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September 21, 2009 03:36 PM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 42 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy.”

–Friedrich Nietzsche

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42 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

  1. In its pursuit of displaying the facts I missed the large spread of stories on this lil gem on CNN, in the Denver Post, etc….



    http://www.economist.com/print…

    ……Dumb and dumber

    Nor is the potential fallout from Mr Obama’s wrongheaded decision limited to trade. Evidence of a weak president being pushed leftward might cause investors to worry whether he will prove similarly feeble when it comes to reining in the vast deficits he is now racking up; and that might spook the buyers of bonds that finance all those deficits. Looming large among these, of course, are the Chinese. Deteriorating trade relations between the world’s number one debtor and its number one creditor are enough to keep any banker awake at night.

    And America needs China for a lot more than T-bonds. Any hope of securing a climate-change agreement at Copenhagen in December on a successor treaty to Kyoto will require close co-operation between America and China. So does the work of negotiating with North Korea on its nuclear weapons. And as for Iran, where America is keen to seek a fresh round of UN sanctions in the hope of forcing it to scrap its nuclear programme, China holds a power of veto at the Security Council. Under the relevant trade laws, Mr Obama had the absolute discretion not to impose the recommended tyre tariffs on the grounds of overall economic interest or national security. Given everything that is at stake, his decision not to exercise it amounts to an act of vandalism.

    1. that it weakens the United States’ bargaining position when it comes to global warming? Glad to know you’ve come to your senses, and you now fully acknowledge the need to act quickly to curb the changing climate.

      1. From melamine laden pet food to drywall that emits a smell of rotten eggs.  There is very lax QC or concern for consumer protection on the China side, and we end up with the problem here.

        Sure the stuff is cheap, but the quality can be quite horrible sometimes.  Should we always open every Chinese product with open arms ?  We give away the whole farm every time to China; maybe we should be a little more selective about the quality of products that we are importing.

        For christ sakes they banned the import of all US pork due to swine flu, which has no basis in scientific reasoning.  You can’t get swine flu from eating pork, it’s an airborne virus.  But they ban it and we just roll over, and now the economist is worried about our tarrifs on “tyres”.

        Maybe that sounds protectionist but it’s no more protectionist than any other country.  Sometimes we have to look after our own interests.  

        1. It’s just a different culture in terms of laws and customs.

          China also spent twice what the US did on economic recovery as a portion of GDP.  They seem to be well on the way to that goal, unlike here in America.  

          1. China was already in the middle of an unprecedented amount of infrastructure projects when the economy hit the skids.  That has softened the blow quite nicely for them as well.

          2. I was the one foreign devil at Microsoft Taiwan. Two months is not a very long time and this was one group of people plus others I ran in to here and there.

            I also work closely with a MS development group in Shanghai now. Really nice guys – and super sharp.

            I think the Chinese culturally are closer to us than almost anyone else. I think that similarity is what trips up the relationship a lot.

  2. Mike Huttner of ProgressNow went on the boyles show and got blasted away by boyles.  When will they ever learn not to argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel or who controls 20 hours a week of drive time public air waves and can shut off your microphone at will????

    For those who can stomach boyles, you will be able to hear snips of how he made mincemeat of Mike on the boyles show probably into infinity.

    If Huttner had been up on the birther issue, (and who is not?)  reading  Judge Land’s Opinion in dismissing Orly Taitz’s latest court case would have gone a long way to shut boyles up

    “Thus, Plaintiff’s counsel, who champions herself as a defender of liberty and freedom, seeks to use the power of the judiciary to compel a citizen, albeit the President of the United States, to “prove his innocence” to “charges that are based upon conjecture and speculation. Any middle school civics student would readily recognize the irony of abandoning the fundamental principles upon  

    1. which our Country was founded in order to purportedly “protect and preserve” those very principles…

      Plaintiff’s complaint is not plausible on its face.

      I apologize for the disconnect…my computer has a mind of its own.

  3. In the “Who do you prefer” diary from this past weekend, a poster was insinuating that Michael Bennet only became a supporter of the public option because of getting a whiff that Romanoff would be running against him in a primary.

    Despite the fact that this claim has been debunked here multiple times, it has been parroted by Daily Kos (among others) and popped up again in the conversation this past weekend.

    This is how simple this is folks: after getting tons of constituent calls, e-mails, faxes, and other communications asking Bennet to support public option, he did. The grassroots movement from health care advocates to call their senators and Congressional representatives actually, shockingly enough, worked. Bennet listened to his constituents and has been a strong public supporter of health care reform in general, and a public health insurance option specifically.

    There are legitimate things to criticize Michael Bennet for, but this ain’t one of them.

    2. My take is that Bennet is for the public option when it doesn’t look like it has the votes to pass, when it looks like his vote might make a difference, then he steps back and does the …I’ve looked at both sides, now.

      1. While I admit it took him awhile to come around, MB has been a vociferous proponent of the public option in front of friendly crowds, town halls, the Denver Chamber, and in the halls of Congress. This isn’t subjective.

      2. have there been circumstances under which it looked like  Senator Bennet’s vote could be the one to cause the public option to pass?  Your “take”, dwyer, is ridiculous on its face since it has never looked like any such thing.  Bull.

        1. We went through this before and I had thought that I had replied to you BC

          LOOK.  I have an opinion. This is it, Bennet was coy on the public option until the August 8th Pueblo meeting when he came out for it….however, the next week, administration officials on the talking head shows strongly suggested that the public option was not an imperative and one Senator said there were not enough votes to pass it in the Senate.  So, my “take” is that it was safe to be “for the public option.”…because it was dead anyway…. and one could be for it because it was never going to come to a vote….

  4. http://www.denverpost.com/poli…

    A year ago during a heated congressional race, former state Sen. Polly Baca said she couldn’t support Joan Fitz-Gerald in the Democratic primary because of her role in a special session on illegal immigration.

    Fitz-Gerald was the state Senate president during that 2006 session, where lawmakers enacted what were touted as the toughest immigration laws in the nation. Baca said the measures hurt Latinos.

    But a year later, Baca showed up in Pueblo to support Andrew Romanoff’s kickoff for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate. He is challenging U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.

    Romanoff was the House speaker during that same special session, and Baca was asked about what seemed to be a contradiction.

    “It was Fitz-Gerald who pushed for it, and Andrew just went along for party unity,” Baca said.

    With friends like these….

    1. I was in the room at Romanoff’s press conference concerning the introduction of HB1023.

      Baca is full of it. Romanoff pushed for it and she should be happy he did. Saved things from getting much worse.

      1. considering Bennet is a DREAM Act cosponsor, is this:

        “What’s not spoken about is Romanoff’s record, and how he voted to prohibit in-state tuition to undocumented students,” said Martinez, who stressed he was speaking for himself and not his group.

        Romanoff in 2004 voted for a GOP measure sponsored by Senate President John Andrews and Rep. Ted Harvey allowing in-state tuition for foreign nationals but prohibiting it for illegal immigrants. The bill eventually died.

    2. …even though he spear-headed it.

      Then they’ll turn around and say he was in charge of the Ref C and D push.

      Whatever’s most convenient right now, that’s what he did.

  6. Ann Minch 1, Bank of America 0

    The executive “tried to get me to agree to 16.99 percent and I said, ‘No, nope, I believe because you guys are getting your money from the Fed at zero percent interest… that 12.99 percent is a more than generous profit margin for you guys.’

    Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

    So the U.S. Senate is afraid to pass cram-down but a single person is able to make it happen. Kudos to her, pathetic for the Senate (including our own Michael Bennet).

  8. Capitalism: A Love Story

    Starts Friday, October 2 at the Mayan Theatre

    and Greenwood Village

    In Capitalism: A Love Story, filmmaker Michael Moore (Sicko, Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine, Roger & Me) tackles an issue he has been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world). Moore explores the root causes of the global economic meltdown and takes a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what he has described as the biggest robbery in the history of this country-the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.  

    2. for our society? Socialism? Communism?

      Michael Moore is a total wack job, EXTREME lefty nut. And his movies prove it.

      With his money why not just move to a country more his liking? Leave this shit hole we call America to us poor slobs?

          1. …..on another thread where I mentioned annual gasoline consumption in Colorado. 49,635,000 barrels or 2,084,670,000 gallons (2.084 billion gallons)

            Texas consumes 256,552,000 barrels of gasoline per year.  A whopping 10.775 billion gallons. They are the number one state in the union for gas consumption, number two is Florida at 181 million barrels or 7.602 billion gallons.  Sounds like Texas has too many cornfield Cadillacs.

            California uses less gasoline than Colorado coming in at 35 million barrels or 1.478 billion gallons. The population of California exceeds Texas by 12 million or two and half Colorados.  Sounds like we need to Californicate Colorado.

            Source:

            http://www.statemaster.com/gra…

      2. we remove corporate personhood and replace it with a more accurate legal construction?  As Justice Sotomayor notes, that was a (clerk’s note on a) Court decision after passage of the 14th Amendment; the Court at the time heard many such arguments attempting to waylay the 14th Amendment from its purpose of civil rights and into rights for artificial entities.

        From what I’ve seen of the previews, Moore’s new movie targets corporate influence over government decision-making, and the things corporations get away with as a result.  I’d like a “cleaner” capitalism, where government decision-making isn’t so muddled by non-persons.

        You’re a small-government conservative, Gecko.  Imagine if the government made its decisions in the interests of the country’s citizens.  No corporate cash, no union dues monies.  Every expenditure in a political campaign directly authorized by a real person.  If a company wants to lobby, it asks its shareholders to authorize a donation – individually.  If a union wants to lobby, it asks its members to contribute to a political fund.  If a citizen wants PETA to lobby on his behalf, (s)he donates and checks off the box saying “use this money to lobby on my behalf for your cause”.

        Wouldn’t that be nice?

    3. isn’t he pretty much a hypocrite blasting capitalism when he himself is making a goddamn fortune because of it?

      Do you suppose he could make movies like he does in say, North Korea?

      1. You’ve clearly seen the film and can tell us all about it, saving me the time and $ to bother. Since I’m on the short list for Surrogates this weekend and I’m pretty sure there’s no way I can afford two not-kid friendly movies in one weekend.

      2. No, Gecko, Moore takes a critical look at the recent meltdown, and arrives at fairly mainstream conclusions — we wuz robbed. How Unamerican of him!

        … a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what he has described as the biggest robbery in the history of this country-the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.

        I thought that was a tea party truism, that private financial institutions soaked taxpayers. Does that make Glenn Beck an “EXTREME lefty nut”? Or are you just an unthinking, knee-jerk reactionary who could give a shit about the actual facts?

        1. that it is the latter.  

          “In fact, whenever America has set about solving our toughest problems, there have been those who have sought to preserve the status quo. And these struggles have always boiled down to a contest between hope and fear. That was true when Social Security was born. That was true when Medicare was created. It is true in this debate today.”  -President Barack Obama

        2. ……is a good thing for business.  What has worked even better for business, corporate welfare.  The Democrats are mostly to blame, Democrat legislators recieve more money from the top 50 industries in every category except the automotive industry and by substantial margins.

          http://www.opensecrets.org/ind…

          “According to the Cato Institute, the U.S. federal government spent $92 billion on corporate welfare during fiscal year 2006. Recipients included Boeing, Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Dow Chemical, and General Electric.

          Alan Peters and Peter Fisher have estimated that state and local governments provide $40-50 billion annually in economic development incentives, which many critics characterize as corporate welfare.”

          The U.S. Agricultural Department is required by law (various U.S. farm bills which are passed every few years) to subsidize over two dozen commodities. Between 1996 and 2002, an average of $16 billion/year was paid by programs authorized by various U.S. farm bills dating back to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, the Agricultural Act of 1949, and the Commodity Credit Corporation (created in 1933), among others.[citation needed]

          The beneficiaries of the subsidies have changed as agriculture in the United States has changed. In the 1930s, about 25% of the country’s population resided on the nation’s 6,000,000 small farms. By 1997, 157,000 large farms accounted for 72% of farm sales, with only 2% of the U.S. population residing on farms.

           

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