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December 16, 2019 06:26 AM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 43 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.”

–Adlai Stevenson

Comments

43 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread

  1. I don't normally follow Craig Silverman (not a fan of right-wing talk radio).  But now that he's lost his show, this turned up in the Colorado Sun.  Cory Gardner, if he read it, probably just rolled his eyes.

    Nice try, Craig.

    Silverman: Cory Gardner, no one should make you lie and cover for Trump’s wrongdoing

     

  2. Seen on Yahoo! News over the weekend just past (slightly paraphrased)…..

    Question: how can one be a president beloved by evangelicals who worship on your every word and believe you can do no wrong?

    Answer: you "raw dog" a porn star while your 3rd wife is pregnant with your 5th child.

  3. William Webster, 95, speaks to the betrayal of our nation's principles and the dire threat to our democracy from Trump and today's Republican Party

    The rule of law is the principle that protects every American from the abuse of monarchs, despots and tyrants.

    I know firsthand the professionalism of the men and women of the F.B.I. The aspersions cast upon them by the president and my longtime friend, Attorney General William P. Barr, are troubling in the extreme. Calling F.B.I. professionals “scum,” as the president did, is a slur against people who risk their lives to keep us safe. Mr. Barr’s charges of bias within the F.B.I., made without providing any evidence and in direct dispute of the findings of the nonpartisan inspector general, risk inflicting enduring damage on this critically important institution.

    The country can ill afford to have a chief law enforcement officer dispute the Justice Department’s own independent inspector general’s report and claim that an F.B.I. investigation was based on “a completely bogus narrative.” In fact, the report conclusively found that the evidence to initiate the Russia investigation was unassailable. There were more than 100 contacts between members of the Trump campaign and Russian agents during the 2016 campaign, and Russian efforts to undermine our democracy continue to this day. I’m glad the F.B.I. took the threat seriously. It is important, Mr. Wray said last week, that the inspector general found that “the investigation was opened with appropriate predication and authorization.”

    1. Wasn't Webster one of the directors who had to clean up the mess left by J. Edgar and Clyde at the FBI during the reign of terror?

      Speaking of Republicans critical of Trump, Carly Fiorina was interviewed on CNN this morning about her new book. She called for Trump's impeachment. But then she went on to say that she voted for him in 2016, has been "disappointed" in him since (gee, couldn't see that one coming, Carly?), and while she may vote for a Democrat this time, she is open to voting for Trump again depending upon who his opponent is.

      Kind of reminded me of Susan Collins' ditzy speech explaining her Kavanaugh vote.

  4. Let's withhold the articles of impeachment from the Senate.

    The Republican Party is on trial, not Trump. The Democratic Party should withhold sending articles of impeachment to the Senate, until such a time as a fair trial is scheduled. 

    Keep running impeachment hearings all through the campaign season. Add new articles of impeachment one-by-one. 

    Let's set a Perjury Trap.

    Also, file subpoenas for administration officials to testify to Congress. Force them to testify under oath. Force Giuliani to bug his eyes out, Jim Jordan to yell, and Devin Nunes to do verbal yoga poses.

      1. Given that the Republican Senate will not vote to impeach, I'm absolutely fine with waiting. Let Trump stew in his own juices until ripe… or rotten, as the case may be.

        It has the advantage that Trump can't be pardoned, unless there is such a thing as pre-emptive pardoning.

        1. But even in January of 2023, if the Democrats have taken the majority, they will only have 52 or 53 seats. (And one of those may still be held by Joe Manchin.) They will never have the 67 votes needed to consummate the impeachment process.

          Are you just trying to avoid an acquittal which will give him bragging rights to his "self-professed innocence"? Because I can understand that. Just leave him impeached but never tried.

           

      2. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on the 3 Trump-related evidence cases in March, and will likely issue a decision by June.  Even if they do what some court watchers think most likely (determine standards for what is a "reasonable" request and remand to the District Courts to apply those principles), the initial decisions on whether subpoenas were justified or not would likely be out before the November election in 2020.

  5. HuffPost headlines an Andrew Romanoff campaign ad.  Their take:

    The video, set to be released online Monday, marks an escalation in a primary race that’s shaping up to be a showdown over how the Democratic Party plans to tackle the climate crisis. Yet, it has raised eyebrows from some climate experts who say the apocalyptic imagery may paint a misleading picture of what’s already a terrifying crisis, but may also prove effective.

    1. It is a good video on climate change. But Pols will find a way to spin it to mock Romanoff and boost Hickenlooper. All the while claiming that they are completely unbiased.

      1. Maybe Frackenquaffer can show some of those new space videos?  They’re really cool . . . 
         

        A Methane Leak, Seen From Space, Proves to Be Far Larger Than Thought

        https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/climate/methane-leak-satellite.html
         

        When burned for electricity, natural gas is cleaner than coal, producing about half the carbon dioxide that coal does. But if methane escapes into the atmosphere before being burned, it can warm the planet more than 80 times as much as the same amount of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

        The satellite’s measurements showed that, in Ohio in the 20 days it took for Exxon to plug the well, about 120 metric tons of methane an hour were released. That amounted to twice the rate of the largest known methane leak in the United States, from an oil and gas storage facility in Aliso Canyon, Calif., in 2015, though that event lasted longer and had higher emissions overall.
         

        The Ohio blowout released more methane than the reported emissions of the oil and gas industries of countries like Norway and France, the researchers estimated. Scientists said the measurements from the Ohio site could mean that other large leaks are going undetected.

         

        . . . On second thought, maybe a nice campaign commercial standing in the shower might be a better idea??

  6. Stock market at record high. Lowest unemployment in 50 years. Lowest unemployment in every racial demographic. USMCA and China trade deals negotiated. Family leave. Money for the wall.  Booming economy. Space Force to protect America in the coming centuries. Men/women to return to space. Fewer families needing food stamps. Real wages up. All because “some people did something”; they voted for Donald J Trump.

    1. Not so fast

      While the September nonfarm payrolls report showed that the 3.5% unemployment rate is at a fresh 50-year low, it also indicated that average hourly earnings are on the decline. The one-cent-an-hour slip to $28.09 was the first month-to-month drop since October 2017 and the 2.9% year-over-year rise in wages was the slowest increase since July 2018.

      Sharp drops in unemployment in the past often have brought commensurate earnings, but not this time around.

      One reason for the change: Fear.

      “There is something real going on that even though it’s a tight labor market, employers are becoming more risk-averse,” said Julia Pollak, labor economist at ZipRecruiter, a leading online employment marketplace. “Indicators showing the risk of a recession are making employers a little more panicked. We conduct employer surveys every month, and in those surveys job seekers and employers are showing that they are increasingly nervous about the risk of recessions, trade wars and other sources of uncertainty.”

      The median income of $47,000 cannot support a family these days.

      You Need A $150,000 Income To Lead A Good Life In America

      Even as the economy improves and consumer confidence builds, more than half of Americans – 52 percent – feel like they can just afford the basics, and many with six-figure incomes still feel like they are just scraping by. The survey found that 18 percent of American households earning between $100,000 and $150,000 said they could only afford the basics, with another 10 percent saying they sometimes can’t even afford those staples.

    2. If we have enough money for the wall why are we looking at the possibility of another Government Shutdown?

       

      Earlier this week, officials from both parties said there is a mutual understanding that border issues will have to be resolved somewhere close to the status quo, in which Congress provides no specific money for the wall but Trump retains the power to shift funds from elsewhere in the government.

      But a ruling from a federal judge in Texas late Tuesday presented a new wrinkle — placing an immediate nationwide injunction blocking Trump from using military construction accounts to fund the wall.

      1. "lowest unemployment in 50 years…….."  If that's the case, why is my reading showing that manufacturing, especially in the Midwest, is now in recession due to lay-offs and other losses in jobs?

        What's happening with all those coal mining jobs in Appalachia that never came back, now joined by major coal job losses in Wyoming and elsewhere, as coal fired power plants also are closing? 

        USMCA trade deal…….somebody didn't really research that. It's basically a clone of NAFTA, with a tweak here and there. Of course, we could have had the TPP trade agreement. But Trump was OK with allowing China to try and claim economic hegemony over the western Pacific. 

        1. Sharp drops in unemployment in the past often have brought commensurate earnings, but not this time around.

            Sure the unemployment rate is next to nothing. What the reports don't say is that a lot of those jobs don't pay anywhere near $28 an hour. Most of them are minimum wage or not much better, and jobs are scarce because a lot of people are working more than one of those not-so-great jobs to make ends meet. 

      2. Indeed, unnamed. Turns out that some real conservatives in south Texas don't want their private property taken to support Trump's Folly (his wall). 

        If I lived down there, I'd be grabbing for the business of selling those circular saws that cut right through Trump's "glorious wall." Meanwhile, back in the world of reality, Trump continues to ignore the, by far, largest source of illegals in the country: people who overstay visas. 

    3. Did I mention that at this peak of the economic cycle Trump is running a deficit of $1 trillion a year?  Worst deficit in history and we have nothing to show for it except a pile of sweat stained MAGA caps.

      Trump stinks.

        1. Pear overlooks the fact that when Trump's tax cut for billionaires passed Congress, both Houses were controlled by Republicans. Can't blame the Dems for that. As for "money for the wall," Trump tries to blame the Dems also for him not getting wall money.

          But, the Republicans didn't come up with any wall money either when they controlled both Houses in 2017 and 2018.

          And to add to the fun, Russian media is now admitting that Trump is their agent.

          In the Colorado Republican primary, I'll be voting Bill Weld for President.

        2. Pear overlooks the fact that when Trump's tax cut for billionaires passed Congress, both Houses were controlled by Republicans. Can't blame the Dems for that. As for "money for the wall," Trump tries to blame the Dems also for him not getting wall money.

           

          This.  The #taxscam blew a hole in our budget.  And you can thank your Dear Leader and his Republican-run congress for passing that piece of shit.

      1. Pear overlooks the obvious (or actually, those pesky facts):

        Americans are dissatisfied, and have been for years, largely because the economy as most people experience it has not been booming. G.D.P. — or gross domestic product, the economy’s total output — keeps on rising, but it no longer tracks the well-being of most Americans. Instead, an outsize share of economic growth flows to the wealthy. And yet G.D.P. is treated as a totemic measure of the country’s prosperity.

        Consider the true picture: Middle-class income growth has been sluggish for decades. The typical household is still poorer than it was before the financial crisis began in 2007. Most alarming, average life expectancy has recently been declining. No wonder polls show that a majority of Americans has been dissatisfied with the country’s direction for the past 15 years in a row, a period that encompasses the entirety of the current G.D.P. expansion, the longest on record.

        So it’s time to stop wondering why Americans are unhappy — and instead create a version of G.D.P. that reflects reality. Which may finally be on the verge of happening.

        The failure of G.D.P. to include distribution didn’t matter much in the decades after World War II, because economic growth was remarkably inclusive. If anything, the middle class and poor received raises that outpaced economic growth (as you can see in the chart above).

        In the mid-1970s, and especially the 1980s, however, the situation changed. The income flowing to everyone but the affluent began to trail economic growth — by a lot.

        Why? Labor unions shrank, giving workers less bargaining power. Business executives and investors decided to maximize corporate profits, regardless of the societal effects. The government became more passive about regulating big business. Government also scrimped on investments that create good-paying jobs, like education. And taxes fell much more for the rich than they did for everyone else.

        His stock portfolio is doing well (greed is good until the music stops and the party comes to a crashing halt).

          1. The facts in that article illustrate the problem that started with Reagan's Voodoo economics, leading to today's vast income disparity favoring the already wealthy, who through the Trump/GOP tax cut continue to be showered with cash that would have been more productively spent on rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure rather than mortgaging our public highways and converting them to toll roads.

            Republican economic policies have been plundering our treasury and squandering our future for the last 40 years.  

          1. Thanks, Pear. I can now add yet another worthless, far right wing, rag, to my list of such. I checked a few other things out. Lots of fake news on Summit News.

            1. Go easy on the simpleton there, CHB.  He’s had an awfully tough pfruity day trying to scurry up any local fascist or Kremlin news source distractions that aren’t reporting majorities in favor of impeachment ever since even The FOX Propaganda Ministers couldn’t keep denying that truth . . . 

  7. DCCC to Consultants: Helping to Elect a Republican? Sure, We’ll Work With You

    In March, House Democrats’ campaign arm formalized a policy cutting off firms working with candidates running primary challenges against incumbent Democrats. But the rule doesn’t appear to apply to consultants who get millions of dollars from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee while working for political action committees that support and elect Republicans.

    One of the biggest vendors working with the political action committee With Honor, Trilogy Interactive, has taken at least $2 million from the DCCC since the 2016 election cycle, according to FEC filings. With Honor PAC — which has an affiliated bipartisan caucus, the For Country caucus, that includes at least 10 Democratic members — is dedicated to electing veterans to Congress.

    As The Intercept reported in July, the PAC actively targeted former Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif., spending money to back Republican Mike Garcia, an Iraq War veteran, in the upcoming election. Last cycle, With Honor backed Republican Reps. Mike Waltz, Brian Mast, and Greg Steube of Florida, Dan Crenshaw and Van Taylor of Texas, Steve Watkins of Kansas, Don Bacon of Nebraska, and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. They also spent against Republicans Jim Hagedorn of Minnesota and Andy Barr of Kentucky.

  8. Placing cops in public schools makes students safer, at least when the cops aren't body-slamming the children.

    The piece of shit in the vid is on paid leave, because the depicted actions may well have been an entirely reasonable use of force. Who knows, the kid may have been a smart-mouth!

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