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June 05, 2020 06:45 AM UTC

Friday Open Thread

  • 30 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.”

–George Bernard Shaw

Comments

30 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread

  1. The Story Behind Bill Barr’s Unmarked Federal Agents

    Garrett Graff / POLITICO

     

    The motley assortment of police currently occupying Washington, D.C., is a window into the vast, complicated, obscure world of federal law enforcement.

     

    Few sights from the nation’s protests in recent days have seemed more dystopian than the appearance of rows of heavily armed riot police around Washington, D.C., in drab military-style uniforms with no insignia, identifying emblems or names badges. Many of the apparently federal agents have refused to identify which agency they work for. “Tell us who you are, identify yourselves!” protesters demanded, as they stared down the helmeted, sunglass-wearing mostly white men outside the White House. Eagle-eyed protesters have identified some of them as belonging to Bureau of Prisons’ riot police units from Texas, but others remain a mystery.

    The images of such heavily armed, military-style men in America’s capital are disconcerting, in part, because absent identifying signs of actual authority the rows of federal officers appear all-but indistinguishable from the open-carrying, white militia members cos-playing as survivalists who have gathered in other recent protests against pandemic stay-at-home orders. Some protesters have compared the anonymous armed officers to Russia’s “Little Green Men,” the soldiers-dressed-up-as-civilians who invaded and occupied western Ukraine. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday demanding that federal officers identify themselves and their agency

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/05/protests-washington-dc-federal-agents-law-enforcement-302551

    1. Use the force, Duke . . .

      I say, I say, I say — boy, this ain’t all that difficult . . .

      . . . look no further than that there Erik Prince.

      (There’s blood money to be made made . . .)

      . . . the answer you seek is there on Planet Amway

      1. Exactly. Or as Trump would say, if the US Army is "weak," I've got my OWN private army, paid for by the taxpayers of course – the Prince Prancers and Panzers.

  2. from Axios:

    Charting Big Oil's renewable investments

    Driving the news:

    • Equinor, which is making huge investments in offshore wind, makes up the lion’s share of the investments over the next five years ($10 billion out of $18 billion).
    • Shell ramps up its investments in the latter half of this decade.
    • BP, which has been an early mover in this space, has far fewer specific investments in the pipeline compared to its counterparts.
    • American companies’ absence in the chart reflects the fact that they invest next to nothing in wind and solar.  (emphasis mine)   

    The bottom line: The world’s biggest oil and gas companies are expected to invest more than $18 billion in solar and wind over the next five years, but that number pales in comparison to the $166 billion they are planning to spend on new oil and gas projects, Rystad explains.

     

    https://www.axios.com/charting-big-oils-renewable-investments-cd71c654-0b1d-48e8-98b6-e0d9daed8463.html

    Another interesting number I picked up from a chart here…there has not been a year in which oil company investment in renewables has reached 2 billion dollars.

  3. As expected, there are a host of headlines about

    Dem Hickenlooper held in contempt by Colorado ethics …

     

    And in contrast, positive reaction to news about 

    The Great American Outdoors Act, which Gardner, Manchin, and other senators introduced in March, has bipartisan support and is expected to be heard in the Senate this week. 

    Full funding for LWCF plus

    The act would allocate half of all revenue from energy development on public lands – or up to $1.9 billion annually – to the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund. That fund would distribute the money to the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Education to cover costs of backlogged maintenance.

    Cory is going to greenwash his campaign and burnish his medallions for being bi-partisan.

      1. It was a kerfuffle until Hickenlooper didn't show — I think there are a number of people (including me) who aren't impressed by his avoidance, going to court to avoid showing up and losing, and then not showing up.  Headlines are about a 5-0 vote to get a subpoena enforced, a Democratic AG taking the matter to court, Hick's "principled" stand about not participating over Zoom vanishing in his offer to show up on Zoom on June 16. 

        It is an anecdote that reinforces the idea that Hick sees himself as an entitled "winner." He probably will still win the nomination — but I'm betting it is going to be much closer than the race seemed to be last week.

        1. Agree, John. If Hick could have made a non-laughable case to not show up, it would have slid by in the news. Instead he took a self-contradictory "stand" on a non-issue i.e. the world has been operating virtually for more than two months, why is he exempt? I think you nailed it with the "entitled" attitude Hick has conveyed. And now it's backfiring on him. 

          1. Don’t worry, ya’ll. If Hick gets to be a senator, he won’t do that stuff anymore.

            and probably won’t do it any less.cheeky

            Romanoff for Senate!

            1. Agree that this should be a boost for Romanoff if he chooses to use it.

              What's confusing to me is that the Public Trust Institute has recently been trying to plaster feces on the enemies of O&G such as former Rep. Joe Salazar.

              In Hick they have a rare D friend.

              PTI must be shooting before they look.

              1. “I’m betting that it (Senate race) is going to be much closer than the race seemed to be last week.”

                Hmmm. If so, then Romanoff had best not produce any more ads like the one I saw last night. Real limp and lame; that one = R’s unforced error.

              2. I had to go looking, but did find a news outlet which had a mention of Romanoff.

                The Detroit News ran an AP story which, 11 paragraphs in, said

                Romanoff issued a statement after the hearing, saying that “Coloradans deserve a chance to weigh the facts before they vote next week. Mr. Hickenlooper should testify now.”

                The statement did not get to his website.  The most recent news release there is from Thursday, May 07, 2020, noting the ballots are "Headed to print."

                Denver Post's story mentions Romanoff … in the next to the last sentence, saying that the ballots are going out and voters will decide between Hick and Romanoff.   The Spot column mentioned Romanoff … saying he released an ad,  got an endorsement, and will be in some debates with Hick next week.

                I've said I'm not a fan of negative campaigns — so I guess I should be happy Romanoff isn't exploiting this bumbling move of Hickenlooper.

                1. I had some spare time this morning so I jumped on to Andrew's Zoom call with CO High School Democrats. He is doing an amazing job communicating with these kids on a wide range of subjects and fielding tough questions. I'm #VBNMW but he is clearly an adept Ambassador for Colorado values who would make an exceptional member of the upper chamber. 

                  1. When I've seen Romanoff in person, I've been impressed, too.  He is obviously intelligent, focused on service, and able to listen to and speak with people. 

                    I think both Romanoff and Hickenlooper could beat Gardner.  I'll vote for either as a better representative of the state than the "in step with McConnell" version of politics Gardner presents. I still buy The Big Line's summary of the race:  "We finally know that the June Primary ballot will have only two names: Hickenlooper and Romanoff. That’s good news for Romanoff, though the odds of him winning are slim."

                    COVID-19 has made this a different campaign than I expected, diminishing the chances of R to overcome the name recognition and money of H. 

                    1. This race feels more like the Weiser/J Salazar primary for AG (I was in the Weiser camp on that one) when JS came within a whisker of the win.  

                    2. When I've seen Romanoff in person, I've been impressed, too.  He is obviously intelligent, focused on service, and able to listen to and speak with people. 

                      It has been a while since I have seen Andrew. I volunteered within the environmental community when Andrew was the Speaker of the Colorado House. His down to earth sincerity and his ability to listen made him enormously able to do that job. He did it in such exemplary fashion, he won some awards for it.

                      Neither of his opponents can come close to the level of integrity and honesty you will find in the person of Andrew Romanoff. 

                      The usual, "boy I am getting tired of this being necessary" disclaimer… Hick is better than Gardner, by far…I will vote for Hickenlooper over Gardner. Really…I mean it. OK?

                    3. Dave Kreiger makes the case in the Colorado Sun.

                      “I am either resilient or slow to take a hint,” Romanoff told me last week. “But to be perfectly blunt, when John said he would be a terrible senator and hate the job, I believed him. In fact, I quote him a lot now.

                      “There’s nothing I’ve seen from his campaign since then that has persuaded me that he would be a better senator. And frankly, there’s nobody who’s supporting him who’s made that case to me, either. They might say he has more money or better name recognition, but almost nobody I can think of has said, ‘I’m supporting him because I think he would be a better senator than you would.’”

  4. Apparently, all across the US clumsy protesters are tripping and falling. As Mark Sumner puts it at DailyKos:

    Unbelievably, the police involved originally reported that they had cleared the square without incident, though one man “tripped and fell.” Two of the officers in this video have now been suspended. Every one of them should be fired. The level of casual violence and indifference to suffering caught in this moment doesn’t border on the sociopathic, it defines it. And this video, on top of the official report that someone had “tripped” made clear once again how easily the worst actions can be covered up when a camera is not around.

    “Casual violence and indifference to suffering.”

    It isn’t just a few “bad apples”. Rioting riot police have often been a presence at demonstrations; we’ve always had lynching and police brutality against black. Police can turn off their body cams, and cover up their badges, but now everybody has cameras.

  5. When the New York Times echoes Antifa:

    It is abhorrent to instead respond to protests about police violence by beating protesters.

    The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, also has shied away from the problem, insisting on Thursday that the police were not bludgeoning peaceful citizens “for no reason.”

    “That’s not a fact,” he said. “They don’t do that.” If they did, he added, “it’s wrong.”

    Open your eyes, Mr. Cuomo.

  6. What do you call thousands of gullible armed rednecks sitting at home slackjawed on their couch today, disappointed that they didn’t get to shoot themselves any black folks? . . . 

    Armed white vigilantes lined Idaho streets amid “antifa” protest fears. The leftist incursion was an online myth.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/protests-armed-white-vigilantes/2020/06/04/09e17610-a5bb-11ea-b619-3f9133bbb482_story.html

    Your own Private Blackwater Idaho?

    Not-deplorables?

    Neville family reunion?

    FOXNews watchers?

    The same as it ever was?

    Ttumpmerica?

    1. From Josh Marshall at TPM: "Community Goes Full Feral With Anti-Antifa Hysteria"

      We should have more on this shortly. But it seems we have another case where anti-Antifa hysteria led members of one community in Washington state to go full feral and create a harrowing Deliverance type situation for a multi-racial family from Spokane who was looking to go camping. While stopping off to purchase camping supplies at Forks Outfitters in Forks, Washington, the family was confronted by “seven or eight carloads” of people demanding to know if they were with Antifa. This appears to have been in response to widespread rumors fanned in right wing media that “antifa” was sending formations into suburbs to loot subdivisions and rural homes. After the family decided to flee, they were then pursued by two of the vehicles with passengers apparently carrying automatic weapons. Camping that night the family heard gunfire and power saws down the road from there campsite and decided to leave. But soon they found that that self-styled anti-Antifa warriors had trapped them by cutting down trees to block the only road they could leave by. Local Facebook pages were lit up with reports about the success against Antifa. A group of high schoolers rescued the family by clearing the trees and the local Sheriffs department is now investigating.

      1. We’ve got a local gun store here using their Facebookkk page, urging their heavily armed customers to take to the streets a few days ago to “protect” their store from “protests,” and then again yesterday to go “protect” the town of Parker on “short notice.”

  7. A thoughtful interview worth reading in its entirety . . . 

    Longtime exec Tony Coles on biotech, racism, and opportunities for change

    Can you share with us some of the conversations you’re having with co-workers, colleagues, friends, family right now?

    . . . And that’s not a question of fairness or stereotyping. It’s just a question of humanity at the end of the day. So those are the conversations I’m having with my friends when they ask, “What a shame. And what can I do?” And what I say very quickly — and this is happening in a lot of corners — [is] it’s not enough not to be racist. We have to be anti-racist. And that’s a really important distinction because the passive act of not being a racist isn’t enough. It is now no longer enough. We must actively be anti-racist.

    https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/05/tony-coles-biotech-combat-racism/

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