Weekend Open Thread

38
  by: Colorado Pols March 16, 2019 at 12:43 AM MDT

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  1. Voyageur says:
    March 16, 2019 at 4:46 AM MDT

    By unanimous vote of 420-0, it's official: Trump stinks.

    Great God Almighty, Trump stinks!

    • MADCO says:
      March 16, 2019 at 6:48 AM MDT

      horseless carriage – pointless and dangerous!
      electricity- in the house? Never
      tv is interesting- but radio is so much better.
      book is better than the movie
      Cofee? Ha! tea.

      And on and on.
      JC had to write this – he's gotta keep the job.
      But he must realize that O&G is not going away.
      In fact with greater local control Weld County, Wyoming can finally do whatever the heck they want with drilling

      But he needs to remain relevant – and getting Ted Nugent to come to Colorado and do stuff with him is just too ridiculous.
      Besides Ted doesn't want to walk around carrying a long gun. Ted needs full auto just to feel awake.

       

      • MichaelBowman says:
        March 16, 2019 at 11:10 AM MDT

        EastCO residents can thank those Boulder elites for legislation and mandates that caused about $6 billion in wind farm investments in our backyards (yes, I realize the Fossilinians don’t consider wind-and-solar-derived electricity ‘energy’). 

    • Duke Cox says:
      March 16, 2019 at 8:17 AM MDT

      OMFG…I have never had the unfortunate opportunity to meet Mr. Caldara. Is he as insane in person as he is on paper?

      Good luck getting the Oily Boyz to pay for a secession movement, which seems to be the mission behind this onslaught of hyperbolic nonsense. But, it should motivate a few of the socialist haters to pour their money into his institute. 

      This is a fund-raising effort, looks to me.

      Thanks for the link, Michael. Happy St. Patricks day!🍀

       

        • Duke Cox says:
          March 16, 2019 at 9:24 AM MDT

          Thanks. And a fine St. Pattys' Day to you, too.🍀🌹🎻

          I kinda never take anything these guys say at face value. The ulterior motive is usually so obvious, it is hard to consider it ulterior.

           

      • MichaelBowman says:
        March 16, 2019 at 10:58 AM MDT

        Wait till the boyz figger out just how high the effective severance rate tax is in Wyoming!  Yee Haw!!

        Getting to spend St Patty’s weekend in Tuskegee, AL with friends from the Obama White House Champions of Change program and attending a reception and symposia for the eighth – and first woman – President of the historic HBCU tonight – in the heart of the Jefferson Beauregard Sessions  country.  I doubt they’ll be any Judge Roy Moore sightings – the age of this crowd will be way over 14. 

        Tuskegee was the home of George Washington Carver, a very wise man who promoted alternative crops that reversed soil degradation?? Do you have any idea what might fill that role today? (Hint Poddy: it rhymes with shemp).  

        Happy St Patty’s Day ☘️ everyone!

      • mamajama55 says:
        March 16, 2019 at 8:51 PM MDT

        It's also an attempt to pump up an industry which is on life support.

        According to Bethany McLean, author of Saudi America, and expert on Wall Street's tumultuous relationship with fracking,

        Some of fracking’s biggest skeptics are on Wall Street. They argue that the industry’s financial foundation is unstable: Frackers haven’t proven that they can make money. “The industry has a very bad history of money going into it and never coming out,” says the hedge fund manager Jim Chanos, who founded one of the world’s largest short-selling hedge funds. The 60 biggest exploration and production firms are not generating enough cash from their operations to cover their operating and capital expenses. In aggregate, from mid-2012 to mid-2017, they had negative free cash flow of $9 billion per quarter.

         

        • Voyageur says:
          March 17, 2019 at 4:37 AM MDT

          The old problem known to every farmer: the curse of productivity.  Fracking works: it has produced an abundance of energy.  Meanwhile conservation has helped trim demand.  When supply exceeds demand, prices go down.  

          Check out wheat prices: ruinously low.  Same with natural gas.  

          In free markets nothing fails like success.

    • Pseudonymous says:
      March 16, 2019 at 9:32 AM MDT

      the Boulder mafia running Colorado’s government

      the sponsor of the bill, Boulderite Sen. Steve Fenberg

      the Boulder mafia’s final solution

    • 2Jung2Die says:
      March 16, 2019 at 12:54 PM MDT

      The Post did well by de-endorsing Gardner. Next should be a major cut in column-inches given to Caldara. He has used the Post to advertise for Prop 109, just used the Post to publicize the 4 bills called out on Recall Colorado, and is now using it to incite secession movements that could very well wind up on ballots. Give him the occasional 150-word letter or really occasional op-ed like everyone else, or consider charging him for political ad space and label it as such, but he's getting too high of a percentage of prominence in the DP's ever-shrinking editorial pages for what his content is worth. 

    • mamajama55 says:
      March 16, 2019 at 7:18 PM MDT

      Caldara claims that "Weld County has the second highest property valuations in …Colorado". First of all, that appears to be a misleading statement. Shocking, I know. According to the taxrates.org, which keeps tabs on such things, many Colorado counties have higher property tax rates based on assessed (~6 – 7.6% of property value) than Weld does. Douglas County appears to be highest, followed by Jeffco, Arapahoe, Adams, and some rural counties.

      What Weld County does have is a high property tax rate, only partly due to oil and gas development and mostly due to the overall scarcity of housing in Weld County, and other factors. The cost of supplying water to new development, for example, is driving up home prices all over northern Colorado. The oil and gas industry can't take credit for that – except perhaps because fracking uses scarce water, which then  can't be used for agriculture, nor can it be replaced.

      The cost of living is much higher than the rest of Colorado – (cost of living index 112 in Greeley– CO general 100), there is much less housing available, and a higher foreclosure rate (2006)than Colorado in general. 2011 2018

      Why would having a 50 foot tower spewing flame at all hours of the night, heavy oil trucks rumbling down your street, a 20 foot wall blocking the view, or worries about carcinogens in the water and air lower one's property values?

      Ballotpedia's "Fracking and Property Values in Colorado" study found that fracking, by itself, is not a definitive factor in property values; however, proximity to wells being drilled near property, and availability of well water are factors that strongly decrease property valuation.

      Caldara's logic is also like a trip to the funhouse mirror maze. His claim is that SB181 is an "existential threat to Weld County". Therefore, he says Weld County should secede. However, he says, they won't secede because even though the oil and gas industry would pay for a ballot initiative to secede, it couldn't pass the 55% threshold requirement, which O&G put on the ballot in order to limit citizen initiatives.

      Then Caldara claims that there are 25 counties contiguous to Weld County that "voted 55% or more for Trump in 2016". Among other things, Mr. Caldara has yet to look at a Colorado county map. Or he doesn't understand what "contiguous" means. Weld  is bordered by Morgan, Lincoln, Logan,Adams, Broomfield, Larimer, and Boulder counties. Of those counties, only Logan and Morgan voted for Trump in 2016.

      So another lie. Caldara lies constantly, which is not shocking, and he also has no clue about realities in Weld County. Someone pretending such “concern” should be better informed.

       

       

    • notaskinnycook says:
      March 16, 2019 at 10:21 PM MDT

      Michael, did you read the comments after his screed? It sounds like other readers aren't having his nonsense either.

  3. Conserv. Head Banger says:
    March 16, 2019 at 8:25 AM MDT

    At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will repeat what I've said in the past. If Weld or any other county wants to secede from the rest of Colorado, feel free to do so. At the time your secession becomes effective, you should be presented with an invoice to cover the cost of infrastructure built in your county(s) by the "Boulder (and Front Range) Mafia." I estimate the cost, payable upon receipt of the invoice, will be in the neighborhood of $1 billion.

    As an aside, I'm "butt hurt" (no, not really) that JC left out Jefferson County. We still have Republicans in our county. 

  4. Wake Me When Its Over says:
    March 16, 2019 at 9:37 AM MDT

    For some unknown reason, I get occasional email updates from Cory Gardner.  In today's edition, there was no reference to his vote on the Emergency Resolution.  Hmmm.

    But he did call out those North Koreans and their violations, "including illicit ship to shit transfer of prohibited goods".

    Wow, those North Koreans are really nasty! 

  5. Pseudonymous says:
    March 16, 2019 at 7:03 PM MDT

  6. Davie says:
    March 17, 2019 at 6:29 AM MDT

    A good guy without a gun saved scores of lives in New Zealand

    Aziz said the gunman ran back to the car for a second time, likely to grab yet another weapon.

    “He gets into his car and I just got the gun and threw it on his window like an arrow and blasted his window,” Aziz said.

    The windshield shattered. “That’s why he got scared,” Aziz said.

    He said the gunman was cursing at him, yelling that he was going to kill them all. But he drove away, and Aziz said he chased the car down the street to a red light, before it made a U-turn and sped away. Online videos indicate police officers managed to force the car from the road and drag out the suspect soon after.

    Originally from Kabul, Afghanistan, Aziz said he left as a refugee when he was a boy and lived for more than 25 years in Australia before moving to New Zealand a couple of years ago.

    “I’ve been to a lot of countries, and this is one of the beautiful ones,” he said. And, he always thought, a peaceful one too.

    • mamajama55 says:
      March 17, 2019 at 8:21 PM MDT

      Poor widdle snowflakes.  The most they might get is a little side-eye. Nobody makes them leave the restaurant or grocery store –  unless they start getting belligerent and scaring customers.

      My rural school is a case in point.Students can't wear hats at our school, but we had plenty of Trump T shirts worn in 2016. Nobody had a problem with it….outwardly, at any rate.

      Even some of my students, who were even then losing family members to deportation, or being told to "Go back to Mexico", or "Speak English!" when they are bilingual citizens in mixed-status families, didn't confront the Trumpers. They ignored and avoided them.

      Most teachers are Democrats or unaffiliated – it's that science-based, facty bias. Nevertheless, I have colleagues that I know are Trump supporters. We carefully don't talk politics.

      Are we heading towards a country segregated by political views?

       

  8. Conserv. Head Banger says:
    March 17, 2019 at 1:59 PM MDT

    I would be proud to wear a MAGA hat: 'Mueller Ain't Going Away.'

  9. mamajama55 says:
    March 17, 2019 at 8:36 PM MDT

    Shout Out to Radio KFFR in Winter Park. I went to Amy Goodman's appearance in Denver  at East High School Friday night, which was a benefit for Colorado's newest community radio station.

    Goodman, one of the hosts of Democracy Now , was dynamic, inspiring, and kept it real.

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