Thursday Open Thread

42
  by: Colorado Pols June 18, 2020 at 6:46 AM MDT

“It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.”

–Benjamin Disraeli

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42 Community Comments, Facebook Comments

  1. ParkHill says:
    June 18, 2020 at 7:28 AM MDT

    Nate Silver has a review of state-by-state polling for Biden vs Trump as of June 17. The national polling average has Biden 9.2

    The chart of “swing states” is particularly interesting. For example, Colorado is Biden 17, so I guess we aren’t exactly a swing state anymore.

    The tipping point state in this average is Minnesota at Biden 6.6, but there are 4 other large states doing better than Biden 3.0: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and North Carolina. 

    If the election followed today’s polling averages, Biden would win the electoral college 368 to 170.

    On to the Senate!

    • kickshot says:
      June 18, 2020 at 7:54 AM MDT

      "we aren’t exactly a swing state anymore."

      Which is why we need to stay in the National Popular Vote compact.

      No candidate will ever stop in to pad a margin they don't need and the chance for a solid state to influence a campaign is diminished.

      With the current electoral system anyone opposed to the winner (as in winner take all) might as well stay home. Their vote won't count at all.

  2. Duke Cox says:
    June 18, 2020 at 7:39 AM MDT

    Breaking: The Supreme Court has decided, 5 to 4, to deny Trumps’ effort to overturn DACA. Oh, Wow. Trumps’ plan is falling apart.

    John Roberts has told the OD that he will not allow the Court to be a political tool.

    • MADCO says:
      June 18, 2020 at 8:12 AM MDT

      DACA lives is good for a lot of places – but good for Colorado

       

    • notaskinnycook says:
      June 18, 2020 at 9:08 AM MDT

      cool I can’t decide if I’m happier for the kids or that Yammie-pie is probably pitching a running fit over the decision.

      UPDATE: Yep. He is. Here’s his first Twitter tantrum: “These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!”

    • ParkHill says:
      June 18, 2020 at 1:43 PM MDT

      Apparently, SCOTUS said the following things:

      (1) Trump has the right to overturn Obama's protection for DACA people, but they did not follow proper procedures to do so. They failed to explain why and also how to deal with the negative effects on DACA.

      (2) Trump did NOT act with discriminatory effect

      (3) They sent it back to the government, but there isn't time to actually remove DACA before the end of the term.

      • JohnInDenver says:
        June 18, 2020 at 3:09 PM MDT

        1.a.  No backsies.  Memorandums alleging reasons for a decision developed while the case was in progress do not show the decision was made for those reasons.  Only the reasons used in the original record ought to be considered.

  3. kickshot says:
    June 18, 2020 at 7:58 AM MDT

    Police Found Tactical Manual For ‘Minutemen’ Group After Arresting Armed Men At Protest

    Denver?

    Salt Lake City?

    Sanata Cruz?

    No. Copy and paste to Troy, NY.

     

    • davebarnes says:
      June 18, 2020 at 9:51 AM MDT

      I was conceived in Troy.
      I spent 5 years there in college (1966-71)
      I visited it in 2008 and it is the most depressing place.
      A typical devastated Hudson River manufacturing town.

      • kickshot says:
        June 19, 2020 at 7:13 AM MDT

        I wasn't conceived in Troy but I did the same 5-year plan in college but 1971-1976. I was able to work my way through as a carpenter and grocery clerk because tuition was almost nothing.

        I was conceived in Oklahoma and managed to escape the insane redness in '71 when I went east for grad school. It was good to be away from the Southern Baptists.

        One of my few visits back was after a tornado ripped through my hometown, blocks from the house I grew up in.

        I've never seen Oklahoma as anything but devastated.

        Now Dump will turn it into his own trademark biohazard.

  4. harrydoby says:
    June 18, 2020 at 8:27 AM MDT

    Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark sums it up nicely:

    Feel free to dunk on John Bolton's failure to testify during the impeachment hearings and call bullshit on his self-serving complaints that the House failed to act on information he refused to give them. His prose is reportedly execrable and, yes, Bolton has the personality of a perpetually annoyed ferret.

    So you don't have to either (a) like the man, or (b) think he is a patriotic hero, or (c) embrace his pugilistic foreign policy. 

    But you do have to pay attention, because the man has just dropped a truth bomb on the president and although we are numbed to all of this by now, it is very much a BFD.
     

    I'm not going to pay for Bolton's book, but I will enjoy reading the clippings from the news and opinion pieces that are just now beginning to flood from the media.

    • Conserv. Head Banger says:
      June 18, 2020 at 8:54 AM MDT

      In a classic example of "closing the barn door after all the horses got out," Trump's lawyers are suing to prevent publication of the book next week. But advance copies are already out almost everywhere, as noted by harry d. 

      I've not been a fan of "Bombs Away Bolton," but as the old saying goes: "the enemy of my enemy may be my friend."

      • harrydoby says:
        June 18, 2020 at 9:03 AM MDT

        Drilling down into the links from the piece above, there is a good analysis of what Trump apologists and collaborators in the GOP like Cory Gardner are likely facing:

        On the trade front, vulnerable senators have to be careful about the Bolton revelations because most incumbent Republicans facing voters this fall come from states with big farming industries. If, as Bolton alleges, Trump asked Xi to bail him out electorally by buying American products after his trade war failed, what do these senators tell voters who might feel like they were used as props? Republican voters have shown a high threshold for abuse by Trump and the GOP, but gambling with their livelihoods for political gain might cause some trouble.

        Had Republican senators done the right thing and pushed for Bolton to testify during impeachment, they might not be in this tough position today. (Especially had they removed Trump, of course.) But by tying themselves to the mast of Trumpism, they have made matters worse for their electoral future.

        • ajb says:
          June 18, 2020 at 4:31 PM MDT

          I'm not so sure that Trump begging Xi to help him out hurts him with farm state voters. Other than saying things out loud that he shouldn't (buy ag products so I can win re-election), it strikes me that Trump can brag that he had farmers' interest in mind the whole time. There's a grain of truth to that. And of course Xi put tariffs on U.S. farm products precisely to put pressure on Trump. If Xi had targeted California or New York, Trump wouldn't have lifted a finger. 

      • JohnInDenver says:
        June 18, 2020 at 9:14 AM MDT

        And apparently, as a wholly unnecessary form of legal harassment, the DoJ's filing against Bolton supplied his address, doxxing him.  One writer held:

        I was scratching my head after reading about this apparently pointless lawsuit. After reading this thread, I see I am not alone. One commenter replies that he believes the purpose of the lawsuit was to dox Bolton. His home address is top of page 1.

    • Diogenesdemar says:
      June 18, 2020 at 9:51 AM MDT

      Besides that which I’m supposed to now overlook, can I still hate on the worthless fucker for dismembering and exiling the nation’s pandemic response team from the NSC??

      You didn’t need to be in the room a fly in the shitter at the White House to recognize that Ttump was always going to be a multiple-front national catastrophe eventually. Bolton usually aided that, and did nothing meaningful to stop it. Like all the others, Bolton was only there to get his proboscis deep into the Ttump griftpile and suck up as much for himself as he could get away with.

      Bolton and Ttump are two pricks in a pod; they deserve each other.  Fuck both of ‘em, and every one of their enablers and cheerleaders . . . 

      • Duke Cox says:
        June 19, 2020 at 7:37 AM MDT

        Bolton and Ttump are two pricks in a pod; they deserve each other.  Fuck both of ‘em, and every one of their enablers and cheerleaders . . . 

        You could contain the concern for the nation of both men in a thimble…held upside down. Bolton had his own reasons to engage with such a patsy, it was not for “love of country”. The Orange Destruction is still dangerous, however…Bolton is just “working at the dairy”. 

  5. kickshot says:
    June 18, 2020 at 9:28 AM MDT

    Pinal County (AZ) Sheriff Mark Lamb proclaimed that the state’s attempt to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus was unconstitutional.

    On Wednesday Lamb announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus before a scheduled meeting with Dump for the signing of the executive action on policing.

    Degree in constitutional law from Dump U?

  6. MichaelBowman says:
    June 18, 2020 at 1:02 PM MDT

    This should clinch the Presidency next round. He's ahead so bigly he can lose suburban white women and still win?

     

    • kickshot says:
      June 18, 2020 at 2:17 PM MDT

      If there was one thing to point to that helped him win in 2016 it was the promise to stack the court w/conservatives.

      Dump is just doing what he knows works or worked.

      His world hasn't changed except now he has his Roy Cohn.

  7. NOV GOP meltdown says:
    June 18, 2020 at 1:08 PM MDT

    138 days all. 138 days…

  8. MichaelBowman says:
    June 18, 2020 at 9:55 PM MDT

    Sorry V … 

    Klobuchar withdraws from veepstakes, says Biden should pick woman of color

    "America must seize on the moment and I truly believe — as I actually told the VP last night when I called him — that I think this is a moment to put a woman of color on that ticket," she told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell in an exclusive interview Thursday night. "And there are so many incredible, qualified women. But if you wanna heal this nation right now, my party yes, but our nation, this is a helluva way to do it."

  9. MichaelBowman says:
    June 18, 2020 at 10:15 PM MDT

    The balance of the election season will be controlled by insurance company attorneys: 

    • MADCO says:
      June 19, 2020 at 6:16 AM MDT

      Can't president make Exec order to socialize risks and losses?

      This feels big

    • Duke Cox says:
      June 19, 2020 at 7:24 AM MDT

      We were sitting here early this morning wondering if we could devise a scenario in which this rally DOESN’T become a full-blown, bona fide, blue plate special shit show. 

      If it falls apart and isn’t the spectacle the OD envisions, his wrath will be unbound. If protesters show up, there will be violence. Every COVID-19 death that follows this mass infection event will be directly traceable back to Donnies’ Party.

      This is the ultimate narcissism.

      T***p is about to kill a lot of people…and never lay a finger on them.

       

      • MichaelBowman says:
        June 19, 2020 at 9:16 AM MDT

        Meanwhile in Tennessee: (I have an idea. Let’s use the awesome power of democracy to state that the problem we should be helping to solve doesn’t exist.)

        • MichaelBowman says:
          June 19, 2020 at 9:25 AM MDT

          …and then a little causation/correlation exercise for Barnes? 

          It’s true: you can’t fix stoopid (but you can elevate it to public office):

          Florida gov blames coronavirus rise on ‘overwhelmingly Hispanic’ workers

          Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pointed to clusters of “overwhelmingly Hispanic” day laborers and agriculture workers driving the state’s recent coronavirus spike — but farmworkers and industry associations argue that resources and testing came too late to those communities, according to new reports.

          The Republican governor told reporters Tuesday that cramped living and working conditions for migrant workers and Hispanic construction workers are partly to blame, according to WFOR-TV.

          “Some of these guys go to work in a school bus, and they are all just packed there like sardines, going across Palm Beach County or some of these other places, and there’s all these opportunities to have transmission,” DeSantis said during a press conference in Tallahassee.

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