November 10, 2021 10:45 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Nov. 10)

• 14 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

On this day in 1775, the United States Marine Corps was established. 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 

► The Washington Post catches up on the COVID-19 problems spreading in the Mountain West:

At the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Tom Gonzales, director of public health in Colorado’s sixth-largest county, made a decision in mid-October that felt like a dismaying retreat in the battle against the coronavirus. He reinstated an indoor mask mandate.

It was not a popular move, but Gonzales felt he had no choice. In Larimer County, which stretches eastward from the Continental Divide to the high plains and encompasses the city of Fort Collins, hospitals were overwhelmed by a surge of covid-19 patients that began slowly in August, plateaued for a while — and then exploded unexpectedly once the leaves began to turn.

By the end of last week, the number of covid-19 patients in the county’s hospitals matched the peak in December 2020.

“Everyone was like, ‘No, not again, please,’ ” Gonzales said. “There’ve been lots of twists and turns in this pandemic where we’re really surprised — and this is the biggest surprise for me.”

Colorado’s current COVID-19 rates are trending upward even as the rest of the country is slowing down on the rate of infections. As The Denver Post reports, emergency measures are being reactivated in the state:

Colorado health officials reinstated “crisis standards of care” for hospital staffing Tuesday amid a surge in new COVID-19 infections and patients, a day after declaring the entire state at high risk from the virus.

The crisis standards, previously activated from April 2020 to February 2021, give hospitals and other providers a framework for stretching limited personnel, including how and when National Guard troops and even family members and volunteers can be used to free up medical staff.

They also provide legal cover if the care that hospitals can provide under the crisis standards isn’t what usually would be acceptable.

On Monday night, Colorado health officials declared the entire state a high-risk environment for COVID-19, saying all vaccinated adults now qualify for booster shots once enough time has elapsed since their original inoculation.

Vax (or boost) that thang up, people! All Colorado adults now qualify for a COVID-19 booster shot.

► Colorado Republican candidates either believe the 2020 election was fraudulent or they are too afraid of the GOP base to admit the truth. Either way, refusing to answer perhaps the most important question of 2022 is disqualifying. 

► Colorado Newsline and Colorado Public Radio explain how Colorado could benefit from billions of dollars through the new infrastructure deal.

► If you’re not sure where your beliefs might place you on the current political spectrum, you can take this Pew Research Study for more insight into yourself.

Click below to keep learning stuff…

And Now, More Words…

► Chris Cillizza of CNN tries to use maths to explain why former President Donald Trump still has an iron grip on the Republican party:

I’ve been continually baffled/amazed at how Trump has seemed to tighten his stranglehold over the party despite scads of evidence that make very clear that his presidential term was an unmitigated disaster for his side, electorally speaking. Any other person who presided over this much losing would be cast aside by a party desperate to move on. Instead, Trump is the unquestioned party head and frontrunner for the 2024 nomination.

All of which makes very little obvious sense. Unless, that is, you do a deep dive into the various strains of belief within the Republican Party — at which point it all starts to make some sense.

Which is exactly what Pew did — in its annual political typology survey…

…The data splits the Republican Party into four main buckets: “Faith & Flag Conservatives,” “Committed Conservatives,” “Populist Right” and “Ambivalent Right.”Of those groups, two are the largest with 23% of Republicans and Republican leaners each fitting into each bucket: “Faith & Flag Conservatives” and “Populist Right.”

Those two groups then comprise approximately half of all Republican voters. And their numbers dwarf those who Pew identifies as “Committed Conservatives” (18%) and the “Ambivalent Right” (13%).

 

► The New York Times has more details on a problem you are probably already familiar with: Rising inflation.

► As The Washington Post explains, latest Republican purity test is about opposing EVERYTHING that President Biden supports, regardless of whether it is good for the country or for a particular Member of Congress’s district:

Right-wing House Republicans enthralled by former president Donald Trump want to purge 13 of their GOP colleagues for the crime of voting for President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law — and siding with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in the process.

Alternately, those House Republicans, with Trump raging supportively from the sidelines, are looking to punish colleagues for giving Biden a much-needed policy and political victory. The law is something for Democrats to sell to voters as the country heads into a midterm elections cycle in which — history says — the president’s party can expect a drubbing.

Welcome to the latest Republican purity test of 2021. Once again, House Republican leaders must decide how to balance protecting their members against a desire to wring every political advantage possible from the volatile former president’s profound intraparty popularity.

Trump himself locked on to the question of even limited GOP cooperation with Biden months ago — on July 26, with the first of nine statements through Tuesday night denouncing any Republicans who went along with the president’s $1.2 trillion package.

► Governor Jared Polis is encouraging Congress to take up Rep. Ed Perlmutter’s legislation on marijuana banking changes. From a press release:

Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Governors of 21 states, Washington, D.C., Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands sent a bipartisan letter urging Congress to include legislation in the final 2022 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 that would allow states with legalized medical or adult-use cannabis to operate safely under the national banking system.

“It’s time for Congress to allow cannabis-related businesses to have better access to the banking system and operate with normal bank accounts,” said Governor Polis. “Thank you to Congressman Ed Perlmutter who has continually pushed for legislation to address this important issue. After years of cannabis being legal in a multitude of states, it is long overdue for cannabis businesses to finally financially operate alongside other businesses in the open national banking system.”

► As The Associated Press reports, Climate Change mitigation discussions are targeting coal:

Governments are considering calling for pulling the plug on coal power, the single biggest source of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, according to a draft deal under negotiation in U.N. climate talks.

The draft released Wednesday at the talks in Glasgow, Scotland, calls for accelerating “the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels,” though it sets no timeline.

The early version of the final document also expresses “alarm and concern” about how much Earth has already warmed and urges countries to cut carbon dioxide emissions by about half by 2030. Pledges so far from governments don’t add up to that frequently stated goal.

“Alarm and concern” is better than “general indifference.”

► Congressman Ken Buck (R-Greeley) is sponsoring legislation that would require Internet and social media companies to explain their algorithms to you.

► Governor Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser are promoting a new program intended to help the formerly-incarcerated find jobs.

► A new study shows that viewers of Fox News are much more inclined to believe complete bullshit than their peers.

► As The Denver Post reports, many Denver Metro area school districts are reducing class schedules or moving learning online in order to deal with staffing shortages.

Say What, Now?

Congressperson Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert might need to hire some new comedy writers:

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► As POLITICO reports, the battle over Daylight Saving Time is heating up — with two prominent activists illustrating the deepening rift:

That these two men could be at such bitter odds is both a microcosm of the current bare-knuckled nature of politics and an illustration of how even the debate over switching the time on the clock has become more mainstreamed and polarizing in recent years. Once largely the purview of agriculture and public health officials, the daylight saving vs. standard time argument has since gone from a topic of internet bemusement to the purview of state and federal lawmakers.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is sponsoring legislation to make daylight saving time permanent across the country, though there is no indication that the bill is going to see…wait for it…daylight anytime soon.

► A leading Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania says that women once relied on men to protect them from dinosaurs:

Trump-endorsed PA Senate candidate @SeanParnellUSA is in court today facing domestic abuse allegations from his ex-wife. Hear his views on women below: pic.twitter.com/DmiNm4DAOU

— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) November 9, 2021

ICYMI

► Should you make online videos depicting Republicans literally murdering Democrats? This isn’t something we should even have to discuss, but here we are.

► The NRA is gross. Here’s more proof:

Dark money is dangerous to our democracy.

And it’s not just Congress. Here’s how it operates and influences the Supreme Court:https://t.co/XKGehQT06R

— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) November 8, 2021

► This week on The Get More Smarter Podcast, hosts Jason Bane and Ian Silverii talk with Erik Maulbetsch of The Colorado Times Recorder and try to understand the new trend of conspiracy-believing Colorado Republican candidates:

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