May 31, 2017 09:55 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Wednesday (May 31)

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• by: Colorado Pols

And that’s that for the month of May. Hope it was good to you. It’s time to 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 a visual learner, check out The Get More Smarter Show.

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► President Trump is expected to withdraw the United States from participating in the Paris Climate Agreement. As CNN reports, this is not good:

The decision, which will be announced this week, would put the US at odds with nearly every other nation on earth. It would reflect a major reversal of the Obama administration’s efforts on climate change. And it could trigger further efforts to erode the landmark climate agreement.

The precise mechanism for withdrawal hasn’t yet been determined, and White House officials cautioned the plans could change until Trump makes his decision public. But in conversations over the past week, Trump has made clear he plans to fulfill his campaign promises to withdraw.

The administration’s decision comes after months of internal debate and speculation about what Trump, who campaigned on leaving the deal, would do once he took office. Trump faced intense pressure on both sides, including from his senior advisers and family.

The White House was initially slated to make a final decision on the climate accord earlier this month, but delayed the decision until the G7 meeting in Sicily. At the summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters the climate debate was “controversial” and that the leaders of the other G7 nations — France, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom and Italy — all urged Trump to remain a part of the 2015 agreement.

As the Washington Post notes, a decision on the Paris Climate Agreement will not make everyone happy in Trump’s administration:

The decision over the Paris climate agreement has deeply divided the Administration, with Ivanka Trump and the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urging the president to remain in the deal and White House strategist Steve Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt pushing for a withdrawal.

► Senator Michael Bennet (D-Denver) will hold a town hall meeting tonight in La Junta, Colorado. On Tuesday, Bennet toured a research facility at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins.

Meanwhile, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) held a town-hall meeting of his own…in South Korea.

► As Politico reports, the investigation into Russian ties to the Trump administration is making it difficult for the White House to fill out its staff roster:

Potential hires are paying close attention to the expanding investigations, which have now begun to touch senior Trump aides, with some questioning whether they want to join the administration.

Four people who work closely with prospective nominees told POLITICO that some potential hires are having second thoughts about trying to land executive branch appointments as federal and congressional investigations threaten to pose a serious distraction to Trump’s agenda.

“It’s an additional factor that makes what was an already complicated process of staffing the government even harder,” said Max Stier, head of the Partnership for Public Service, which has advised the Trump transition on hiring.

According to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, the White House has announced nominees for just 117 of the 559 most important Senate-confirmed positions.

That trails the records of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who had each nominated about twice as many people by this point in the first year of their first terms.

Apparently the prospect of jail time is not an attractive benefit option. Perhaps Reince Priebus would be better off without a job.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

► Donald Trump’s Twitter account, which may or may not be making autonomous decisions about the fate of the free world, is no longer worried about using actual words. From CNN:

At 12:06 a.m. ET, the President of the United States tweeted this: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.”

By 6 a.m., that tweet had been deleted. Shortly after, Trump tweeted this: “Who can figure out the true meaning of “covfefe” ??? Enjoy!”

Yes, this is fairly inane, but as Chris Cillizza writes for CNN, it is instructive nevertheless:

While spending time trying, as Trump suggested, to figure out what “covfefe” means is a waste, it’s far more worthwhile to take a big step back and look at the situation that leads to the President of the United States tweeting, poorly, at 12:06 a.m. about the bad press he gets.

What we have today — and, really, what we have had since the day Trump came into the White House — is a deeply isolated President who spends lots of time, particularly at night and in the early morning, watching TV and tweeting.
That lack of discipline reveals that there is simply no one who can tell Trump “no.” Or at least no one whom he will listen to.

► As Ernest Luning reports for the Colorado Statesman, Democrat Levi Tillemann maintains that he is still just window shopping when it comes to considering a run for Congress in CD-6.

► Governor John Hickenlooper has signed a bill marking what was perhaps the biggest legislative victory of the 2017 session. As John Frank explains for the Denver Post:

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Tuesday signed into a law a far-reaching spending bill that averts a $528 million cut in payments to hospitals, generates $1.9 billion for transportation projects by mortgaging state buildings and lowers the state’s spending cap by $200 million.

The measure became the capstone of the 2017 legislation session and won approval just before the General Assembly adjourned May 10.

The Democratic governor signed the legislation at a high school in Fowler, one of the Eastern Plains communities expected to benefit from provisions that earmark 25 percent of the transportation spending and $30 million in new money for classrooms in rural areas.

► The NATIONAL archives of the Libertarian Party are now being held in Colorado.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► President Trump is mad at Germany now.

► Here’s more news on the status of the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado. 

ICYMI

► If we don’t talk about the Colorado Rockies, we can’t possibly jinx their season.

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