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FIRST UP…
► A mandatory recount in HD-16 (Colorado Springs) indicates that Republican Rebecca Keltie has defeated incumbent Democratic Rep. Stephanie Vigil by a three-vote margin. This may not be over, however; Vigil believes that the machine recount resulted in a tie, and that a canvass board decision appears to have moved three votes toward her opponent. If Keltie ends up being seated in the legislature, it means that Colorado Republicans will have spent more than $8 million in 2024 for a net gain of just three seats in the state legislature.
A federal appeals court sided with the Justice Department on Friday and upheld a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if the video-sharing app is not sold by Jan. 19.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied petitions to block the law from TikTok, its parent company ByteDance and creator groups…
…The ban takes effect one day before Donald Trump’s inauguration. Trump had pledged in his campaign to “save TikTok” — putting the president-elect in a position of possibly defending a law he opposed. Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to questions about his plans.
►The Colorado Sun reports on Rep. Jason Crow (D-Aurora) and his work in wrapping up an investigation into the July assassination attempt of Donald Trump:
As the panel prepares to release its report next year, Crow is reflecting on what he’s learned and how the Secret Service can improve.
“There wasn’t good communication and command and control here,” Crow told The Colorado Sun on Thursday. “That led to a cascading series of failures at multiple levels that resulted in the shooting.”…
…“There are actually ways of doing a lot of the things that we talked about and the reforms that need to be done that won’t cost anything or that may even save money,” Crow said. “But there are some areas that will require some investment. So working with the Republicans on the task force to figure out how we find that money is going to be an important task and it’s something that we committed to carry forward into the next Congress.”
The House committee in charge of the investigation has yet to determine a motive in the shooting, however.
►9News takes a look at preparations for the “magic mushroom” era in Colorado:
Colorado is nearing the official launch of its psychedelic therapy program, allowing licensed therapists to treat individuals with psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. This initiative, passed by voters two years ago, will not involve dispensaries. Instead, treatments will take place at specialized, licensed healing centers.
The state is putting the final touches on regulations governing the new program, including a comprehensive patient screening process. Following this, individuals will be matched with licensed therapists who design personalized treatment plans. The therapy will involve a three-to-five-hour session at one of the state’s licensed centers, where therapists will help administer psilocybin and provide support throughout the experience.
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Check Out All This Other Stuff To Know…
► Congressional Republicans obsessed with complaining about the federal workforce are nothing if not hypocritical. As Philip Bump explains for The Washington Post:
Federal employees are easy targets because they’re easy to scapegoat. The impression we’re meant to have is that being anywhere but in a federal building means that those employees probably aren’t working at all. They’re just cashing their taxpayer-funded paychecks and having the time of their lives.
Which brings us to the irony of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Joni Ernst complaining about this.
As journalist Marcy Wheeler quickly pointed out in response to Johnson, it is not like members of Congress are known for sticking around Washington, noses affixed to the ol’ grindstone. In fact, just one day prior to Johnson expressing how “unbelievable” it is that so many federal workers work remotely, the House calendar for 2025 was made public. In the chamber that Johnson runs, there are precisely three — three! — weeks in which the House will be in session on every weekday next year. On the other hand, there are 17 weeks in which the House will not be in session at all.
► As The Colorado Sun reports in its “Unaffiliated” newsletter, a handful of Republicans are interested in a State Senate vacancy created by the resignation of Sen. Kevin Van Winkle. Those names include former State Rep. Kim Ransom; former Colorado GOP Vice Chair Priscilla Rahn; former University of Colorado Regent John Carson; and former HD-39 candidate Ephram Glass. Not interested in the vacancy is State Rep. “Boxwine” Brandi Bradley.
► As The Washington Post notes, President-elect Donald Trump is assembling a cabinet of multi-millionaires:
A month after securing the White House with populist promises to working class voters, President-elect Donald Trump has chosen at least half a dozen billionaires and several other ultra-wealthy business leaders to serve in top administration roles.
Trump’s Cabinet is on track to be one of the richest in modern history, on par only with the team of millionaires and billionaires he assembled during his first term. [Pols emphasis] He’s picked billionaires to serve as commerce secretary and education secretary, and he has tapped other ultra-wealthy leaders for treasury and interior. He’s also offered noncabinet positions, including NASA director and deputy defense secretary, to billionaires.
Throughout the transition, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been by Trump’s side, serving as “first buddy” and establishing the nongovernmental “Department of Government Efficiency.” On Thursday night, Trump tapped tech investor David Sacks — who made his fortune in part through the $1.2 billion sale of the software company Yammer to Microsoft — to serve as his artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar.
You didn’t think Trump was serious about promoting the interests of working class Americans, did you?
►Andrew Prokop of Vox.com examines the debate over whether or not progressive activists and candidates are hurting the Democratic Party.
The bigger picture is that Democrats are reckoning with the apparent end of a years-long trend in which liberal college graduates’ opinions kept moving further left, a trend that influenced all actors in the party.
The debate now is over whether and how Democrats should respond to electoral defeat — by moving to the center and trying to moderate their positions, sticking to their guns, or moving even further left.
► The Aurora apartment complex that was the site of hysteria around Venezuelan gang activity is heading for closure. As 9News reports:
The City of Aurora has reached an agreement to close a troubled apartment complex that has been at the center of alleged activity by a migrant gang.
In court on Tuesday, attorneys for the owners of The Edge at Lowry apartments, located near 12th Avenue and Dallas Street, stated they would not oppose the closure.
As Denver7 reports, the owners of the troubled apartment building are under investigation by the Colorado Attorney General’s office:
Several Aurora apartment complexes apparently plagued by Venezuelan gang activity are under investigation by the Colorado Attorney Generals’ Office over potential deceptive business practices.
A set of subpoenas, issued in September and obtained by Denver7 through an open records request, seeks a laundry list of documents from CBZ Management and several of its subsidiaries. The AG’s office was seeking documents related to the advertising, leasing and managing apartment units, communication with tenants and the handling of and response to requests for maintenance, among other things.
CBZ Management is based in New York and operates 11 Colorado properties. Five of the company’s LLCs that manage properties in Colorado were issued the subpoenas.
► The Christian Nationalist school Patrick Henry College is celebrating the election of one of its graduates to Congress: Republican Gabe Evans of CO-08.
► As Westword explains, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has recused himself from a environmental case because of his relationship with Phil Anschutz, the richest man in Colorado.
► An “unprecedented” number of Coloradans are seeking assistance in paying their heating bills.
► Roughly 227,000 new jobs were added in the United States in November, growth that financial analysts say is encouraging news.
Say What, Now?
Republican Congressman-elect Jeff Crank (CO-05) is blaming “the left” for problems with the nomination of Fox News personality Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense:
Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
► As HuffPost reports, Republicans who are part of the new “DOGE Caucus” in Congress are, predictably, completely clueless about the joke:
HuffPost asked Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.), co-founder of a new DOGE caucus, if he was familiar with the internet meme that started it all.
“Uh, vaguely,” he said. “The dog?”
The dog.
Musk pitched a Department of Government Efficiency this summer, in a social media post, after President-elect Donald Trump suggested he could give Musk, Trump’s biggest campaign funder, a Cabinet position. The proposed name was a joking reference to doge (pronounced “dodje”), an internet meme that inspired Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency token.
► New York City Mayor Eric Adams is threatening a party switch from Democrat to Republican, which might not even bother Democrats all that much given his myriad of scandals.
ICYMI
► We could be seeing just the beginning of a potentially-significant level of corruption in a new Trump administration. From The New Republic:
Justin Sun, a Chinese national accused of fraud, sent Donald Trump $18 million last week.
The newsletter Popular Information reports that Sun, most recently famous for spending $6.2 million on a banana and then eating it, paid $30 million for cryptocurrency tokens from World Liberty Financial, which is backed by Trump. In a pinned post on his X profile, Sun bragged about the purchase, saying his own blockchain start-up, TRON, was “committed to making America great again and leading innovation.”
Until Sun’s purchase, Trump’s crypto start-up appeared headed for failure with only $22 million in tokens sold, far short of its goal of $300 million in sales. The purchase not only keeps the WLF going, but also guarantees a windfall for Trump. A filing from the venture in October states that “$30 million of initial net protocol revenues” will be “held in a reserve … to cover operating expenses, indemnities, and obligations.”
After that reserve is met, a company owned by Trump is then entitled to 75 percent of WLF’s revenues from the sale of all other tokens. As of Sunday, WLF has sold $24 million in tokens, giving Trump a solid $18 million payoff. Sun’s purchase has also gotten him an advisory position in Trump’s venture, making him business partners with the president-elect.
During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly made strong overtures to cryptocurrency executives and investors.
December 06, 2024 10:39 AM UTC
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