August 26, 2021 10:08 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Thursday (August 26)

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• by: Colorado Pols

Teddy! 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 learner, check out The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter. 

CORONAVIRUS INFO…

*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 

*Coloradans can now get a COVID-19 vaccine at one of six locations without a prior appointment. 

► Now that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has received full approval from the FDA, Republicans are having a hard time trying to figure out where to stand on the issue of mandatory vaccinations. As The Washington Post explains:

In the days since the FDA’s authorization and Biden’s call, Republicans who have otherwise fought tooth and nail against vaccine mandates have been surprisingly quiet about the prospect of employer mandates. And the few who have spoken out have generally said employers should be allowed to implement them.

The issue has played out in recent weeks and months in a number of states, with some lawmakers pushing for bans on mandates. But unlike the party’s posture toward school mask mandates, government vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, there is little cohesion on this subject. So far, only one state bans employer vaccine mandates: Montana…

…[South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem] essentially said conservatives should give businesses the freedom to take this step. And that’s going to be a tough pill to swallow for a Republican base that has been spoon-fed anti-mandate rhetoric — often tinged with conspiracy theories — by its leaders for so long.

Supporting pre-emptive bans on vaccine mandates doesn’t really jibe with “conservative” ideals to leave private businesses alone to make their own decisions. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, however, is plowing ahead anyway.

► Congressperson Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert (R-ifle) is facing new calls for investigations related to her bizarre disclosure last week in which she apparently remembered that her husband, Jayson, gets paid a half-million dollars a year to “consult” for an oil and gas company.

► The redistricting process in Colorado is (finally) nearing its final stages. This is bad news for Republicans, who picked a terrible time to get caught breaking the law on lobbying disclosures.

In related news, Bente Birkland of Colorado Public Radio looks at how a supposedly nonpartisan redistricting process is being corrupted by partisanship:

Colorado’s new redistricting process was intended to replace politicians with independent commissioners, and party interests with public input. But recent developments show there are still plenty of ways for partisans to try to influence the process.

On Tuesday, Democratic attorney Mark Grueskin filed a complaint against three prominent Colorado Republicans — former state sen. Greg Brophy, former state House Speaker Frank McNulty, and Alan Philp with the Colorado Neighborhood Coalition — alleging that they have been trying to influence the state’s redistricting process without properly disclosing their efforts.

The complaint filed on behalf of a voter in Larimer county, alleges the men either failed to properly register as lobbyists while conducting meetings related to redistricting and proposing ideas for maps, or they didn’t disclose income.

► Colorado Republicans are trying to convince Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters to end her time on the lam and return to Colorado to face the music for allegedly compromising election security in a ham-handed attempt to prove some sort of 2020 election fraud. The Washington Post has more on how a nutty conspiracy theory is causing real-world security problems in Mesa County.

The office of Colorado’s Attorney General has joined in the investigation of Peters. The Colorado Secretary of State’s office, the Mesa County District Attorney, and the FBI are already looking into Peters’ misdeeds.

► Senator Michael Bennet (D-Denver) is touring Colorado and getting an earful from residents about Climate Change worries.

Meanwhile, Colorado Newsline’s Chase Woodruff reports that Bennet’s 2022 re-election campaign is cruising along with solid fundraising and little Republican opposition.

Click below to keep learning stuff…

And Now, More Words…

► Ezra Klein of The New York Times offers some wise words on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan:

To state the obvious: There was no good way to lose Afghanistan to the Taliban. A better withdrawal was possible — and our stingy, chaotic visa process was unforgivable — but so was a worse one. Either way, there was no hope of an end to the war that didn’t reveal our decades of folly, no matter how deeply America’s belief in its own enduring innocence demanded one. That is the reckoning that lies beneath events that are still unfolding, and much of the cable news conversation is a frenzied, bipartisan effort to avoid it.

Focusing on the execution of the withdrawal is giving virtually everyone who insisted we could remake Afghanistan the opportunity to obscure their failures by pretending to believe in the possibility of a graceful departure. It’s also obscuring the true alternative to withdrawal: endless occupation. But what our ignominious exit really reflects is the failure of America’s foreign policy establishment at both prediction and policymaking in Afghanistan.

► POLITICO reports that some U.S. troops may have been injured in air strikes conducted by ISIS at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

► Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eli Bremer seems to be focusing his campaign on a very narrow group of right-wing voters. As his campaign demonstrated on Wednesday, he is not trying to be taken seriously as a candidate who can actually win a General Election.

► As Colorado Public Radio reports, a Secret Service office in Denver warned colleagues in Washington D.C. about the potential for violence ahead of the January 6 insurrection.

► As Sandra Fish reports for The Colorado Sun, a dark money group called United for Colorado that is intended to assist Republican candidates faces the largest fine in state history for going out of its way to try to keep its donors a secret.

► Greg Sargent of The Washington Post writes that House Democrats may have gotten the better of Republicans on two big bills that could hurt GOP efforts to ram through more “minority rule.”

► Congressman Joe Neguse (D-Boulderish) introduced legislation that would allow the federal background check system to help identify underage firearm purchasers.

► The Colorado Sun looks at a marijuana tax increase on the November ballot that is quite a bit more complicated than it first appears.

► You DO NOT have a “constitutional right” to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine.

► As Seth Masket of the University of Denver writes for POLITICO, it’s unlikely that the U.S. withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan will ultimately prove to be a significant problem for Democrats in the mid-term elections.

► Governor Jared Polis says Colorado is still not at the point in the COVID-19 resurgence at which statewide mandates are necessary. Meanwhile, The Denver Post reports on how concerned health officials are about “breakthrough infections” in Colorado.

► Aurora Public Schools is mandating COVID-19 vaccines for all teachers and staff.

► The Denver Post looks at what the future may hold for K.P. Kaufman, an oil and gas drilling company facing $1.8 million in fines for multiple violations.

► The Martin Drake coal-fired plant in Colorado Springs will close up shop this week.

Say What, Now?

If the Denver Broncos don’t post a winning record in 2021, you know who Rep. Ken Buck (R-Greeley) is going to blame…

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► Doesn’t this also say a lot about Congressional Republicans?

► Maybe just stop comparing COVID-19 vaccines to the Holocaust, eh?

► Allies of Donald Trump are trying to gaslight Americans by pretending that the Trump Presidency was totally awesome.

ICYMI

► If you are on the same side as State Rep. Ron Hanks…then you might consider finding a new team.

► Maybe you CAN’T just get away with making ridiculous allegations that are completely devoid of proof whatsoever.

► This week on The Get More Smarter Podcast, Congressman Ed Perlmutter (D-Jefferson County) returns to discusss some of the big local projects being funded with federal dollars in Colorado…so long as your Member of Congress is a Democrat, apparently. 

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