GET YOUR WEATHER QUESTIONS READY Because Fox 31's Chief Meteorologist Dave Fraser is on at 12:30 to answer your weather questions.
WHY IS THE LEFT SO FREAKED OUT ABOUT USAID? We talked about this for a minute yesterday but the Daily Caller's Mary Rooke joins me at 1pm to talk about this column she wrote about exactly why. The long and short of it is that USAID has long been an anti-American slush fund that simply spreads the divisive trash we've been dealing with here to the entire world. One Boulder Democrat makes the case here to keep the agency alive, but I think most Americans are well past the point where we want to try to spread Democrat priorities around the world. This quote caught my eye:
"Closing USAID would not only undo decades of progress but also diminish our standing as a leader in global development, democracy, and human rights," she said. "USAID is essential to building stronger, more resilient communities around the world, whether through disaster relief, democratic governance programs, or empowering marginalized populations. The work of USAID is a reflection of our nation's values, and it would be a tragic misstep to close it down.
The problem about this is that the phrase "our nation's values" means something very different to me than it does to her I'm guessing. Matt Taibbi writes here that Trump is Gozilla stomping through the federal government and outside DC Americans are shrugging. He isn't wrong.
TRUMP SAYS THE PALESTINIANS NEED A NEW HOMELAND And is he wrong? Here is the press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday.
He was pretty clear in putting Iran on notice, along with putting the other Muslim nations that don't want the Palestinians either. One must wonder why, although if you pay attention to history you know that the Palestinian people have wreaked havoc wherever they have gone. This is from a very sympathetic story from NPR:
There's another motive in the mix, says Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies in Tel Aviv. Security concerns for Egypt are paramount. Sisi's rivals in the Muslim Brotherhood briefly led Egypt before he took power around a decade ago, and in the 1980s Hamas emerged as an offshoot of the group. Islamists still pose a threat to Sisi's rule, and Egypt is also battling Islamist insurgents in Sinai, just across the Gaza border.
No one wants troublemakers even if they share something in common. The thing I'm most happy about is that Saudi Arabia has been open to helping with this transition of moving over a million Palestinians out of Gaza. This is not a solution anyone saw coming, but it does make sense. Is this the endgame? I'm genuinely not sure, it could be a warning shot to the Palestinian people who may not want to give up their lovely but currently destroyed city on the sea. You know what you didn't see here? A staff approved list of media members to call on that Joe Biden had to use. He also threatened violence if all the hostages are not released and I'm down with that. IF you really want to see Trump begin a negotiation look at the part where he says that the Middle East is a "beautiful place" which is simply not true.
THE UNION PAYOFF BILL GOES TO THE COLORADO SENATE And if you want something that will make our declining business environment even WORSE, this bill is it. Of course it passed out of committee and will now be heard on the floor of the Senate. We'll see if the Dems can ram this through and force Mr. Freedom to veto the bill, which he most certainly will have to do if he wants to be a fake libertarian.
TRUMP RESCINDS AN ORDER BLOCKING IMMIGRANT ORGANIZATION After they immediately filed a lawsuit about the order blocking organizations from helping illegal immigrants navigate our system. This felt like a clear First Amendment issue to me, but this may have been a Thrust and Retreat move among many. Read more here.
SOURING ON THE SOCIAL MEDIA LAWMAKERS This is a good column on what happens when an elected official decides to attack the other team on social media and the backlash because of it. If I'm reading between the lines, I have to give the Democrat party credit for marginalizing Rep. Steven Woodrow for the hateful rhetoric he spreads on a regular basis on social media.
WILL YOUR KING SOOPERS WORKERS STRIKE? If they are in the Front Range the answer is yes, and you can find a complete list of who is striking here. My Kings is overflowing with temporary workers right now so we'll see if they can keep things running well.
FBI AGENTS DON'T WANT THEIR NAMES RELEASED First off, I understand why law enforcement officials want to guard their privacy. They don't want to be targeted. But isn't it ironic that FBI agents, some of whom engaged in egregious investigations and prosecutions of people who were non-violent, peripheral players at the Capitol, JUST NOW understand how damaging releasing the names of people being investigated actually is? They are suing to keep their names private, which is a reasonable ask as long as they aren't being charged with anything, but I found this funny in a not ha-ha kind of way.
PENA BOULEVARD SUCKS AND IS GETTING WORSE And last I checked our Department of Transportation was looking for ways to force people onto mass transit instead of just widening the damn road. Good news is that DEN CEO Phil Washington is pushing for lane expansions so maybe CDOT will listen to him.
POLIS WANTS TO JACK UP LARGE GROUP INSURANCE RATES That is the effect of the price caps on OTHER forms of insurance would have on Large Group insurance rates. Medicare underpays hospitals by a good bit. Hospitals can expect to get 73% of a Medicare patient's bill covered. Hospitals then "shift" the other 27% onto everyone else in the form of much larger bills, so everyone else subsidizes those patients. Now Governor Polis wants to cap the amount that hospitals can charge state insurance and small group plans, and that just means everyone ELSE's insurance will bear the burden of the cost shifting from Medicare. This is awful.
COLORADO VOTERS ARE SOURING ON DEMOCRAT PRIORITIES And this is why the Democrats lost, but don't try to get them to understand that. They still think they lost because of racism and misogyny. New polling clearly shows otherwise, and in what can only be described as an epic switch, now see Republicans as the party of the working people concerned about the things that make them tick. Read more here.
SINGLE PAYER DEMS STILL TRYING They have once again brought forth a bill to "study" the possibility of Colorado creating a single payer system for healthcare. I say let them study it. In states where they have tried this before it has ALWAYS been abandoned because it is prohibitively expensive. Considering right now that a HUGE problem for our budget is because we expanded Medicaid, this seems like a fool's errand. And not for nothing, if we are all on government plans, who are they going to cost shift to?
MIAMI BEACH DOES NOT WANT SPRING BREAKERS And the City of Miami Beach had this fun fake reality show spot produced to spread the word. Very, very clever.
If you've never been to Spring Break in Florida, you may not understand why they are doing this, but Spring Break is full of violence, drunkenness, and people acting like fools on the roads. It's not good for any city that has to deal with it.
A MASS SHOOTING IN SWEDEN Where ten people were murdered before the gunman apparently shot himself. Nothing has been released about the shooter's identity that I can tell. It took place at a center for adult education in a country with extremely strict gun control. Weird.
EARLY BIRDS KNOW WHAT'S UP We know that mornings are the happiest time of day! You owls need to read this.
WHAT ARE THEY SAYING??? If this is how you feel listening to young people slang you are not alone. This is a great piece from the Wall Street Journal that isn't at all suss.
IT'S TIME TO GIVE GREEN TEA A LOOK Because it's health benefits are not just kicking in your fat burning but there may be a protective factor for your brain. Find out more here.
WHAT BUSINESS YOU SHOULD START TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE I have a huge non-sexual crush on Cody Sanchez.
NO ONE WANTS YOUR STUFF If you're trying to streamline your life by decluttering there are some harsh truths you need to know, starting with NO ONE WANTS YOUR STUFF.
STRAIGHT MALE FRIEND This is actually funny from SNL.
WHY DO COMPANIES RELEASE SUPER BOWL COMMERCIALS EARLY??? I do NOT get this AT ALL. Here you can see a bunch of Super Bowl commercials that the companies have ALREADY put out and WHY?? Shouldn't they be a surprise? I hate this. And no, I didn't watch the spots, this is what Super Bowl Sunday is for. Some of these ads cost $8 MILLION for 30 seconds and that doesn't cover the cost of production. That is officially insane.
THIS IS JOE BIDEN'S ARMY And if this isn't bulletin board material for our enemies I don't know what is. Does this guy strike fear into your heart? Why is he even IN the military?