July 23, 2019 10:55 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Tuesday (July 23)

• 11 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Because nobody knows more about Climate Change than Tyler Durden. 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…

► Remember when Republicans fancied themselves to be “fiscal conservatives”? That charade was exposed years ago, but on Monday night, President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell killed the idea once and for all. From the Washington Post:

Mitch McConnell told President Trump privately last month that no politician has ever lost an election for spending more money. That mind-set – caring more about the next election than the next generation – helps explain why the Senate majority leader and the president endorsed a budget deal last night, which still needs to pass Congress, that will raise spending limits by $320 billion while suspending the federal debt ceiling until after both men’s 2020 reelection fights. It also illustrates how hollow so much of the rhetoric from McConnell, Trump and other Republicans was during Barack Obama’s presidency.

Discretionary spending is growing at a faster clip under Trump than Obama. The budget deficit and the national debt are growing at even more distressing rates, however, because the Republican tax cuts have reduced revenue even more starkly than the dire forecasts. The Trump administration estimates the deficit this fiscal year will top $1 trillion, up from $779 billion last year. It was $587 billion in 2016, Obama’s last full year in office. The national debt was $19 trillion when Trump took power and surpassed $22 trillion this month. Even with rock-bottom interest rates, the federal government will pay out more than $350 billion this year to service that debt.

Predictably, Republican leaders are somehow trying to shift the blame to Democrats for this budget mess. But this paragraph in a separate Washington Post story makes clear that this decision came from the tippy top:

The agreement marks a significant retreat for the White House, which insisted just a few months ago that it would force Congress to cut spending on a variety of programs to enact fiscal discipline. Instead, the White House agreed to raise spending for most agencies, particularly at the Pentagon.

“We are, I think, doing very well on debt, if you look at debt limit, however you want to define that, but we’re doing very well on that and I think we’re doing pretty well on a budget,” said Trump on Monday. By any objective measure, we are totally not winning debt; quite the opposite, in fact. As Politico notes:

Candidate Trump bragged that he would pay off the entire federal debt in eight years, but President Trump is governing as if deficits don’t matter.

Make Deficits Great Again! As CNN’s Chris Cillizza writes, this budget deal marks the official death of the “Tea Party.”

► Vice President Mike Pence was in Windsor, Colorado on Monday for a fundraiser to benefit the 2020 re-election campaign of Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma). Notably absent from the fundraiser was Sen. Cory Gardner himself. Remember, Gardner has often said that he wrote in Pence’s name for President in 2016 instead of voting for Donald Trump.

As the Aspen Times reports, “absent” was a familiar theme for Pence’s fundraising tour in Colorado.

► In a surprise decision, a judge has ruled that a lawsuit challenging TABOR can in fact proceed. From Colorado Public Radio:

A nearly decade-old lawsuit against the Colorado Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights is back on, after a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling on Monday.

The 2011 lawsuit filed by elected officials, school administrators and others, argues that TABOR violates the U.S. Constitution’s directive for states to operate under a republican form of government…

…The case has been mired in years of arguments over whether the plaintiffs have standing to bring the suit. On Monday, a panel of 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judges said the lower U.S. District Court in Colorado erred in dismissing the case two years ago.

“This case is rife with difficult issues, and we applaud the district court for its attempts to ‘don waders’ and generate some cognizable structure out of the sludge,” the court’s majority wrote. “Nevertheless, we conclude that it could not properly reach its conclusions at this stage of litigation.”

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Boris Johnson and his terrible haircut will officially take over as the new Prime Minister of Britain. From the Associated Press:

Johnson resoundingly defeated rival Jeremy Hunt in the Conservative leadership contest, winning two-thirds of the votes in a ballot of about 160,000 party members across the U.K. He will be installed as prime minister Wednesday in a formal handover from Theresa May…

…“I say to all the doubters: Dude, we are going to energize the country, we are going to get Brexit done,” said Johnson in a brief speech on Wednesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has praised Johnson in the past, tweeted his congratulations and said he will be “great.”

Trump has been very critical of May’s inability to achieve a Brexit deal and has said Johnson will do a better job.

Well, hey, if Trump likes him…

► Those wonderful “molecules of freedom” are directly linked to a substantial increase in congenial heart defects in infants living near natural gas wells.

► Nobody likes being a political candidate more than Lakewood City Council Member Ramey Johnson, who has been running for one office or another in just about every election cycle this century. Johnson is once again seeking the job of Lakewood Mayor in 2019, and she’s touting the policies of one Tyler Durden in the process. As 9News reports:

Johnson is facing some criticism for sharing an article about climate change from a blog authored by someone posing as a fictional character from the movie “Fight Club.”

The article, from the blog Zero Hedge, was authored by someone posing as Tyler Durden, Brad Pitt’s character in the movie. It claims that a “bombshell” scientific study from Finland shows evidence that climate change is not necessarily man-made.

“I pushed it out to everybody on council and I had not vetted it,” Johnson said Monday. “And maybe I should have – that’s hindsight. I’ve certainly learned a lot since last week with this.”

Johnson admits that she “hadn’t read the entire article thoroughly,” but says there are “great things coming out of this” article by a fictional character.

► As Politico reports, President Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations hasn’t been all that interested in her current diplomatic post:

Kelly Craft spent the equivalent of seven months of her 20-month tenure as U.S. ambassador to Canada back in the United States in places where she had homes, according to findings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic staff…

…The issue of her absences took on greater significance because Craft, a political appointee with close ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, lacked the extensive diplomatic or political experience typical of a U.N. nominee.

Druing her confirmation hearing, Craft attributed much of her travel back to the United States to the demands of negotiating and promoting a revamped North American free trade pact. But Democrats found that only about 40 days of the 356 total days she spent partially or wholly outside of Canada were for trade negotiations. Moreover, the minority staff found that she had claimed 60 personal days away from the job.

► Former special counsel Robert Mueller will testify publicly before Congress on Wednesday, and the Justice Department is scrambling to put a muzzle on him.

► Colorado Congressional Democrats toured an ICE detention facility in Aurora on Monday. As the Aurora Sentinel reports, the contingent led by Rep. Jason Crow (D-Aurora) says the privately-run facility is not adequately staffed to deal with the medical needs of the inmates.

► State Rep. Tom Sullivan (D-Centennial) is blasting Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) for a weekend Tweet commemorating the anniversary of the Aurora Theater shootings. As Ernest Luning writes for the publication formerly known as the Colorado Statesman:

Said Gardner: “Twelve innocent lives were taken from us seven years ago today in the Aurora theater shooting. We remember those we lost, the many who were injured, and those still recovering. God bless our 1st responders. #AuroraStrong”

Sullivan’s son, Alex, was celebrating his 27th birthday the night of the shooting. He was one of the shooter’s 12 victims.

“Sir you are one of the reasons I ran for office,” Sullivan shot back. “You have refused to meet me when I have gone to your office in DC & Denver. When I stood in front of you at a town hall in CO. Springs you didn’t acknowledge my son. This is politicizing in the worst way. Colorado is better than this.”

A Gardner spokeswoman was asked for a comment in response to Sullivan’s comments about the senator but did not provide one.

► For the first time in seven months, the United States has an actual Secretary of Defense.

► Ivanka Trump was in Colorado on Monday to visit Lockheed Martin.

► Vaping is bad, people.

► The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is putting the brakes on Weld County’s efforts to exert some super-duper local control over oil and gas drilling.

► The new White House press secretary has pretty much nothing to say, as Politico reports:

Stephanie Grisham is operating under a basic principle as President Donald Trump’s new chief spokesperson and communications director: Let Trump soak up all the media oxygen.

She has not appeared on Fox News, the president’s favorite channel, or taken reporters’ questions in a gaggle from the White House driveway.

A press secretary who doesn’t actually talk to the press. Nice gig if you can get it.

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► Canada Geese Protection to Colorado is apparently a real organization. Sort of.

► Arapahoe County-ish District Attorney George Brauchler says that President Trump’s racist Tweets aren’t actually racist but are, in fact, well, this:

I didn’t see it as racist, I saw it as like an attack on their national origin or their perceived national origin.

Magnificent Putz, indeed.

ICYMI

► Recall efforts in Colorado have been fully and completely exposed.

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