February 27, 2015 11:05 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Friday (Feb. 27)

• 3 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

The dress is definitely bluish-brown. It's time to Get More Smarter with Colorado Pols. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here's a good example).

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► Today is the deadline for Congress to authorize funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), so what should we expect of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner? If you guessed, "punt the issue for three more weeks," you win the door prize. But as Politico reports, Republicans are merely delaying an answer on a budget problem that is about to get much, much worse:

First the good news: Congress appears to have found a way to avoid a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security for the next three weeks.

Now the bad: March is beginning to look awfully grim for the new Republican Congress that had lofty expectations for legislating in 2015.

GOP leaders appear set to win approval of their short-term solution to the DHS impasse on Friday, hours before the money runs dry. But that will leave the House and Senate just three weeks to bridge their fundamental differences on funding the department for the long term and blocking President Barack Obama’s changes to the enforcement of immigration policy.

On top of that, Congress must update a complicated Medicare reimbursement formula for doctors. And it needs to pass a budget.

This is where we remind you, again, that REPUBLICANS HAVE MAJORITY CONTROL IN CONGRESS and they still can't figure out how to govern.

► Mr. Spock is dead.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

SHOULD YOU FIND YOURSELF STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► The Aurora Sentinel says legislators had better do something about fracking before ballot measures do it for them.

► Anti-gun control groups spent an astonishing $35.6 million in Colorado in 2014. But…but…Laura Waters Woods!

► The State House gave initial approval to a bill that would require passenger vehicles to have winter tires or snow chains when driving on I-70 (through the mountains) during the winter months.

► Colorado Democrats will meet this weekend to cast ballots selecting state party officials. As Lynn Bartels writes for the Denver Post, Democratic Congressman Ed Perlmutter will accept an award as Colorado Democrat of the Year tomorrow — which also happens to be the wedding day for Republicans Monica Owens (daughter of BIll Owens) and John Beauprez (Bob Beauprez's youngest son).

► Have you heard the one about the Personhood bill? Oh, you have? Yup…again.

► Republican Rep. Gordon "Dr. Chaps" Klingenschmitt sang a song on the House floor yesterday. We enjoyed the performance.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Stan Martin, the new County Clerk in Adams County, promises that his office will do a better job of counting ballots in 2016. Adams County was the last county in the state to report its election results last November.

► The "freeways" — both I-25 and HWY 36 — will toll for thee.

► The Denver area joins San Francisco and Houston as the metropolitan areas with the highest inflation rate in 2014.

► Illinois Republican Rep. Aaron Schock, the guy who wanted his office redecorated to resemble Downton Abbey, doesn't appear to bother himself with campaign finance rules.

ICYMI

► Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to be President, but to get anywhere close, he may need to stop talking altogether.

► House Speaker John Boehner has lost the last of his marbles.

► Nevada Republican Assemblywoman Michele Fiore says we could save a lot of money on health care expenses if cancer patients just flushed the disease with baking soda. From Think Progress:

As first reported by Jon Ralston, Fiore told listeners: “If you have cancer, which I believe is a fungus, and we can put a pic line into your body and we’re flushing, let’s say, salt water, sodium cardonate [sic], through that line, and flushing out the fungus… These are some procedures that are not FDA-approved in America that are very inexpensive, cost-effective.” The American Cancer Society warns that while cancer patients whose immune systems are weakened by high doses of chemotherapy can sometimes contract fungal infections, “there is no evidence that antifungal treatment causes the patients’ tumors to shrink.” Cancer Research UK dismisses the claim that sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) can cure cancer as a debunked “persistent cancer myth.”

You probably won't be surprised to hear that Fiore was recently removed from her position as Republican Majority Leader because she has $1 million in tax liens on her name.