February 25, 2019 10:23 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Monday (February 25)

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• by: Colorado Pols

“I can still see his lips coming straight for my face.” It’s time to “Get More Smarter.” 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…

► House Democrats are expected to vote on Tuesday on a measure rejecting President Trump’s “emergency declaration” for wall-building money. As the Washington Post reports, a gaggle of national security experts are giving Trump’s “emergency declaration” a big thumbs down:

A bipartisan group of 58 former senior national security officials will issue a statement Monday saying that “there is no factual basis” for President Trump’s proclamation of a national emergency to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The joint statement, whose signatories include former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former defense secretary Chuck Hagel, will come a day before the House is expected to vote on a resolution to block Trump’s Feb. 15 declaration.

The former officials’ statement, which will be entered into the Congressional Record, is intended to support lawsuits and other actions challenging the national emergency proclamation and to force the administration to set forth the legal and factual basis for it.

Here in Colorado, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) is catching well-deserved flak for waffling on whether or not he truly opposes Trump’s “emergency declaration.”

► Nobody can lower expectations quite like President Trump, as the Associated Press reports:

President Donald Trump will head into his second meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un having reframed what would make a successful summit, lowering expectations for Pyongyang’s denuclearization while eager to declare a flashy victory to offset the political turmoil he faces at home.

Trump was the driving force behind this week’s Vietnam summit, aiming to recreate the global spectacle of his first meeting with Kim, although that initial summit yielded few concrete results and the months that followed have produced little optimism about what will be achieved in the sequel. He once warned that North Korea’s arsenal posed such a threat to humanity that he may have no choice but to rain “fire and fury” on the rogue nation, yet on Sunday declared that he was in no hurry for Pyongyang to prove it was abandoning its weapons.

But…didn’t Trump already denuclearize North Korea?

► Former State House Speaker Crisanta Duran announced her campaign to challenge incumbent Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Denver) in 2020. Duran had been looking at a potential run for U.S. Senate, but she apparently decided that a Democratic Primary in Denver was her best political option.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► These are not words. You are reading numbers.

CNN’s Chris Cillizza marvels (and not in a good way) at another ridiculous lie from the Trump administration:

Which brings me to Sunday morning, when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sat down with CNN’s Jake Tapper to talk about, among other things, the coming summit. And this exchange happened:

TAPPER: Do you — do you think North Korea remains a nuclear threat?

POMPEO: Yes.

TAPPER: But the President said he doesn’t.

POMPEO: That’s not what he said.
I mean, I know — I know precisely…

TAPPER: He tweeted: “There’s no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”

POMPEO: Right. What — what he said is that the — what he said was that the efforts that had been made in Singapore, this commitment that Chairman Kim, may have substantially taken down the risk to the American people. It’s the mission of the secretary of state and the President of the United States to keep the American people secure. We’re aiming to achieve that.

TAPPER: OK. I mean, that’s just a direct quote, but I want to move on.

This Tweet does not exist. Do not click on this link — it is not real.

► Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and current Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Denver) were in Iowa over the weekend as both men move toward a run for President in 2020.

Colorado Public Radio has more on the travels of Hick and Bennet. 9News sits down with Bennet for an interview, while the Denver Post focuses more on Hickenlooper’s campaigning.

► Westword talks with State Sen. Brittany Pettersen (D-Lakewood) on the future of potential “safe injection sits” legislation. Pettersen says efforts to move a proposed bill in 2019 were derailed by misinformation:

What we saw happening was the perpetuation of misinformation and fear-mongering. Others were showing degrading videos of people who are at the end of their lives and the end of their disease — stigmatizing and shaming them.

That’s not a platform that I’m willing to give to people.

Unfortunately, I think this actually brought us backwards in our work in addressing the opioid epidemic. It’s painful because it’s people like my mom who have had a disease and should be treated with the empathy that they deserve. So it was really hard for me to back away from the bill, but some people made this their number-one target, and we fundamentally did not have the support on our side. And when I say support, I mean the ability to combat the misinformation and fear-mongering inside the Capitol and outside the Capitol.

► Colorado lawmakers are considering a bill to make it more difficult for parents to opt their children out of vaccinations for controllable diseases. From Denver7:

Colorado has the lowest rate of vaccinations in the nation, with less than 89 percent of kindergarteners receiving vaccinations to prevent illness such as measles and bumps — far less than the national average and 95 percent threshold needed to prevent an outbreak.

“To hear that we were last in the entire country was concerning, it was embarrassing,” said Rep. Kyle Mullica, D-Northglenn. “This is not a political issue, this is about our kids being safe.”

► Former CIA Director John Brennan is steaming about President Trump attacking former Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada):

You shame yourself & the Office of the Presidency every time you try to smear those who dedicate their lives to public service. These elected officials, like so many others, have worked selflessly on behalf of their fellow citizens, something unfamiliar to one as selfish as you. https://t.co/zqAIofpjSc

— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) February 25, 2019

Trump is sad about Reid’s interview with CNN on Sunday in which Reid did not say nice things about the President.

► As Politico reports, top Republican donors are voicing concerns that President Trump’s re-election campaign is light on strategy.

► The United States has introduced new sanctions against Venezuela.

► Top pharmaceutical company executives will be on Capitol Hill tomorrow, where they will attempt to defend ridiculous price increases for many prescription drugs.

► Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren claims that her campaign for President is cutting off direct access to major political donors.

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► Director Spike Lee won an Oscar and gave a speech that made President Trump sad. As the Associated Press reports, Trump went predictably overboard in his response:

Trump tweeted Monday that Lee did a “racist hit on your President.” Trump claimed that he had “done more for African Americans” than “almost” any other president.

Lee won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay Sunday for his white supremacist drama “BlacKkKlansman,” sharing the award with three co-writers.

► Sorry, President Trump, but Michael Cohen’s looming Congressional testimony is much more interesting than another “summit” with North Korean leaders. 

ICYMI

► Former Gov. John Hickenlooper, who will likely make a formal announcement of his campaign for President in the coming weeks, says he is not interested in running for U.S. Senate in 2020.

► WTF is a “signing summit“?

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