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January 29, 2016 09:12 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Friday (Jan. 29)

  • 8 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Get More SmarterRemember, friends: That Super Bowl party you were invited to attend is next Sunday. 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…

► The final Republican Presidential debate before the Iowa caucuses was held last night in Des Moines, and the big winner was — of course — the guy who wasn’t there. Here’s a Winners and Losers analysis from our pals at “The Fix”, including the biggest losers:

Ted Cruz: Cruz did the thing I hate the most in debates — complain about the rules — when he tried to game a bit more talking time and got shut down by moderator Chris Wallace. The Texas Senator’s joking threat that if he kept taking incoming from the other candidates he might leave the stage (Donald Trump reference!) fell flat. He was on the wrong end of a scolding by Paul over his conservative righteousness.  And, time and time again, Cruz found himself insisting that on a panoply of issues — military spending, immigration etc. — everyone was either wrong about his position or didn’t understand it well enough. That’s too much defense for Cruz to play — especially in a debate without Trump.

Ben Carson: Whoa boy.  Carson swung from barely being asked any questions to providing answers that often bordered on incoherence. His response to a question about how to deal with Russia simply made no sense — further adding to the narrative that he is far, far out of his depth on foreign policy. At one point, he seemed stunned to even get a question, which isn’t the best look for a guy running to be the leader of a 300-million person country.  Carson looked out of his league tonight.

To be fair, Carson has been out of his league since at least July. Cruz, meanwhile, is getting universally panned for his performance last night, which might give Trump the room he needs to leave Iowa with a big win. From Politico:

More than 4-in-10 GOP insiders – given the choice of the seven GOP candidates on the stage, plus Trump – rated Cruz as the loser of Thursday night’s debate, citing his defensive posture on his past immigration stances and opposition to ethanol subsidies.

 

► Both of the top Democratic candidates for President — Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders — will speak at the Colorado Democrats’ annual fundraising gala on Feb. 13. The big winner here is obvious: The Colorado Democratic Party.

 

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Senator Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) is pushing legislation to increase U.S. sanctions against North Korea, which is kind of like adding 10 years to an inmate’s life sentence.

 

► Speaking of Gardner, expect the freshman Senator to soon add his name as a sponsor to a new federal “Life at Conception Act” being pushed by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

 

► Depending on your definition of an official “candidate,” there are anywhere from 8-12 Republicans running for U.S. Senate in Colorado. State Sen. Tim Neville is still in command of the field.

Elsewhere, Colorado Springs businessman Robert Blaha joins Aurora Republican Ryan Frazier as an official entrant in the petition-gathering contest to make the June Primary ballot. With Neville an overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nomination at the State Convention, many other Republicans have no choice but to try to petition their way onto the ballot.

 

► State Sen. Ray Scott (R-Grand Junction-ish) decided against running for U.S. Senate in 2016 — not that anyone was asking — but says now that he is considering a bid for Governor in 2018. Whatever.

 

► Colorado Democrats are taking part in a national effort to overhaul equal pay laws for women. As Joey Bunch reports for the Denver Post:

As press conferences go, this one was rock solid: A group of House Democrats were joined by women’s groups and small children Thursday to drive home the point that the equal pay issue isn’t going away as long as wages for women lag. The children wore red T-shirts that gave their ages in the 2057, the year advocates say pay for women, at the current rate of gains, will catch up to what men earn.

Colorado women make about 80 cents on the dollar to men’s pay, various government and private studies have indicated, That’s why Colorado lawmakers joined counterparts in more than 20 other states to advocate for legislative gains this year. The campaign is called Equal Pay Can’t Wait, led by the liberal State Innovation Exchange. The Democrats said they would try to pass a package of equal-pay bills this session.

For more on the national push on this issue, check out this story in the Washington Post.

 

► The Colorado legislature will again debate the issue of “assisted suicide” starting next week.

 

► Democrats and Republicans who plan to participate in the March 1 caucuses in Colorado have until Monday to make any corrections to their voter registration information. Visit GoVoteColorado.com for more information.

 

► Aurora Sentinel editor Dave Perry writes that State Rep. JoAnn Windholz (R-Commerce City) should resign her seat after her ridiculously insensitive comments in the aftermath of the Planned Parenthood shootings in Colorado Springs last year:

This week, a group of voters from Adams County went to the state Capitol and delivered about 63,000 petitions demanding that the first-term GOP legislator resign.

Most of us live our entire lives without 63,000 people wanting us to do anything, but having that many people wanting to fire you makes a pretty powerful statement. Only about 18,000 people voted at all in the last House District 30 election. She won the race by little more than 100 votes in 2014.

But recently, thousands of angry people signed online petitions demanding Windholz resign because she said some really unintelligent and mean things just days after the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood massacre in November. I’m no fool thinking that each of these petition signers are home-grown voters, but there’s no doubt Jihadi JoAnn has evoked a tsunami of very local disgust for her kind of politics…

…It’s really too late to recall Windholz, so she can either step down or feel the voters’ boot this fall. Knowing that, the group went to the state Capitol Tuesday to get others to do kind of the same thing.

“Our goal is to render (Windholz) unelectable,” said protest organizer Steve Cohn.

Windholz seems to have taken care of that all by herself.

 

► Seven states experienced net job losses in 2015, but Colorado was not one of them.

 

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► The FBI released video of a confrontation in Oregon with #YallQaeda members that led to the death of one of the armed militiamen terrorists. #YallQaeda supporters have claimed that LaVoy Finicum was “murdered” by federal law enforcement officers, but the video of the confrontation seems to show Finicum reaching for a handgun several times before being fired upon.

 

► Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is going to have a hard time explaining this one.

 

ICYMI

► Yes, this actually happened at the State Capitol this week.

 

Get More Smarter by liking Colorado Pols on Facebook!

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8 thoughts on “Get More Smarter on Friday (Jan. 29)”

  2. All R's are Dummies and we'll never vote for them and all their ideas are sooooooooo stupid. 

    And all D's are More Smarter and all their ideas are gud and their policy proposals are the best and we all have to support them cuz there's a (D) behind their names (cuz they're so smart, doncha know?)

    Whether the next president will build on the[ Obama Administration's accomplishments in consumer protection and regulation of harmful business practices], or reverse them, is a central issue in the 2016 election. But the administration’s record on enforcement falls short — and federal enforcement of laws that already exist has received far too little attention on the campaign trail.

    I just released a report examining 20 of the worst federal enforcement failures in 2015. Its conclusion: “Corporate criminals routinely escape meaningful prosecution for their misconduct.”[snip}

    Enforcement isn’t about big government or small government. It’s about whether government works and who it works for. Last year, five of the world’s biggest banks, including JPMorgan Chase, pleaded guilty to criminal charges that they rigged the price of billions of dollars worth of foreign currencies. No corporation can break the law unless people in that corporation also broke the law, but no one from any of those banks has been charged. While thousands of Americans were rotting in prison for nonviolent drug convictions, JPMorgan Chase was so chastened by pleading guilty to a crime that it awarded Jamie Dimon, its C.E.O., a 35 percent raise.

    …Each of these government divisions is headed by someone nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The lesson is clear: Personnel is policy.

    And I agree 100% with Mongo's Rule of Modern Politics that proposals by Democrats like Elizabeth Warren are always good and should be adopted without complaint by her party mates both in and out of government.

    1. Dem voters voting for Ds does not require thinking any given candidate is perfect just by virtue of being a D. Most of us do vote for less than perfect Ds because the alternative is to support the whole truly horrendous GOP agenda either by voting R, not voting for the D or voting write in or third party, all of which can help an R win. Those are our options. Pick whichever one you want. But what you say about those who pick the option of voting for the D is ridiculous.

      1. The proprietors of Colorado Pols, I would have to say 99.9% Jason Bane, call this a "politics" blog, mostly to the effect of keeping things on the trivial side and being able to note the non-stop infantile actions of Republicans and Conservatives, and of protecting their status within the Professional Left as consultants or whatever to Democrats. 

        But, they also in effect innoculate D's from their stupid political and policy initiatives, which is probably good for business and this blog, but is almost surely bad for Democrats here – and moreso the ones who go to DC, who are so subsumed by the conventional wisdom there that they forget what the heck people are like back here in little ol' CO. 

        It's stupid and should be the bane of what this blog is trying to do rather than it's stated goal.

        1. Zap – if this isn't a politics blog, what do you call it?

          Also, I think that our Democratic officials would be surprised to find that Colpols supposedly "inoculates them against their stupid political and policy initiatives. "

          I haven't seen much inoculatin' for Udall, Bennet, Hickenlooper, Giron, Polis, Degette, or many others. Is it your opinion that a little criticism on Coloradopols is a bulwark against electoral defeat? Otherwise, I don't understand your "inoculating" reference.

          But you do have a point about our elected officials in DC forgetting about how progressive their constituents really are.They do tend to represent their donors, as opposed to their constituents.

           

  3. 1) A lot of people need to go to prison over the Flint tragedy with Snyder at the top of the list. 

    2) What do righties always say about any law enforcement shooting of even a completely unarmed black kid? If you don't comply with police demands whatever happens is your own fault. If an unarmed black kid gets scared enough to run away from police and the police shoot the kid in the back multiple times, that's fine and anyone who says it isn't is endangering our always heroic, never at fault law enforcement officers. If that's fine with them than an armed Finicum who has declared mutiple times that he will not allow himself to be arrested getting himself shot while reaching into his jacket in a confrontation with law enforcement following a failed attempt to flee should be more than fine.

  4. Will Trump's rivals jump all over this? 

    A Saudi prince may have just beaten Donald Trump at a game of Twitter trolling.

    Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said on Twitter that he's bailed the billionaire out twice — and suggested the GOP presidential frontrunner might need his help a third time.

    The exchange was initiated by Trump, who had retweeted a badly Photoshopped image showing the prince with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, calling him a co-owner of the network: 

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/saudi-prince-alwaleed-donald-trump_us_56aafa72e4b0010e80e99806

     

    1. Maybe the Prince isn't lying about Trump needing another bale out. Does this sound like a something a gazillionaire would demand? A measly 5 mill? Come to think of it, how many multi-billionaires have the time to take from their business interests to star in TV reality shows for years. Is it all flim flam? 

      http://elink.thedailybeast.com/click/6004363.80473/aHR0cDovL3d3dy50aGVkYWlseWJlYXN0LmNvbS8_dmlhPW5ld3NsZXR0ZXImc291cmNlPUNTQU1lZGl0aW9u/4e557871e018bee76c36ab9cB5ff1c728http://elink.thedailybeast.com/click/6004363.80473/aHR0cDovL3d3dy50aGVkYWlseWJlYXN0LmNvbS8_dmlhPW5ld3NsZXR0ZXImc291cmNlPUNTQU1lZGl0aW9u/4e557871e018bee76c36ab9cC5ff1c728AMEDITION29Jan

      1. QUID PRO QUOFox: Trump Wanted $5M to Be in Debate Fox News reports Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump asked the TV network for $5 million in exchange for appearing in Thursday night’s debate. Trump had ditched the GOP event in favor of his own “Special Event to Benefit Veterans Organizations”—which he claimed had raised $6 million for his foundation while overshadowing the debate in the process. The network said in a statement, “Trump offered to appear at the debate upon the condition that Fox News contribute $5 million to his charities. We explained that was not possible and we could not engage in a quid pro quo, nor could any money change hands for any reason.”

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