December 22, 2015 02:50 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Tuesday (Dec. 22)

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• by: Colorado Pols

Break out your cereal-box decoder wheels for today’s War on Christmas secret message! 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…

► It’s not an easy thing to do, but it looks like Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has out-Trumped himself with his latest gutter-level attack on Democrat Hillary Clinton:

The Republican front-runner mocked his Democratic counterpart for a “disgusting” bathroom trip she made during Saturday night’s debate, and said Barack Obama “schlonged” her in the 2008 primaries at a raucous rally here on Monday night.

For Trump — who comments often on Clinton’s penchant for pantsuits, has insinuated she is in a lesbian relationship with close aide Huma Abedin and insists she doesn’t have “the strength or the stamina” to be president — Monday’s remarks take his focus on her personal life to a new level of intimacy.

Remarking on Clinton’s late return to the podium after using the bathroom during a commercial break at this weekend’s Democratic debate, Trump said, “I know where she went. It’s disgusting. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s disgusting.”

As Trump’s seemingly unstoppable campaign rolls onward, a senior aide to underdog Republican opponent John Kasich says the only way to take out Trump is with a “head shot.” Mind you, he doesn’t mean a literal “head shot,” that’s just the way Republicans talk about everything these days.

► While Trump hogs the spotlight, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is making a swift move up to become Trump’s closest rival:

Trump wins 28% support in a Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday, with Cruz nipping at his heels with 24%. Following that pair is Marco Rubio with 12% support, Ben Carson with 10%, Chris Christie with 6% and Jeb Bush with 4%. The survey was in the field entirely after CNN’s debate in Las Vegas on Dec. 15.

Cruz has been steadily climbing and overtaking Trump in Iowa, and there is some evidence that the Texas senator is managing to perform similarly nationally.

► And remember, Coloradans, if you want to be registered to participate in party caucuses coming in March, you need to declare your party affiliation by January 4th. Republicans, of course, have far less motivation to participate after the state party cancelled the caucus presidential preference polls.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► After a summer of absolutely scurrilous attacks on Planned Parenthood, public support for legal abortions in America is…at a multiyear high:

Support for legal abortion in the U.S. has edged up to its highest level in the past two years, with an Associated Press-GfK poll showing an apparent increase in support among Democrats and Republicans alike over the last year.

Nearly six in 10 Americans – 58 percent – now think abortion should be legal in most or all cases, up from 51 percent who said so at the beginning of the year, according to the AP-GfK survey. It was conducted after three people were killed last month in a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado.

But as the Colorado Springs Gazette reports, that’s not changing anything for our local GOP, who plan another raft of anti-abortion bills for the legislature in January:

Republican lawmakers have said they will bring bills to defund Planned Parenthood, create a fetal homicide charge, repeal the Affordable Care Act, which includes mandates that insurance companies pay for “abortifacient types of birth control,” and develop some type of response to the purchase and use of fetal tissue for research.

Democrats will continue the fight they lost last session for funding of a program that provides long-acting reversible contraception, or LARC, to low-income and uninsured women in Colorado.

► At the same time, local Republicans are standing behind freshman Rep. JoAnn Windholz after her comments blaming Planned Parenthood for the domestic terror attack against their own clinic in Colorado Springs.

If there were any lessons to be learned from the last few weeks of Colorado history, they haven’t.

► Colorado is facing a $200 million budget deficit for 2016. At the same time, the state is preparing to issue $150 million in TABOR refunds. The only person this makes sense to is Doug Bruce.

► Republicans continue to “concern troll” the EPA after the August minewater spill at the Gold King Mine near Silverton, even as locals reach a consensus that the EPA is part of the solution to the much larger mine pollution problem in the West.

► A new report details the massive waste of money the Independence Institute campaign against the recall of the Jefferson County school board turned out to be. We could waste that kind of money much more grandiosely.

► The state of Oklahoma isn’t giving up on its lawsuit against Colorado over marijuana legalization.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Breckenridge Brewery is being acquired by Anheuser-Busch, ending (or at least changing) one of the state’s better microbrew success stories.

ICYMI

► The heartwarming story of a local vet pushing back against anti-Muslim bigotry has gone national.

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