March 17, 2016 10:56 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on St. Patrick's Day (March 17)

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• by: Colorado Pols

Green beer is okay, but we’d stay away from any green foods that aren’t vegetables. 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…

► Senate Republicans continue to insist that they will refuse to discuss any potential Supreme Court nominee, and yesterday President Obama called their bluff by nominating Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy created by the death of Judge Antonin Scalia. The White House is keeping the GOP backed firmly into its corner by pushing a nominee whose qualifications are difficult to ignore.

Elsewhere, the Washington Post takes a deeper dive into Garland’s background, and Colorado’s Congressional delegation appears to be solidly divided on partisan lines.

► Republicans are still in full panic mode over the likelihood that Donald Trump will capture the GOP Presidential nomination, but will the Republican Party really reject its own voters by trying to force a “brokered convention” in Cleveland?

The Aurora Sentinel picks up on the re-election concerns of Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora):

…The GOP party faithful here are worried whether Donald Trump as their party’s presidential nominee will dump a bucket of Goldwater on Republican candidates down the ticket. They’re hoping the country isn’t going to party like it’s 1964, when the famous Arizona senator practically single-handedly handed complete control of the government over to the Democrats. For those of us who remember the “Daisy” ad what seemed like crazy talk back then, Quid speaks for most of those saying to the Trump, “Donald, you’re no Barry Goldwater.”

But Republican electeds all over the state, once whimsical about Making America something something something are now worried that if Trump snags the nomination, an anti-Trump electorate could trample anything that ends in -R, including a Colorado Senator, Congressman Mike Coffman and possibly Congressman Ken Buck.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Legislation aimed at prohibiting the practice of so-called “conversion therapy” for gays and lesbians has passed out of the State House. From a press release issued by One Colorado:

One Colorado, the state’s leading advocacy organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Coloradans and their families, released the following statement from Executive Director Dave Montez on the passage of the Prohibition on Conversion Therapy, House Bill 1210, by the by the Colorado House of Representatives today with bipartisan support.

“So-called ‘conversion therapy’ includes a range of dangerous and discredited practices aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation or suppressing a person’s gender identity and is based on the false claim that being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) is a mental illness that should be cured or changed. While every mainstream mental and medical professional association in the country has discounted this practice, some Colorado legislators repeatedly made distasteful and scientifically dubious claims about sexual orientation during the committee hearing and on the floor.

“Comparing LGBT Coloradans to alcoholics and drug addicts in an attempt to claim that LGBT people should be forced to change who they are is not only offensive – it’s dangerous. Young LGBT Coloradans are 6 times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers – not because of who they are – but because of the rejection, harassment, and insensitive remarks they hear every day. Subjecting Colorado’s young people to conversion therapy only increases this risk.” [Pols emphasis]

We’re looking at you, Rep. Kathleen Conti.

► Republican Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is increasingly turning his attention toward Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Hence this ultra-classy video asserting that Clinton is a “barking dog” on foreign policy.

► Parents of students at a middle school in Pueblo County are rightfully concerned about a “militia class” that includes training with live weapons.

► Whatever they’re smoking over at the Presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz…pass some over here. From “The Fix”:

Even as Donald Trump was dominating in four of the five states that voted on Tuesday night (aka Super Tuesday part 8), Ted Cruz’s campaign was selling a very different narrative: That the Texas Senator had a path not only to be the party’s nominee but that he could actually could cinch the nomination on June 7, the final day of the primary campaign, or, at the very least, end up with a plurality of delegates heading into the convention.

► New details are emerging in the 2013 shooting death of former Department of Corrections Executive Director Tom Clements. As Kirk Mitchell reports for the Denver Post:

Three years after Colorado’s prisons chief was gunned down on his doorstep, two former top law enforcement officials who investigated the case say the killing was part of a conspiracy involving members of a white supremacist prison gang.

But neither the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office nor local prosecutors have yet done what federal officials did: blame the killing on parolee Evan Ebel. He died in a shootout with Texas lawmen two days after Tom Clements’ murder on March 19, 2013.

The only person charged in the case was the  woman who bought the murder weapon for Ebel, who also killed Commerce City resident Nathan Leon on March 17.

► Congressman Ken Buck (R-Greeley) is introducing legislation crassly titled “Blue Lives Matter” that would make the targeted killing of police officers a “hate crime.”

► 9News considers whether or not Colorado Republicans could play a significant role in a “brokered convention” when the Republican National Committee meets in Cleveland this summer.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Senate Republicans continue to push a requirement for photo identification when voting or registering to vote in Colorado. Nevermind that years of frantically overturning rocks by Republicans has yet to uncover any significant cases of voter fraud in our state.

► Add this to the list of head-scratching decisions made by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission in recent years.

ICYMI

► The difference between the Republican and Democratic parties has never been more stark, writes Ezra Klein for Vox.

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