The Get More Smarter Podcast - A Weekly Show About Colorado Politics

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This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast, the United States Supreme Court voted unanimously to let Donald Trump appear on the Colorado ballot in 2024; Democrats and Republicans alike weep and rejoice in equal measure. Kevin McCarthy may have been the shortest-termed speaker in modern history, but MAGA Mike Johnson may go down as the least capable person to ever hold the job as he kicks the can down the road and forces the federal government to live paycheck to paycheck. Next, Real President Joe Biden and Pretend President Donald Trump both visited the Texas Border this week, but only one of them wants to do anything to solve the problem.
 
With the Colorado legislature well underway, one powerful legislator is picking fights with the media about objectively accurate reporting -- where have we seen this before? And our 8th favorite member of congress from Colorado is having a tougher and tougher time these days. May we politely suggest suspending your campaign and spending more time with your family? Finally, the fallout from the overturning of Roe v. Wade continues as Republicans recognize the effects of their own policies; maybe they should stop trying to interfere in private medical decisions altogether so this kind of stuff isn’t a problem anymore? And the most corrupt, contemptible, and batshit crazy chair of the Colorado GOP in modern memory -- if not all of history -- is using Nikki Haley’s money to go after Phil Anschutz, Jeff Crank, and Nikki Haley, all while trying to bolster his own campaign for Congress. Is there any line this guy won’t cross to promote himself?

That’s it for this episode! If you loved watching and/or listening to it as much as we loved recording it, you can thank us by subscribing to the pod wherever you listen, following us over on New Old Twitter AKA Bluesky, subscribing to our shiny new channel on YouTube, smashing that subscribe button on our Substack, and sharing this episode with your friends, your enemies, and your 8th favorite Member of Congress from Colorado! THANK YOU so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time!

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This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast, the incredibly cynical and evidence-free impeachment attempt against President Biden is failing, and now even Republicans are noticing; as it turns out, when the leader of your party is a 91-time indicted twice convicted obvious crook, trying to play both sides against a guy like Joe Biden just isn’t going to work. Next, we discuss how an egg isn’t a chicken, a sapling isn’t a tree, a seed isn’t a flower, and no, a frozen embryo isn’t a person. A southern Colorado Republican con artist gets targeted by the feds in an investigation; we're glad that federal law enforcement is finally figuring out what so many of us in Colorado knew for so long. And finally, the namesake of the very first episode of this podcast has emerged from his hole; former U.S. Senator Cory Gardner has an endorsement to make! Will this be the normie establishment kiss of death, or just what the incredibly crowded field in his former congressional district needs to make their mind up?

That’s it for this episode! If you loved watching and/or listening to it as much as we loved recording it, you can thank us by subscribing to the pod wherever you listen, following us over on New Old Twitter AKA Bluesky, subscribing to our shiny new channel on YouTube, smashing that subscribe button on our Substack, and sharing this episode with your friends, your enemies, and your 8th favorite Member of Congress from Colorado! THANK YOU so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time!

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This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast: Democrats keep winning, Republicans keep losing, and we predict whether these two trends will continue! Congress finally found the votes to impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security, even though the Senate wants nothing to do with this ridiculousness. And can four GOP state lawmakers running for higher office break the "Republican Caucus Curse" and get elected to Congress? 

But first, Kyle Clark of 9News, Colorado’s most popular evening news anchor, joins us once more to talk about what the hell is going on in Lakewood, if local and national journalists are failing to meet the moment on political extremism, and what the balance is between fighting bigotry and platforming it.  

That’s it for this episode! If you loved watching and/or listening to it as much as we loved recording it, you can thank us by subscribing to the pod wherever you listen, following us over on New Old Twitter AKA Bluesky, subscribing to our shiny new channel on YouTube, smashing that subscribe button on our Substack, and sharing this episode with your friends, your enemies, and your 8th favorite Member of Congress from Colorado! THANK YOU so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time!

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This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast, Republicans have managed to break both chambers of Congress as they refuse to not only accomplish their most basic constitutional obligations, but fail to accomplish even their real bad political objectives. Then, Gabe-ish Evans -- the half-term state representative running for the GOP nomination to lose to Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo in November -- gets Speaker Mike Johnson’s endorsement; no word on whether or not he also got Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s endorsement, but we’re betting against it personally. Next, we come closer to home with some good old fashioned chaos at the State Capitol, and the disgraced convicted felon who wrote the worst law in Colorado may be running for Congress now that a criminal record is apparently something to be proud of when running for the nomination of the party of law and order. 

BUT FIRST semi-returning podcast champion Andrew Baumann, Partner at the legendary Democratic Polling Firm Global Strategy Group joins us to review the latest edition of the ProgressNow/GSG quarterly-ish survey, "The Rocky Mountaineer"...

That’s it for this episode! If you loved watching and/or listening to it as much as we loved recording it, you can thank us by subscribing to the pod wherever you listen, following us over on New Old Twitter AKA Bluesky, subscribing to our shiny new channel on YouTube, smashing that subscribe button on our Substack, and sharing this episode with your friends, your enemies, and your 8th favorite Member of Congress from Colorado! THANK YOU so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time!

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This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast, we learn that all persons are persons from our coverage of the ClusterBuck in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District...which continues with the results of a debate, a straw poll, and some partial campaign finance reports that are coming in as we record. While nobody’s really breaking fundraising records here, this race may be breaking the record for “most candidates with arrest records in a primary election in Colorado History.” 

There was also a GOP debate in the 8th congressional district which is a must-win if Colorado Republicans want to crawl out of their cavern of irrelevance and if national Republicans want to keep their now-one-seat-majority. But the candidates there are...not the best. And we check in on the second regular session of the 74th General Assembly where GOP leadership has transitioned from worse to bad -- and a brand new kind of microminority infighting has just begun.

That’s it for this episode! If you loved watching and/or listening to it as much as we loved recording it, you can thank us by subscribing to the pod wherever you listen, following us over on New Old Twitter AKA Bluesky, subscribing to our shiny new channel on YouTube, smashing that subscribe button on our Substack, and sharing this episode with your friends, your enemies, and your 8th favorite Member of Congress from Colorado! THANK YOU so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time!

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This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast, there was so much news between the last time we recorded and today that we had to throw out a whole episode and start over! First, the ClusterBuck in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District gets more cluster-er as the Colorado House Minority Leader cops to a DUI and one of his caucus members/leading opponents for the nomination admits to paying for an abortion for his college girlfriend during a speech he made opposing the recognition of Roe v. Wade. Our 8th favorite member of congress from Colorado -- who is soon to be our first favorite former member of Congress from Colorado -- lays low as she finishes unpacking after moving into what she hopes is her new district, but it won’t be, really. The economy is rolling, and Americans have finally noticed! And the "Fat Lady" is warming up, because Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for President after Ron DeSanctimonius dropped out and Nikki Haley got her clock cleaned in New Hampshire. 

That’s it for this episode! If you loved watching and/or listening to it as much as we loved recording it, you can thank us by subscribing to the pod wherever you listen, following us over on New Old Twitter AKA Bluesky, subscribing to our shiny new channel on YouTube, smashing that subscribe button on our Substack, and sharing this episode with your friends, your enemies, and your 8th favorite Member of Congress from Colorado! THANK YOU so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time!

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This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast, absolutely nobody has done more for Democrats in Colorado than Republicans in Colorado; it's not remotely close, and it's about to get worse. With ZERO statewide offices, total irrelevance in the Colorado legislature, and now zero-out-of-three incumbents running for re-election in their own congressional seats, the Colorado GOP is undeniably at their lowest point in modern history...perhaps all of history! We dance on the ashes of a once politically competitive organization that is more worried about infighting than any other sort of political battle. The Colorado House and Senate kick off the second regular session of the 74th general assembly; we do a preview of a preview of some of the big fights, the little fights, and the medium fights. 

That’s it for this episode! If you loved watching and/or listening to it as much as we loved recording it, you can thank us by subscribing to the pod wherever you listen, following us over on New Old Twitter AKA Bluesky, subscribing to our shiny new channel on YouTube, smashing that subscribe button on our Substack, and sharing this episode with your friends, your enemies, and your 8th favorite Member of Congress from Colorado! THANK YOU so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time!

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This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast, it’s a special interview-only episode! Will Marshall, president of the legendary center-left think tank Progressive Policy Institute, joins us to talk pragmatism versus performance, how Democrats can start winning working class voters again, and what the 2024 election is going to look like. 

That’s it for this episode! If you loved watching and/or listening to it as much as we loved recording it, you can thank us by subscribing to the pod wherever you listen, following us over on New Old Twitter AKA Bluesky, subscribing to our shiny new channel on YouTube, smashing that subscribe button on our Substack, and sharing this episode with your friends, your enemies, and your 8th favorite Member of Congress from Colorado! THANK YOU so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time!

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This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast, we almost made it through 2023 with another podcast episode, but then Lauren Boebert announced late on December 27th when LITERALLY NOBODY WAS TRYING TO THINK ABOUT HER that she was going to carpetbag her broken campaign down to the 4th congressional district. So, in this special episode of the Get More Smarter Podcast: What the Buck is our 8th Favorite Member of Congress from Colorado Doing in the 4th District?

That’s it for this episode! If you loved watching and/or listening to it as much as we loved recording it, you can thank us by subscribing to the pod wherever you listen, following us over on New Old Twitter AKA Bluesky, subscribing to our shiny new channel on YouTube, smashing that subscribe button on our Substack, and sharing this episode with your friends, your enemies, and your 8th favorite Member of Congress from Colorado! THANK YOU so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time!

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This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast...the Colorado Supreme Court held that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents the Secretary of State from placing Donald Trump on the Presidential ballot in Colorado, setting up a constitutional showdown with national implications. Mario Nicolais, one of the attorneys for the six electors who brought the case to the State Supreme Court, walks us through how it all went down and what he expects might happen next.

That’s it for this episode! If you loved watching and/or listening to it as much as we loved recording it, you can thank us by subscribing to the pod wherever you listen, following us over on New Old Twitter AKA Bluesky, subscribing to our shiny new channel on YouTube, smashing that subscribe button on our Substack, and sharing this episode with your friends, your enemies, and your 8th favorite Member of Congress from Colorado! THANK YOU so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time!