It’s been an odd last week or so here in the great American West (hey, there’s a thought, given a certain felon’s recent renaming actions — which he can’t actually do, but I digress — maybe President Donald Trump will rename the Rocky Mountains to the “American Mountains.” They can look kind of golden at sunset, and given Trump’s recent gilding of the Oval Office).

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, Trump and gold.

Apparently, President Trump, on his near-weekly trips back home, has brought back with him various golden idols from his tacky estate in Florida.

He’s also tripled the number of paintings on the walls of the Oval Office, and he apparently chose the images he wanted, not from a profound sense of connection to certain former presidents, but rather the ones he saw, as he flipped through a catalog, and looked, well, golden enough — I guess, once they were all in golden frames (in fairness, some likely were already in gold frames).

Remember his pledge he would be too busy working as president on the people’s behalf to golf? Well, he somehow squeaked in a round or two, or 20. Recall please, though he has been in office only eight weeks, he found a way to fly to Florida seven times and six times to his Florida mansion to play, well, golf. Total cost to taxpayers? At least $23 million, but don’t worry, he fired the Inspector General who would have looked out for such spending.

The danger, of course, is such outrageous and classless behavior will distract the American people from his other and far more consequential actions. Just this last week a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop deportation flights. Now, for the entirety of American history, presidents have mostly respected orders from the court system. Until now.

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Trump has astonishingly asserted he, as president (his temp title before he names himself “President For Life”, or maybe “El Duce”?) can do what he wants, and plans to ignore the court. Even if you are a hard-right MAGA person, aren’t you a little bit worried about a president declaring unlimited power to him or herself? Are you OK with an Obama in total control? How about a Bernie Sanders or an AOC?

This vituperative sense of unlimited power appears to be trickling down a bit. As reported in Colorado Politics, rookie Colorado U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd has introduced a bill to reverse quite a few Bureau of Land Management plans from the Joe Biden years that protected millions of acres of our wild spaces from oil and gas extraction.

Rep. Hurd wants to “put us on a path to energy dominance.” Now, it is unusual for a novice member of Congress to introduce big bills in his first couple of months in office, but it is not unheard of. In general, people introduce bills they actually know something about. Here Rep. Hurd is apparently just echoing President Trump’s vow to “unleash” domestic energy production.

Here’s the thing: we already are the world’s largest producer of oil and gas. Despite the many, many lies told by Republican candidates, asserting somehow Biden turned off the spigot, under his administration the U.S. became the world leader in fossil fuel production. We pump just under 22 million barrels per day of oil, and we are the largest natural gas producer by a wide margin. Back in 2023, the US produced 1.35 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.

So, Rep. Hurd’s fundamental reasoning is just wrong. There are lots of reasons he could spout to support more drilling on our public lands, but he strikes out when he claims he wants us to become what we already are. Interestingly, his proposal does not have majority GOP support. Heck, even 51% of MAGA voters prefer “preservation and recreation” to 44%, who are the drill, baby, drill folks.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin, shall we? Also reported in CoPo, Colorado U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse is rated as the second-most effective member of the House in the last session. Rep. Neguse was the principal sponsor in eight bills that became law. Now eight may not seem like many, but frankly very few bills introduced ultimately get signed by the president. Eight is impressive, and Rep. Neguse was second, only behind a Nebraska GOPer named Don Bacon (good name for a guy from an agricultural state) who had nine. Now Rep. Neguse’s achievement is all the more impressive when you realize there was a GOP-controlled legislature, and he was in the minority party. Two years before, Rep. Neguse was top of the heap, with 13 bills signed during a time of Democratic control. Impressive!

Let’s compare that, shall we? As my regular reader (Hi Jeff!) will recall, back in 2008 I ran for congress against GOP U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who just now retired and was replaced by longtime GOP activist Jeff Crank (another great name for Congress).

So, Rep. Neguse got eight bills signed, eh? Well, then-Rep. Lamborn got eight as well. The only difference is Rep. Neguse got his eight in one session, controlled by the opposition party. Former Rep. Lamborn’s eight is the total number of bills signed during his entire 18-year congressional career!

So, wow Joe, nice work. And Congressman Crank? The bar is very low. Good luck.