January 31, 2017 10:08 AM UTC
Get More Smarter on Tuesday (January 31)
1 Comments- by: Colorado Pols
So long, January! 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). If you are more of a visual learner, check out The Get More Smarter Show.
TOP OF MIND TODAY…
► President Donald Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates on Monday for supporting the Constitution over the demands of the President. From the Washington Post:
In a news release, the White House said Yates had “betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States.” Trump named in her place Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Boente said he would enforce the president’s directive until he was replaced by Trump’s attorney general nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala)…
…The move came just hours after Yates ordered the Justice Department not to defend Trump’s immigration order, declaring in a memo that she was not convinced the order is lawful. Yates wrote that, as the leader of the Justice Department, she must ensure that the department’s position is “legally defensible” and “consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right.”
As Chris Cillizza writes for “The Fix,” the big story isn’t that Trump fired Yates — it’s how he went about it:
There’s no problem with the Trump White House disagreeing with the past administration’s stance on immigration. That is, of course, their right. But, again, the scorched-earth condemnation of Yates strikes me as rhetorically overboard and, dare I say it, not terribly presidential…
…What Trump’s statement, viewed broadly, teaches us — or, maybe, re-teaches us — is that this president sees only two kinds of people in the world: Loyal friends and disloyal, terrible enemies. Principled — or occasional — opposition is not part of that equation. You are either all the way for him or all the way against him. Black and white. No room for grays. [Pols emphasis]
And, thus, the reinvention of politicians such as Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma). The website FiveThirtyEight has come up with a nifty formula to track Congressional votes in the age of President Trump. Yes, that’s Gardner with a 100% “Trump Score.”
► Congressman Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) says President Trump’s Muslim travel ban is “an embarrassment.” From the Denver Post:
During a brief interview Monday at Reagan National Airport, Coffman said, “I certainly would agree with the president that Islamic terrorism is a real threat to our national security.
“But I think the policy was poorly thought-out and badly executed and I think it’s just an embarrassment,” he said. “It seemed that it was more crafted by campaign operatives than national security experts.”
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-Denver) also had strong words for Trump’s travel ban on Monday, saying that it “needlessly antagonizes our allies around the world.”
Elsewhere, Congressman Scott Tipton (R-Cortez) finally issued a statement about the travel ban that was just a nonsense word salad. Congressman Ken Buck (R-Greeley) remains the only member of Colorado’s delegation to refuse to comment on the travel ban.
► The Denver Post takes a look at Denver Judge Neil Gorsuch, who is reportedly a finalist to be named by President Trump to the Supreme Court. Trump is scheduled to announce his Supreme Court nomination this evening. The Boulder Daily Camera has more on the potential nomination of Gorsuch.
Get even more smarter after the jump…
IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…
► Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler was called out on Twitter by local reporter John Ferrugia for tossing out a strange partisan attack about a controversy with President Trump’s National Security Council.
► The Colorado Springs Gazette picks up on a Colorado Pols story Monday about Attorney General Cynthia Coffman considering a run for governor in 2018.
► Senate Democrats are forcing Republicans to delay several confirmation hearings for Trump administration appointments. From the Washington Post:
Republicans delayed indefinitely planned Senate committee votes on President Donald Trump’s picks to be Health and Treasury secretaries on Tuesday after Democrats boycotted the session and demanded more information on the two nominees’ past financial behavior.
The extraordinary and abrupt postponement came as congressional Democrats, in a confrontational mood over Trump administration actions, also used lengthy speeches at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting considering Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to be attorney general.
In an unusual and hastily called briefing for reporters, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee said they would not attend the panel’s planned votes until they could ask more questions about Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., the Health nominee and Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s Treasury selection, who they said had misled Congress about their backgrounds…
…Democrats cited one report in The Wall Street Journal that Price received a special, discounted offer to buy stock in a biomedical company, which contradicted his testimony to Congress.
► Of course she did…Besty DeVos, President Trump’s choice for Secretary of Education, appears to have plagiarized some of her written answers submitted to a Senate committee responsible for vetting her appointment. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions approved DeVos’ nomination anyway in a narrow 12-11 vote.
► Count Denver Mayor Michael Hancock among big city leaders around the country who aren’t backing down amid President Trump’s plans to crack down on so-called “sanctuary cities”:
“If being a sanctuary city means that our law enforcement officers are expected to do the work of federal immigration authorities, or violate the constitutional rights of any of our people, we reject that.”
Ernest Luning of the Colorado Statesman has more detail from Hancock.
► Senator Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) continues to attempt to defend his office’s disinterest/inability to handle constituent relations.
► Hundreds of people turned out in front of City Hall in Colorado Springs to protest President Trump’s decision to revive two stalled pipeline projects (Keystone and Dakota Access).
► The Durango Herald provides some important legislative updates.
► Congressional staffers secretly worked on President Trump’s travel ban order enacted over the weekend.
► The former White House counsel for President Richard Nixon believes that President Trump’s administration will end in “calamity.” From Politico:
John Dean, the lawyer the FBI described as “the master manipulator of the cover-up” in the Watergate scandal, took to Twitter on Monday night to describe Trump’s statement on Sally Yates, a Barack Obama appointee serving as acting attorney general, as “nasty” and a “new low.”…
…“The way the Trump presidency is beginning it is safe to say it will end in calamity,” Dean wrote. “It is almost a certainty. Even Republicans know this!”
OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK
► Colorado should have billions of dollars in its coffers thanks to revenue from oil and gas drilling. As Christopher Osher reports for the Denver Post:
Voters in Colorado opted for the status quo in 2008, rejecting competing efforts to use tax revenue from oil and gas production to pay for what backers called vital needs. They voted down one proposal to eliminate favorable energy industry tax deductions to pay for higher education scholarships and wildlife restoration and another plan to use existing revenues to build new highways.
Two years after the plans in Colorado collapsed at the polls, voters in North Dakota took the opposite approach and embraced radical change. They passed an initiative to set aside for future generations some of the tax revenue produced from the extraction of oil and gas. The Legacy Fund that North Dakota voters created in 2010 now has socked away more than $4 billion. This year, lawmakers in North Dakota will start debating how to spend the $300 million in interest earnings the fund is projected to generate annually.
And all we had to do was to approve collecting more reasonable severance taxes from oil and gas drilling operations. It didn’t bankrupt the industry in North Dakota.
► Okay, but where will we manufacture the bread crust?
ICYMI
► Here’s a good sports analogy for why opponents of President Trump shouldn’t wear themselves out too early.
TRUMP COUNTDOWN
► There are 3 years, 11 months, and 19 more days until the 2021 Presidential inauguration.
Don’t forget to check out The Get More Smarter Show. You can also Get More Smarter by liking Colorado Pols on Facebook!
Let the pillaging commence!
Republicans move to sell off 3.3m acres of national land, sparking rallies