► Meg Wingerter of The Denver Post updates Colorado’s battle with the COVID-19 pandemic:
Colorado is making progress beating back the coronavirus, but residents likely will need to keep wearing masks and practicing social distancing into the summer, a member of the state’s COVID-19 modeling team said Monday.
Overall, the news is good as January comes to a close, though virus-related hospitalizations aren’t dropping as fast as they were a few weeks ago, said Beth Carlton, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at Colorado School of Public Health.
The percentage of COVID-19 tests coming back positive fell below 5% last week, indicating there probably weren’t large numbers of undetected cases, though it popped above that threshold again Sunday.
“Colorado is in a good place compared to our neighbors,” Carlton said.
This is certainly encouraging, though being better than Wyoming, Kansas, and Nebraska is a pretty low bar.
Elsewhere, Colorado Public Radio reports on a new toll-free number for COVID-19 vaccine information in Colorado: 1-877-CO-VAX-CO or 1-877-268-2926. CBS4 Denver has more on a mass vaccination effort at Coors Field in Denver.
► As POLITICO reports, big investors are trying to get through to Congressional lawmakers about the fallacy of worrying over the national debt:
The debt poses no imminent danger to U.S. finances, they say, so the more pressing concern should be jump-starting the economy to avoid the type of sluggish recovery that persisted for years following the Great Recession.
“Without further action, we risk a longer, more painful recession now — and long-term scarring of the economy later,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told senators last week at her confirmation hearing.
The U.S. government spent its way to a record-busting $3.1 trillion budget deficit in fiscal 2020 — and that was before Congress passed another $900 billion coronavirus relief package in December. But interest rates have barely budged from their rock-bottom levels, signaling that investors — the people who actually finance the debt — aren’t the least bit concerned about all that government borrowing.
More than a decade of historically low rates, coupled with surging demand for safe investments like U.S. Treasury bonds, ensure that Biden can probably spend as much as he wants to revive the pandemic-battered economy and concentrate on the debt later, despite new alarms being raised by Republicans in particular.
In other words, Republicans who are suddenly worried about the national debt again should go back to pretending that Donald Trump is President.
More political (and coronavirus) news is available right after the jump…
As Promised, More Words…
► The Aurora Sentinel reports on the failure of two new immigration policy proposals in the City of Aurora:
A majority of Aurora lawmakers narrowly shot down twin plans to protect immigrants from deportation during an hours-long and emotional city council meeting Monday night.
As in previous study sessions, Mayor Mike Coffman and five lawmakers voted against the plans. One bill would have limited cooperation between local police and immigration authorities, building off an existing policy, and create “safe spaces” for immigrants in city buildings; the other would have created a legal defense fund for indigent immigrants facing deportation hearings in court.
► Chris Cillizza of CNN looks at the partisan political trouble facing Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney after the Republican backed impeaching Donald Trump.
► CBS4 Denver reports on the delivery to the Senate of one article of impeachment against former President Trump. Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Denver) and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Boulderish) are among the House Members who will ultimately prosecute the case in front of the U.S. Senate; that trial is expected to begin the week of February 8.
►The Colorado Sun reports on one happy reaction in Colorado to news that President Biden had repealed a Trump-era ban on allowing transgender Americans to enlist in the military.
► If nitty gritty details about the state budget really get your gears spinning, then you’re in luck! The Denver Post explains how to participate in Colorado’s budget sausage making.
► As 9News reports, the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol prompted some 4,600 Colorado Republicans to drop their GOP voter affiliation.
► The Colorado Sun has more on Colorado’s efforts to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada:
On Monday, the state released an “invitation to negotiate,” seeking potential vendors who will help pull the importation program together. The state is looking for a company to assist with administration of the program, as well as a wholesaler in Canada to export the drugs and an importer in the United States to make sure the drugs meet safety standards and distribute them.
Interested companies have until April 26 to apply. If all goes according to plan, the state will submit the program for federal approval in the fall, and it will be up-and-running beginning in 2023.
“Everything that we do will color inside the lines and follow the protocols established by the (Food and Drug Administration) and the feds,” said Kim Bimestefer, HCPF’s executive director. “… The quality will match the same protocols, but the prices will be dramatically different.”
► A Trump lackey apparently spent the weekend reassuring GOP Senators that the former President does not plan to move forward with creating a new political party of his own.
► As The Washington Post reports, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani will happily hawk snake oil if you’re offering to pay for his services:
Former congressman Denver Riggleman (R-Va.), who was endorsed by Trump but lost his reelection bid last year during a contentious GOP convention, said the case shows how Giuliani and other peddlers of vote-fraud falsehoods have taken “advantage of otherwise good people by pushing out mass amounts of disinformation to preselected echo chambers.”
Riggleman noted that channels devoted to conspiracy theories and extremist movements, such as QAnon, routinely sell apocalypse-preparation supplies and seek political donations while riling up viewers about the imminent dangers of the “deep state,” Democrats or other perceived enemies.
“This is the largest conspiratorial grift in United States history,” Riggleman said. “The grift they monetized eventually became weaponized.”
► Right-wing critics of all things government related love to say that shutdown orders are killing small businesses. Actual science has proven otherwise.
► Don’t miss the latest episode of The Get More Smarter Podcast, where hosts Jason Bane and Ian Silverii lament that Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Rifle) is as bad as they thought she would be:
Don’t forget to give Colorado Pols a thumbs up on Facebook and Twitter.
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6 thoughts on “Get More Smarter on Tuesday (January 26)”
Gaetz and Boebert on Fox. You gotta think Rupert is smelling the potential of the bs this dynamic duo could poop out on an hourly basis. What better tools to win the ratings war with OANN and NewsMax?
“I guess they’ve caught us,” Gaetz joked. “Lauren Boebert‘s leading recon tours for insurrectionists. I abducted the LindberghBaby. Jim Jordan knows what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. And Devin Nunes was on the grassy knoll.”
I don't think of Gaetz as a zenith in anything other than stupidity…he's more like the RCA dog trying to figure out where the sound is coming from.
POTUS showing off his sense of humor (for the record White House Press Office released a summary of the call just before the press conference. The junior Doocy apparently couldn’t be bothered to read the transcript).
PETER DOOCY: Mr President, what did you talk to Vladimir Putin about?
Singh said that all parties had agreed to provide unanimous consent to the motion, which called on the Canadian government to “use all of available tools to address the proliferation of white supremacists and hate groups, starting with the immediate designating Proud Boys as a terrorist entity.”
January 26, 2021 09:40 AM UTC
6 Comments
Happy “
Gaetz and Boebert on Fox. You gotta think Rupert is smelling the potential of the bs this dynamic duo could poop out on an hourly basis. What better tools to win the ratings war with OANN and NewsMax?
I don't think of Gaetz as a zenith in anything other than stupidity…he's more like the RCA dog trying to figure out where the sound is coming from.
But things have gotten serious in the R House caucus.
Liz is shaming Gaetz for wearing makeup.
LOL (and 9 more Fortune 500's are saying 'no'):
Boycott Australia!!!!
Australia has sent the US the most insidious and dangerous of the foreign political interference campaigns …. Rupert Murdoch.
POTUS showing off his sense of humor (for the record White House Press Office released a summary of the call just before the press conference. The junior Doocy apparently couldn’t be bothered to read the transcript).
Meanwhile up North…
Canadian Lawmakers Vote Unanimously To Classify Proud Boys As White Supremacist Terror Organization