head in.”
Kyle Clark of 9News has more on this appointment; you really need to watch this:
► We’re turning the page on the 2024 election with the release of the first Big Line for 2026. The next election cycle will be a lot busier in Colorado.
November 20, 2024 10:56 AM UTC
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