October 06, 2015 11:09 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Tuesday (Oct. 6)

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• by: Colorado Pols

Today is National [FILL IN THE BLANKS] Day! 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…

► Whose down with TPP? Negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement have reached a conclusion, as Aldo Svaldi reports for the Denver Post:

The conclusion of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership early Monday brought out both supporters and detractors of the largest trade pact since the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The trade agreement among the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile and eight Pacific Rim countries is expected to boost Colorado exports and increase foreign direct investment in the state, supporters argue…

…But manufacturers, along with labor and environmental groups, have been among the most vocal critics of the proposed partnership.

Colorado Senator Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) has publicly supported the TPP, while Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Denver) has been largely noncommittal.

 

► Wind up the rhetoric machine! Two more members of Colorado’s Congressional delegation are up in arms about a proposal to transfer some prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to federal prisons in Colorado. Congressmen Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado Springs) and Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) are upset about the possibility that “terrorists” could be transferred to Colorado prisons. From Rebecca Kheel at The Hill:

“The people of Colorado do not want the world’s worst terrorists housed in our own backyard, and we will not stand for this,” Rep. Doug Lamborn said in a written statement. “I will do everything in my power to resist these unlawful terrorist transfers from taking place.”

The Pentagon confirmed Friday that in the next few weeks it will visit two Colorado prisons to assess possibly transferring Guantanamo detainees. The prisons are Colorado State Penitentiary near Canon City and the Federal Correctional Institute in Florence.

President Obama has been working to close the military facility at Guantanamo Bay to keep a promise from his first campaign for president. But the administration has struggled to find a place to house those who are considered too dangerous to be transferred to other countries…

 

Congressman Coffman says that he will do “everything I can to stop” a potential transfer, which should be comforting to those who support President Obama’s idea; whenever Coffman starts getting all fiery about something, a long period of inaction usually follows.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Colorado’s health insurance cooperative, Colorado HealthOP, could be in some financial trouble after the federal government announced a much larger reduction in funding than had been anticipated. From Peter Marcus at the Durango Herald:

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Thursday that health cooperatives will receive only about 12.6 percent of the funding that was requested to stay afloat.

It’s unclear just how much Colorado’s cooperative, Colorado HealthOP, needed to stay solvent. But officials with the provider said it certainly needed more than 12.6 percent, given evidence that it takes at least three years to build risk-based capital.

“The worst part is that the administration was saying up until a week ago we’re going to make good on our obligations. If we had known earlier that it was going to be 12.6 percent, we could have planned for that, and now we just find ourselves scrambling,” said Julia Hutchins, executive director of Colorado HealthOP.

So far, Colorado HealthOP has received $72 million in federal low-interest loans. Hutchins said the nonprofit was on track to show positive net income going into next year, positioning itself to pay back the funds.

The cooperatives stem from the Affordable Care Act. The idea at the time was to establish co-ops as a means to compete in the insurance marketplace, thereby potentially lowering the price of premiums for consumers.

► The official Twitter account of the Republican State Senate apparently thinks it is hee-larious to call people who were worried about Hurricane Joaquin “extreme weather hucksters.” Less hilarious are the dozens of deaths and the gazillions in damages caused by severe rain on the Southeastern coast of the United States.

► KNUS radio host Dan Caplis says he’s “very serious” about a potential 2016 Senate campaign. Whatever. Caplis has claimed to be interested in running for U.S. Senate in every Colorado election in the last decade.

► The Colorado Republican Party finally has an Executive Director and a Political Director…and it’s the same person. Ryan Lynch will take over the top paid leadership role with the State Party, according to an announcement from GOP Chair Steve House.

► Some 230 activists from around the country rallied in Denver on Monday to voice their concerns about fracking. Bruce Finley has the story for the Denver Post:

A group called Coloradans Resisting Extreme Energy Development has declared the COGCC illegitimate and is developing ballot initiatives including a statewide fracking ban. Oil and gas companies have drilled more than 53,000 wells statewide and left  more than 47,000 inactive well sites where land is being restored.

“It’s the scale of these operations that has changed the game for us,” said schoolteacher Anne Harper, who lives in Weld County between Longmont and Erie, where Encana is considering new wells. The threat of noise and truck traffic forced her family to put farming on hold.

► The ballots are coming! The ballots are coming! Josie Klemaier of YourHub takes a look at the municipal races in Golden, Colorado.

► The Big Orange will officially resign from Congress at the end of this month, but outgoing House Speaker John Boehner is playing a significant role in crafting the leadership roles of his successors.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► The solution to preventing mass shootings in the United States is not to try to make sure that there are more guns available for citizens to “save the day.” As Politico reports, there is little truth to the idea that armed civilians prevent or stop mass shootings:

The canard of the armed civilian mass-shooting hero is perpetuated by exaggerations and half-truths…

…I asked Dr. Peter Langman, a clinical psychologist and author of the book School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators, whether the presence of guns is a factor rampage shooters consider when they plan their attacks.

“I don’t think it is. Many of these shooters intend to die, either by their own hand or by suicide by cop. There was an armed guard at Columbine. There were armed campus police at Virginia Tech. The presence of armed security does not seem to be a deterrent,” Langman said. “Because they’re not trying to get away with it. They’re going in essentially on a suicide mission.”

Langman points out another reason shooters might attack places like schools, theaters and churches. It’s not the absence of guns, but rather the abundance of victims. “If you’re going to do an act like this, you need a certain number of people in one space.”

 

► At Least She’s Not Your County Commissioner.

ICYMI

► Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has chosen her “Colorado leadership team” and is starting to make more noise on specific policy issues.

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