June 15, 2020 11:32 AM UTC
Get More Smarter on Monday (June 15)
2 Comments- by: Colorado Pols
Happy Global Wind Day. Please celebrate responsibly. Now, let’s 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 an audio/visual learner, check out The Get More Smarter Show or The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter.
BECAUSE CORONAVIRUS…
*Colorado Coronavirus info:
CDPHE Coronavirus website
*Daily Coronavirus numbers in Colorado:
http://covid19.colorado.gov
*How you can help in Colorado:
COVRN.com
*Locate a COVID-19 testing site in Colorado:
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
► The Washington Post reports on a monumental Supreme Court ruling today:
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal anti-discrimination laws protect gay and transgender employees, a major gay rights ruling written by one of the court’s most conservative justices.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court’s liberals in the 6 to 3 ruling. They said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination “because of sex,” includes LGBTQ employees.
“Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear,” Gorsuch wrote. “An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”
Gorsuch and Roberts were joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
► The Colorado legislature will wrap up the 2020 session today, and it looks like a police reform bill will be the main takeaway of the session restart. From The Denver Post:
Colorado passed one of the most comprehensive police reform packages in the country Saturday, setting limits on police use of force and mandating data collection to make sure cops who are fired from one agency don’t get rehired by another.
Gov. Jared Polis has said he will sign the historic bill into law once it reaches his desk.
“This is, in my estimation, the largest single advancement of individual civil rights and liberties for Coloradans in a generation,” said Denver civil rights attorney Qusair Mohamedbhai.
Among the biggest changes, Colorado’s Senate Bill 217 bans the use of chokeholds and carotid control holds, limits when police are allowed to shoot at a fleeing person and requires officers to intervene in cases of excessive force or face criminal charges. The bill requires all officers to use body-worn cameras and departments to release the footage within 45 days, and it allows for officers to be held personally liable for civil rights violations.
Colorado lawmakers have a few more items on their agenda for Monday before the adjourn for the year. Colorado Public Radio and The Denver Post take a look at other important decisions made over the weekend.
► The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has withdrawn its approval of an anti-malaria drug touted by President Trump as a treatment for COVID-19.
► Dear Leader Trump is trying to convince everyone that he is NOT the wobbly old man that he appeared to be while visiting West Point over the weekend. As Chris Cillizza explains for CNN, Trump has turned his health into a story — wobbling at the podium and shuffling meekly down a ramp afterward — because of his own past actions.
Trump claimed on Twitter that he was just being careful in descending a ramp because it was slick from rain that didn’t exist:
If you’re looking for political news that isn’t about Coronavirus, it’s available right after the jump…
NOW ONLY PARTIALLY CORONAVIRUS-RELATED…
► The Colorado legislature passed a bill outlawing “gay panic” as a defense in cases of violence perpetrated against members of the LGBTQ community.
► Colorado Public Radio breaks down the cuts made to the state budget in order to manage a $3.3 billion revenue shortfall.
► Senator Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) is in full greenwashing mode, but he still won’t support the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy act (CORE).
► Alex Burness of The Denver Post reports on passage of legislation intended to improve Colorado’s low vaccination rates:
After failing in a similar attempt last year, the legislature gave final approval Saturday to a bill aimed at improving Colorado’s worst-in-the-nation childhood vaccination rates.
As soon as Gov. Jared Polis signs the bill — he has said he would — it will become law. Lawmakers considered writing a provision into the bill that would allow opponents to petition for a repeal measure on the ballot, which might have delayed the bill’s implementation, but they decided against that Saturday.
The bill preserves the rights of parents to receive exemptions for public school students, but it requires them to either obtain a note from a doctor stating there is a medical reason, or, in the case of parents who have religious or ideological reservations, take an online education course about vaccine science. Parents who home-school their children will still be able to get exemptions simply by writing notes to their local school districts.
This standards in the bill are slightly tougher than the current ones. Parents here have been able to exempt their children from vaccination simply by putting a statement of exemption into writing and handing it to school administration.
► Jesse Paul of The Colorado Sun looks at how support fell apart for a bill intended to give victims of child sex assault additional time to confront their abusers.
► The November ballot will include a measure for a nicotine/vaping tax as well as a request to repeal The Gallagher Amendment. We discussed the plot to kill the Gallagher Amendment earlier this month.
► Colorado Republicans will not have a candidate on the ballot in the race for a seat on the University of Colorado Board of Regents in District 7.
► State lawmakers were unable to come to agreement on legislation intended to extend a moratorium on evictions in Colorado.
► The Colorado legislature may approve a proposal to put a cigarette and vaping tax on the ballot in November.
► President Trump will hold a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday. Health officials both locally and nationally are very concerned about the idea.
► Colorado tourism officials are encouraging people to visit the state…with the proper COVID-19 precautions.
► As Moe Clark writes for The Colorado Sun, the Front Range needs better air:
Metro Denver ranks 10th among most ozone-polluted cities in the country, according to the American Lung Association. Fort Collins is ranked No. 19.
Colorado has been making progress to clean up its air over the past decade by enacting stricter oil and gas regulations and automobile emissions standards, but the Front Range is still out of federal compliance for ozone standards –– and has been since 2012.
The state has until June 2021 to meet a ground-level ozone compliance deadline of 75 parts per billion standard set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and though air quality improved during the months of March, April and May in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the state is still unlikely to meet the deadline.
► 9News reports on a more subdued (thanks to COVID-19) Juneteenth celebration in Denver.
► Denver’s Stapleton neighborhood is finally going to change its name, which had been a salute to former Denver Mayor Benjamin Stapleton (who was also a noted Ku Klux Klan supporter).
In related news, Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction is renaming an athletic field that had been called “Walker Field” in memory of a local politician named Walker Walter who was also a prominent figure in the Ku Klux Klan.
► As POLITICO reports, state and local Republican officials believe that President Trump will be re-elected in “a landslide,” despite reams of data indicating otherwise.
Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
► At least he’s not your outrageously-racist legislator.
► This jackass in Loveland faces charges after holding two people at gunpoint who he believed to be “Antifa” members. It turns out the two men were just going door-to-door for a local roofing company.
ICYMI
► Vox.com breaks down the shooting death of a black man in Atlanta on Friday.
► In the latest episode of The Get More Smarter Podcast, polling guru and poker shark Andrew Baumann explains everything you ever wanted to know about political polling.
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(Bigger than Obama ’12, Clinton ’16, or Trump ’20 this month).
Biden and DNC raise over $80 million in May, their biggest monthly haul of 2020 race
Trump's symptoms are pretty consistent. There's the forward-leaning posture, limb weakness (cannot lift a glass with one arm), balance and gait problems (grasping podium to steady body, fear of stairs and inclines), disordered speech, slurring and disorganized tongue movements. Whatever the underlying disease processes, some portion of the symptoms are likely side effects from the medication used to manage his conditions. Other symptoms–the uncontrollable sniffing, for instance–are probably results of whatever drugs on which he is psychologically or physiologically dependent (amphetamine salts, cocaine, etc.).
Other portions are likely the effects of stimulants and depressants used to manage his mood and wakefulness throughout the day. The affect with which Trump delivered the West Point speech makes a person wonder how much benzodiazepine he took before arriving.
Leonid Brezhnev was kept alive (largely in husk form) for years via constant, extensive pharmaceutical interventions. Those interventions have gotten much better since Brezhnev's time, but they still aren't curative. The disease process worsens and ultimately prevails. We're seeing Trump's disease process(es) worsen.