Numbers Don’t Lie: Bennet’s Expanded Child Tax Credit Works

6
  by: Colorado Pols September 14, 2023 at 1:25 PM MDT

The expanded Child Tax Credit was an enormous success.

It didn’t need to be this way.

As NPR reports, childhood poverty rates have skyrocketed over the last year:

The poverty rate in the U.S. has risen dramatically in the year since pandemic benefits ran out — and the child poverty rate has more than doubled, according to U.S. Census Bureau’s annual data on poverty, income and health insurance released Tuesday.

Just a year ago, child poverty hit a historic low of 5.2%. The latest figures put it at 12.4%, the same as the overall poverty rate. The surge happened as record inflation was rising and a lot of pandemic relief was running out, but Census officials and other experts say a key was the child tax credit…

…Parents overwhelmingly used that extra tax credit money on household essentials like rent and food, according to surveys. [Pols emphasis]

The Expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) has long been one of Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet’s signature issues. It was a win-win issue that is rare in politics these days: The program was wildly successful and it helped ensure Bennet’s re-election in 2022. But funding for the CTC was not renewed beyond 2021, in part because West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin wanted to see a stricter work requirement attached to the benefits. Manchin bought into the old Republican canard that federal aid money is just used to buy drugs for people on welfare, yada, yada (there is no reliable data to support this idea).

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio has floated his own idea of tying work requirements to a smaller CTC, which also misses the point of this program in a very obvious manner: People who have good-paying jobs wouldn’t have the same need for the expanded CTC. The point is to help children, who aren’t working full-time jobs and have no control of the employment of their parents.

Dylan Matthews of Vox.com explained last year why the expanded CTC was so important:

Before Biden came into office, the credit maxed out at $2,000 per child ($1,400 for kids in families too poor to owe income tax), was bundled with tax refunds, and specifically left out families with little or no earnings. About one-third of children were excluded from the full credit, including over half of Black and Hispanic children, as well as 70 percent of kids raised by single moms. That’s precisely the population in most need of financial help.

The Biden changes dramatically increased the credit to $3,000 per kid aged 6 and over, and $3,600 per kid under 6; paid it out monthly; and made the full credit available to all poor children, eliminating the previous “phase-in” rule that capped the credit at 15 percent of a family’s income.

President Biden publicly called for a renewal of the expanded CTC earlier this week. On Wednesday, Senator Bennet made another plea for support at a press conference:

 

There may be no better example of how Congress gets in its own way than the failure to continue a program that dropped child poverty rates to an historic low level of 5.2%.

The expanded CTC worked. We know it worked. We can PROVE that it worked.

So why can’t Congress make it work again?

La Plata County GOP Declares War On Local Paper

6
  by: Colorado Pols September 14, 2023 at 10:35 AM MDT

La Plata County GOP chairwoman Shelli Shaw.

This week, the Durango Herald’s Reuben Schafir had the honor of reporting on a protest by the La Plata County Republican Party against his own employer the Herald, and by extension himself. It’s an interesting journalistic predicament:

Approximately 20 protesters, including leaders of the La Plata County Republican Central Committee, convened outside The Durango Herald office Tuesday morning holding signs asking passersby to “boycott biased Herald.”

Party chairwoman Shelli Shaw, past chairman Dave Peters and secretary Hope Scheppelman were all present. Signs held by attendees called out staff of The Herald by name.

“Put the information out there and let people decide for themselves,” Shaw said. “It doesn’t need to be censored or decided by The Durango Herald or any other media outlet. It needs to be presented and let people have the ability to think for themselves.”

Reps. Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, featured guests at the La Plata County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner.

As can be expected, Tuesday’s Republican protest against the Durango Herald was long on pseudo-patriotic incendiary rhetoric but terribly short on concrete allegations, citing a minor typographical error in one photo in a story about a recent visit to the area by Monument-based far-right whacktivist Darcy Shoening and an overall unsubstantiated sense of “bias” against conservatives in the Herald’s reporting. La Plata County GOP chairwoman Shelli Shaw is herself a well-known source of far-right verbal diarrhea, but from what we can see the Herald has actually been kinder to her than other outlets who have reported her immoderate views in much greater detail. Apparently the Herald also enforces minimal standards for their letters to the editor section:

Opinion Editor Ann Marie Swan was not available for comment before deadline, but a recent editorial calling for letter submissions said that some letters “won’t see the light of day in our pages because they’re inappropriate or don’t meet basic criteria,” and highlighted that “the most common reason being letter writers’ opinions must be based in fact.” [Pols emphasis]

Rather than meet the exceedingly low bar that submissions be based in reality, La Plata County Republicans served notice to the Herald that they are no longer welcome at party events.

The GOP executive committee also delivered a letter to The Herald stating that its members would only communicate with the newspaper “via digital means.” The letter also said The Herald’s journalists were no longer welcome at the party’s events, including the upcoming Lincoln Day Dinner.

Banishing the Herald from the La Plata GOP’s upcoming Lincoln Day Dinner is particularly notable due to the headline speakers slated to attend, Reps. Matt “Giggity” Gaetz of Florabama and Gaetz’s regular traveling companion Lauren Boebert. The event, scheduled for a week from Saturday, lands right in the thick of what’s expected to be Gaetz and Boebert’s drive to either impeach Joe Biden or remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy. There’s a good chance that their remarks will have news value well beyond the confines of La Plata County, so hopefully the party’s exclusion of the Herald will motivate other outlets to make the trip to Durango to cover the event (we recommend staying at the Strater Hotel).

It’s the age-old story: all criticism of the media is not created equal. Democrats get upset when the media doesn’t report the facts, and Republicans get upset when the media does report the facts. Journalists should be receptive to critique of the former, but proud of the howling from Republicans over the latter.

Thursday Open Thread

10
  by: Colorado Pols September 14, 2023 at 8:13 AM MDT

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.”

–Kurt Vonnegut

The Tawdry, Trashy Spectacle of “Beetlebert”

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  by: Colorado Pols September 13, 2023 at 3:15 PM MDT

Hapless date comforting an usher being verbally abused by Rep. Lauren Boebert.

UPDATE #2: The Denver Post’s Megan Schrader tracked down one of the theatergoers affected by Rep. Lauren Boebert’s bad behavior leading to Boebert getting escorted out of the Buell Theater in Denver Sunday night. You’ve got to read this to believe it:

“These people in front of us were outrageous. I’ve never seen anyone act like that before,” the woman, who lives in Denver and is in her 30s, said. It wasn’t until later during the play that someone informed her that the misbehaving theatergoer was, in fact, Boebert, a member of Congress.

The woman says Boebert took multiple long videos during the first half of the performance. When she asked Boebert to stop vaping, the congresswoman simply said “no,” the woman said. [Pols emphasis] Boebert was also kissing the man she was with, and singing along loudly with her hands in the air, the woman said.

“At intermission, I asked, ‘Are there any other seats available? Can we sit somewhere else?’” the woman said. “The usher said, ‘You’re not the first complaint we had.’ ”

When the woman returned with her husband to their seats, she said Boebert called her a “sad and miserable person.”

At 2:33 in the surveillance video posted by 9NEWS below, you can see Rep. Boebert’s date attempting to comfort one of the ushers escorting Boebert out while Boebert berates them. The account of the woman interviewed by Megan Schrader also appears to feature this gentleman clumsily trying to make amends for Boebert’s rudeness just before they were booted from the venue:

“The guy she was with offered to buy me and my husband cocktails. I’m pregnant!” she said. [Pols emphasis]

We were closing in on something like pity for Boebert’s companion before we read this, though there’s an argument that after this date from hell the man has been punished enough. This story also corroborates initial reports about vaping in the theater, and who was doing it. Now that #BeetleBert is a global sensation, other witnesses are going to come forward to tell their stories.

And Boebert has a track record of lying about stuff.

—–

UPDATE: When even indicted Trump attorney Jenna Ellis is dunking on you, you’re having a bad day:

—–

Local news headlines this morning are dominated by coverage of an incident Sunday at Denver’s Buell Theater, in which a reportedly combative Rep. Lauren Boebert was escorted out of a performance of the new Beetlejuice musical adaptation by security after causing repeated “disturbances”–the details of which remain in dispute as of this writing. The Denver Post’s John Aguilar reported first yesterday afternoon:

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert was escorted out of a Sunday night performance of the “Beetlejuice” musical in downtown Denver, accused by venue officials of vaping, singing, recording and “causing a disturbance” during the performance.

In an incident report shared with The Denver Post on Tuesday afternoon, officials with Denver Arts & Venues wrote that two patrons were asked to leave the city-owned Buell Theatre during the performance of the touring Broadway show. They previously were issued a warning during the intermission regarding behavior that prompted three complaints from other theatergoers, the report says.

Rep. Lauren Boebert berates security at the Buell Theater Sunday.

Ernest Luning of the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog recaps the incident report:

According to a Buell incident report, theater staff received three complaints that the two patrons had been “vaping, singing, causing a disturbance.” The two “were argumentative” and insisted they were responding to the performance the same as surrounding audience members after ushers told them that they “need to be respectful to their neighbors” and that they would be asked to leave if there were more complaints.

About five minutes into the second act, following the intermission, Buell staff received another complaint about Boebert and her companion, this time alleging they were “being loud” and using a recording device. When an usher asked to speak with them outside the theater, they refused to leave and repeated their refusal after being told they would be trespassing.

“I told them I would (be) going to get Denver Police. They said go get them,” the Buell staffer wrote in the incident report. [Pols emphasis]

As our readers know very well, Lauren Boebert is no stranger to being, as they say in the nightlife business, “86ed” from an establishment for bad behavior. In 2015, Boebert was handcuffed and detained at the Country Jam concert in Mesa County after Boebert confronted officers and allegedly “encouraged people arrested for underage drinking to break free.” Boebert then informed officers that she has “friends at Fox News” who would take journalistic revenge if they learned how Boebert was being treated. And of course, there was the incident involving Jayson Boebert whipping out his unnaturally large “thumb” in 2004 that got him banned from a local bowling alley.

Well folks, it appears that Boebert hasn’t gotten any better at handling these situations:

The report said after the two patrons were escorted out and reached the building’s vestibule, they resisted leaving and said “stuff like ‘do you know who I am,’ ‘I am on the board’ (and) ‘I will be contacting the mayor.’ ” [Pols emphasis]

Rep. Lauren Boebert twirls outside the Buell Theater after bring kicked out Sunday.

So first of all, the idea that Lauren Boebert has some kind of influence over Democratic Denver Mayor Mike Johnston with which to exact revenge on ushers at the Buell Theater is ludicrous. Like the Wicked Witch of the West in Munchkinland, Boebert has no power in the Mile High City. But her empty threats to use her position as a member of Congress to retaliate against employees who are just trying to do their jobs and ensure that everyone who buys a ridiculously overpriced ticket to see Beetlejuice has a good time are totally unacceptable. It’s not okay to “pull rank” in this situation any more than it is for a lawmaker stopped for a DUI.

Boebert’s staff reportedly denied the allegation that either she or her date were vaping in the theater, and claimed that they were not being any more disruptive than their neighbors. The only possible explanation in that event would be that Boebert was somehow singled out for mistreatment, and we don’t believe that for a minute. It’s much more believable, given Boebert’s long history of exactly this kind of bad behavior, that Boebert not only richly earned her early exit from the theater but also threatened to retaliate afterward against security invoking her status as a member of Congress.

As for the allegations of “vaping” or being otherwise intoxicated? One has to wonder how much inebriant it takes to twirl away carefree (above right) after being booted from a theater for making a scene. With that said, we weren’t there with a breathalyzer.

But from the State of the Union to Beetlejuice, the moral of the story sems to be that you can’t take Lauren Boebert anywhere. We’ve all known someone like Boebert in our lives, and (hopefully) you learned not to party with them without criminal charges of your own.

Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Sept. 13)

3
  by: Colorado Pols September 13, 2023 at 12:32 PM MDT

On this day in 1985, Super Mario Bros. was first released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in Japan. Let’s 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 an audio learner, check out The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter.

 

FIRST UP…

 

► Utah Senator Mitt Romney announced that he will not seek re-election in 2024. As The Washington Post reports:

Sen. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012 and the only member of his party to twice vote to convict former president Donald Trump in politically charged impeachment trials, announced Wednesday that he will not seek a second term in the Senate representing Utah, saying in an interview that it is time for a new generation to “step up” and “shape the world they’re going to live in.”

Romney, 76, said his decision not to run again was heavily influenced by his belief that a second term, which would take him into his 80s, probably would be less productive and less satisfying than the current term has been. He blamed that both on the disarray he sees among House Republicans and on his own lack of confidence in the leadership of President Biden and Trump.

Romney is one of the few rational Republican voices left in Congress. While it is a surprise that he is not seeking re-election, it’s hard to blame him; trying to work with this current generation of MAGA Republicans would be a nightmare.

 

► #Beetlebert! #Beetlebert! #Beetlebert!

Congressperson Lauren Boebert (R-ifle) is back making national headlines for the wrong reasons as she continues to spiral further out of control. Click here for our post on the story, or check out coverage from The Denver Post; 9News; NBC News; NPR; The Washington Post; The Associated Press; and, hell, even BBC News.

Coincidentally, this news is all coming out on the same day that POLITICO published an in-depth story from “reporter” Olivia Beavers about how Boebert is trying to turn over a new leaf, or something. It’s possible that she smoked that new leaf at the Buell Theater in Denver on Sunday.

 

► House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given Republicans the go-ahead to pursue impeachment investigations into President Biden…as soon as they figure out what to investigate. Colorado Public Radio tracked down some of Colorado’s notable elected officials for comment:

Rep. Lauren Boebert said the Oversight Committee has already produced evidence of impeachable conduct.

Still, none of the documents or transcripts released thus far have shown evidence of any concrete instances of corruption by Biden. [Pols emphasis]

That’s what many Colorado Democrats focused on in response to McCarthy’s announcement.

“There is no concrete evidence of any wrongdoing by President Biden. Even Congressional Republicans are questioning the merits of this nakedly partisan investigation,” said Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette…

…Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, who was an impeachment manager for Trump’s first impeachment, also criticized the move, especially the choice to open an inquiry without first allowing the House to vote on it.

“Democrats held a vote on both impeachment inquiries into President Trump because they were based on facts and evidence. House Republicans know their inquiry is a scam, so they won’t even hold a vote on it,” he said via X, formerly known as Twitter. “What a disgrace. Americans deserve better.” [Pols emphasis]

Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck had been talking for a month on cable news about his opposition to impeachment investigations into Biden, but he folded as soon as he got back to Congress.

 

► While “impeachment” grabbed headlines early in the week, the bigger story in Congress is a looming government shutdown at the end of the month. A shutdown seems likely given the rhetoric from right-wing Republicans intent on proving some sort of point that would ignore the historical reality of the political consequences of such a move. As Colorado Newsline explains:

The most conservative Republicans in the U.S. House announced Tuesday they won’t support the short-term spending bill that’s needed to stop a partial government shutdown from beginning on Oct. 1.

Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, said the group is not interested in a stopgap spending bill that “continues the policies and the spending of the Biden-Schumer-Pelosi era and we’re not going to vote for it.”…

…The GOP-controlled House passed one of its dozen annual government funding bills before going on a six-week break throughout August. The Senate began debate on a three-bill package Tuesday.

That means the process of appropriating funds won’t be completed in time and a short-term stopgap spending bill is necessary if Congress is going to avoid a partial government shutdown.

The House is scheduled to take up a second spending bill, the Defense funding measure, later this week, though Perry indicated the group may not support its passage.

Hardline Republicans tried this same tactic 10 years ago, and it failed miserably.

POLITICO reports on how a “conservative mutiny” is now threatening critical funding for the annual defense spending bill.

 

Click below to keep learning things…

 

(more…)

Horse Traders Mad that Others are Trading Horses

0
  by: Colorado Pols September 12, 2023 at 4:01 PM MDT

Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez and Assistant Majority Leader Faith Winter.

Colorado Senate Democrats elected new leadership last week, elevating Sen. Robert Rodriguez to the role of Senate Majority Leader to replace Dominick Moreno, who resigned from the Senate to take a job with Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration.

Rodriguez defeated Sen. Rachel Zenzinger for the role of Senate Majority Leader, which has apparently led to Zenzinger making some confounding accusations about the new Majority Leader and Senator Faith Winter, who was elected to serve as assistant majority leader. As The Colorado Sun reports today in its “Unaffiliated” newsletter:

Rodriguez was nominated for majority leader by Sen. Faith Winter, D-Westminster, who initially planned to run for the job. In turn, Rodriguez nominated Winter for assistant majority leader.

It sure looked like a deal had been reached between the two to make that happen. Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, basically said as much during her remarks at Friday’s leadership election. And other members of the Senate Democratic caucus said the Rodriguez-Winter leadership team was the product of political maneuvering. [Pols emphasis]

Rodriguez, responding to a question from The Sun, denied that there was a deal in which Winter’s supporters agreed to back Rodriguez in exchange for Rodriguez backing Winter. But The Colorado Sun obtained a voicemail from Winter to Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat who was also running for majority leader, in which Winter said she and Rodriguez were “aligning.”

“I didn’t want you to find out from other folks, but Robert and I are aligning,” Winter said in the voicemail. “We’re going to support him for majority leader. He’s going to support me for assistant majority leader.”

First off, we’re not sure why Rodriguez bothered to deny that he and Winter had a deal in place to support each other for leadership positions. Not only is there nothing wrong with this, but it happens all the time. People in every profession engage in some sort of “political maneuvering” in their jobs, but politicking happens to be particularly prevalent in, well, politics.

Zenzinger apparently has some sour grapes related to the Rodriguez/Winter alliance and not being elected Senate Majority Leader herself, but what did she expect would happen? Did she think Senate Democrats would show up at their caucus meeting on Friday completely unprepared for the election?

Normally you don’t rise to a top political position unless you are skilled at politics, and it seems that Rodriguez and Winter created a savvy alliance that worked to the advantage of both members. That’s how this works. That’s how this has always worked.

Ken Buck Tellingly Spares Boebert As The Knives Come Out

6
  by: Colorado Pols September 12, 2023 at 12:24 PM MDT

UPDATE: One Buck forward, Two Bucks back as Politico reports this afternoon:

Ken Buck, a member of the House Freedom Caucus who was previously skeptical of an impeachment inquiry, seems to have changed his mind after Speaker Kevin McCarthy moved to open the inquiry without a vote.

“I think it’s a good move. We have to focus on spending, we have to make sure the government doesn’t shut down. We have to get our job done. And I think taking this off the table and not having a distraction is a good move,” he said Tuesday.

It’s quite a climb-down for Ken Buck, who seems to have just proven that he too can be bullied back in line when it matters most. We think he’s trying to say that bypassing a vote and proceeding directly to a dead-ender impeachment inquiry is a win for keeping Congress on track, but nobody is going to appreciate the nuance.

And the last we heard, Buck isn’t doing a damn thing to keep the government from shutting down.

—–

In recent weeks, the growing breach between Colorado’s arch-conservative GOP Rep. Ken Buck and his contemporaries in the Freedom Caucus has become impossible for either side to ignore. After years of generally loyal if occasionally bumbling service to Republican leadership, Rep. Buck first broke from his hard-line colleagues back in December of 2020 when he belatedly accepted that Joe Biden was the legitimately-elected President of the United States. As the new House GOP majority in 2023 driven by Freedom Caucus demands turned toward vengeance on behalf of twice-impeached Donald Trump, Buck has refused to play along, blasting Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s appeasement of impeachment-demanding hardliners as “theater.” Buck even committed the cardinal sin of agreeing that the criminal charges in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case in particular are very serious.

CNN’s political team is reporting today that in the wake of Buck’s vitriolic exchange of fire last week with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene over January 6th “political prisoners,” the up-to-now private dissatisfaction with his far-right colleagues has gone fully public:

Conservative Rep. Ken Buck is just one of several House Republicans standing in the way of the right’s push to impeach President Joe Biden.

But his high-profile seat on the key House Judiciary Committee, recent outspoken interviews railing against the House GOP’s investigative efforts, and long track record of bucking his own party have put a target on his back in conservative circles.

Now, there is a serious effort underway to find a candidate to mount a primary challenge against Buck in his solidly red district in eastern Colorado, three GOP sources told CNN – the latest sign of tension as the House GOP grapples with internal divisions over everything from its agenda to former President Donald Trump…

“This is the same guy that wrote a book called ‘Drain the Swamp’, who is now arguing against an impeachment inquiry,” Greene told CNN. “I really don’t see how we can have a member on Judiciary that is flat out refusing to impeach. … It seems like, can he even be trusted to do his job at this point?”

Before we get to the topic of a potential primary challenge, there are a number of complicating factors that could make MTG’s threats against Buck toothless. For one thing, Rep. Greene was herself booted from the Freedom Caucus earlier this year after calling Colorado’s other conservative hard-liner Rep. Lauren Boebert a “little bitch” on the House floor, which sent MTG fleeing into the arms of Speaker McCarthy. Although McCarthy appears to have given in to the Freedom Caucus on a dead-ender impeachment inquiry, we don’t see any incentive for McCarthy to punish Buck for disagreeing. When this latest bout of tit-for-tat impeachment fever has run its course, Buck will be the moral victor–which as we’ll discuss in a moment may be all that matters.

As for a primary challenge against Buck in 2024?

Among the names of people being floated to potentially challenge Buck in a primary, according to several sources familiar: state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, who sources said thought about challenging Buck last cycle but ultimately did not, and state Rep. Richard Holtorf, a pro-Trump Republican who is currently minority whip in the Colorado general assembly.

It’s no secret that GOP state legislative lifer Jerry Sonnenberg has aspirations to run for Congress someday, but Sonnenberg simply does not have the clout or the infrastructure in place to mount a serious challenge to Buck on Buck’s home turf. Colorado has never been a MAGA stronghold where disloyalty to Trump is some kind of career-ending sin. Sonnenberg may well be waiting for the perennial rumors of Buck’s retirement to come true, but he’d be a fool to try to take Buck’s seat perforce. Rep. Richard Holtorf is nutty enough to be less predictable than Sonnenberg, but likewise would pose no real threat to Buck in a primary.

One of the biggest unanswered questions about Buck’s now-sustained pushback against the retributive agenda of his far-right colleagues is why Buck has focused almost all of his attention on blasting Rep. Greene, when every bit of the criticism Buck is leveling at Greene applies equally to Buck’s Colorado colleague Rep. Lauren Boebert if not more so. Boebert is at the tip of the spear with her bestie Rep. Matt Gaetz in demanding either impeachment or Speaker McCarthy’s head, in stark contrast to McCarthy’s fast friend MTG. Buck tearing into MTG while leaving Boebert untouched–or at least unnamed–could be interpreted as fear that bashing Boebert might rouse image-tarnishing resistance to Buck in CD-4.

Overall, the best assessment we can offer is that Buck is positioning himself for life after the House as a cable news talking head. Over the past few months, Buck has been a regular guest on CNN and more recently MSNBC, giving him a mouthpiece for many of these contrary positions that have enraged his conservative colleagues. Rumors of Buck’s imminent retirement have circulated in basically every election cycle since he was elected to Congress in 2014, and at some point Buck is going to oblige them.

If Buck sticks to upbraiding his fellow Republicans as a TV news talking head, he’ll do fine. If the on-air conversation progresses to any other issue, Buck might find his career on cable news–at least outlets on the reality-based side of Newsmax–to be rather short.

McCarthy Caves on Impeachment…Sort Of

5
  by: Colorado Pols September 12, 2023 at 11:37 AM MDT

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given in to the crazies in the Republican caucus and agreed to move forward with an impeachment investigation into President Biden.

This impeachment effort will be much different than either of the impeachment investigations into former President Donald Trump in large part because it’s not actually clear what Biden might have done wrong to warrant such a significant undertaking. There were multiple credible whistleblowers and mounds of evidence against Trump in both of his impeachment trials; this impeachment effort seems to be more of an investigation in search of a problem.

As The Washington Post reports:

McCarthy said Tuesday he is directing House committees to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, amid pressure from some hard-right members of the Republican caucus to do so.

The inquiry would center on whether Biden benefited from his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings, among other issues, McCarthy said.

“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption and warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday morning. “That’s why today I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.” [Pols emphasis]

McCarthy spoke for three minutes, did not take any questions and left the lectern shortly after making his remarks. McCarthy has previously said he would not launch an inquiry without a vote by the full house.

If you’re wondering how serious McCarthy is taking this impeachment effort, look no further than his brief comments this morning: “Allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption” is such a nebulous statement that it could apply to just about anyone in Washington D.C.

Why, then, is McCarthy doing this? It’s simple, really: There are enough right-wing MAGA lunatics in his caucus that are demanding impeachment hearings — including (not)BFFs Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert — that McCarthy risks a challenge to his speakership if he doesn’t at least go through the motions of an investigation. As POLITICO explains:

It’s a huge win for conservatives, who have pressured the California Republican for months to move existing investigations into the Democratic president into a formal impeachment inquiry. Some members of McCarthy’s right flank have openly threatened to try to strip him of the House gavel if their demands weren’t met

Remember, back when McCarthy was waiting longer than anyone since before the Civil War to get enough votes to become House Speaker, one of the concessions he made was to change the rules so that any one Member of the House could call for a vote for a new Speaker. McCarthy apparently feels like he’ll lose his gavel if he doesn’t play along with a Biden impeachment investigation.

Side Note: This is the difference between being the Republican leader in the House of Representatives and directing the GOP caucus in the Senate. In order to keep his job as House Speaker, McCarthy had little choice but to give in to the lunatics demanding an impeachment hearing for President Biden — even if nobody is really sure why Biden should be impeached. In the Senate, Mitch McConnell only needed to prove that he was still a relatively-functional human being in order to maintain his job as Senate Minority Leader.

Can you impeach a laptop computer?

It is also unclear just how plausible an impeachment inquiry might be for McCarthy. Let’s go back to POLITICO:

So far, McCarthy doesn’t have 218 GOP votes needed to launch an impeachment inquiry. He and other top Republicans have tried to characterize such a step as strengthening their investigative power, rather than a concrete move toward attempting to boot the president from office — semantics that matter to centrist Republicans.

So this is just a “kinda impeachment”?

Colorado Rep. Ken Buck (R-Greeley) has been speaking out quite a bit lately on his opposition to an impeachment of President Biden. Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon is also not on board, telling POLITICO:

“As of now I don’t support [an impeachment inquiry]. I think an inquiry should be based on evidence of a crime that points directly to President Biden, or if the President doesn’t cooperate by not providing documents. There’s clearly corruption with Hunter using his Dad’s name to earn tens of millions of dollars. But impeachment needs to be about the dad, not the son.” [Pols emphasis]

McCarthy can only afford to lose four Republican votes in his thin majority; Buck and Bacon drop that number to two. There are 18 other vulnerable “centrist” Republicans who are definitely nervous about this given that they represent districts that Biden won in 2020.

The other problem with McCarthy’s announcement is that it removes impeachment as a potential bargaining chip with the White House over a looming government shutdown. The impeachment stuff is making news today, but it won’t be the top story for long once it becomes obvious that McCarthy doesn’t have a way to convince House Republicans — particularly those in the “Freedom Caucus” — to avert a shutdown at the end of the month.

Scott Gessler: The Lawyer Trump Hasn’t Stiffed (Yet)

3
  by: Colorado Pols September 11, 2023 at 3:02 PM MDT

Scott Gessler, who was telling the “Big Lie” years before Trump made it cool.

As the legal campaign seeking accountability over the attempt by ex-President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election has advanced to the criminal justice phase in the last few months, we’ve spent most of our time in this space discussing two lawyers with local ties involved in the plot who are now facing felony criminal charges in the state of Georgia–former University of Colorado Benson Center “conservative scholar” John Eastman, and Colorado Christian University’s Jenna Ellis. Eastman and Ellis were both involved in the development of an admitted illegal strategy to delay the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in order to supplant the lawful electors with Trump cronies.

But as Colorado Newsline’s Chase Woodruff reports today, another Colorado Republican attorney, infamous for his false claims about stolen elections years before Trump adopted casting doubt on elections as his strategy for holding on to power, is still on the payroll (and as far as we know, not in legal trouble himself) despite his own disastrous performance in 2020 trying to press Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud. Longtime readers know him as the “Honey Badger,” but after false claims of election fraud nearly tore apart American democracy, we no longer find him deserving of any term of endearment:

Republican attorney Scott Gessler, who is representing Trump in the suit brought last week by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on behalf of six Colorado voters, served one term as Colorado’s secretary of state from 2011 to 2015…

In an unsuccessful bid for chair of the Colorado Republican Party in 2021, Gessler echoed Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — claims that congressional and criminal investigations have described as part of a sweeping plot to overturn the election that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

During his term in office, Gessler was a vocal promoter of allegations of voter fraud, which elections experts and law enforcement agencies have consistently found is extremely rare, and which advocates criticize as a pretext for efforts to suppress legitimate votes. In the aftermath of the 2012 election, Gessler announced that he had referred 155 suspected cases of voter fraud to local prosecutors across Colorado. Only four people were charged, and prosecutors ultimately only secured a single conviction.

Former Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s thoroughly discredited campaign to prove that Colorado elections were being swung by tens of thousands of “illegal voters” went on for years in his office’s official capacity until finally collapsing in a heap after it became painfully obvious that nothing anywhere near what Gessler claimed was taking place. At the same time, Gessler’s brazen partisanship when it came to enforcing campaign finance laws weaponized the supposedly impartial Secretary of State’s office beyond the wildest aspirations of predecessors or successors.

By 2014, when Gessler decided to run for governor, his by-then discredited quest for “illegal voters” made him a pariah even in the Republican Party at that time. After several years in the wilderness fleecing half-baked recall campaigns, school board races, and other low-level shenanigans, in November of 2020 Gessler got the call to go to work for Trump. Representing the Trump campaign’s attempt to overturn the results in Nevada, the Nevada Independent reported how Gessler fared:

The much-touted evidence…failed to persuade Judge James Russell, who ultimately issued an order dismissing the case with prejudice, meaning the parties could not re-file a similar suit using the same claims…

A third expert provided by the campaign, Scott Gessler, was…questioned by Russell as he provided no exhibits or citations for his conclusions, and “based nearly all his opinions on a handful of affidavits that he took no steps to corroborate through independent investigation.”

The Nevada Supreme Court opinion tossing Trump’s suit in that state singled Gessler out for ridicule:

Contestants offered Mr. Gessler to opine on the transition to and administration of mail voting. Mr. Gessler’s report lacked citations to facts and evidence that he used to come to his conclusions and did not include a single exhibit to support of any of his conclusions.

Indeed, at one point in Gessler testimony he appears to have blown the whole case with a single admission:

Contestants’ own expert witness, Mr. Gessler…testified that he has no personal knowledge that any voting fraud occurred in Nevada’s 2020 General Election. [Pols emphasis]

After failing so dismally to assert Trump’s claims of fraud in 2020, it’s anybody’s guess why Trump is still willing to employ Gessler in 2023 to defend him in the lawsuit seeking to bar Trump from the 2024 primary ballot in Colorado. We assume it must be because in Trump’s view even failure is less consequential than disloyalty, and unlike Jenna Ellis no one has forced Gessler to take back his false statements in defense of Trump. Though not on the same national stage, Gessler certainly has made many of the same false claims about the 2020 that got Jenna Ellis censured by Colorado’s attorney regulators.

If there’s one thing Gessler is an expert at, though, it’s getting paid. Despite Trump’s notoriously poor treatment of his lawyers, if anyone has an ironclad contract to make sure the checks arrive in a timely manner it’s Scott Gessler.

We hope so, anyway, because as Ellis and Eastman can attest, the cost of representing Trump is steeper than anyone imagined in 2020.

Who Among You Will be the First to Sign this Pledge?

1
  by: Colorado Pols September 11, 2023 at 2:53 PM MDT

Sign my…sign.

Early in the summer, Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dave Williams announced that he had formed an alliance of some sort between the Colorado GOP and the Colorado Libertarian Party (LPCO). Nearly four months later, the results of this alliance have proven to be a bit elusive.

The stated goal — from Williams’s point of view, anyway — was about trying to prevent Libertarian candidate “spoilers” from potentially mucking things up for a Republican candidate in a close General Election. Curiously, Williams would later promise to find a Libertarian “spoiler” candidate to run against Republican Barbara Kirkmeyer if she ran again in CO-08 (No, these sentences do not go together, but we all just have suspend our understanding of reality in order to make sense of any of this).

Anyway, in August, the LPCO unveiled a “pledge” for Republican candidates to sign in order to receive the official support of the Colorado Libertarian Party. Williams then started sending out this pledge to Republican candidates — again, a Libertarian Party Pledge coming from an official Colorado Republican Party account — which clearly amused LPCO leaders but thus far hasn’t received much enthusiasm among candidates for top jobs in Colorado.

We already knew that neither of the Republican candidates in the third congressional district — Lauren Boebert and Jeff Hurd — were planning to sign the pledge. This was probably always going to be a harder sell given that a Libertarian candidate named Mark Ellworth Jr was already in the race, but nevertheless…

We also knew that Scott James, a Republican running in CO-08, was doing his best to pretend that the pledge didn’t exist. Last week, via Ernest Luning of the publication formerly known as the Colorado Statesman, there emerged another confirmation buried somewhat in a larger story about Republican State Rep. Gabe Evans entering the race in CO-08:

Evans told Colorado Politics he won’t sign a pledge released last month by the Colorado Libertarian Party as part of a deal between the state’s third-largest party and the state GOP aimed at avoiding potential spoiler candidates in competitive races. [Pols emphasis]

While Caraveo defeated Kirkmeyer last year by just over 1,600 votes — out of almost 240,000 ballots cast — Libertarian nominee Richard Ward received more than 9,000 votes despite not mounting an active campaign, prompting some Republicans to describe the third-party candidate as a spoiler.

“I think that pledge indicates the level of frustration we’re seeing in Colorado with the left being in complete control of really everything in this state,” Evans said. “But there’s some things there I can’t agree to. Most concerning is ultimately moving toward degrading, getting rid of the intelligence community. I’ve been overseas, I’ve seen the threat that adversaries like Iran, Russia, North Korea and China pose. In 2023, we’ve got a dangerous environment in the international community, so we’ve got to make sure we have the tools to protect our country, protect the homeland.”

He said he has reservations about additional elements contained in the lengthy pledge.

Not the slogan (probably) of the GOP/LPCO alliance.

None of the Republican candidates running in the two biggest races of 2024 will sign the Libertarian Party pledge to complete the alliance that the Republican Party Chairman forged in…um…not steel, or blood…but…we’ll go with “spray-can cheese”?

Surely, someone will sign the “Pledge of Alliance,” right?

Actually, yes — we think it will get plenty of signatures.

As easy as it would be to just make fun of the LPCO pledge for Republicans and laugh at its architect, there are plenty of Republican candidates who would sign this pledge, either 1) Because they can use it as a wedge in a tough Primary campaign, and/or 2) Because they happen to believe most of this stuff anyway.

If this pledge had been around in 2022, at least two major congressional candidates would have signed. Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine absolutely would have scribbled her name as a way to separate her from other Republican congressional candidates in CO-03. And Dave Williams himself would have signed it in his bid to unseat Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn in CO-05. Ron Hanks, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate, would have signed. The Republican gubernatorial candidate, Heidi Ganahl, would have scribbled her name in crayon.

Heck, Lauren Boebert would have signed it…in 2020 when she was running in a Republican Primary against Scott Tipton.

Plenty of Republicans will join up in 2024. State Reps. Scott Bottoms and Ken DeGraaf will say pretty much anything; they’ll sign basically anything, too, if you include the right key words in bold type (FREEDOM! LIBERTY! LIQUID SILVER!) Most of the Republicans in the House of Representatives now will give serious consideration to inking their name.

As far as we know, the “Pledge of Alliance” has not yet been signed by a Republican candidate, but it will happen. The next questions are much more interesting.

Get More Smarter on Monday (Sept. 11)

3
  by: Colorado Pols September 11, 2023 at 11:29 AM MDT

President Biden issued a A Proclamation on Patriot Day and National Day of Service and Remembrance for today, marking the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Governor Jared Polis ordered all flags to be lowered to half-staff today in memoriam of those who lost their lives that day. Let’s 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 an audio learner, check out The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter.

 

FIRST UP…

 

► Congress is back in session after the August recess, and the big topic on everyone’s mind is whether or not there might be another government shutdown at the end of the month. As POLITICO explains, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck (R-Greeley) is at the heart of the brewing tornado:

There’s a “perfect storm” brewing in the House in the coming weeks, and it could pose a threat to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s speakership, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said Sunday.

“On the one hand, we’ve got to pass a continuing resolution,” Buck said during an interview on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.” “We also have the impeachment issue. And we also have members of the House, led by my good friend, Chip Roy, who are concerned about policy issues. They want riders in the appropriations bills, amendments in the appropriations bills that guarantee some type of security on our Southern border.

“So you take those things put together, and Kevin McCarthy, the speaker, has made promises on each of those issues to different groups. And now it is all coming due at the same time,” Buck said.

Buck has also been vocal about his opposition to efforts by folks such as Rep. Lauren Boebert to push forward with an impeachment vote against President Biden that would serve no purpose other than to placate a few MAGA nuts.

In a separate story from Ian Ward of POLITICO, a former Republican leader is warning House Speaker Kevin McCarthy NOT to allow a government shutdown to happen:

In October 2013, the Republican-led House of Representatives failed to pass a last-ditch spending bill for the first time in 17 years, forcing the federal government into a costly and controversial 16-day shutdown. Now, as Congress once again careens toward a potential shutdown on Oct. 1, one of the Republican leaders at the center of the fight 10 years ago — former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor — has some advice for his colleagues in the GOP.

Don’t do it again.

“Unless there is a plausible way to execute a plan of a shutdown — meaning [Republicans] can actually win when you come out of it — I’m not sure there is a win there,” Cantor told me when I spoke to him. That judgment, Cantor said, is largely informed by what happened a decade ago, when Republicans in the House tried — and failed — to block the implementation of Obamacare by shuttering the government. What they got instead, Cantor told me, was a major political headache that did little to stymie the rollout of Obama’s health care program.

“A lot of people were just fine with being able to vent their anger and frustration, go into the shutdown and leave it to leaders to figure out how to get out of it,” said Cantor, who lost his seat in a shocking upset to a conservative primary challenger in 2014 and now works for the investment bank Moelis & Company.

“I think that politically, that’s not a winner.” [Pols emphasis]

No, but that doesn’t mean that right-wing voices, including the Freedom Caucus, won’t do it anyway. During a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in August, Buck said that he expects that a shutdown will happen because of the insistence from him and others that the government reduce spending.

 

► As The Associated Press reports, attorneys for Donald Trump have succeeded (thus far) in moving a case about his eligibility for the 2024 ballots from state to federal court:

The liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed the initial lawsuit on Wednesday in state court, arguing a Civil War-era clause prohibiting higher office for those who once swore an oath to the Constitution and then engaged in “insurrection” prevents Trump from running in 2024…

…CREW’s case is the first of what’s expected to be many challenges filed in various states by the group and Free Speech for People, another liberal nonprofit. Activists in other states have filed lawsuits in which they represent themselves, but legal observers contend the more robust complaints by the nonprofits are more likely to end up at the nation’s highest court, which has never ruled on the clause.

CREW can still petition to move the case back to state court.

 

► Colorado Senate Democrats elected new leadership on Friday. Senator Robert Rodriguez will serve as Senate Majority Leader after defeating Sen. Rachel Zenzinger. Rodriguez replaces Dominick Moreno, who resigned from the Senate to take a job with Denver Mayor Mike Johnston. Senator Faith Winter was elected to serve as assistant majority leader.

 

 

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