October 14, 2015 12:36 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Oct. 14)

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• by: Colorado Pols

Remember, kids: Use “i” before “y” when you’re trying to spell Libya. It’s time to Get More Smarter with Colorado Pols. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example).

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► Ballots for the 2015 election should be arriving in your mailbox this week. Go to GoVoteColorado.com to check your voter registration status or to print out a sample ballot. You can also check out JustVoteColorado.org for more information. [*NOTE: We’re going to keep this item at the top of the page on Get More Smarter for the next week or two]

► If you missed last night’s Democratic Presidential candidate debate in Las Vegas, we’ve got you covered. Colorado Pols live-blogged the event as part of our regular Debate Diary feature. It was a good night for Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, as well as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, but it was not so great for former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb.

Overall, Democrats stuck to the issues and generally declined to attack each other, with two narratives repeated over and over again: 1) Democrats are focusing on income inequality and the decline of the middle class, and 2) Candidates repeatedly pointed out how the Democratic debate was much more substantive than the first two Republican debates. As Charles Pierce writes for Esquire, Democrats proved to be “the Party of Sanity.”

► Colorado Pols opened the doors of its Editorial Department on Tuesday, providing a different look at a recent Op-Ed authored by Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora).

Meanwhile, Coffman is coming under increased scrutiny over his decision to sign onto the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Patriot Program” for 2016.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Famous rich person Donald Trump continues to dominate the Republican Presidential field. From CNN:

Trump holds 38% support in Nevada, with Carson in second with 22%, and in South Carolina, Trump doubles Carson’s support, 36% to 18%. No other candidate comes close to those top two in either state; the third-place candidate in each case has less than 10% support.

Trump’s backing in both states outpaces his support in most recent national polling, where he tends to draw around a quarter of Republican voters.

In other Trump news, the Donald will host “Saturday Night Live” next month.

► Former Colorado state Sen. Ted Harvey is the head of the Stop Hillary PAC, but he’s not so good at spelling. The group aired an anti-Hillary advertisement during last night’s Democratic Presidential debate that focused on Benghazi, but then they went and mis-spelled Libya (yeah, it’s not “Lybia”).

► Income inequality was perhaps the most oft-mentioned issue in Tuesday’s Democratic Presidential debate, and today’s announcement about Walmart profits seems to back up those arguments. As CNN Money reports, Walmart’s profits are declining now that they are actually starting to pay employees a decent wage:

Walmart chief financial officer Charles Holley said that investments in wages and training would lower operating profits by about $1.5 billion in fiscal 2017 — essentially all of next year and January 2017.

As a result, Holley said overall earnings were likely to be down between 6% and 12% from this year. The hope, Holley added, is that earnings would be growing again by 2019.

Walmart had been under increased pressure to pay employees more. It finally agreed to do so for more than 600,000 workers earlier this year.

The news isn’t great for Walmart shareholders, but more than 600,000 employees are better off as a result.

► Former Congressman and gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo thinks state Sen. Tim Neville will be able to avoid getting torpedoed by establishment Republicans in 2016.

► If you’re going to accept a Facebook friend request from Nate Marshall, you might want to make sure that he can’t post his thoughts on your page.

► House Speaker John Boehner may try to move legislation to increase the debt ceiling before he leaves Congress. Republicans are having trouble finding a replacement for Boehner, so there’s plenty of time for the Big Orange to get something going.

► Denver Post reporter John Frank does a good job of separating the data from the story in relation to a new report about lawmaker salaries in Colorado.

► The Washington Post tries to figure out the context behind Jim Webb’s bizarre statement near the end of Tuesday’s debate.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Democratic Senator Michael Bennet raised another $1.6 million for his 2016 re-election campaign. Bennet’s campaign now has about $5.4 million in the bank.

► Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson will bring his crazy pants to Lakewood on Oct. 29. Carson will speak to a group at Colorado Christian University one day after the Oct. 28 Republican debate in Boulder.

► Local political “analyst” Eric Sondermann thinks Hillary Clinton is only a top candidate for President because of her last name…which is about one step removed from saying that people only like her because she’s a woman. Classy.

ICYMI

► Good news, Aurora residents: You will soon be able to own 6 chickens instead of just 4.

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