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Republican Rep. Cory Gardner is only entering his second full term in Congress, but he’s already confusing himself with some other Cory Gardner.

This week Gardner and some guy named Tim Griffin (apparently a Congressman from Arkansas) sent a letter to President Obama demanding answers in Monday’s State of the Union speech. Here’s how the press release begins:

Congressmen Cory Gardner (CO-04) and Tim Griffin (AR-02) issued the following statements after sending a letter to President Obama requesting that he be forthcoming in this State of the Union (SOTU) regarding our national debt, Medicare and Social Security:

“This President has claimed to be one of the most transparent in history, yet his healthcare overhaul was passed behind closed doors and ended up cutting $500 billion from Medicare,” Gardner said. “The American people deserve better than that. The State of the Union is President Obama’s chance to come clean and lay out an honest plan for protecting Medicare and Social Security, which is something he failed to do during his first term.”[Pols emphasis]

That’s funny! You know why it’s funny? It’s funny because Gardner was a big supporter of  the infamous “Ryan Plan” that would have gutted Medicare to the bone and slashed nearly $800 billion from Medicaid as well. It’s funny because he’s demanding that President Obama protect what Gardner himself is trying to unravel. It’s funny because “Medicare and Social Security,” has been under assault…from House Republicans like Gardner.

Or maybe that was some other Cory Gardner storming the gates of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in 2011.

We’d call this the height of hypocrisy, but this is so ridiculously absurd that even the word “hypocrisy” would want to distance itself from Gardner.

You go, Cory! Demand that our President protect America from Cory Gardner. Both of them. Either of them. Whatever.

The Hill–there’s a chance that we’ll be referring back to this story for a long, long time:

Even as Republican officials maintain the GOP majority is safe, several lawmakers and longtime activists warn of far-reaching political ramifications if voters perceive Republicans as botching consequential talks on the debt ceiling, sequestration and a possible government shutdown.

“Majorities are elected to do things, and if they become dysfunctional, the American people will change what the majority is,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a House deputy majority whip and a former National Republican Congressional Committee chairman, told The Hill. [Pols emphasis]

Concerns on the right stem from a public perception that House Republicans were to blame – because of poor leadership strategy and rank-and-file dissent – for bringing the country to the edge of the fiscal cliff late last month.

As this fine reporting by The Hill’s Alexandra Jaffe makes clear, the House GOP majority is torn by two competing and mutually exclusive assumptions. On one side, you have an ideologically rigid conservative wing of the majority, still feeling emboldened after large gains made in 2010 and in redistricting in many states, who are absolutely determined to carry out their ideologically-driven agenda–regardless of public opinion, or short-term consequences for the U.S. economy.

On the other side, you have at least some practically-minded Republicans who realize coming out of 2012 that they have already overplayed their hand.

Conventional wisdom, backed by hard numbers, suggests that Republicans have enjoyed enough success with congressional redistricting in recent decades–though not in Colorado–to create an extremely durable GOP House majority. The simplest evidence for this is the 2012 national popular vote, which re-elected Barack Obama by nearly five million votes, while also re-electing 2010’s “Tea Party” GOP House majority more or less intact.

Democrats need to net 17 districts to take back the House in 2014, widely considered a significant hurdle to overcome.

But the party has identified “30 districts where the [GOP] incumbent [won by] less than 10 percent and an additional 18 districts that we think can perform better” in a non-presidential election year, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said recently.

And it’s in those districts – where Republicans don’t have a deep base of voters to rely on – that a repeat disaster like the fiscal-cliff fight could matter. [Pols emphasis]

We haven’t seen the list of 2014 Democratic pickup opportunities mentioned above, but we fully expect it to include both Colorado’s Third and Sixth Districts. Although Republican incumbents held these seats in 2012, every election cycle under the current maps will remain hotly competitive in both. If Democrats picked up one or both of those seats in 2014, and that level of success was replicated across the country in other swing district races…

Seriously, folks, what must happen before conventional wisdom is forced to reassess?

We weren’t the only observers who thought that the National Rifle Association jumped the shark when CEO Wayne LaPierre laid out his absurd plan to place armed guards in every school. If you thought the NRA couldn’t get more absurd, well, check out their new ad via CNN

The National Rifle Association released a new television commercial Tuesday night charging President Barack Obama of hypocrisy for being “skeptical” about placing armed guards at schools, while his own two daughters are protected by the U.S. Secret Service.

“Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” a narrator says in the 30 second ad. “Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school.”

You’d think the upcoming deadline to extend the U.S. debt ceiling offers the perfect moment for one, just one, congressional Republican from Colorado to pull on his big-boy pants and say something like, “Hey, we created stock market gyrations and induced the first-ever U.S.-credit downgrade when we held up the debt increase in 2011. We caused similar instability last year. Let’s get real, extend the ceiling, and debate budget cuts during the budget process.”

Which is what Democrats and Republicans have done over 100 times since 1940, with little opposition (until 2011). Reagan did it 18 times; G.W. Bush seven.

Instead, it looks like Coffman (here), Gardner (here, here) are readying themselves for a fight that could lead to an economic mini-tizzy if not a large one.

Or maybe not. Can a Colorado Republican step up and be reasonable? Any of them? That’s what editorial writers at The Denver Post and elsewhere should be asking.

In just the latest example of extreme craziness, Gardner used the debt-ceiling debate to raise the specter of the rise of Nazism in America. Here’s what he said on KFTM radio’s Big Morning Show Jan. 14:

Gardner: I think you’re going to see a whale of a fight over the next two months….

Host: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And really, how is this any different than what Germany went through in the 1930s when you had to literally have wheelbarrows full of German Marks in order to even buy a loaf of bread?

Gardner: Well a period of hyper-inflation, of course, we all know what that led to, the instability economically and what that led to. And we see quantitative easing taking place in the United States. We see devaluation of the dollar. We see inflationary pressures and threats and how that’s being dealt with. And yet there is no clear path to address those concerns. This nation faces the real possibility of a debt depression if we don’t get a hold of the financial situation right now.

Listen to Rep. Gardner on KFTM Radio 1-14-2012 raising specter of Nazism in America .

As the Colorado Independent’s John Tomasic reported Friday evening:

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers’ office this week made what’s sure to be a controversial decision to officially support Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s effort to establish a legal defense fund. The fund would host contributions from private donors willing to cover costs tied to a Denver District Attorney criminal investigation into reimbursements Gessler charged to his office for alleged unofficial expenses…

“In the Attorney General’s view,” Grove wrote, “the propriety of a legal defense fund is governed by conflict of interest principles… The Attorney General submits that an arrangement that: (1) places appropriate limits on the public official’s solicitation of contributions, and (2) either ensures transparency or establishes a blind trust would be consistent with [constitutional] concerns…”

Suthers and Gessler are both high-profile Republican figures in the state, and the letter, which Attorney General Spokesperson Carolyn Tyler told the Independent was approved by Suthers, is sure to fuel complaints about backscratching among top state Republican officials. It will also likely renew questions about the power of the state’s understaffed Ethics Commission, which is tasked with investigating official misconduct but hobbled by a tiny budget and no staff attorneys to turn to for advice on legal questions. Indeed, the Grove letter underlines the way the story of Gessler’s alleged misuse of a relative small amount of public money seems to grow into a larger story about government ethical standards and oversight each month as new chapters pile onto the narrative.

Basically, Attorney General John Suthers’ office argues that Secretary of State Scott Gessler would not violate Amendment 41, the Colorado law barring “private gain” by state employees that could in turn influence an official action, by setting up a legal defense fund. The AG’s office says that if appropriate safeguards restricting Gessler’s ability to solicit contributions are defined, and the arrangement “either ensures transparency or establishes a blind trust,” it would be permissible under Amendment 41. Read the very brief memo here.

The thing is, whether or not that opinion is correct, the role of the Attorney General’s office as both counsel for state employees and the Independent Ethics Commission investigating Gessler is turning into a conflict all by itself. Tomasic of the Independent continues:

Ethics Commission Director Jane Feldman believes the Commission’s consideration of the matter has been complicated by the Attorney General’s official position in support of the fund. She told the Independent that Grove’s letter raises conflict-of-interest concerns because the Attorney General is tasked by the state constitution with providing counsel to the Ethics Commission in its deliberations.

“It’s disappointing that the AG’s office weighed in on this without discussing it with us,” Feldman said. “Now we effectively lose the services of the attorney general’s office in considering the legality of the fund. If we need advice, we’ll have to hire outside counsel.”

…Ethics Watch Director Luis Toro told the Independent he thought the attorney general’s office had crossed a line in taking a position in favor of the Gessler defense fund and that the move bolsters an argument his organization has been making for years that the state’s Ethics Commission should have its own counsel on staff, independent from any of the government agencies or offices it might have to investigate.

“The AG’s office said it wouldn’t be involved in Gessler’s criminal defense, yet here it’s involved, isn’t it?” Toro said. “In fact the AG went out of its way, tripping over itself, to get involved. Whose hat is the AG wearing? Is it counsel for the Ethics Commission or for Scott Gessler? Now they’ve handicapped the Commission by leaving the members without its usual counsel.”

Given the obvious partisan political relationship between Republican Attorney General Suthers and Secretary of State Gessler, this situation reveals the folly of using the AG’s office as counsel for the ethics commission at all–since the AG’s role as counsel for state employees arguably makes the conflict the IEC is complaining about in this case inevitable.

Says Colorado Ethics Watch, this problem would be best solved by properly funding the IEC, which would allow it to retain its own legal counsel. For that to happen, of course, lawmakers in Colorado would need to start treating the IEC, and for that matter Amendment 41 as a whole, as something more than a bastard stepchild they would really prefer just go away.

As it stands now, our GOP Attorney General has demonstrated a clever way to subvert it.

Politico reports, the next round of manufactured drama is upon us:

House Republicans are seriously entertaining dramatic steps, including default or shutting down the government, to force President Barack Obama to finally cut spending by the end of March.

The idea of allowing the country to default by refusing to increase the debt limit is getting more widespread and serious traction among House Republicans than people realize, though GOP leaders think shutting down the government is the much more likely outcome of the spending fights this winter.

“I think it is possible that we would shut down the government to make sure President Obama understands that we’re serious,” House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state told us. “We always talk about whether or not we’re going to kick the can down the road. I think the mood is that we’ve come to the end of the road.”

…GOP officials said more than half of their members are prepared to allow default unless Obama agrees to dramatic cuts he has repeatedly said he opposes. Many more members, including some party leaders, are prepared to shut down the government to make their point. House Speaker John Boehner “may need a shutdown just to get it out of their system,” said a top GOP leadership adviser. “We might need to do that for member-management purposes – so they have an endgame and can show their constituents they’re fighting.”

After what is broadly considered a major political defeat for the GOP–even though it was just a two-month placeholder measure that happened to resolve on the side of Democrats–there is a strong feeling that the GOP House majority is going to become significantly more intransigent as that deal nears expiration. The “debt ceiling” controversy, as it was in 2011 when the Budget Control Act set up the “sequester” cuts just temporarily avoided, is of much greater consequence if it isn’t resolved by a somewhat malleable but very much extant deadline.

President Barack Obama and Democrats respond the GOP’s willingness to engage in still more brinksmanship, with all the attendant problems that ongoing drama creates for the U.S. economy, is grossly irresponsible. Democrats point to major spending cuts already enacted since 2011 as evidence of good faith, and say that Republican threats regarding the debt ceiling are tantamount to threatening to not pay bills we’ve already incurred. And we’ve seen nothing to suggest the Republican demand for even more cuts to popular programs like Medicare and Social Security has become less toxic than it was last month, or for that matter in 2011.

As always, we can’t say where this will end, but the fundamentals haven’t changed. Without a major shift in public opinion that has not occurred despite millions spent trying, the right wing’s broken-record demand for tax breaks and cuts to popular programs, backed by threats to do tangible economic harm to the entire country, is politically disastrous as well.

It’s been said that Republican success with redistricting (nationally, Colorado being a noted exception to this rule) has created a GOP House majority impervious to public opinion–even overwhelming public support as the protection of Medicare and Social Security enjoy.

It’s hard to imagine a more demanding test of that, you know, imperviousness.

When we announced on Monday that Colorado Pols had surpassed 500,000 comments, it was noted that we haven’t been good about providing regular user updates.

With that in mind, follow the jump to see the Top 10 Most Active Polsters of 2012 and vote for the Greatest Polster Ever in 2012.

UPDATE: The Colorado Independent’s John Tomasic with more IEC coverage:

The travel expenses charged by Gessler come from attendance at the Republican Party convention in Florida and to a Republican National Lawyers Association meeting this past summer. Gessler was not a delegate to the Republican convention, a fact confirmed for the Independent by Spokesman for the state Republican Party Justin Miller. On his reimbursement forms, Gessler said he was conducting state business.

Peg Perl, staff counsel at Ethics Watch, told the Independent it was gratifying to see the commission stay focused on the substance of the case.

“We’re happy the commission members are taking their responsibility seriously,” she said in a phone interview. “They voted unanimously that this complaint was not frivolous when they took it up and they decided unanimously today to investigate it on the merits. Gessler’s attorneys cast aspersions on Ethics Watch, calling our motives into question, and they attacked the way the Ethics Commission conducts business. But the fact remains that these are questionable transactions with public funds and Coloradans have a right to know what happened.”

Perl added that the complaint filed by her organization was based on published news reports and documents from the secretary of state’s office obtained through an Open Records Act request. She said the commission will have greater investigative power to look into the spending through its subpoena powers.

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It’s been a long time coming, reports the Fort Collins Coloradoan’s Patrick Malone:

Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission on Monday denied Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s request to end its investigation of his use of public funds. Gessler’s deputy, in turn, asked the commission for permission to accept monetary donations outside of the constitutional gift limit to defend him against criminal allegations.

Democratically aligned Colorado Ethics Watch filed complaints against Gessler with the Independent Ethics Commission and the Denver district attorney’s office over his use of public funds to pay for part of a trip in August to Florida where Gessler attended a GOP lawyers’ function and the Republican National Convention.

Colorado Ethics Watch also asked the ethics commission and prosecutors to investigate Gessler’s acceptance of personal payments to empty the balance of his office’s discretionary fund.

Malone reports that embattled Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s three high-powered defense lawyers, David Lane, Robert Bruce, and Michael Davis, are being paid by the state to defend Gessler in the Independent Ethics Commission proceedings against him. Not so with Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey’s criminal investigation of Gessler over essentially the same dubious reimbursements, and cleaning out his discretionary account of remaining funds. In a criminal case, even related to his duties, Gessler has to pick up the tab for his own legal defense–unless he can carve out a fresh loophole in Amendment 41:

In the request for an advisory opinion from the ethics commission, Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert advocates allowing donations to a legal defense fund for Gessler. In the document, Staiert argues that political rivals can financially harm public officials whose policies they oppose.

She states that donors to the fund would not curry the influence of a public official, because the public official would not directly benefit from the donations that are paid to his lawyers.

We would be more sympathetic to Gessler’s plight, recognizing that legal harassment is at least hypothetically possible against public officials. Unlike most frivolous legal harassment, though, this isn’t getting dismissed out of hand. In fact, the IEC has decided that the case has merit. That’s not proof of guilt, of course, but citizens must pay for their own criminal defense in most cases–even when they are eventually found not guilty. A criminal investigation (and prosecution, if any) has a much higher standard than, say, a frivolous civil lawsuit. Is Gessler implying that the Denver DA is a “political rival” seeking to “financially harm” him?

Also, it’s not like we’re talking about a policy issue or consequential official action being defended. Although related to his office, the underlying charge boils down to essentially misuse of funds–whatever descriptive term you want to use for that, we’ve heard several.

Either way, how would a donation to Gessler’s legal defense fund not be of “direct benefit” to Gessler, when the alternative is him paying out of pocket? And how then would that be permissible under Amendment 41? That would be awfully hard to swallow even if the circumstances surrounding this alleged malfeasance did inspire much sympathy.

Which, if you haven’t been paying attention, they don’t.

Another milestone in this blog’s history was reached today, after longtime reader dukeco1 posted the 500,000th comment to Colorado Pols. That’s half a million, for those of us who have trouble with so many zeros. Thanks once again to our entire community for making this the most read and discussed political blog in Colorado. It wouldn’t be without you.

And for posting comment #500,000, dukeco1 wins a free lifetime supply of keystrokes at Colorado Pols!

UPDATE: GOP attorney Mario Nicolais responds that it was “a fun thought to mull over,” but he will not be running for Attorney General in 2014.

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Late last month, for Colorado Sen. Ken Gordon filed to run in 2014 for Colorado Secretary of State–against incumbent Scott Gessler, or another Republican in the entirely plausible event Gessler decides not to run again. Gordon ran for Secretary of State in 2006, losing to Mike Coffman by a fairly narrow margin. Gordon is not the only Democrat feeling out a possible run for SoS in 2014, however, another name making the rounds being CU Regent Joe Neguse.

In other campaign scuttlebutt, we’ve heard that Republican attorney Mario Nicolais, of reapportionment and Coloradans for Freedom fame, is looking at a run for Attorney General in 2014 to replace the term-limited incumbent John Suthers. After Suthers’ strident activism from his office against things like marriage equality, the avowedly pro-civil unions Nicolais would be an interesting curveball–and potentially quite controversial in a GOP primary.

A press release from Gov. John Hickenlooper’s office today:

Gov. John Hickenlooper announced plans today to save more than $280 million in Medicaid spending over 10 years, permitting the prudent expansion of coverage in Colorado. Projections show the savings, existing provider fee structure and other health-related revenues will more than cover the cost of the expansion.

“We worked diligently over the past several months to find savings in order to expand coverage,” Hickenlooper said. “Not one dollar from the state’s general fund will be used for this expansion, even in 2017 when the federal government begins to reduce its share.”

The new coverage levels are authorized by the federal Affordable Care Act and will expand Medicaid coverage to Coloradans earning up to 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) beginning on Jan. 1, 2014.

The AP via CBS4 adds context:

At least 14 states and Washington, D.C., already have indicated they would try to expand Medicaid, a signature goal of the new health care law. Governors in nine states have said they won’t participate. A Supreme Court ruling last summer made the Medicaid expansion voluntary for states, rather than mandatory.

The Medicaid overhaul is one of the two main ways the federal health law expands coverage to most of the 50 million uninsured U.S. residents.

Here’s a statement from the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative:

We applaud Governor Hickenlooper for supporting the extension of quality, affordable healthcare to 160,000 uninsured Coloradans through Medicaid.  This is a crucial investment in the economic security of our state. We look forward to working with the administration to plan the new Medicaid program this year and implement it next year because all Coloradans should be able to get the health coverage they need, when they need it.

And the Colorado Hospital Association:

CHA commends Gov. Hickenlooper for his decision to support Medicaid expansion under the provisions of the ACA. Strengthening and expanding Medicaid will lead to improved physical and economic health for all of Colorado. More than 161,000 Coloradans will now be eligible for health care coverage through Medicaid. That means thousands of Colorado families will have access to the primary and preventative care, early diagnoses and treatment they need in order to live healthier and higher quality lives.

The expansion of Medicaid to cover some 160,000 more uninsured Coloradans is mostly financed, at least in the short term, through the Affordable Care Act a.k.a. “Obamacare,” through 2017 when the state’s share of the cost will gradually increase to 10%. Even then, Hickenlooper says the savings his administration is finding in the system, the hospital Medicaid provider fee passed in 2009, and other changes should account for the expenditure. This will help hospitals struggling to care for uninsured patients, and help all the rest of us who pick up part of those costs, in addition to increasing affordable access to health care.

And again, more people with health coverage means a healthier population generally. If you think about that every time a stranger coughs in your personal space, for example, it should be easy to understand how expanding access to care helps everybody. Somewhere in there that becomes good for the economy, too, a point not lost on Colorado’s pro-business Governor.

One thing we haven’t seen yet is objections from the GOP minority, but no doubt they are coming. Hickenlooper doesn’t need legislative approval for this expansion, which he claims will not impact the general fund, but that’s unlikely to stop Sen. Greg Brophy from complaining about all the extra money poor people will have for air conditioning and lottery tickets now.