December 11, 2015 11:56 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Friday (Dec. 11)

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• by: Colorado Pols

We have nothing witty to say here; it’s Friday, give us a break. 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…

► “No Child Left Behind” has officially been, uh, left behind. Former President George W. Bush saw his signature education policy get tossed in the recycled bin on Thursday. From the Associated Press:

Calling it a “Christmas miracle,” President Barack Obama signed a sweeping overhaul of the No Child Left Behind education law on Thursday, ushering in a new approach to accountability, teacher evaluations and the way the most poorly performing schools are pushed to improve.

Joined by lawmakers, students and teachers in a White House auditorium, Obama praised the George W. Bush-era No Child Left Behind for having the right goals. He said that in practice, it fell short or applied a cookie-cutter approach that failed to produce desired results. Under the new law, the federal government will shift more decision-making powers back to states. [Pols emphasis]

“With this bill, we reaffirm that fundamentally American ideal that every child — regardless of race, gender, background, zip code — deserves the chance to make out of their lives what they want,” Obama said. “This is a big step in the right direction.”

The overhaul ends more than a decade of what critics have derided as one-size-fits-all federal policies dictating accountability and improvement for the nation’s 100,000 or so public schools. But one key feature remains: Students will still take federally required statewide reading and math exams. Still, the new law encourages states to limit the time students spend on testing and diminishes the high stakes for underperforming schools.

Kudos to President Obama for his graciousness in talking about the end of an education policy that was almost universally disliked. Rather than just bash No Child Left Behind, Obama said that the policy had “the right goals” but failed in practice.

► Is Robert Dear crazy, or is he crazy? The man accused of the terrorist attack at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs had regular outbursts in court on Wednesday, declaring that he was guilty and yelling out, “I’m a warrior for the babies!” Dear seems to want to plead guilty, but his case creates problems for judges, prosecutors, and public defenders who need to decide if Dear is mentally unfit to stand trial.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Come on, ‘Merica! Canada is making us look bad. From the New York Times:

Canada welcomed 163 Syrian refugees under its new accelerated entry program late Thursday night, the first of 25,000 the country has promised to take in by March.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a battery of politicians from across the political spectrum were on hand at the Toronto airport to greet the refugees.

“You are home,” Mr. Trudeau said to the first passengers to disembark after a 16-hour flight from Beirut on a Canadian military aircraft. “You’re safe at home now.” The premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, gave them winter coats.

Under a plan announced by Mr. Trudeau’s new government, a series of flights will bring 10,000 Syrian refugees into Canada by the end of this month and a total of at least 25,000 before March.

The widespread embrace of the plan by the Canadian public stands in stark contrast with the controversy raging over the issue in the United States, where many politicians, especially on the right, have called for bans or restrictions on the admission of Syrian refugees.

If it makes you feel any better, America has “loonies and toonies,” too. They’re just not worth much at the grocery store.

► Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) continues to be dogged over his refusal to condemn the anti-Muslim remarks of Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump.

► State Rep. Kim Ransom (R-Douglas County) may carry legislation in January that would give Colorado prosecutors two chances at securing the death penalty in particularly grievous crimes. As Ransom explains to the Colorado Independent:

“What this would do is add some flexibility to the district attorney and prosecutors to re-try the case if there’s a hung jury in the penalty phase,” she said. Prosecutors would only get one more shot; they couldn’t just keep re-trying a case until they got a unanimous verdict. The law, she said, is similar to current legislation in Arizona.

First of all, “Arizona does it” should be a phrase that automatically disqualifies any sort of legislation from moving forward in Colorado. “Innocent until we have had several chances to prove you guilty” isn’t how things are supposed to work in our legal system.

► Forget Star Wars. If you want to experience some quality drama, there’s nothing quite like  the Regional Tourism Act, amiright? Aldo Svaldi reports for the Denver Post:

Among Colorado’s economic development incentive programs, the Regional Tourism Act has always offered high drama. It didn’t disappoint on Thursday.

Denver received millions less than it asked for under the RTA after the Colorado Economic Development Commission found itself backed into a corner it couldn’t escape.

And a group of four northern Colorado tourism projects, worried the state was trying to control them like puppets on a string, came close to getting voted down after they tried to take a stand.

Denver, which is working on a  $1.1 billion revamp of the National Western complex and the surrounding neighborhood, asked the state for $128 million in rebates of future state sales tax revenues tied to new out-of-state visits.

But Economic & Planning Systems, an independent analyst, calculated the project should get closer to $81 million, leaving commissioners scrambling for a way to bridge the gap.

Two years ago the state legislature, concerned the EDC was playing loose with taxpayer money, limited RTA awards to no more than 50 percent above the third-party recommendation without a unanimous vote by the commission.

Whew! You can now safely back away from the edge of your seat.

► Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will open his first campaign field office in Colorado on Dec. 16. Sanders’ campaign says the opening of an office in Edgewater, just west of Denver, is part of the campaign’s plans to ramp up efforts in Colorado.

► Political endorsements come in all shapes and sizes, and not all of them are necessarily beneficial. In recent Colorado history, few endorsements have represented the kiss of death more than being backed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which is now touting state Rep. Jon Keyser as their shiny new object. The NRSC was a big supporter of Jane Norton (2010) and Pete Coors (2004), and we know how well that turned out.

► The Benghazi (!!!) “scandal” may have finally jumped the shark this week. Democrats on the House Select Committee on Benghazi released an unredacted email that did not prove what Republicans thought it would prove…so the GOP accused Democrats of trying to undermine their blatantly-political “investigation” for “political reasons” of their own. We’re done here.

► State Rep. Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt says that Planned Parenthood executives have “the same demonic spirit of murder” as accused terrorist Robert Dear. Of course he does.

►Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz took a break from his campaign to conduct a charade Senate hearing on climate change so that he could talk for three hours about how sure he is that climate change doesn’t exist. Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner was front-and-center with Cruz before making an early exit from the hearing to attend a different briefing. Think Progress writes that Cruz challenged science…and science won.

► Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson has seen his campaign crumble from the inside out over the last several weeks — largely because Carson himself can’t seem to put together a coherent sentence on foreign policy. Naturally, Carson is now threatening to leave the Republican Party. From Politico:

Ben Carson on Friday blasted the Republican National Committee following a Washington Post report that nearly two-dozen establishment party figures were prepping for a potential brokered convention as Donald Trump continues to lead most polls.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus held a dinner in Washington, D.C., on Monday, and, according to five people who spoke with the Post, the possibility of Trump heading into the Cleveland convention with a substantial number of delegates was a topic of discussion. Some attendees suggested the establishment lay the groundwork for a floor fight that could lead the party’s mainstream wing to unite behind an alternative. Carson rejected this approach.

“If the leaders of the Republican Party want to destroy the party, they should continue to hold meetings like the one described in the Washington Post this morning,” Carson said in a statement released by his campaign.

Carson said he prays the Post’s report is incorrect and threatened to leave the GOP. “If it is correct, every voter who is standing for change must know they are being betrayed. I won’t stand for it,” said Carson, who added that if the plot is accurate, “I assure you Donald Trump won’t be the only one leaving the party.”

Uh, Dr. Carson? We hate to break it to you, pal, but GOP officials would probably love for you to leave the Republican Party.

Carson’s campaign is most certainly in crisis, as this CNN story details today.

► Colorado’s tourism industry has reportedly seen a significant increase because of so-called “marijuana tourists,” but the head of Colorado’s Tourism Office says this isn’t true. It’s a tough call, but we’re going to lean toward common sense on this one.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Conservative cliché robot Mike Rosen says he will sign off as host of “The Mike Rosen Show” on Dec. 24 as he prepares to retire. It’s oddly fitting that Rosen’s last show will be held on a day when nobody will be listening anyway.

► The only thing worse than the Presidential campaign of Jeb! Bush is the tax plan being proposed by the former Florida Governor. Policy experts have examined the Jeb! tax plan, which would appear to cost trillions of dollars while significantly increasing economic inequality.

ICYMI

► There is one final Republican Presidential debate scheduled for this year, which CNN will televise on Dec. 15. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is dangerously close to getting booted from the main stage because of his struggling campaign. 

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