Roger Marshall

Welcome to Briefly, Colorado Politics' daily news briefing. Here's what's happening today:

Congressional leaders neared the unveiling of a spending agreement Tuesday that will keep the federal government funded through March 14 and provide more than $100 billion in natural disaster aid.

Robert Kennedy, Jr., nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, arrives for his meeting with Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., in the Hart Senate Office Building on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024.

The allies and a dwindling number of veterans remembered the month of dramatic fighting that stopped Adolf Hitler's last-ditch offensive.

How to watch the 125th Army-Navy Game and everything you need to know about the matchup between the Midshipmen and Black Knights.

Some of the choices come with controversy and face pointed questions from Republican senators.

Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be director of the FBI, leaves a meeting Monday with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in the Hart building.

Lawmakers are rebranding their deficit reduction efforts as a “Department of Government Efficiency,” but many are clueless about the new brand.

Lawmakers met with Trump appointees Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on Capitol Hill to discuss the framework for President-elect Trump's soon-to-be formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

FLINTSTONE — A pre-dawn fire Thursday that damaged a residential garage at 10308 Town Creek Road southeast in Flintstone was caused by electrical failure in a refrigerator, according to the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office, according to the Allegany County...

CUMBERLAND — One person suffered injuries in a pre-dawn apartment fire Thursday at 426 Baltimore Ave., according to the Allegany County Department of Emergency Services.

Barring any disqualifications during the challenge period, enough candidates have filed in Tulsa Public Schools' District 3 and Broken Arrow Public Schools' District 5 to warrant primaries. #oklaed

Schmitt joins U.S. Senate group that identifies $1 trillion in potential federal cost cuts, an area to be probed by Trump advisors Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy

Black Music Sunday is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 235 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.Three great keyboardists and composers share the same birthday today, so I’m throwing a party for all of them. According to many music historians, Scott Joplin was born on Nov. 24, 1868. Theodore Shaw Wilson, known to the world as Teddy Wilson, was born on Nov. 24, 1912. And William Strethen Davis, who used the stage name Wild Bill Davis, joined our world on Nov. 24, 1918.

Republican lawmakers revealed they will have a heightened focus on legislation related to preventing gender-related medical care for minors.

Union at Middle Creek in southwest Lincoln, one of the city's largest affordable housing projects in recent history, is open and fully occupied.

The city's new $6.3 million compressed natural gas fueling station will now be used to fuel its 41 CNG buses and 11 paratransit buses, saving $729,000 a year.

Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird's chief of staff T.J. McDowell is leaving, and Rick Hoppe, who was former mayor Chris Beutler's chief of staff, will take his place.

The Republican Party is now more primed to back former President Trump if he contests the results of the 2024 election than it was four years ago, when his efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory fell flat in courts and Congress. Trump’s unwavering claims about the nation’s election system being “rigged” have steadily gained more acceptance [...]

City Hall: Lancaster County is considering offering bilingual employees extra money to use their skills to help customers; felons are registering to vote; low-income housing project lowers rents even further.

Construction will begin on the city's first all-inclusive playground at Mahoney Park in northeast Lincoln, the result of a grassroots-effort by moms who have kids with disabilities.

For the upcoming election, the 7th Legislative District has six candidates running for office. Two candidates are running for the Senate and four for the House of Representatives.

There are two battleground races touching L.A. County that could determine which party controls the House.

Coco loved being the life of the party — cracking jokes, doing pranks and making people laugh, her mom, Julianna Arnold, recalled recently.“Her favorite pastime was fashion,” Arnold said. “She didn’t like looking at magazines or going to fancy stores, but preferred to make her own creations from used clothing she would find at thrift stores.... And they always looked fabulous on her.”In 2022, two weeks after she turned 17, Coco left home just outside New York City to meet with a dealer she'd messaged through Instagram who promised to sell her Percocet. She never made it home. She was found dead the next day, two blocks from the address that the guy had provided her.Whatever the dealer gave Coco, her mother said, was not Percocet. It was a fake pill laced with fentanyl, which can be lethal in a dose as small as the tip of a pencil.Fentanyl overdoses have become a leading cause of death for minors in the last five years or so, even as overall drug use has dropped slightly. In a 2022 analysis of fentanyl-laced prescription pills, the DEA found that six out of 10 contained a potentially lethal dose of the drug.And social media, where tainted, fake prescription drugs can be obtained with just a few clicks, is a big part of the problem. Experts, law enforcement and children’s advocates say companies like Snap, TikTok, Telegram and Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram, are not doing enough to keep children safe.

During an Oct. 7 appearance on “Fox and Friends,” 2024 Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. JD Vance claimed “that the Biden-Harris administration has turned [the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)] effectively into an agency that helps to settle, helps to deal with illegal immigration.” Vance said FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene “[is] like [...]

Dillon Gabriel and Tawee Walker headline top transfer performances from Week 7

FROSTBURG — A Sunday afternoon fire at 11205 Upper Georges Creek Road near Cherry Lane has been ruled as suspicious in nature by the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office.

Armed with an education forged out of a traumatic upbringing in Nebraska, the state's new head IT officer "was hired to come in and be a change agent," he said.

Ethel Kennedy, who lost her husband Sen. Robert Kennedy to assassination, has died. She was 96.

Despite foreign and domestic threats, Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the upcoming election will be safe, secure, free and fair.

Diego Pavia and Max Brosmer headline top transfer performances from Week 6

Star Thomas and Riley Leonard headline top transfer performances from Week 5

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, D-N.M., speaks during a news conference to call for passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in the Russell Senate Office Building on Tuesday.

Here's the backstory on why Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was just able to announce a fast-track vote Wednesday on the government funding bill: Republican senators emerged from their weekly lunch Tuesday ready to move it along.Why it matters: Lawmakers were eager to get home — especially those facing tough re-election races or whose states may be hit by an approaching hurricane.Zoom in: National Republican Senatorial Committee chair Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) led the charge against pushing for politically hot amendments that would delay the process, multiple sources familiar with what happened at lunch tell Axios.Even some of the usuals who tend to embrace stalling tactics — such as Sens. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) — did not object.Republicans were concerned about giving vulnerable Democrats like Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Bob Casey (Pa.) free votes that could win them political points on amendments that won't pass anyway.The bottom line: Even if Republicans had managed to reach an agreement to vote on an amendment with a 50-vote threshold, they were looking at an attendance problem. Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott needed to get back to their state ahead of an expected hurricane and Sen. JD Vance was still out on the campaign trail with former President Trump.

Republican senators are calling on Secret Service to increase security for former President Donald Trump in the wake of a second assassination attempt.

Fentanyl overdoses have become a leading cause of death for minors in the last 5 years or so — and social media, where tainted, fake prescription drugs can be obtained with just a few clicks, is part of the problem....

With a full slate of games on Saturday there were numerous 2023/2024 transfers who shined. Here are some of the top performances: QB Cam Ward, Miami-Florida (Washington State) Ward completed 26 of 35 passes for 385 yards, three touchdowns and...

The Democratic National Convention’s fourth and final night Thursday crescendoed with a speech from Vice President Kamala Harris. After a week of Democrats’ most prominent figures rallying the party faithful, Harris accepted her party’s nomination for president during a speech...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., seen after Senate luncheons in the U.S. Capitol on July 30, is looking ahead to his next act.

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: This is the last Morning Digest that will be published at Daily Kos Elections, but we’re not going away! You’ll find Monday’s Digest—and every edition after that—at our new site, The Downballot. You can also subscribe by email just below to make sure you never miss a single update: Embedded ContentYou can read all about this change right here. Our operations are 100% reader-supported, so we hope you’ll subscribe today! Leading Off● UT-Gov: Utah's three-way race for governor took another unexpected turn on Thursday when Democratic state Rep. Brian King debuted a campaign video co-starring far-right state Rep. Phil Lyman, the election conspiracy theorist who is waging a write-in campaign months after losing the GOP primary to Gov. Spencer Cox. But Cox is exactly what is uniting the two legislators in a piece parodying the governor's "Disagree Better" campaign."Now, Phil and I disagree better about most issues," King tells the audience with a wink after the on-screen text identifies him as the "Democratic candidate for Utah governor" and Lyman as "Former (or current depending on who you ask) GOP candidate for Utah governor *litigation pending*)." The two, though, respond in unison that they are united in the belief that "Spencer Cox should not be our next governor." The state representatives go on to politely argue whether voters should write in Lyman's name or cast their ballot for King.Cox generated national attention with a commercial four years ago where he and his Democratic rival, Chris Peterson, agreed they were "both equally dedicated to the American values of democracy, liberty, and justice for all people," and would accept the results of the 2020 presidential race. Cox, who went on to easily win his general election in this dark red state, has continued to attract national attention by calling for more civility in politics, and he used his year as chair of the National Governors Association to launch his "Disagree Better" initiative.The governor's critics, though, have argued that Cox himself is the one who needs to be persuaded by these messages. Cox, who touts himself as "an ally to the LGBTQ community," signed a bill to ban gender-affirming care, which he denounced as "genital-mutilation surgery" at a February “Disagree Better” event.Skeptics have also highlighted how the governor signed off on a GOP-drawn congressional redistricting plan that even Cox acknowledged was a gerrymander. "You signed off on gerrymandered maps without an ounce of remorse," Democratic state Sen. Nate Blouin tweeted last year upon seeing another news story where Cox called for saving American democracy. "This is the problem with 'disagree better.' You shouldn’t get credit for saying nice things if you consistently do the wrong thing."Democrats took notice again last month when, days after saying he'd be casting a write-in vote for president, Cox responded to the attempted assassination attempt against Donald Trump by declaring his support for his party's leader. "I fear that America is on the precipice of unmitigated disaster," Cox wrote to Trump, whom he'd previously told to resign following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. "We need to turn down the temperature and find ways to come together again before it’s too late." The governor remains in Trump's corner even after it became clear once again that he had zero interest in lowering the temperature.Lyman also is no fan of the governor's project, though for very different reasons. "Our state is slowly slipping away towards becoming something most Utahns don’t recognize," wrote Lyman. "We don’t need to 'disagree better,' we need to Stand for Something!"Lyman himself demonstrated during that campaign that he stood for far-right talking points, which included his responding to the collapse of Maryland’s Francis Scott Key Bridge by retweeted a post claiming that a Black woman on the state’s Port Commission was a "diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) auditor and consultant."The state representative went on to hold Cox to an unimpressive 54-46 margin, and he's spent the ensuing seven weeks refusing to accept that defeat. Lyman launched his write-in campaign on Monday, shortly before the Utah Supreme Court rejected his lawsuit insisting that because he decisively beat Cox at the state party convention before losing the primary, the governor and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson should be removed from office and replaced by state Senate President Stuart Adams. The justices found that Lyman "offered no viable factual or legal basis for the remedy he requests."And even before he appeared in this video with King, Lyman acknowledged he'd prefer to see the Democrat lead Utah instead of Cox. Hard-line U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, though, quickly made it clear he did not see this as an acceptable outcome when he declared his support for the incumbent.Governors● DE-Gov: Newly released emails show that Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long's government office staff had regularly communicated with key staffers running her campaign for governor, reports Randall Chase at the Associated Press. Under state law, Hall-Long's employees are permitted to conduct campaign activities only outside of their regular work hours and cannot do so using public resources, but the emails indicate that some of them helped facilitate campaign activities and used campaign funds for certain expenditures.Hall-Long's husband, Dana Long, previously served as her campaign treasurer, and the emails include instances where he seemingly coordinated with her office staff during regular work hours to schedule and pay for campaign activities, such as appearances at community events. Some correspondence involved Matthew Dougherty, the lieutenant governor's director of operations who recently stepped aside from that role to run her campaign after her previous campaign manager quit.Campaign finance issues have dogged Hall-Long's campaign since shortly after she joined the race last year. Late last month, state officials released a report concluding that her campaign had violated state law by failing to disclose nearly $300,000 in payments to Long over several years. The couple claimed the payments were reimbursements for personal loans, though the documented sum of those loans was $33,000 less than the total payment amounts, according to the state's investigator.The Sept. 10 Democratic primary is quickly approaching, but few polls have been released publicly, particularly in the weeks since the state published its report on Hall-Long's campaign finances. However, the few available polls in recent months have generally found Hall-Long running competitively with New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer, while National Wildlife Foundation leader Collin O'Mara is much further behind.Senate● NJ-Sen: Multiple media outlets report that Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy will appoint his former chief of staff, George Helmy, to fill the final months of the term of Sen. Bob Menendez, who is set to resign on Aug. 20. Rep. Andy Kim, who won the Democratic primary in June, is favored to defeat Republican businessman Curtis Bashaw in the fall general election for a full six-year term.Menendez, a member of the Democratic caucus who was convicted on corruption charges last month, still has not said if he'll continue his campaign to keep his seat as an independent. The deadline for Mendendez to withdraw is Friday.House● AZ-01, MI-10, WI-03: The DCCC announced Thursday that it was adding three more nominees to its Red to Blue program for top candidates: Amish Shah in Arizona's 1st District, Carl Marlinga in Michigan's 10th, and Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin's 3rd. The trio are respectively challenging Republican incumbents David Schweikert, John James, and Derrick Van Orden.Marlinga, who struggled to attract major financial support during his two bids against James, could have the most to gain from being included in the program. Marlinga held James to an unexpectedly tight 49-48 victory two years ago despite being massively outspent by the Republican, and he didn't raise much money ahead of his win in last week's primary. Marlinga's allies, however, hope this will change and give him the resources to flip a Macomb County seat that Donald Trump carried by a narrow 50-49 margin in 2020.● NH-02: Hillary Clinton on Thursday endorsed former Biden administration official Maggie Goodlander in the Sept. 10 Democratic primary for New Hampshire's 2nd District. Goodlander's husband, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, was a longtime Clinton aide for both of her presidential bids and during her intervening time as secretary of state.● NY-18: Republican nominee Alison Esposito's former career as a New York City police officer involved the city paying $120,000 to settle two misconduct lawsuits against her, reports City & State's Timmy Facciola. Additionally, Politico's Nick Reisman recently reported that Esposito had been reprimanded for failing to properly safeguard her off-duty handgun after a thief reportedly stole it, her police badge, and credit cards from her unlocked car in a separate incident from 2016.One of the misconduct lawsuits was filed in 2005 by three Black women who alleged that Esposito and other officers engaged in racial discrimination and used excessive force when arresting them in 2003 on shoplifting charges, which were later dismissed.The other involved a 2016 incident where a woman sued Esposito and a fellow officer, claiming they "did unlawfully stop, assault, frisk, handcuff, detain, arrest, and imprison" her infant daughter after entering her residence without a warrant or probable cause; that prosecution was dismissed later that year. The plaintiff alleged discrimination regarding her "ethnic background." (The complaint does not specify the plaintiff's ethnicity, but she and her daughter have Spanish surnames.)Esposito denied the allegations in both lawsuits, and she has made crime one of the central focuses of her campaign against Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan in a light-blue district in the lower Hudson Valley located north of New York City.● TX-18: Former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told the Texas Tribune's Renzo Downey on Wednesday that he would not run in the November special election for the remaining two months of the late Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee's term and would instead support her daughter, Erica Lee Carter.The leadership of the Harris County Democratic Party chose Turner on Tuesday to replace Jackson Lee's name on the ballot for a full two-year term in Texas' dark blue 18th District, but Turner, who will turn 70 next month, has made it clear he doesn't intend to be in Congress very long. Turner told the Houston Chronicle last week that he'd serve a maximum of two terms, saying he wants to function as "a bridge from where we are right now."● House: The crypto-aligned super PAC Fairshake recently announced that it would spend over $25 million in ads to help nine House members from each party, and AdImpact reports how much money the group has booked in each of these 18 seats. The totals range from $600,000 to aid Democratic Rep. Nikki Budzinski in Illinois' 13th District to $2 million to back Democratic Rep. Don Davis in North Carolina's 1st.Poll PileAZ-Sen: Peak Insights (R) for the NRSC: Kari Lake (R): 46, Ruben Gallego (D): 46 (44-42 Trump with third-party candidates)MI-Sen: Fabrizio Ward (R) and Impact Research (D) for the AARP: Elissa Slotkin (D): 47, Mike Rogers (R): 44 (48-48 presidential tie in two-way, 45-43 Trump with third-party candidates)PA-Sen: Franklin & Marshall College: Bob Casey (D-inc): 48, Dave McCormick (R): 36 (46-43 Harris with third-party candidates) (March: 46-39 Casey)The Cook Political Report also released several polls on Thursday, conducted by a Democratic firm, Benenson Strategy Group, and a Republican pollster, GS Strategy Group. Note that these polls were completed on Aug. 2.AZ-Sen: Ruben Gallego (D): 51, Kari Lake (R): 42 (48-46 Harris in two-way, 46-42 Harris with third-party candidates) (May: 46-41 Gallego)MI-Sen: Elissa Slotkin (D): 50, Mike Rogers (R): 42 (49-46 Harris in two-way, 46-44 Harris with third-party candidates)NV-Sen: Jacky Rosen (D-inc): 54, Sam Brown (R): 36 (48-45 Trump in two-way, 47-42 Trump with third-party candidates)PA-Sen: Bob Casey (D-inc): 53, Dave McCormick (R): 40 (49-48 Harris in two-way, 48-43 Harris with third-party candidates) (May: 49-41 Casey)WI-Sen: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): 50, Eric Hovde (R): 43 (49-46 Harris in two-way, 48-43 Harris with third-party candidates) (May: 49-37 Baldwin)NC-Gov: Josh Stein (D): 48, Mark Robinson (R): 40 (48-47 Harris in two-way, 46-44 Harris with third-party candidates) (May: 37-37 gubernatorial tie)Ad RoundupMO-Sen: Lucas Kunce (D) - anti-Josh Hawley (R-inc)NM-Sen: Nella Domenici (R) and the NRSC - anti-Martin Heinrich (D-inc)NV-Sen: Jacky Rosen (D-inc) - anti-Sam Brown (R)TX-Sen: Ted Cruz (R-inc) (in Spanish)WI-Sen: Eric Hovde (R) - anti-Tammy Baldwin (D-inc)CA-40: Winning for Women - pro-Young Kim (R-inc)CA-45: Winning for Women - pro-Michelle Steel (R-inc)CA-47: Dave Min (D)IA-03: Lanon Baccam (D) - anti-Zach Nunn (R-inc)MI-08: Kristen McDonald Rivet (D) - anti-Paul Junge (R)OH-09: Marcy Kaptur (D-inc) - anti-Derek Merrin (R) (here and here)VA-02: Winning for Women - Jen Kiggans (R-inc) Embedded Content

Senators take action to address Beijing's state-sanctioned persecution and forced organ harvesting targeting Falun Gong practitioners.

'This is election interference- there must be accountability'

WASHINGTON — Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president, may not be fond of “childless cat ladies,” but he’s almost certain to skip a vote this week on legislation to expand the child tax credit.

The social media account had antisemitic and anti-immigrant comments that could be linked to the shooter, though officials are still working to verify the account's authenticity, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said.

Meta and Google both admitted moderation errors related to content surrounding the assassination attempt against Trump.

There's talk that the VP nominee could be part of a GOP realignment on unions. But so far, that “pro-labor” portrayal is at odds with much of his record.