VOTE: 2020 Obama Dinner Awardees!
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DEADLINE: January 15, 2020!
Choose who will be honored at the 2020 Obama Dinner on Saturday, April 18 by clicking here and casting your vote! These are amazing Democrats from all across Colorado -- all nominated by folks like yourself during the open nomination period!
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The House Impeaches Donald Trump
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On Wednesday, with Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette presiding as Speaker Pro Tempore, the House of Representatives considered and voted on two articles of impeachment against President Trump -- Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress.
Both articles are based on the Ukraine scandal:
Article I, “Abuse of Power,” focuses on the underlying facts of the Ukraine scandal. It asserts that Trump:
- “Corruptly solicited the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations” into his political rival Joe Biden, and into “a discredited theory” that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 election
- Attempted to condition two “official acts” on this announcement — a White House meeting with Ukraine’s president, and the release of $391 million of blocked military aid for Ukraine
Article II, “Obstruction of Congress,” states that President Trump “has directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its ‘sole Power of Impeachment.’” Specifically, Trump:
- Directed the White House to defy a subpoena for documents
- Directed other executive branch agencies, such as the State Department and Defense Department, to defy subpoenas
- Directed current and former executive branch officials to refuse subpoenas for their testimony.
You can read the full articles of impeachment by clicking here.
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"He gave us no choice": Pelosi opens Debate on Trump Impeachment
From Axios:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened the House's formal debate on impeaching President Trump on Wednesday, stating on the floor: "It is a matter of fact that the president is an ongoing threat to our national security and the integrity of our elections, the basis of our democracy."
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"For centuries, Americans have fought and died to defend democracy for the people. But, very sadly now, our founders' vision of a republic is under threat from actions from the White House. That is why today, as speaker of the House, I solemnly and sadly open the debate on the impeachment of the president of the United States. If we do not act now, we would be derelict in our duty. It is tragic that the president's reckless actions make impeachment necessary. He gave us no choice."
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Colorado Democrats have played a Key Role in Impeachment
From the Denver Post:
“Unfortunately, President Trump has left us no choice,” Rep. Joe Neguse, a Lafayette Democrat, said on the House floor Wednesday. “The fact of the matter is, the president abused the power of his office and invited a foreign country to interfere in our elections. In so doing, he undermined the sanctity of the free and fair elections upon which our republic rests.”
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Rep. Diana DeGette presided over a day of polite debate between Democrats and Republicans, followed by an evening of boos, hisses, cheers and highly partisan votes. She rarely raised her voice as she maintained order among 435 politicians debating and casting some of the most historic votes on their careers.
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“The president’s abuse of power and scorn for our constitutional checks and balances is unprecedented,” said Crow, of Aurora, on the House floor Wednesday. “Unless we stand up against these abuses, we will set the country on a dangerous new course.”
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“Almost 14,000 people have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine,” said Perlmutter, of Arvada, during a hearing Tuesday. “Withholding $400 million that Congress appropriated to help Ukraine defend itself … was the last straw for me. People’s lives and our national security were placed at risk.”
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Remember: What's Important Here?
- Trump pressured Ukraine to help his reelection campaign by announcing investigations that would help him politically, including into a potential 2020 opponent.
- On the July 25 call with Zelensky, Trump asked Ukraine to “do us a favor” and investigate a conspiracy theory about the 2016 election and his political opponent.
- Ambassador Sondland, who “followed the president’s orders,” told Ukraine the military aid they had been promised would not be released, and they would not get the White House meeting they sought, until they announced the investigations Trump wanted.
- Former Ambassador Bill Taylor told investigators that Trump made the release of military aid contingent upon Ukraine announcing those investigations, and called that demand “counterproductive” and “crazy.”
- Republicans have pushed debunked conspiracy theories to muddy the waters and distract. Congressman/Colorado Republican Party Chair Ken Buck has been one of several Republicans pushing the debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
- This is a debunked conspiracy theory pushed by Putin and Russia to distract from Russia’s very real interference in the 2016 election on behalf of Trump.
- The Intelligence Community has stated unequivocally that Russia interfered in our democracy, and continues to do so. Even Republican-led Senate and House Intelligence committees found that was true.
- There is no evidence that Ukraine interfered in our election — the Republican Senate Intelligence Committee investigated that claim and found no basis for it.
- Politicians commenting on a foreign country’s election (as Trump has done himself) is not comparable to Russia’s top-down interference in our elections.
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Join the High Fivers Club!
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"What's the High Fivers Club", you ask? It started with a simple idea: There are nearly 1.2 million registered Democrats in Colorado -- what if every single one of them gave just $5 a month to the Colorado Democratic Party (CDP)?
Answer: The CDP would be the best-funded state party in the country -- with zero dollars from corporate PACs and plenty for flipping red seats to blue!
If you haven't given to the CDP yet, here's a few simple reasons why we're asking you today:
- The CDP is the central base that supports volunteer recruitment, training candidates, and helping county parties win elections. While the Democratic National Committee provides some limited funds, the reality is it is up to us to raise our own money so we can support Democratic candidates running for office in Colorado.
- We knock on doors and meet with voters to talk about voting Democratic even before we know who are nominees are! As part of the High Fivers Club, you can help us get supplies for volunteers so we can knock on 50,000 more doors before we know our nominee!
- Once we have our nominee, we'll use what we've learned about voters to help them jump-start their Get Out the Voter efforts and stay toe-to-toe with Donald Trump and the Republicans.
Will you join the High Fivers Club? Click the logo below to join!
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Countdown to 2020:
Cory Gardner's 9 Worst Moments in 2019
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In 2020, Coloradans will have an opportunity to replace their junior U.S. Senator, Cory Gardner, with a Democrat who will put Colorado priorities first. While Gardner promised that he would be an independent voice who would "say it" when his "party is wrong" -- he has instead been a rubber stamp for Donald Trump and a right hand man for Mitch McConnell. In fact, Cory's all foam, and no beer.
As we count down to 2020, let's take a look back at Cory Gardner's 9 worst moments in 2019.
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1) Unprompted, Gardner Endorses Trump for 4 More Years as President
U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, who has been walking a fine line in trying to appeal both to Colorado’s unaffiliated voters and the Republican base as he faces a tough 2020 re-election campaign, took a turn toward the base with his latest comments. “I know what Kamala Harris and I know what Bernie Sanders will do to Colorado, and that’s why I’ll be supporting the president,” Gardner told the Independent Journal Review, referring to two presumptive front-runners for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
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2) Gardner Flip Flops on Trump's Fake National Emergency for Border Wall Funding
Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colorado) said he opposed President Donald Trump's emergency declaration until it was announced. Thursday, he voted for it. Gardner’s vote comes two weeks after his spokesperson told 9NEWS the senator was unsure if he would vote against the national emergency declaration, which was supposed to involve spending more than $3.6 billion more for border barriers. Gardner’s vote for Trump’s national emergency declaration came contrary to previous statements in which he said he said he personally told the president he opposes it.
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3) Gardner Refuses to back the CORE Act to Protect Colorado Public Lands
While Tipton’s brother in arms, Colorado’s Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, has been cagey about whether he will vote for the Colorado Outdoor Recreation & Economy [CORE] Act, he has been quoted in the Colorado Sun online news site as worrying about the passage of the act by the House despite [Colorado's U.S. Rep. Scott] Tipton’s opposition. Citing a supposed unwritten rule in Colorado politics, Gardner claimed, “It is important for the member of Congress who is in the district where the land is located to be supportive of the bill. That’s the way it’s always been done in Colorado,” as if our state has a history of non-combative politics in which we all agree what laws to pass either in the statehouse or in Congress.
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4) Gardner Refuses To Comment on Trump Pressuring the President of Ukraine
Cory Gardner gained national attention for all the wrong reasons in October when he was confronted by reporters about whether he thought it was appropriate for President Trump to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival. The Colorado Republican refusing to answer at least five times when asked.
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5) Gardner Officially Goes Two Years With No Town Halls
November 20th marked the second anniversary of Cory Gardner’s last public open forum town hall, held at the Pueblo Convention Center and attended by several hundred constituents. Gardner has tried to spin the frosty reception he received at his 2017 town halls into a sympathy play, but his persistently lackluster approval ratings suggest strongly that a majority of voters just aren’t sympathetic. Aware of the self-inflicted harm these on-camera constituent floggings were causing, after the 2017 town halls Gardner switched to scripted appearances at friendly businesses and unannounced “walking tours” of main streets–the latter still exposing Gardner to considerable negative attention.
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6) Gardner Backs Lawsuit to Destroy the ACA
I am very disappointed in Sen. Cory Gardner. He repeatedly told us that he would stand up for protecting people with pre-existing conditions, but then he voted for all four previous health care repeal bills, which would have cut coverage, raised costs and gutted those protections for people with pre-existing conditions, like cancer, asthma and diabetes. Sen. Gardner also repeatedly told people in Colorado that he wants to lower the cost of prescription drugs, but instead, he has taken nearly $400,000 from the health insurance and drug industries and sided with them instead of Coloradans. He even supported a health care repeal lawsuit that would let insurance companies stop covering the cost of prescription drugs.
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7) Peterson Air Force Base Gets Raided for Millions of Dollars to Build Trump's Wall
Sen. Cory Gardner should be livid with the president, but Colorado’s Republican senator is still squarely in Donald Trump’s corner. It’s astounding. Instead of expressing anger at the news last week that Trump is diverting $8 million from construction at Peterson Air Force Base to fund his border wall project, Gardner lashed out at Democrats in a pitiful attempt to rewrite history in his favor.
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8) Gardner Approves of Trump and McConnell's Unqualified and Hyper Partisan Judges
Republican Sen. Cory Gardner burnished his near-perfect record in support of his party’s effort to reshape the federal judiciary, voting this week for seven more of President Trump’s lifetime appointments to the federal bench. That brings his total support for the president’s judicial nominees to 118 out of 119 confirmed appointments – including two Supreme Court justices – according to Quorum, a public affairs software company that tallied the votes for the Newsroom. Democrats intend to use Gardner’s record against him in his 2020 bid for a second term.
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9) The Denver Post Retracts Its 2014 Endorsement of Gardner
We endorsed Sen. Cory Gardner in 2014 because we believed he’d be a statesman. We knew he’d be a conservative voice in Congress, to be certain, but we thought his voice would bring “fresh leadership, energy and ideas.” We see now that was a mistake – consider this our resolution of disapproval. Gardner has been too busy walking a political tight rope to be a leader. He has become precisely what we said in our endorsement he would not be: “a political time-server interested only in professional security.”
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Wrap Up of the 6th DNC Debate
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Democratic presidential candidates met for the final debate of 2019 Thursday in Los Angeles. Below is a transcript of what they said.
Candidates: Former vice president Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer
Read more!
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Democratic Candidates for President
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(read from left, listed by alphabetical order) Senator Michael Bennet (CO), former Vice President Joe Biden, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg (New York City, NY), Senator Cory Booker (NJ), Mayor Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, IN), former HUD Secretary Julián Castro, former Congressman John Delaney (MD), Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI), Senator Amy Klobuchar (MN), former Governor Deval Patrick (MA), Senator Bernie Sanders (VT), Tom Steyer, Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA), Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang.
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Rural Spotlight from Shelia: Jackson County
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Jackson County in Colorado covers 1,621 square miles in Northern Colorado. Often called North Park, Jackson County holds the headwaters of the North Platte River. The State of Wyoming is to the north of Jackson County, Grand County is to the southeast, Larimer County to the east and Routt County to the west. The County’s southern and western boundaries follow the Continental Divide along the Rabbit Ear and Park Mountain Ranges. Walden is the county seat of Jackson County and the only municipality in Jackson County.
Early history shows some 9,000 years ago Jackson County was seasonally occupied by the Paleo Indian and Folsom People. Known for the abundance of elk and deer, Jackson County in AD 1400 was the home of the Ute people known as the Yamparika, or “root-eaters”.
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Jackson County was transferred to the United States via the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The first Europeans to enter the area were French fur traders who found beaver along the rivers. Jackson County was named after U.S. President Andrew Jackson. The Homestead Act of 1862 opened the supposedly unoccupied lands of Jackson County to white settlements and homesteaders. The town of Walden was established in 1890. The town was named after Mark S. Walden, the postmaster of the nearby settlement of Sage Hen Springs. In 1899 local ranchers organized the North Park Stockgrowers Association, and by 1910 North Park had 165 farms and ranches that collectively owned more than 31,000 cattle and nearly 2,000 sheep. Today, Jackson County is one of the state’s top producers of hay and forage crops. Large cattle and horse ranches stretch for miles. The North Park Stockgrowers Association remains active and works to protect farmers and ranchers in the area. With Never Summer Wilderness, Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge and the 71,000 acre Colorado State Forest, Jackson County offers plenty of space for fishing, hunting, hiking and rafting.
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Heather Westfahl, chair of the Jackson County Democratic Party, heads the way to a blue wave. Although a very red county, Jackson County continues promoting local as well as state and federal democratic candidates. In 2018, 93.14% of the voters had their ballots counted and in 2019, 60.92% had their ballots counted. There are approximately 121 registered Democrats (up 7%), 768 Republicans (up 2%) and 329 Unaffiliated (up 6%) in Jackson County.
If you would like more information about the Jackson County Democratic Party, please check out their website www.jacksoncountydemocrats.org
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Keep Colorado Wild
Shelia
Shelia Canfield Jones
Vice Chair, Rural Outreach
Colorado Democratic Party
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Join us for the 2020 Womxn's March!
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We need your help to get as many new voters registered as possible during the Womxn's March on January 18th 2020.
We are looking for 120 volunteers so please ask your friends to join us too.
If you can help register voters or table that day please email me at [email protected]
Note that everyone needs to take voter registration training, which can be done by webinar here:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/rt/1917936809926228493
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Volunteer of the Week: Carissa S.
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Meet Carissa -- one of the Colorado Democratic Party's awesome volunteers who holds it down in El Paso County! El Paso County may be known as a conservative bastion, but thanks to work of volunteers like Carissa, it's getting bluer!
Why do you volunteer for Democratic causes?
The reason I volunteer, beyond the fact that I firmly believe in the importance of social and economic justice for all human beings, is my kids. I have five-year-old twins and I want to see them grow up in a world that is healthy, clean, and just. I want to teach them compassion, the amazing power of kindness, and that it is always worth striving to be better. And I can’t do that by sitting at home on a couch. The demands of daily life keep me from doing as much as I would like, but I try to volunteer here and there as I can for organizations that support the causes I believe in.
What would you say to someone who has thought about volunteering, but hasn't taken that first step?
I don’t think you have to be a super volunteer to make a difference. You just have to show up when you can, do what you can, and trust your fellow Democrats to do the same. That’s how even normal people can make a difference. We all do our part.
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ICYMI: We were so pleased to hold the meetings of our State Executive and State Central Committees in Colorado Springs! Thanks to everyone who came out, and thank you to Secretary of State Jena Griswold and State Treasurer Dave Young for stopping by to speak and say hello!
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Contributions or gifts to the Democratic Party of Colorado are not tax deductible
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