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August 16, 2019 11:49 PM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 41 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it without a sense of ironic futility.”

–Errol Morris

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41 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. I understand the death penalty.
    Sort of.  I sort of understand people who mistake revenge for justice.

    I don't understand people who call them selves pro-life also being pro death penalty. Really, aren't they just pro-birth?

    But even for those who favor the death penalty, I do not understand how the death penalty makes sense for a kid who is running away.

    But he had a gun!
    Then you gotta ask him if he has a permit. Or if he is a Republican District Attorney.

    But he was reaching for it!
    Maybe. Looked like he was going to drop it or throw it away to me.

    Shoot him.
    Shoot them all. Or strangle hold.
    Police, vigilante, citizen, terrorist.

    He was shot for running while being black and stupid.
    Neither should be a capital offense.
     

    1. 👏🏼 MADCO. I assume your free verse is about De’Von Bailey, who was recently killed in El Paso County,but it could be about any of hundreds of young black people shot while running, shot in the back, shot while going about everyday living as a person of color. 

      Bailey was the exception in that he was armed. He was running away, not pointing a gun, not a threat to the officers. 

      De’Von’s family is calling for an investigation.

      1. By being armed, Bailey was the rule, not the exception.  The Washington Post has looked at every fatal police shooting since 2017.  Only 7 percent of those shot were unarmed.  In more than 60 percent of the cases, the weapon was a gun.

        1. First, "every fatal police shooting" covers unambiguous cases. But let's assume that the more ambiguous cases are similar?

          How often in that 40% was the weapon non-threatening (due to, say, someone running away while posessing a melee weapon)? How many of the 60% had a valid gun license; how many were not brandishing the weapon? And how many white people in the same situation lived compared to darker-skinned people?

          1. For that level of detail, you'll have to read the study.  Simply put, it demolishes the myth of cop-haters that most people killed by the police were unarmed.  In fact, 93 percent were armed in some way.

            Also, Colorado Public Radio quotes former DA Mitch Morrissey noting that state law allows police to shoot someone fleeing from a violent felony, on the theory that an armed, fleeing felon poses a danger to the community.
            Bailey was originally stopped for questioning about an armed robbery that had occurred nearby.

    2. Today’s NYT . . .

      Arkansas Woman Charged Over Holding Four Black Teenagers at Gunpoint

      As the boys approached, she grabbed her gun, she wrote. Then she opened her door and asked what they were doing, eventually telling them to get on the ground. “I drew my weapon without my finger on the trigger as I have been previously trained to do,” she wrote.

      One of the boys wrote in his statement that during the encounter, he had moved his hand to swat a mosquito. “She told me to stop moving or she will shoot me,” he added.

      Another wrote that he had tried to show her the discount cards and had pointed out that two of the boys were wearing their team jerseys. “But as I was saying it, she told us to look down, so I was scared to even talk to her,” he added.The boys were still on the ground when a police officer arrived.

      According to the officer’s report, he recognized the boys because he had worked as a resource officer at the high school, and he told Ms. Kelly that they were trying to raise money for the team.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/us/black-teens-fundraising-gunpoint-jerri-kelly.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

      Wanna’ bet how “pro-life” this “good guy gal with a gun” is???

      In his statement, one of the teenagers wrote that after the officers had arrived and told them all to stand up, they had tried to walk away from the woman.

      “She told us to come back and look at her in her eyes and told her to let that be a lesson and told us to shake her hand,” he wrote.

      . . . “a lesson”.  Yep. Class dismissed.

      1. And how she has found Jesus, he has spoken to her and told her how she is imperfect vessel, she has seen the light, yadda, yadda, yadda.

         

      4. That's almost a little tiny smidge of a feel-good story. The feel-good part? Well, all too often we see stories about how cops are more than happy to act as personal racism concierges for piece-of-shit white people like Jerri Kelly. Here, at the end of the day, the young 'uns went home and the piece-of-shit whitey got charged. 

    3. Madco, you are very brave and liberal from the safety of your bar stool.  If you were a cop who would die if he guessed wrong about a perp reaching for a gun, would you have been so brave?  About 100 cops a year are murdered in the line of duty. 

      do you care?

      i guess not. 

  2. Planned Parenthood may lose its ability to serve low income women as of Monday, because of a Trump administration “gag order” rule ,just  upheld by a Federal appeals court, requiring that PP not offer, refer, or discuss abortion as long as it receives Federal funding.

    Some PP offices were planning to offer services as usual, defying the gag rule, while lawsuits worked through courts. However, specific language in the appeals court decision would risk all Federal funding and licenses to operate if the gag rule is defied.

    Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood (RMPP)s tweeted that they would lose funding rather than comply with Trumps gag order.

     

    1. Planned Parenthood may lose its ability to serve low income women as of Monday, because of a Trump administration “gag order” rule ,just  upheld by a Federal appeals court

      Thank you, Jill Stein and Mike Pence.

    2. Not "federal funding,"  Federal Title X funding, which is a minority of the federal money Planned Parenthood receives, most of which is in Medicaid fee for service reimbursement.  Title X is different in that it is granted, not reimbursed as FFS. While it is a minority of PP's funding, PP represents 40% of Title X family planning dollars.  

      Also, while PPRM is re-tweeting PPFA (national) here, PPRM does not receive Title X money, and the only Colorado abortion provider in Title X is Boulder Valley Women's Health Clinic, who is also withdrawing from the program.

      While this is certainly a significant blow to access for some low income women, those with Medicaid coverage are still free to see the participating provider of their choice. 

    1. Totally agree. I would strongly consider buying one (if my RAV4's ever wear out!), but I don't want to make it too difficult to get around the state.

    3. Sorry to hear you’re still stuck with your crappy (1st gen?) Leaf.

      And, I don’t think you really want any government involvement in this matter?  (Given your frequently repeated harangues about governmental incompetence and ineptitude?)

      So, I think you’ll be glad to learn that there are private parking concessions around DIA who will charge your EV while you’re away, and have it all ready to go for you go another 73 miles upon your return?  (You maybe can find them on teh intertubes.)

      Maybe Nissan should place a few stations around the state for the cars they sell?

      1. Slow chargers aren't helpful when driving to DIA to pick someone up.

        As to my harangues – I believe in an active government, but I also believe it's our responsibility to expect them to do a good job. Not perfect, but good.

      2. What better way for the rural freedom lovers to stick it to the libural snowflakes than by selling them electricity for their electric cars generated (predominantly) by their coal plants? That’ll show ‘em!

        1. For everyone in rural CO using ‘lack of charging stations’ as their pushback do you suppose there is anyone in rural Colorado with an infrastructure to accommodate the new fuel source (and an entity desperately in need of new revenue sources?)

          Ladies and gentleman, the service territory of Colorado rural electrics served by Tri-State G&T:

          1. The good news is that some co-ops are wising up and working to get out of their Tri-State contracts (cf. Delta-Montrose and La Plata) so that they can take advantage of the changing energy landscape i.e. more renewables. 

              1. realist –  

                Fearing Tri-State could duck clean-energy goals, Colorado utilities commission files unprecedented protest

                The Colorado Public Utilities Commission has filed a protest with federal regulators seeking to block the bid by the power provider for rural electric cooperatives to jump from state to federal oversight.

                The proposed switch by Westminster-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association is “procedurally unsound, premature, incomplete and jurisdictionally problematic,” the PUC said in its protest.

                In the last 25 years the PUC has never intervened in a case before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, according to commission spokesman Terry Bote. He said he did not know if it ever had.

                “The PUC took this step because the state has a responsibility to protect its jurisdiction,” Bote said in an email. “There are matters yet to be resolved before the PUC that are pertinent to Tri-State’s filing, and such resolution needs to precede FERC action.”

            2. I’ve been a long fan of those two co-ops. DMEA was the first rural electric in the nation to endorse our “25x’25” campaign back in 2007 (and they’ve long-suffered the wrath of Tri-State). 

            3. Can you imagine the positive influence the co-ops / Tri-State could have had in our rural communities if they'd taken a pro-active lead on this, maybe even providing advantageous leasing programs for the cars to their members via their available RUS programs, providing the energy for the cars and then capturing all of the credits for offsetting those vehicle emissions?  Instead we got the ridiculous War on Rural Colorado campaign and millions sunk into the Holcomb plant that thank God didn't see the light of day. 

  5. Panem Patriot Yuma County Assessor Katniss Everdeen Cyndi Vanderbark has blown the trumpet. Folks, we have only ONE WEEK LEFT TO SAVE OUR STATE! Don't walk fellow patriots, RUN! RUN to YUMA GUNS AND SIGN THE PETITION!! 

    Not quite sure where to start here but first, an apology on behalf of these sore losers – and a big hug for those who live daily in this shit show and try to quietly ignore them.  

    I'm sensing desperation – as if she might have gotten a phone call from Rube Central that the pace of signatures is unacceptable?

    In theory, an Assessor's job is to attach, assess value to 'things'.  I think most sane Coloradans would agree she has failed in regard to her below grievances: 

    "Zero Emissions for Colorado – effective NOW".  

    Clean air = bad.  Who'd have thunk? Besides, healthy lungs are for those things Drumpf likes to grab.

    "Has put down agriculture and is promoting vegan burgers"

    Yes, Cyndi, he's bringing attention to the rapidly growing sector of the food chain, plant-based products.  Do you have any idea what those veggie burgers are made of?  Could it be (in my best Church Lady voice) plants? Those things Yuma County farmers can grow (more profitably than corn?) I'm guessing there is more than one Yuma County resident who has made a strategic bet by buying stock in these new companies – and laughing all the way to the bank.  You might also be interested that meat companies like Tyson have jumped in.  They understand markets; that this is about growing a pie, not calling arms to protect a shrinking one. (See: whale oil markets pre-kerosene).  This is about addition, not subtraction. 

    "Electric Semis – just dandy in the harvest field, no?"

    Perhaps she'd be interested in the fact the John Deere is field testing electric tractors.  Just dandy in the harvest field, no? Or that electric-drive vehicles have more torque than internal combustion engines? Hint: that translates to "dandy in the harvest field".  And guess where that electricity could come from?  Farmer-produced wind and solar farms which, by the way, would add to the assessment of Yuma County. 

    "Foreigners amongst us!"

    Have you checked out lately who is milking the cows and tending to the pig farms in Yuma County?  Good, hard-working foreigners. Our economy would collapse without them. 

    "Clean energy transition"

    Might I remind you that the first wave of the clean energy transition brought billions in investment into eastern Colorado?  And that billions more will be on the horizon with a full transition? Solar energy as a new 'ag crop'?  (all you have to do is open your mind, Cyndi. Just like oil and gas, solar is ‘energy’ and adds to the tax base).

    "Full day kindergarten!"

    Edumacate our younguns? Oh, no! 

    "Solar expansion!"

    "If God had intended us to have a clean, limitless supply of energy he would have put us on a planet that revolves around a ball of fire in the sky".  Oh, wait…

    "Expanding charge stations!"

    I'm guessing the Assessor might have chided farmers in the early days from transitioning from horse-drawn plows to those new-fangled-tractor-things.  

    People – this is just this week alone!  Go sign! Run! Only a week left! Don't let the next session start with this one (the gay Jew for the record) still in the governors seat in Colorado. 

    Pictures below.  Her setting on this post was Public so I assume she's not ashamed to have it shared in other public venues. 

    1. "Go sign! Run! Only a week left!" ==>  uh, today is the 18th … Signatures have to be in by the 6th of September, which looks to me to be 3 weeks (almost) left.

      "Don't let the next session start with this one still in the governors seat in Colorado."  ==>  er, in the unlikely event there are enough signatures that the organizers actually turn them in, what would be the time line for an eventual election?  I tried to figure it out from the rules on the SoS website, but got lost — and the "sample" is in the log-in-only clerks corner.  But the little I could figure out is the possibility of combining it with the existing November election isn't happening, and it looks to me as if it could take 90 days to slog through the process of signature check for "sufficiency," protests, cures, offering a chance to resign, setting an election schedule, getting candidates qualified for the ballot (Democrats couldn't run Polis — so maybe the Lt. Gov.?), preparing and distributing the ballots, and getting to the Election Day finale. So, if I'm reading that right, the election would be right around the time the next session begins.

      1. JiD: Are there still two separate groups working on signature gathering?  If so, did one start earlier than the other?  Other than the Facebook circus surrounding the signature gathering locally I haven't paid much attention to the details.  

        1. Looks like only one group has approved petitions for Polis, deadline: 9/6/2019.  [I think the other is hanging fire, letting the first flounder, and saying "we need to have funds and a pragmatic plan before starting"]

          Other active recall petitions are for (name, office, deadline)

          Pete Lee, State Senate District 11, 9/10/2019

          Brittany Pettersen, State Senate District 22, 9/16/2019

          Leroy Garcia, State Senate District 3, 10/18/2019

           

  6. The ODs' chief economist…or something…Larry Kudlow, said to Chuck Todd this morning…" Don't be afraid of optimism , Chuck.". He said it three times. They were his last words.

    It scared Peggy Noonan out of her usual stupor to remark about it.

     

      2. Kudlow’s one of those people who seemingly just can’t be discredited often enough . . . 

        . . . in other words, a perfect misfit for the Ttump misadministration.

    2. “Fox is making a big mistake because, you know, I’m the one who calls the shots”

      Emoluments and Extortion 101 . . .

      . . . otherwise known as just another day of business as usual at GriftnGraftCoTtumpnited.

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