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August 18, 2009 03:44 PM UTC

Tuesday Open Thread

  • 40 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“The charm of novelty and old custom, however opposite to each other, equally blind us to the faults of our friends.”

–François de la Rochefoucauld

Comments

40 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread

    1. If he’s the original artist, and his work was stolen from a public-image website, he has a pretty strong case for a lawsuit.

      I doubt he’d pursue it, but….

  1.  Just curious, but I wonder if the Dems are going to grow back their balls anytime soon and put the public option back on the table?

    I’m with Rep. Anthony Weiner.  I would rather have NO bill at all instead of this co-op crap that does nothing else but put 47 million people into the profit making machine that is the private insurance system UNLESS the government mandates getting rid of pre-existing condition limitations, caps the annual increase in profit for private insurance companies to some sane index AND curbs private insurance executive pay.

    The GOP thinks that the health of Americans should be treated like any other commodity and there should be no regulation for the private sector.

    Since when was the health of our citizens a commodity???  

    Jared Polis, where are YOU on this issue?

    And remember, profiting (price gouging?) on the backs of the health of our citizens SHOULD be considered immoral!

    1. being interviewed by Stephen Colbert on last night’s show. Jon Stewart had the Zach Lahn clip from the town hall.  A Colorado night in the national media.  Colbert even got Polis to do beer bongs with him.  Huffington Post has the video.  Very funny shows.  Catch them both in rerun today.

  2. DailyKos ran one of their polls, with some interesting results.

    http://www.dailykos.com/storyo

    Only 11% of respondents believe the “death panel” bamboozle (almost all of whom ID as Republicans).

    There have been observations floating around that the birthers and deathers are essentially the same constituency. I think for an additional dose of perspective on these folks, they should be including a question on whether Iraq was responsible for 9/11.  

  3. http://www.denverpost.com/ci_1

    …Statutes say teachers in Colorado are tenured after three years, which moves them from being probationary to nonprobationary and makes them more difficult to remove.

    In Denver, nonprobationary status is granted almost automatically, DPS officials say. Ninety-two percent of probationary teachers are retained every year in the district.

    Denver wants to extend that three-year time period, adding flexibility, and establish a higher standard to becoming tenured.

    …”We need to exit those individuals who aren’t able to meet that standard without that long-term support.”

    State law also says teachers must be rated either “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory,” and in DPS 99 percent of teachers get “satisfactory” ratings. [obviously DPS doesn’t really want to rock the boat or they’d take a real look at complete reform]

    ….Evaluations would come from multiple sources, including the principal, peers and possibly even parents and students. And there would be intensive, regular and targeted feedback, and increased support for novice teachers. [Hello CSAP?]

    …..Boasberg made the presentation after reviewing the district’s scores on the 2009 Colorado Student Assessment Program [CSAP] – which showed better growth than the state but scores still 20 points below the state average in all subjects. [has he reviewed the now +50% dropout rate?]

    Ah yes … not a word in that article about student achievement, not a word about increasing the graduation rate.

    1. …when you cite or quote an article, you must do so without adding your own remarks. If you do add comments or additions, you must do so by adding an acknowledgment note or an editors note to identify and attribute your changes.

      Since that probably has too many big words for you, here’s the Libertad explanation – stop adding your snark to other people’s quotes and articles.

      And yes, there’s no mention of student achievement or graduation rates. That’s because the cited article IS NOT ABOUT EITHER ITEM – it’s about DPS competing for grant money and how they will have to go about that.

      Try and at least be vaguely on subject with these…

        1. Pick up your little black ball and stomp home to mommy.

          +50% of Denver HS Students drop out and rarely do you see any sustainable effort to focus on the tax payers children (aka customers).

          The last Superitendant Bennet was great at closing schools, shuffling his budget problems off to PERA, raising taxes and pissing off the teachers.  Sure he wanted to grow DPS headcount, but that was from a budget perspective … it was never about uping the achievement (well his own yes, but the kids, not so much).

          1. Isn’t it a personal responsibility to work hard and get ahead? Lots of Denver kids work hard, get good grades, graduate, and go on to college. Don’t you think the burden falls squarely on them?

            Why are you such a bleeding heart about education?

            Besides, if all those kids stayed in school, they’d have to hire more teachers. That means higher taxes. And if they didn’t hire more teachers, you’d be bellyachin’ about how overcrowded classes are.

            sheesh.

        1. Libertad loves to throw out his stats, but if it’s included as an editors note, he should cite the source.

          If he wants to throw in snark (“obviously DPS doesn’t really want to rock the boat or they’d take a real look at complete reform”) he needs to do so as an editor’s note…..or save it for the followup.

          Yes, it’s a blog…and we don’t have to follow the Chicago manual of Style (or any other one.) But L is the only blogger to do this kind of self-righteous snark, and it’s getting old.

    1. then this guy is a moderate…

      Republican Thompson joins race for Salazar seat

      By GARY HARMON/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

      Monday, August 17, 2009

      A second Republican is taking on Democrat John Salazar for the Colorado 3rd Congressional District seat.

      Doug Thompson of Grand Junction, who said his wife, Karen, describes him as “to the right of Rush Limbaugh,” will formally announce his bid Wednesday.

      1. And the Junction Daily Blog reported it August 12, and confirmed it August 16.

        I’m excited.  It will be a fun primary while it lasts, if it even gets that far.  Thompson is a real flamethrower.

        1. hopefully the teabaggers will turn out in force, tilt the ticket toward the lunatic fringe, and further shrink the party into a Mesa-Rio Blanco-Moffat-Delta county blip of red in a purpling state…

      1. He had a nice way of making his opponents look dumb. Later in life he wasn’t nearly as good at this, but when he was a regular on Crossfire, I thought he was. Maybe I was just not terribly perceptive as a teenager.

  4. A woman yelled “Heil Hitler” at a Jewish man speaking at a healthcare townhall meeting. What atrocity did this man commit to deserve this woman’s scorn? He praised Israel’s national healthcare system.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

    Being of German descent, my blood boils at reading about this. I have no words to condemn this woman enough.

    It boggles my mind that those words could possibly cross the lips of anyone, knowing the evils done against the Jewish people by the Nazis.

    How did this debate become so unhinged? We’re talking about healthcare for all, which in any civilized nation should be a moral imperative.

    We have nutcases bringing rifles to townhall meetings (a radio publicity stunt), racially insulting posters, accusations of “death panels,” and a woman yelling those two words.

    Are Conservatives and Liberals so diametrically opposed that we’ve come to this?  

    1. If nothing else comes out of a health care reform package, I hope there is long term, intensive mental health treatment for some of these wing nuts.

  5. A bit late, but ties to my previous comment.

    “White Supremacists and Anti-Semites Plan to Recruit at July 4 Tea Parties”

    http://www.adl.org/main_Extrem

    “As they have done with other political and social issues, for example, promoting the Ron Paul campaign and using the immigration debate, white supremacists and anti-Semites are planning to exploit Tea Parties to disseminate their hateful views and recruit a larger following.”

    “ADL Says Use Of Nazi Imagery In Health Care Debate ‘Outrageous And Inappropriate'”

    http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Ho

    “The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today called attempts by some opponents of health care reform to bring Nazi imagery into the debate, “outrageous, deeply offensive and inappropriate” and condemned remarks by talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, who compared President Obama’s health care logo to a swastika, and policies championed by the Democratic Party to those of the Nazis.

  6. .

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/

    Beleaguered by LB’s incessant use of a hurtful tagline,

    President Obama today decided to shut down the tip line (flag@WH.gov) where loyal Democrats could report extremists who held opposing views, so that the FBI could start dossiers on these fanatics.  

    The President was just looking at things, framed pictures and the like, hanging on the WH walls, when he came across a copy of the Constitution.  Lucky.  His predecessor in that residence has torn down and torn up all copies he could find, leaving very few copies in federal offices.  

    But Obama read through the “Bill of Rights,” found something about unlawful searches, and called Rush Limbaugh to explain that part.  Of course the Rushmeister had no clue there were any amendments, so the two of them called the Constitutional expert Alan Keyes, who explained that the Government is not supposed to just start digging into folks’ personal lives, just because a neighbor thinks they are “different.”  Y’know, like Saddam’s security forces used to do.

    Next thing you know, the President is buying a copy of the entire Constitution [from the Constitution Party website] and reading it.  

    I’m thinking this could have a happy ending, like the dismissal of the Chief of Staff who set up this enemies list.

    .

    1. Do you or anyone else have any evidence at all that this tip line was used so the FBI could start dossiers on these fanatics, or is that pure speculation ?  Do you buy into this ?

      I thought this was being done so the White House could debunk the ridiculous misinformation that is being spread about health care.

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