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June 09, 2017 11:31 PM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 37 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us.”

–F. H. Bradley

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37 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Donald Trump is the kind of man who, in John Henry Faulk's phrase, "Would lie on credit when he could tell the truth for cash."

    Plus, he stinks.

    Stay upwind, my friends.

     

  2. GOP senators conducting negotiations in the dark are having difficulty finding their asses with both hands (even though Con Man Cory has a broad target):

    Worry is increasing among conservatives inside and outside the Capitol that the bill is “tipping toward the moderates," said a Republican working on the repeal effort. And after weeks of sparring, the tug-of-war between conservatives and more centrist Republicans is finally reaching its climax.

    “The outline leadership has presented isn’t Obamacare repeal, in fact it isn’t even reform. It’s a tax cut and a corporate bailout masquerading as health legislation,” said a conservative Senate aide (finally, something we all can agree with – Ed.)

    Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are unhappy that it doesn't punish more Americans.  

    Afterall, in GOPworld, being poor and in bad health is a capital offense.  If Medicaid isn't stopped, then 45,000 criminals deserving of the death penalty might not die each year.

  3. You Will Never Get Your Country Back  (unless you're overnighting in Wichita in a cheesy three-star, complete with a Trumpcola vending machine in the lobby and Made in America condoms in the mens room)

    To the supporters and enablers of President Trump: please read carefully, because I don’t want you to miss a single word. You will never get your country back because it was never yours to have in the first place. America doesn’t belong to any one person. It belongs to Muslims in Detroit, Christians in Lubbock, Jews in New York City, and atheists in Los Angeles.

    America belongs to Republicans just as much as America belongs to Democrats.That’s how these UNITED States work. To the uninformed and incompetent former mayor from Alaska, the knuckle-dragging bigot masquerading as a special advisor, and the race-baiting failure of a president that currently have the loudest voices in the Republican Party, you do not have a monopoly on this great country. You never will.

    1. yes

      By the same token, though, we liberals/ progressives will never get our country back, either. Because it belongs to all of us, right and left wing, Republican, Democratic, Green, Unaffiliated. Everyone belongs – everyone has a voice.

      The difference, I think, is that our vision of what our country should be is closer to the Founder's vision – inclusive, eclectic, secular, dynamic and self-adjusting with the checks and the balances.

      The vision of the right wing, though, is one in which they are in control and everyone else pretty much stays silent and in their place. They see their control slipping, and to them it feels like being marginalized.

      Today, in 18 cities around the country, including Denver, alt-right white supremacists are rallying "Against Sharia Law". SPLC Hatewatch has updates.

      So it's a real battle for hearts and minds, for public space, for the inclusive vision of the Founders. In the end, I'd like everyone to sing along with Woody:

       

  4. Here's one for: "At least he's not your state Senator"-

    This is Atlanta's state Senator, Mike Williams, posing with the 3%ers at an Atlanta "March Against Sharia", tweeted by SPLC #hatewatch today.

    That hand gesture is either a white supremacist hand sign, something with the 3%ers, or it's the "Proud Boys" creepy "I don't masturbate but I always hold my fingers like ths" signal.

  6. Christopher Wray, Trump's pick for FBI Director, has massive conflicts of interest. (Of course.)  Wray's law firm represents Rosneft and Gazprom, the Russian state-owned oil and gas companies. Source: Kenneth McCallon, USA Today

    As with Rex Tillerson, EXXON's former CEO, Wray's firm of King and Spaulding has much to gain from the lifting of Russian sanctions, leaving a clear path to the $500 billion drilling project in the Arctic. The firm would actually be negotiating contracts between those two companies.

    Rosneft's CEO was also implicated in the Christopher Steele dossier on Trump, which was seen by the FBI and CIA, and partially leaked to the public.

    The dossier says:

    Rosneft was prominently mentioned in the now infamous 35-page dossier prepared by former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele. The dossier claims that the CEO of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, offered candidate Donald Trump, through Trump’s campaign advisor Carter Page, a 19% stake in the company in exchange for lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia. The dossier claims that the offer was made in July while Page was in Moscow.

    So to recap: If Wray is confirmed by the Senate, he might well have to investigate and decide on conflicts for which his firm has a direct financial and client interest.  If he recuses himself, it would hurt the investigation. If he doesn't recuse himself, the investigation would be tainted. 

    To answer notaskinnycook's question on another thread, this is another clue to the hold Putin has over Trump, and our administration's many clear Russian ties: there has to be a "YUGE" financial motive for Trump. Simply being shamed by a possible "golden showers" session with hookers wouldn't be grounds enough for Russian blackmail.

    When has Trump shown any sense of shame about anything sexual or kinky? If anything, he sees that as a some kind of evidence of manliness.

    1. Okay MJ, It's Sunday morning and my brain's still upstairs asleep. What was my question? I can't find what you're referring to. Just curious.

        1. Found it. I was agreeing with C.H.B. that Putin's got The Yam by the scruff of the neck over something, and this would probably do it. You knew there had to be a shady deal in there somewhere, didn't you? Said it before and I'll say it again, money's green 'cause The Yam picks it before it's ripe.

    2. Has massive conflicts of interest. (Of course.)

      Isn't that a qualifications for appointment in this administration? Did Wray receive one of the Order of Lenin Awards like Tillerson?

       

    3. Seems to me some astute polster has been saying for some time now the half trillion dollar O&G deal was at the root of this whole thing .

      Donalds' piece of this thing will make him truly wealthy…not just an over-leveraged faker. This has been their (Trumps' team) focus from the beginning. Russia needs Exxon /Mobil to drill the arctic because Putins' financial situation is spotty as well. Russia needs the income from the resource that lies beneath the great northern sea.

      They will do anything to get it.

  8. Why Nobody Cares the President Is Lying 

    "For years, as a conservative radio talk show host, I played a role in that conditioning by hammering the mainstream media for its bias and double standards. But the price turned out to be far higher than I imagined. The cumulative effect of the attacks was to delegitimize those outlets and essentially destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information. We thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled."

    1. More stunning commentary from that article:

      The Russian dissident and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov drew upon long familiarity with that process when he tweeted: “The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”

      Mr. Kasparov grasps that the real threat is not merely that a large number of Americans have become accustomed to rejecting factual information, or even that they have become habituated to believing hoaxes. The real danger is that, inundated with “alternative facts,” many voters will simply shrug, asking, “What is truth?” — and not wait for an answer.

      In that world, the leader becomes the only reliable source of truth; a familiar phenomenon in an authoritarian state, but a radical departure from the norms of a democratic society. The battle over truth is now central to our politics.

      This may explain one of the more revealing moments from after the election, when one of Mr. Trump’s campaign surrogates, Scottie Nell Hughes, was asked to defend the clearly false statement by Mr. Trump that millions of votes had been cast illegally. She answered by explaining that everybody now had their own way of interpreting whether a fact was true or not.

      “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts,” she declared. Among “a large part of the population” what Mr. Trump said was the truth.

      And I address this next quote to our resident professional GOP propagandist:

      Perhaps just as important, it will be incumbent on conservative media outlets to push back as well. Conservatism should be a reality-based philosophy, and the movement will be better off if it recognizes that facts really do matter. There may be short-term advantages to running headlines about millions of illegal immigrants voting or secret United Nations plots to steal your guns, but the longer the right enables such fabrications, the weaker it will be in the long run. As uncomfortable as it may be, it will fall to the conservative media to police its worst actors.

      The conservative media ecosystem — like the rest of us — has to recognize how critical, but also how fragile, credibility is in the Orwellian age of Donald Trump.

      Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but perhaps AC's diminished presence on this site is a sign that even he cannot stomach the violence Trump and his enablers have wrought against our democracy and the nation's institutions.

      1. Davie,

        Everything you said was true.  I am also an optimist, but I just checked the Faux News webpage.  This is their lead:

        "'NO EVIDENCE OF IT'
        Russia-Trump campaign collusion probes should end, RNC head says        "

        I hope they come to your point of view. As discussed above the low info/racist/religious extremist  types have been lapping up this HS for a very long time.

        With my psych background , I can't help thinking of the term "deprograming" as in cult members. Its frightening to think this narrative may be such a big part of the American zeitgeist.

        Peace

         

      2. Great recap, Davie.  If not for gerrymandered districts and the slave-era construct, the Electoral College these buffoons would have absolutely nothing.  We didn't get here overnight and we're sure as hell not going to fix it overnight.  What a wretched stench these Hatriots have fermented. 

        1. Thanks for the original post, Michael.  After multiple warnings that I was running out of NYTimes free article views, I finally signed up for a subscription (it is definitely worth the cost). 

          But I wanted to share the highlights with the rest who may not have access and encourage them to likewise subscribe.

          1. I finally broke down and did the same thing.  Same dynamic with WashPo – I'm probably going to break down and subscribe there, too. 

            1. I may have to spring for a digital NYT, as well. The one good thing about keeping my Denver Post sub. is full access to WaPo. It makes perfect sense, they crib a huge amount of their content from there.

  9. Who better to defend Trump against charges of colluding with Russia than his long-time personal lawyer with his own deep ties to Russia?

    Incredibly, as Trump asserts that neither he nor anyone close to him "that he knows of" have dealings with Russia, his personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, has the same clients that Trump's family and inner circle share.  Nothing like keeping it all in the family, right comrades?

    The hard-charging New York lawyer President Donald Trump chose to represent him in the Russia investigation has prominent clients with ties to the Kremlin, a striking pick for a president trying to escape the persistent cloud that has trailed his administration.

    Marc Kasowitz’s clients include Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who is close to President Vladimir Putin and has done business with Trump’s former campaign manager. Kasowitz also represents Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-owned bank, court records show.

    Kasowitz has represented one of Deripaska’s companies for years in a civil lawsuit in New York and was scheduled to argue on the company’s behalf May 25, two days after news broke that Trump had hired him, court records show. A different lawyer in Kasowitz’s firm showed up in court instead, avoiding a scenario that would have highlighted Kasowitz’s extensive work for high-profile Russian clients.

    At least, by hiring Kasowitz as his attorney, Trump can keep his own ties to Russia better hidden, since Kasowitz can claim attorney-client privilege instead of being a witness for the prosecution.

  10. Watch Doochey practically wet himself talking about solar – his guest telling him that "all we need to do is to get a contract from the federal government to agree to buy all of the energy the developers produce!"  Do you think Drumpf has figured out yet that he'll have to close a few coal plants to make this a reality?

    Pear, here's a homework assignment (I hope you're better at your assignments than Moldy): give us your expert and unbiased input on this subject.  

     

  12. All of this winning is exhausting… (I'd post this under 'Good News' but the magic box still thinks I'm a spammer on that thread).

    Federal judge denies Trump administration appeal in youth climate lawsuit

    Earlier this week, the Trump administration filed a notice to the District Court of Oregon, on which Judge Aiken presides, giving the court until June 9 to issue a decision on the appeal. If the court did not issue such a decision, the filing said, the defendants would seek a ruling directly from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — a move that Our Children’s Trust, the organization behind the plaintiff’s suit, called “remarkable.”

    In her denial of the appeal, Aiken took a moment to point out the irony in the defendant’s request for an expedited decision, writing that “the government’s belief that it is legally entitled to an immediate ruling on a motion it submitted three months ago is rather ironic given that it waited four months to file the request for interlocutory certification in the first place.”

     

     

    1. There is something weird going on with the permissions on that thread. Jason B knows about it. But I'll collect your news for next week's post. …that some young people could end up suing in court for the right to a livable climate is astounding and potentially a legal breakthrough.

      1. Drumpf's worst nightmare.  Did you see the fossil fuel companies filed for leave on the day their discovery was due?  This is a great move by the kids. I was on their board in the early days of this lawsuit. 

  13. You'd think a self-proclaimed billionaire would understand these particular forces of economics?  Solar has been cheaper than coal for sometime when you factor in the socialization of its negative externalities; even with that biased regulatory framework against renewables, solar will be competitive with present-day coal within the next seven years.  There isn't a banker on the planet that's going to sink capital into a coal tomb that will be obsolete 50yrs before its service life has expired. 

    Trump's Coal Bet Faces a Tough Foe: Moore's Law

    And that future will almost certainly be dominated by solar — not because it’s “green,” but because it’s cheap. Indeed, the authors’ data suggests that there’s a fifty-fifty chance that solar will become competitive with coal as early as 2024; there’s a good chance that could happen even sooner. Indeed, it already has in some countries. 

    In the near future, it will likely be the coal industry that will need subsidies to compete with solar, not the other way around.

    Trump can love coal miners all he wants.  But he cannot stop solar from becoming the cheapest energy source any more than he could have halted the rise of ever cheaper, more powerful computers. He’s going to lose — again.

    1. The cost of solar plus storage has already reached a competitive level with coal in some areas. With the Tucson solar deal last week, the unsubsidized cost of the total package was about 9 cents per kilowatt-hour (4.5 cents with subsidies). That's well within range of coal generation costs depending on locality, fuel, etc.

        1. That's the one, and also the article with the competitiveness numbers. The 3c/kWh figure is for the panels no storage with subsidies. Not sure how subsidies break out between the panels and the batteries…

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