CO-04 (Special Election) See Full Big Line

(R) Greg Lopez

(R) Trisha Calvarese

90%

10%

President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Biden*

(R) Donald Trump

80%

20%↓

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

90%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

90%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(D) Adam Frisch

(R) Jeff Hurd

(R) Ron Hanks

40%

30%

20%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert

(R) Deborah Flora

(R) J. Sonnenberg

30%↑

15%↑

10%↓

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Dave Williams

(R) Jeff Crank

50%↓

50%↑

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

90%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) Brittany Pettersen

85%↑

 

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

(R) Janak Joshi

60%↑

35%↓

30%↑

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
September 24, 2020 06:47 AM UTC

Thursday Open Thread

  • 45 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“A wise man does not chatter with one whose mind is sick.”

–Sophocles

Tweet
Share

Comments

45 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

    1. Duke, the swab get stuck? You OK? Sorry, dark humor again. I regret the necessity, but would like to see more tests available. Countries that are beating COVID test the snot out of their populations.
      I was relieved when my health care provider gave me my free test, and it came back negative. 

      1. Not sure what happened. May have been drug related…😀

        It isn't the tests, I am glad you got one, particularly a negative one, and they need to be free and universally available. The image is just unsettling and it seems every TV news producer in America feels it necessary to insert a video of a test ( or several). I don't suppose there is anyone left who is unfamiliar with the image.

        😜  …for the record. I have not been tested, but then, I seldom leave the house.

         

        1. I hated that 'stock' (?) photo that the Denver Post kept putting out there every time they had another article about Covid-19 in the 'early days'.  The young person was greatly grimacing, like their finger was getting amputated.  When I lost my sense of taste and smell, my doc quickly requisitioned a test.  As I walked up (outside) to do it at our rural community's hospital, I had that photo still in my mind. 

          I have to say my fear was all much ado about nothing.  It was over in less than 30 seconds.  I describe it as a just a 'tickling scratch' or a 'scratchy tickle', not painful.  I just closed my eyes and breathed, same as I do when having to give a blood sample (which I am never comfortable with).

          We watched for the first time the Ken Burns doc 'The Civil War', and as good as he is in all docs, we didn't like how many seconds are focused on photos of the dead on the ground, and rather up close!  Bad sad

  2. An open letter to God.

    Dear Lord, 

    Please let me live long enough to never ever have to witness another nasal swab test. How many times must we observe the awful process? Please touch the hearts and minds of press photographers and editors everywhere and make them stop. We know what it looks like…further reminders are wholly unnecessary.

    Thank you, Lord.

    A fan.

     

  6. Our younger daughter is a preschool teacher.   She tells us she woke up this morning with a cough and sore throat.  Is it a cold, reaction to smoke in Denver, or COVID?  Her school does not have testing capacity.  On advice from her boss she downed some DayQuill and reported for work. Yesterday the Trump testing czar touted the millions of tests that are available.   She could be a super spreader for lack of quick testing.  We are so screwed.

    2. If she is covered by health insurance, she should be able to get a free Covid19 test from her provider. Otherwise, free tests are available at these places for those with symptoms. She’s in a high risk category, so CDPHE says 

      People who are part of a high-risk job category can call 303-692-2700 to be directed to a testing facility.

      Her boss isn’t following CDC guidelines ( the real ones). 

      I’ve started substitute teaching again, but won’t work anymore with very young children. They’re too “touchy” and won’t comply with social distancing. 

  7. A must-read for everybody:

    The Election That Could Break America – Barton Gellman

    The worst case, however, is not that Trump rejects the election outcome. The worst case is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him. If Trump sheds all restraint, and if his Republican allies play the parts he assigns them, he could obstruct the emergence of a legally unambiguous victory for Biden in the Electoral College and then in Congress. He could prevent the formation of consensus about whether there is any outcome at all. He could seize on that un­certainty to hold on to power.

  8. No one saw this coming…/s 

    So. Much. Winning.  

    Nations raise concern over US farm subsidies at WTO

    A former chief economist for USDA, Joe Glauber, warned recentlythat the billions of dollars in payments to farmers to offset trade wars and COVID-19 impacts would “attract attention” on an international level. And that’s exactly what’s happening.

    Canada, the European Union, India, Australia, Brazil, Paraguay, New Zealand, Uruguay, Paraguay and Colombia all raised concerns of international market distortion Wednesday at the World Trade Organization. The countries asked the U.S. to explain the roughly $34 billion in what they consider trade-distorting payments in 2019. The WTO cap for those “amber box” subsidies is $19.1 billion.

    USDA announced last week a new $14 billion round of coronavirus relief payments, and that was also brought up in the WTO meeting.  

    Keep in mind: Glauber expects U.S. amber box subsidies to reach $40 billion this year, more than double the annual limit. 

    1. Farm votes are expensive.

      A comment I heard over the weekend claimed that SC tobacco farmers are PO'd at dump for eliminating their markets and driving them into bankruptcy as a result of the tariffs (that China paid for in the same way that mexico paid for his wall).

       

      If SC tobacco farmers are PO'd a an R politician it's a dark day.

      If only it was McConnell too.

      1. I was on a call this morning with two Kentucky tobacco/hemp farmers who have historically been McConnell advocates.  You never know what's going to cause the end of one's allegiances, but for this one, it has become the $300 million for Big Oil Ttump was trying to get diverted from the CCC ag fund. But-not-for the House Democrats demanding it be removed in the CR agreement yesterday Ttump might have gotten away with it.  For him it was the tipping point – suggesting he may leave both McConnell and Ttump's boxes without a checkmark in November.  

  9. Tune: Roll Out the Barrel

    -0-

    Throw out the ballots

    We’ll have an election of one.

    Those damn mail ballots

    Let the wrong people have fun.

    We’ll call out the freikorps

    And blast away with our AR 15

    Then we’ll throw out the ballots

    That’s our re-election scheme!

    We need a court of fascists

    That will just laugh as we cheat.

    We’ll stop all black voters

    Ain’t the old Klan really neat?

    There will be no transfer of power

    I will hold power for life

    When we throw out the ballots

    And dictate an end to this strife.

    -0-

    (40 days lord.  Give us strength.)

    1. The bootstrapping, go-it-alone, free market hero Caldara not only relies heavily on BVSD, he's suing them for compensation, as if his own child was the only one in the district experiencing disappointment and setbacks due to Covid. I too do feel for his son since he is a special needs student, but his father is a hypocrite and an asshole ! Go pound sand Caldara.

        1. Any district or government will do for Jon.  Just thumb your nose at government and society and be a self absorbed nuisance, but always demand that it go above and beyond for you as well.

          Caldara is what I call a “shitizen”, which is just a shitty citizen. Contribute nothing to society but suck everything out of it that you can. Shitizens got America where it is today.

    2. Of course, Jon Caldara has offered to donate PPE, tissue, wipes,  and sanitizer to the teachers and SPED paras who are probably purchasing these items out of their own pockets. Of course he has. 🙄
       

      And even though Caldara can easily afford to pay a tutor for his son on days when there is no in-person school, he won’t do that, nor work with his own son his own self, because he is too busy trying to abolish or defund the Department of Education and take away people’s health care via the Independence Institute’s agenda. 
       

      The IDEA law that Caldara’s  using to try to “own the libs”, (and using his own kid’s troubles towards that end, ugh ) was put in place by a bipartisan group of educators and families. It was intended as a way to make public education better for students with disabilities, not to drain money from public schools to fund private ones. But the latter is I I’s agenda. 
       

      All kids and teachers and districts are struggling with logistics around COVID. Nobody’s getting 100% of what they need.  Caldara should be working with, not against, his child’s school.

  11. Have we taken time to laugh at Brighton City Councilman Kris Jordinelli, who on September 15 attended a city council meeting gooned up on booze and pills, and waxed poetic during a discussion of the Adams County Animal Shelter budget?

    Listen man, listen. I grew up on a farm, and I saw animals eat each other. And I had cops who were my buddies, and a cat will eat the brain of an old lady. So, this conversation is just pissing me off! And I may lose — I may get recalled over it. I don’t care. But you know what, it’s just my point of view.

    If not, we should take that time now.

  13. No justice for Breonna Taylor. The walls of her apartment and her neighbors being threatened were grounds for the one charge filed and the one cop fired in that case.

    Breonna, an innocent paramedic sleeping in her own goddamn bed until the police busted in shooting was shot by 8 bullets and died that night …..and her life  wasn't worthy of a single indictment. Her killers walked completely free, partly due to a murky Kentucky law that says there is no such thing as legal self defense against police, even when they come in shooting into your home in the middle of the night. This could be the end of police "no knock raids".  But the Louisville AG, a black Republican, still had leeway in choosing to prosecute, could have targeted all three officers for "wanton disregard for human life", which they certainly demonstrated.

    So most of the black people you know, and most of the rest of us paying attention, are upset today, feeling targeted, feeling unsafe, feeling mad as hell. People are protesting downtown. Be fricking respectful of it.

    Here's my favorite graphic artist, Wendy Hooker of Wendy's Libtard Comics, take on it:

    And our local paper, Denver Post, is fanning the flames of Trump’s desired civil/ race war, by posting an inflammatory headline which implies that a local black activist was somehow involved in the Lousiville protest shootings of two officers. (next post).

    1. Not all tragedies have villains.  B reonna died because her boyfriend fired first.  The shot that killed her came from a man who didn’t even know she was there.  Now you want “justice” for her by, what, executing the three cops who thought they were defending themselves?  Or would you settle for life sentences?  Remember, you must convince 12 jurors to get your pounds of flesh.

      And it is a lie to say she got no justice.  Her family got $12 million.  No, that won’t bring her back to life but it will help her family rebuild their’s.  It’s a generous settlement.  

      If you disagree, lend me $12 million till payday.

      Finally, the case has prompted examination of the underlying evil here: no knock warrants.  They should be banned in all but the most unusual situations — and in those, announced by a loud and raucous bullhorn.

      1. Sad and horrible as it is, in this situation I agree with Voyageur's comment. The problem was the no-knock warrant.

        This was a tragedy, and the only justice would be if Breonna Tayler had not been shot.

        City loses a load of cash, for a f-d up system.

        Other police killings are more obviously due to poor training and poor judgement.

      2. V: Since when do I have superpowers to decide these cops’ sentences? Execution, life sentences…these are up to a judge and jury to decide. But before that can happen, they need to actually be indicted and investigated. That’s what I want.

        Benjamin Krupp, the Taylor family’s lawyer, said tonight on the ReidOut that the Grand Jury May not hVe even been instructed to look at Breonna Taylor’s death…that her name was barely mentioned except as the resident of the apartment. The jury decided to  on the basis of property damage to the buildings, and endangerment of the neighbors 

        To Park Hill’s point, no this isn’t just a horrible tragedy like a multi-car pile up. It shows systemic racism in police practice in Louisville.

        Radley Balko of the Washington Post writes: 

         

        “This is just an all-around tragedy. We shouldn’t focus on who to blame, whether its police, prosecutors, Walker or Taylor.”

        The most serious questions here concern the investigation itself, and why these officers were asked to serve a warrant on Taylor’s home in the first place. There’s the lie about the postal inspector. There is the fact that despite the surveillance on Taylor’s home, the police didn’t know there was another person inside. There are the police bullets that were inadvertently fired into surrounding apartments. There’s the cut-and-paste language used to secure the no-knock portion of the warrant. There’s also the fact that the officer who procured the warrant was not part of the raid team. There’s the fact that five officers involved in the Taylor raid were involved in another violent, botched raid on an innocent family in 2018.

        Can you imagine this same scenario in a mostly white and upper class portion of, say, Park Hill, or Highlands Ranch, or Boulder? There are also drug dealers and people hiding from the law in those neighborhoods. 
        * Police think there may be an OxyContin-selling fugitive in a mansion next to the Country Club golf course. 
        * They get a judge to sign off on a no-knock warrant using boilerplate language. The officer who obtains the warrant won’t go on the raid. They do recruit three officers who are known to shoot first and ask questions later. 
        * They show up at midnight, pound on the door for 30 seconds, possibly yelling “Police” although none of the 12 neighbors can swear they heard that, then break down the door. 
        * The master of the house, a corporate tax lawyer with a strong 2nd Amendment Ethic, grabs his loaded Glock and fires at the intruders, believing that the Black Lives Matter / Antifa terrorists have finally come to take away his stock options. He is defending his fiancé, another tax lawyer, in bed beside him. 
        * The police fire back, killing the fiancé, and making some ugly dints in the lawn furniture and the neighbors’ swimming pools. 
        * Then there is a massive coverup, with the real fugitive being pressed to say that the fiancé was also dealing oxy, and was in on everything. The Glock shooter is never charged with any crime. 
        * only the guy who damaged the patio furniture and scared the neighbors is ever charged with any crime. He is also fired. Nothing happens to the police who shot the fiancé. 
         

        If you find this scenario difficult or even ludicrous to imagine, its because it wouldn’t happen to a prosperous white couple in a rich neighborhood, even though there are plenty of drug dealers and bad actors there, too. 
        The no knock warrant would never have been written; they’d have caught the oxy dealer some other way. No breaking the door down, no firing random shots, none of it. You can’t imagine it because you know that these things only happen to people of color in bad neighborhoods. And you’d be right. All of the neglect, the shoddy police work, the disregard for human life- that only happens under systemic racism in which certain lives matter more than other lives. 

        1. Oh, you claim superpowers to know their guilt, why be bashful about demanding their execution?

          And keep up the lie about "no justice.". That $ 12 million was just an insult.  

          Facts mean nothing to you.  But the NAACP legal defense fund agrees the no- knock warrant was the central problem and believes the promised reforms could help reduce risk of future incidents.

          Have a nice hate.

  14. The Denver Post published a misleading and inflammatory headline, which implied that a local black activist, Shenika Carter, was somehow involved in the Louisville protest shootings of two police officers.

    This endangers Carter and her family. She already gets hate mail and death threats, has already endured threats from white provocateurs.

    The Post needs to print a public retraction of its headline that features Carter's face on a story about an officer shooting in another city. This is sloppy and unethical journalism.

     

    1. Good for you KWTree: 

      We apologize

      Thursday’s front page featured a photo of local activist Shenika Carter speaking at a rally in Denver under the headline “Two officers shot at protest.”

      Many of you, rightly, called and wrote to tell us how misleading that placement was, given the shootings occurred in Kentucky, and to explain the deep implications of picturing her under a headline about violence.

       

      The planned story and headlines were about the lack of charges in the Breonna Taylor case and the protests that ensued across the country. Clearly, when the story changed, her photo should have been removed.

      We apologize to Ms. Carter, who deserved better. As one reader wrote to me: “My request to you is that you do better to protect the precious resource that we have in Black Women, and really in all women. We need to do better.”

      I quite agree.

      Lee Ann Colacioppo

      Editor

  15. My Cat noticed something odd today.

     The O.D. wore a mask to visit RBGs' corpse today..which illicited a WTF moment from us both. Why on earth would he choose that event to finally do so? An outdoor event. Plenty of distance to anyone.

    We have a couple of theories, but the one that seems most reasonable to me is, he covered his face so no one could see him smiling.

    He is an awful man.

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

205 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!