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October 09, 2015 11:15 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Friday (Oct. 9)

  • 1 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

MoreSmarterLogo-300x218Today is Leif Erickson Day, apparently. Go Vikings! 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…

► While everybody wouldn’t mind getting a little More Smarter, it would be hard to get More Dumber than Jefferson County School Board President Ken Witt. On Thursday, Witt held a press conference in Lakewood to make a “big announcement,” presumably about something that had to do with the Jeffco School Board recall election. As it turned out, Witt wanted to alert the media that he was filing an ethics complaint…against himself…and he didn’t even do that correctly.

If Witt’s goal was to really anger the local media, he succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. If not, the only thing Witt managed to do was make an impressive case for his own recall, while generating one of the weirdest headlines in recent memory.

 

► We’re gonna need a bigger thesaurus to adequately explain the complete mess that Republicans have made of Congress. Just moments before an official vote was scheduled on Thursday to select new leadership in Congress, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy abruptly withdrew his name from consideration for the next Speaker of the House — throwing the entire institution into an entirely new level of chaos. The quote of the day comes from Wall Street, where a representative from Guggenheim Securities called Thursday “the political equivalent of a dumpster fire.”

Many Republicans are trying to convince Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan to run for Speaker, though he continues to resist the siren call of what has become one of the shittiest jobs in Washington.

 

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Local activists are planning a march and rally in advance of the Oct. 28 Republican Presidential debate in Boulder that they say could draw 10,000 people. From Sarah Kuta of the Boulder Daily Camera:

The Oct. 28 demonstration, called “Our Future, Our Choice: March for Civic Engagement,” begins at the Glen Huntington Bandshell in Boulder’s Central Park and ends at the Coors Events Center, where Republican candidates will be sparring with each other during a live television broadcast.

The activists are planning to use CU’s Business Field, which is across Regent Drive from the arena, for post-march activities and displays.

 

► “I’m never getting out.” So says famous rich person Donald Trump about possible scenarios in which he would exit the Republican race for President. Given that Trump remains the overwhelming frontrunner on the GOP side, we’re not sure why he would entertain exiting the race, either.

 

George W. Bush.
George W. Bush.

► Republican Presidential candidate Jeb! Bush is bringing his brother to Colorado for a fundraiser on Oct. 18.

No, not Neil Bush. Former President George W. Bush will appear at the Martin Museum Residence at the Denver Art Museum to raise money for Jeb!

 

► Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is still a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination, but his campaign has been so terrible that some Republicans are now urging him to drop out to focus on re-election to his Senate seat in 2016. From Politico:

D.C. Republicans think Paul’s poll numbers have flat-lined — and operatives worried about retaining control of the Senate are ready for him to start spending a lot more time in Kentucky and a lot less time in Iowa and New Hampshire.

“This presidential dream needs to come to an end,” said a national Republican strategist, granted anonymity to discuss Paul’s situation candidly. “Senate Republicans can’t afford to have a competitive race in Kentucky.”

Paul, however, is showing little sign of giving up. Even with poll numbers so low that he might not appear on the main stage for the third GOP debate and his fundraising slowing to a crawl, Paul has a message for those who say it’s time to suspend his run for the White House and focus on his Senate reelection: I can handle both.

Paul says he can “handle both” races at the same time, and who are we to argue? We suppose most people could continue their day job while simultaneously not running a competitive campaign for President.

 

Don't recognize this guy? Neither do 86% of Colorado voters.
Don’t recognize this guy? Neither do 86% of Colorado voters.

► There are plenty of reasons why Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler decided to bow out of the race for U.S. Senate in 2016, and the Colorado Statesman reports on yet another checkmark in the “Don’t Run” column. Despite widespread publicity over the Aurora Theater Shooting trial, the Statesman reports on polling that shows Brauchler’s name ID was pretty awful:

Asked for their impression of the fair-haired prosecutor, 6 percent said they thought favorably about him and 4 percent held unfavorable thoughts. Five percent had no opinion. And then — wait for it — a full 86 percent said they’d never heard of the guy.

Now, running for a hotly contested U.S. Senate seat — rumor has it Bennet will be targeted, if the GOP can find the right candidate — can introduce a candidate to state voters in a big way. And in a race that’s estimated to cost both sides, when all is said and done, in the $100 million range, it’s unlikely anyone with a TV set or digital device in the state will be in the dark about next year’s Senate contenders.

But 86 percent? That’s a heaping helping of anonymity to make up from a standing start, our sage politicos tell us.

Yikes! Maybe he should change his last name to “Brauchenlooper” before he considers running for higher office.

 

► State Sen. Ray Scott (R-Grand Junction) says that he is indeed considering making a bid for U.S. Senate in 2016. Here’s what Scott had to say to Ernest Luning of the Colorado Statesman:

“Can I win a primary? I’ve won it before,” he said. “I’m fairly confident I could do that.”

Everybody knows that winning a State Senate primary is pretty much the same thing as winning your Party’s nomination for U.S. Senate. That’s kind of like saying you could win a Gold Medal in the Olympics because you’re the fastest guy in your neighborhood.

 

► So, um, can anybody provide some clarity for the 80,000 Coloradans who have health insurance plans under Colorado HealthOP?

 

► Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Kelly Brough hopes for bold action when Colorado’s first-ever water plan is released at the end of the year.

 

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Students at the University of Colorado continue to push for more ticket availability to the Oct. 28 Republican Presidential debate in Boulder. Jason Salzman asks why CNBC is “running cover” for the Republican National Committee on the controversy.

 

► So, remember that Congressional investigation into allegations that Planned Parenthood was selling baby parts? Well, it didn’t turn out so well, as Salon reports:

As if truth-telling worked out so well for his colleague Kevin McCarthy, Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz has just admitted that the GOP’s investigation into Planned Parenthood’s misuse of federal funds turned out to be a dud.

“Did I look at the finances and have a hearing specifically as to the revenue portion and how they spend? Yes. Was there any wrongdoing? I didn’t find any,” Huffington Post’s Jennifery Bendery reports the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman admitted during yet another hearing on Thursday.

Does that mean Republicans are going to stop shaking their fists about Planned Parenthood. Of course not.

ICYMI

► We’ve all got a front-row seat to the beginning of the end of the Republican Party in the United States, according to Erick Erickson in a column for FOX News.

 

 

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Comments

One thought on “Get More Smarter on Friday (Oct. 9)

  1. Being in the belly of the Conservative Beast, the CS Indy keeps its political coverage quite demure, but even they have noticed the trashed roads that came by way of an anti-tax, anti-governing junta run by the Koch Brothers and their "Americans" for "Prosperity"

    Upon learning about Colorado Springs’ steadfast refusal to spend money on basic municipal infrastructure, cyberpunk author William Gibson once called the city a “snapshot of the USA as newly third world.” 

    Five years later, it’s becoming clear that the Koch Brothers are eager to keep it that way, both here and across the country.

    “Whether it’s the City Hall of Colorado Springs, or the halls of Congress — you should not be able to buy America’s democracy,” declared Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid earlier this week from the Senate floor.

    Reid then proceeded to quote from a Washington Post article by Springs-based journalist Corey Hutchins, headlined “The potholes of Colorado Springs draw the attention of Koch brothers’ group.” The story details how Americans For Prosperity, a right-wing advocacy group funded by the two billionaire industrialists, is fighting the city’s ballot initiative to increase the sales tax for road improvements. 

    The article also reports that 60 percent of the city’s roads are “in disrepair, cracked and rutted.”

    You can bet Charles and David Koch travel on only the smoothest roads, and land and take off from only the smoothest private runways.  

    Nancy Pelosi put it in even starker terms:

    "This all comes down to the fact that the Republicans in Congress, if you take some of the issues we talked about, are anti-governance—not government. […] The degree of government has been the debate in our country for a couple hundred years. How much government? How much federal, how much local and state? So that's a legitimate place of where you are on the spectrum. But anti-governance—shut it down and celebrate—that is unacceptable. And President Washington, as he was leaving office, cautioned against political parties of which were at war with their own government.

    And that's really what we're seeing evidence of now—a political party at war with its own government."

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