22 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

1. Morning has broken, like the first morning.

   Trump is still stinking, like the first stink.

   Praise for creation, 

   Gas mask for Stinky.

   Stay far upwind, it's America's hope.

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   1. You do know that the artist who popularized "Morning Has Broken" is a Muslim? Let me clue you in before Moderatus does.  

      I've always liked Cat Stevens' music; a.k.a. Yusef Islam. 

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   2. Now that Trump Stink greeting actually looks like you put some effort into it, V!

      How about tomorrow you work with Loudon Wainwright III's Dead Skunk?

       

       

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      1. I long ago posted, to the tune of Dead Skunk:

         Donald Trump is an odious toad.

         Donald Trump is an odious toad.

         Donald Trump is an odious toad.

         Stinkin' to high heaven.

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2. All of us, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Agnostic, are united by the need to stay upwind of Trump.

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   1. I wonder about Satanists, however. Do they join the crowds upwind or stand where they are, thinking it excellent training for the future odor of brimstone?

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      1. Brimstone is actually rather nicely piquant, especially when compared to Yambostenchy . . . 

         . . .

         . . . um, so I’m told. 

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3. And there is always the classic Wild Thing:

   Trump Stink

   You make my nose shrink.

   You make everything 

   Rancid.

   Trump Stink.

   I want to hold my nose.

   I need to burn my clothes!

   Trump Stink

   I think I hate you.

   And now I know for sure.

   😇

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   1. . We need a two-hand emoji to applaud.

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   2. V.'s greatest hits!

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4. Guzman steps down from Dem leadership

   https://coloradopolitics.com/senate-democratic-leader-lucia-guzman/

   DENVER — Senate Minority Leader Lucia Guzman is stepping down from her post leading the Democrats in her caucus with less than six weeks to go in her final legislative session, she announced Thursday morning.

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5. Congrats Ken Buck, Mike Coffman, and Michael Bennet – You've gained Colorado 3 out of 20 spots on the worst bosses in Congress list. Per capita, the worst record of any state.

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   1. The methodology of the "study," looking only at staff turnover and enhancing by salary level, without considering why staffers leave, is relatively silly.

      Staffers who "left" to become part of the Senate or House campaign committee would count the same as someone who left and joined the campaign of someone competing in a primary against their one-time boss. Staffers leaving to go to law school or taking on positions in an executive branch would count the same as those leaving with no job or school plan.

      Even the source headlines this with the question "Worst Bosses?" and has a first sentence of "Offices with the most staff turnover might also include some of the worst bosses."

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      1. . . . and some just left because they didn’t want to miss watermelon hunting season. 

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6. As to Bennet's staff: You try fielding 50 angry calls a day from Zappatero and see how long you last!

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7. Lest we ever forget . . . 

   “We will be greeted as liberators” upon invading Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney counseled in 2003 on the eve of the war. He had already relayed a prediction that the streets in Basra and Baghdad are “sure to erupt in joy.”

   President George W. Bush declared that there was “no doubt” that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that an invasion would be largely self-financing and that it would last “five days or five weeksor five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer.”

   So 15 years ago this week, the United States careered into one of the most cataclysmic, expensive and idiotic blunders of the last half-century: We invaded Iraq.

   The financial cost alone to the United States will top $3 trillion, according to the estimates of the economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, or about $24,000 per American household. Some 4,400 American soldiers died in Iraq, along with approximately 500,000 Iraqis, according to a survey and academic study.

   Trump’s Talk Worries Me, Like the Talk Before the Iraq War

     https://nyti.ms/2FS71AJ

   . . . just how many bouquets we each received for our household’s $24,000 . . .

   (For perspective, if you’re a Republican, your family’s $24K would be enough to pay your Costco membership through the year 2333.)

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8. Stock market crash.  Dow Jones down almost 3% today and for the year.

   Thanks, Trump.  Dumb ass.

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   1. Wasn't this where all the big, beautiful tax cut money was supposed to be invested per Moderatus of Gades.

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9. Chevron’s lawyer, speaking for major oil companies, says climate change is real and it’s your fault

   Over the course of two hours, Boutrous ran through the findings of the most recent IPCC report (released in 2013), acknowledging that global temperatures were rising due to carbon dioxide caused by human activity, that other factors were negligible, and that as a result, sea levels were rising. No time was given to any denials of climate science, with Boutrous sticking closely to the substance of the IPCC report. Even his attempt at implying that his client was not at fault was framed within the substance of the IPCC report; he said that the report never said “extraction or production” of oil was the cause of carbon dioxide emissions, but rather the “economic activity” that burned fossil fuels.

   Wednesday’s session was not a trial, or really even a hearing in the typical sense of the word. It was, in Judge Alsup’s terminology, a “tutorial” — a session in which the legal teams for both sides present background facts for his edification. It’s not discovery, it’s not evidence, and just because it was presented Wednesday, it’s not necessarily admissible for a jury in the future should this case go to trial. Nonetheless, the hearing marked a moment in which major oil companies went on the record to say that human-caused climate change is real. At this point, the science is so undeniable that it no longer makes sense for oil companies to try and refute it.

   About the suit:

   San Francisco, Oakland sue major oil companies over rising seas

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   1. Yep.  It’s a brand new oil-company denial now . . . 

      “How is my client supposed to know how every single person who buys their product is going to use it? For some reason people just seem to want it badly, my client is only supplying their unknown and inexplicable needs.  I dunno’ maybe folks are using it to excercise their protected second amendment rights? Burn oil — that’s just crazy. My client is clearly not responsible for any such reckless behavior.”

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10. Interesting. Reporters have been notified of a "major announcement" by Deputy AG Rosenstein early tomorrow (10:30 EDT). With him at the podium will be the US Attorney for Southern New York and the head of Treasury Counter-terrorism and Financial Intelligence among others. The announcement has to do with cyber-crime, but not anything to do with the Mueller investigation.

     Lots of really interesting territory within those boundaries…

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11. Republicans don't want to ban bump stocks because you never know when you'll need one to pump a few hundred rounds into a 9 year old corpse, just to be sure it's dead:

    On Thursday, the House of Representatives approved a 2,000-plus-page government spending bill. One small item in that mammoth bill bans federal funds from being spent to support a group called the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

    Republicans loathed the group. They accused it ― baselessly ― of engineering a campaign of mass voter fraud and thus rigging the 2008 election in favor of then-candidate Barack Obama. Republicans hated ACORN so much that they effectively killed it all the way back in 2009 by blocking federal funding to the organization, which helped poor people register to vote and advocated for social services like affordable housing.

    “Banning funding for ACORN? That was like eight fake conspiracy theories ago,” one former Hill staffer told HuffPost.

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