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June 17, 2017 09:18 AM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 46 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“One must be frank to be relevant.”

–Corazon Aquino

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46 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Video from sit-in at Cory Gardner's Denver office yesterday. The Senator was not in attendance, but the atrium echoed with chants of "Show us the (health care) bill!"

     

    Kudos to Ultraviolet, Indivisible, and other “resisters” in coalition, who made this protest happen. Until Mr. Gardner starts listening to his constituents valid concerns, these demonstrations will continue.

    1. Wow!  No wonder Con Man Cory needs to change his diaper every time just contemplating facing such a vicious mob!  And look at their Nieman-Marcus designer outfits!  

      Professional protesters like these must be incredibly well-paid…

      1. I think they are only paid about $10-12 per hour.  They generally advertise on Craigslist so you can see the going rate.
        Perhaps you can make a little extra money over the summer.

        2. Are you sure you're not confusing those rates with yours on CL? "Hot, discrete troll available to fulfill your political fantasies. Anon preferred. No conspiracy theory too big for me to swallow". 

      1. The context of Pelosi's remarks:

        Pelosi: People won’t appreciate reform until it passes

        Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that people won’t appreciate how great the Democrat’s health plan is until after it passes.

        “You’ve heard about the controversies, the process about the bill…but I don’t know if you’ve heard that it is legislation for the future – not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America,” she told the National Association of Counties annual legislative conference, which has drawn about 2,000 local officials to Washington. “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it – away from the fog of the controversy."

        ACA, aka Obamacare, was in process for  years, from initial concept in the fall of '08  to the President's signing in March of 2010.  through months of debate and hearings, years of amendents.  Two years of hearings just to draft the bill. Three years of challenges after that.

        AHCA, aka TrumpDon'tCare, has been in process for a little over 5 months. The House rushed it through before CBO scoring; now, the Senate wants to do the same. No public hearings at all.  When Senator Claire McCaskill asked Orrin Hatch point blank, "Will there be a hearing?" he stumbled, repeated, had to be prompted by an aide to come up with some embarrassingly inept sidestepping.

        The ACA respected democratic processes and the will of the people; the AHCA does not. The intent of the ACA is to improve the health and well-being of the population; the intent of the AHCA is to create a tax cut for rich people, and its creators hope that the people will not find out how much they will suffer for this untl it's too late.

        The two are not equivalent.

         

        1. The ACA respected the will of the people in the same way the AHCA will respect the will of the people, if it passes. It will be voted on by the elected representatives of the people.  Healthcare has been the subject of continuous hearings and debate for almost ten years.

          1.  

            Gerbils — So Con Man Cory lies, and you swear to it?

            In February, Gardner himself said, “It’s important to me that this debate be open and that the American people see what’s happening and taking place,” according to a transcript from HuffPost. “I think as this committee hearings and legislation is being drafted, it’s not going to be something behind closed doors. Everybody is going to be a part of it.” 

            You can't even keep your talking points straight.

             

  3. The New York Times has a fascinating analysis of the historic rise in partisan rancor.  It offers some good insights on how we can be a bit more tolerant of, and how to engage constructively with, our neighbors who aren't members of our own political party.

    However, it doesn't help us here on this site because our Republican contributors are self-selected dedicated partisans.  None of them will likely change their opinions based on anything we do or say, nor are we likely to find anything they offer convincing.  

    But outside this arena, there is ample opportunity to change hearts and minds though considerate engagement.

    Mr. Iyengar also points out that Americans are willing to impugn members of the other party in ways that aren’t publicly acceptable with other groups, like minorities, women or gays. There simply aren’t strong social norms holding partisans back. And critics fear that the president’s own contributions to incivility are further eroding what norms do exist.

    A part of the problem is that Americans are less likely to have the kind of interpersonal contact across party lines that can dampen harsh beliefs about each other. Neighborhoods, workplaces, households and even online dating lives have become politically homogeneous. Voters are less likely today to have neighbors who belong to another party than they were a half century ago. Bipartisan marriages are on the decline.

    Just as interpersonal contact has been shown to ease prejudice against racial minorities and gays, psychologists believe that more such contact would be good for political civility, too. But Americans increasingly live in a world where that contact is hard to come by — and many go out of their way to avoid it.

    1. A very sobering map for Cory Gardner, George Brauchler and Walker Stapleton.

       

      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/upshot/gop-senators-might-not-realize-it-but-not-one-state-supports-the-ahca.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=none&state=standard&contentPlacement=22&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F06%2F14%2Fupshot%2Fgop-senators-might-not-realize-it-but-not-one-state-supports-the-ahca.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0

      Support for TrumpCare – you know, that "mean, mean, mean" piece of legislation – is in the 25% range in Colorado. That puts us in the same boat with California, Illinois, Massachusetts (the only state George McGovern carried in 1972), Vermont, and Connecticut. More folks in New York, Minnesota (the only state that Walter Mondale carried in 1984), and New Mexico support TrumpCare than do those in the Centennial State.

      I have been in Argentina for the past week so for Gardner, Brauchler, Moderatus, and Company, in the local lingo, "Ten miedo, ten muy miedo."

  4. Hi all.

    I'm doing research for a book, and could use all of the information I can get on Jefferson County Dem events (e.g., reorg, convention, etc.), venues, dates and times, weather at the time, and nuts-and-bolts of how such events operate and unfold. Thanks in advance for any assistance any of you can offer. (At the moment, I'm trying to find out what the venue was for the 2009 Jeffco Dems reorg, on Saturday Feb 7 or Sunday Feb 9 –not sure which.)

    2. I lived in Jeffco in '08, did a lot of organizing around the ACA and Obama's election, could tell you what the grassroots game looked like on the ground – but I wasn't involved in Dem politics other than as a reliable volunteer. I know who were some of the key players, though. You can write to me at nomes36080@mypacks.net

      mj

  5. Thanks Short Stuff and mj! (Short Stuff: I thought it was somewhere closer to the Lakewood civic center area, maybe somewhere around Kipling and Alameda, but memory is an unreliable thing, and I could be confusing it with some other event. Are you SURE of this location?)

    1. Yep, I'm sure about that particular reorg. You might be thinking of CD 7 reorg or convention/assembly meetings that have been held in the Kipling/Alameda area over the years. I know the 2008 CD 7 nominating assembly was at Alameda HS, and if my (usually trusty) memory serves, the Mile High Church at Garrison and Alameda has been used. Now, I'm eager to read your book!

      1. Yeah, I was thinking about the Mile High Church at Garrison and Alameda; I attended something there at some point. (If anyone knows what was held there in the 2009-2010 time frame, please let me know!) Thanks again, Short Stuff! You've been a big help. (Sometimes, the Google just doesn't come through….) I'll keep you posted about the book.

  6. People who know more than I do about finance and banking – which probably means you – explain why Ken Buck is being deliberately misleading in his op-ed about how Trump's CHOICE act  will "help small community banks".

    This act will prop up the community banks that were hurt so badly by Dodd-Frank….

    My understanding of Dodd-Frank is also limited. I get that it is supposed to decrease risk in the financial market by not allowing certain types of speculation. And it established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CPFB), Elizabeth Warren's brainchild, which is also supposed to curtail predatory mortgage lending.

    The part that Buck seems to be saying will help community banks is CHOICE's repeal of the Volcker rule, which separates the investment and banking activities a bank can engage in. Is this really something that community banks are involved in? I thought that the financial collapse was due more to the "too big to fail" entities like Goldman – Sachs (i.e., Trump's new cabinet)

    Buck's overly-folksy, condescending tone in the op-ed is grating enough – but is he deliberately misinforming his audience?

    Here's hoping Buck gets a strong challenger in 2018.

      1. You mean the crash that happened in part because in 1999 the Dems repealed the depression era prohibition of mixing risky loans from federally insured accounts which previously could only invest in low risk investments, often referred to as Glass-Steagal?

        The effect of Dodd-Frank and its myriad of rules and record keeping requirements has been to help the too big to fail big banks and hurt the smaller and more local banks.  I believe that is the general ill which the CHOICE act is aimed to cure.  If you want to learn more about it, I would suggest you read some of the large law firm summaries of the law, rather than the hack-job partisan knee-jerk reactions of folks who have not read it.

        1. All I see is "Argle-Bargle we got what we wanted in repealing a law we, the GOP hates, and now we'll just blame Democrats when anything goes wrong with our bad policy choices"

          Mighty weak gruel you're serving today, Gerbils.

    2. The essential argument has been the cost of the compliance office.  There's a minimum level of personnel required in order to maintain compliance, but that doesn't necessarily scale as a bank gets larger.  So, a big bank may have fewer compliance folks per dollar on deposit than a smaller one.  For smaller banks, the argument goes, having to add a couple folks in the compliance office can mean the difference between being profitable and not.

      As far as the Volcker rule goes, it’s pretty sweeping in its efforts to cover things banks shouldn't invest in, so, yeah, there are investments that smaller banks used to make that would be prohibited, but not much.  And, the main purpose behind the Volcker rule is to stop banks from making investments that benefit the bank and not the customers, so that's not terrible.  Even if a bank isn't making Volcker-prohibited investments, they still need compliance folks to ensure and certify that they aren't.

      Is Buck deliberately misinforming folks?  He's deliberately conveying information that supports his preconceived notions about how bad regulation is.  Is there some effect?  Probably.  Does it require the action he supports to resolve it?  Nope.

  7. Curiouser and curiouser.  Donald Trump and the Dog That Didn't Bark:

    Democrats say Trump has yet to express public concern about the underlying issue with striking implications for America's democracy.

    In the past two weeks, The Intercept published what it called a secret NSA document that described an aggressive, Moscow-backed hacking campaign to compromise state election officials, perhaps with the ultimate goal of meddling with votes. A subsequent Bloomberg report detailed Russian intrusions into 39 state voter databases and software systems, including one instance when hackers tried and failed to delete voter information.

    Former FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers June 8 that the Russians had “hundreds” and perhaps more than 1,000 targets in their hacking cross hairs during the election. And, he warned, “They'll be back.”

    “There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever,” Comey said in his widely watched testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did it with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. And it was an active-measures campaign driven from the top of that government.”

    But Trump appears not to share that alarm, Democrats say.

    “The silence from the White House is deafening,” said Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, one of the panels probing Russia’s election-year activities. “President Trump has yet to publicly express any concern or condemnation regarding these hostile acts by a principal adversary of the United States.”

    http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/17/trump-russia-hacking-silence-democrats-239656

  8. Resistance Update

    The Bernie Sanders inspired resistance movement, made up of unhinged supporters of the left, fresh off attempting to kill Republican members of Congress for being Republican members of Congress, has gone viral.  A genius New Jersey Dem strategist, who previously was the Democratic State Political Director for New Jersey is up with a couple hashtags, #HuntRepublicanCongressmen and #HuntRepublicans.

    Aside from the obvious calls for violence, does the resistance movement really think this will play well in middle America.  It seems to me responsible corporate Dems need to run away from these wack-job Bernie Sanders types before Dems become an extinct species.

        1. As usual, Andrew ignores the unhinged members of the far right, aided and abetted by fundamentalist Christian preachers and broadcasters. Sanders was a new deal last year. On the other hand, Jerry Falwell Sr. started peddling his poison around 1980. James Dobson was close behind.

          1. Lest we forget who started it all:

            "Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, the Father of Hate Radio." The Annals of Iowa 56 (1997), 301-302. Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/annals-of-iowa/vol56/iss3/17

            And from Wikipedia:

            Coughlin promoted his controversial beliefs by means of his radio broadcasts and his weekly rotogravure magazine, Social Justice, which began publication in March 1936.[32] During the last half of 1938, Social Justice reprinted in weekly installments the fraudulent, antisemitic text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[33] The Protocols was a Russian forgery that purports to expose a Jewish conspiracy to seize control of the world.[34]

            And guess where Gerbils and Moldy learned their technique of justifying the horrors of their supporters with the excuse that others on the other side started it:

            On November 20, 1938, two weeks after Kristallnacht (the Nazi attack on German Jews, Jewish Synagogues, and Jewish-owned businesses), Coughlin, referring to the millions of Christians killed by the Communists in Russia, said "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted."[40] 

            1. I was thinking more modern times. But you are correct. Rush Limbaugh's bad heritage goes back a long way. Andrew is a hypocrite when he faults leftists and ignores his own right wing history.

        2. I don't think that Sanders should run again in 2020. He really will be too old, in my opinion. Meanwhile, he's very effective in the Senate, and at keeping the pressure on the Democratic party to walk their talk.

          I do think that his organization"Our Revolution" is effective at keeping important issues alive, and is an effective use of his leftover campaign money, in much the same way "Organizing for America" was after Obama's election.  I'm glad that Sanders hasn't turned over his contact list to the Democratic party.

          As evidence of Sanders and "Our Revolution"s effectiveness, just watch all of the attacks on him from our local trolls, and right wing media in general.

          I watch Joy Reid every weekend; she’s clearly not a fan of Sanders, lets no chance pass to say that he’s not a Democrat, but other than that, I think that she’s been fair. I’ve seen that meme circulating around on Facebook – in my opinion, it’s just one more attempt, probably generated and funded by the right, to divide and conquer the Democratic party.

          Again, as evidence, see the “concern trolling” by AC and PP, catering to us poor disenfranchised Bernistas. Like they would ever agree with Sanders on any issue at all. But as long as they can keep those divisions going, they lessen Democratic effectiveness.

          I’m not a “unity uber alles” kind of gal. I want the DNC to sever corporate funding, and go back to the Obama model. I want the lobbyist superdelegate practice to cease. But we’d bloody well better find some candidates and issues we can unite behind, and stop letting the trolls dictate the conversations we have.

  9. Senator Sanders is complaining that the Republicans in the Senate are keeping the health care bill secret.

    "My understanding is that it will be brought forth just immediately before we have to vote on it. This is completely unacceptable," Sanders, an independent who is a member of the Democratic party leadership, told CBS's "Face the Nation" program.

    Does anyone believe that Senator Sanders would vote for the bill even if he had a month of Sundays to read it? Even if he like it, he would vote against it. An "Independent member of the Democratic Party leadership", Sanders shuns the Democratic Party. A more honest characterization would be, Sanders a Socialist who enjoys wide Democratic support …….. 

    1. Perpetual Putz, even Republicans in the Senate have no idea what is in their health care bill. Because Cory Gardner, et al, will not let it be known. Trump thought that the House bill was "mean, mean, mean," though, so that should give you some clue.

      You, of course, never have any idea what you're on about, but today's troll talking point apparently said, "Attack Sanders"and "Distract from the secret health care bill and the Russia collusion investigations", so you're happy to oblige. 

      1. Senator Sanders remarks are pure spin. Designed as you say to "distract" from the fact Democrats will not vote for any Republican bill. The Republicans in the House and Senate are not too bright when they employ procedures to develop legislation in secret. It would be my dream that every incumbent, Democrat and Republican be defeated in 2018 and 2020. The swamp is alive and well in both parties. Every incumbent office holder at the national level deserves a primary challenger.

  10. Here's one for Peculiar Pulp, since the Monday open thread is not up yet. Jesse Lee Peterson says that Democrats are children of Satan. Also one of the worst things this country ever did was allowing women the right to vote. And he would move all blacks (Jesse is black) back south and onto the plantation to learn the ethic of work.

    PP, Andrew, Moderatus own this guy and so many others. He is one of yours.

    2. I have no idea who Jesse Lee Peterson is, but apparently you have an affinity for him. I'm not in to slavery, sorry to disappoint you. You might want to contact Jesse and use you head banging expertise to set him straight.

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