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November 25, 2020 10:54 PM UTC

Thanksgiving Weekend Open Thread

  • 62 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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62 thoughts on “Thanksgiving Weekend Open Thread”

      1. Hancock is far from my favorite mayor, but I wouldn’t wish a “Herman Cain” death on anyone. COVID19 is a nasty, lonely way to die. 
        It’s hypocritical of him to insist Denverites stay home while he flies to Mississippi, but perhaps there is a family crisis you’re unaware of.

        1. His daughter got a job and moved to Mississippi for the work.

          His wife went down with the daughter, apparently because there were no familial resources to help with the unpacking.

          Hancock flew down to join them. "As the holiday approached, I decided it would be safer for me to travel to see them than to have two family members travel back to Denver,” he said in his statement. “I recognize that my decision has disappointed many who believe it would have been better to spend Thanksgiving alone."

          Doesn't really seem like a "family crisis."

          1. Hancock is still an arrogant “Do as I say, not as I do” fool, who feels free to ignore public safety advice he himself dispenses. He apologized “deeply and sincerely” for his hypocrisy in traveling over Thanksgiving, while advising every one else to stay home. 
             

            When I wrote those compassionate things about Mayor Mike, I hadn’t realized that he high-handedly vetoed the “ending pit bull ban” his City Council sent him after months of work, years of controversy and thousands of euthanized dogs. That stupid pit bull ban was why I moved my family to Lakewood- we had adopted a wonderful “tri-pawed” rescue dog, before we understood that he was a banned breed. 
             

            So yeah, to hell with Mike Hancock, his excuses, his apologies, and his breed ban. 

             

              1. Nope. Read again, this time seeking to understand instead of to attack. But I’ll answer as though your question is sincere. 
                 

                My kids and I moved from Denver to Lakewood in 2005, to save our beloved family pet. Denver then was at the height of its breed ban, killing thousands of dogs a year, according to Westword. 
                 

                After my kids moved out, I lived and worked in Pueblo and on the eastern plains for a few years, retiring early and moving back to Lakewood when my grandchild was born. The dog died of cancer two years ago. 
                 

                Michael Hancock promoted the breed ban when he was a legislator, and solidified it as Mayor. He vetoed the bill City Council enacted, which would have allowed owners to keep pits with restrictions. Voters just overwhelmingly approved 2J, which ends Mayor Mike’s obstruction.

                Even though I no longer live in Denver, I remember the thousands of good dogs killed, and their grieving families, at Hancock’s behest. I don’t wish him dead of COVID like davebarnes does, but I’ll say “to hell with him.”

                1. How do you assume a simple question; wondering why you are so interested in a Denver affair; is somehow an attack? 

                  Consider chilling out. The election is over. If you need happy, I recommend “ABBA, A Celebration,” which ran on Channel 12 PBS last evening. I’m sure it will be back. Feel free to take a trip to “Waterloo,” on YouTube, while you wait.

                  My neighbor has a small, but fully grown, pit bull. I don’t see her often. But if I’m out, and she is out, she’s almost always across the street looking for a back rub, which she gets (from me). 

            2. "Hancock is still an arrogant 'Do as I say, not as I do' fool, who feels free to ignore public safety advice he himself dispenses"

              But that is very common in politics, especially on the left. Hancock is not alone. Think Gavin Newsom and his restaurant dinner recently. Or Nancy Pelosi's visit to her hairdresser.

              One of the very few things that the Republican Congress elected in 1994 did was enact the Shay Act which said that Congress was not exempt from laws it passed and which applied to everyone else.

            3. “That stupid pit bull ban”

              I thought you liked the government telling everyone how to handle every aspect of their lives….

              Don’t they know best?

              1. " I thought you…".

                You really should rethink your habit of evaluating others and making obtuse observations about their preferences.

                You aren't very good at it.

                  1. Of course you do. I'm simply noting that it is not a universally shared sentiment.

                    We are ALL entitled to our opinion, even though all opinions are very much like assholes.

                     

              2. “I thought you liked…”

                Think again. Perhaps you can quote something I wrote which indicates that I want government to “tell everyone how to handle every aspect of their lives.”

                 

                1. Well, health care and education are the first two that come to my mind.

                  Medicare for All, whether they want it or not.

                  IIRC, you are not a big fan of either private or charter schools.

                  The state can run health care and education just fine. With no competition from the private sector.

                  Your anti-big government, pro-freedom agenda covers pregnancies and pit bulls.

                  1. Somebody woke up grouchy and bored and looking for a fight, or as my old school friends say, “Who pissed in your cornflakes?”

                    I’d be happy to debate the various public health options on the table when we know what those will be. I did like Sanders’ version of Medicare for All, which numerous studies showed would be the cheapest and most efficient way to make health care universally available. But that’s not really on the table at the moment.

                    What Biden and Harris are advocating is a public health option which anyone can buy into, or be provided if they can’t afford it.

                    I’d have to see the actual legislation before I know if I’m for or agin it.

                    There are some good charter and private schools, with noble missions i agree with. They do tend to skew towards upper middle class kids, which makes them more white and less diverse in every way. Jeffco has many charter and options schools, and I’ve subbed in several of them.

                    Such schools tend to abuse special education and language learning students by inviting them in for the October count to get $ allocated, then ejecting them when/ if they become expensive or troublesome, as SPED kids often do.

                    Charters also tend to abuse their teaching staff with work rules that public ed, more unionized staffs won’t put up with.  Hence, they don’t often retain qualified people, and keep unqualified educators in house.

                    But none of that really fits into your un-nuanced narratives. So, happy wrestling with your straw men. And get a fresh bowl of cornflakes.

      2. A new Thanksgiving tradition? . . .

        . . . everyone who has contact with someone outside their immediate household group today must resign their job!

        “New rule: There will be absolutely no “grace” this Thanksgiving” . . .

         

        (PS.  Oh yeah, FYI I happen to be home alone today, so just save it …)

    2. Eshelman trusted the legalese written by lawyers intended only to fundraise with no guarantee of success in anything but fundraising. For an investor like Eshelman that was foolish (ala PT Barnum) and is compounded by the fact that his venture fund specializes in healthcare, one of dump's targets for destruction.

  7. WOTD via TPM: "Dems Will Welcome One Of The Most Diverse Groups Of Elected Officials To Public Office In 2021."

    Now that the dust on the 2020 elections is settling a bit, we can look at some of the down-ballot results. This is a relatively long summary that makes some interesting points. One point is that swing district Dem successes included both moderates and progressives. For example progressive Katie Porter in CA and moderate Abigail Spangenberger in VA. 

    The "squad" got a couple-few more members, also.

    This year’s new crop of progressive women — including Cori Bush (Missouri) and Teresa Leger Fernandez (New Mexico) — won seats in safe Democrat districts. In 2018, four left-leaning freshman Democratic women now called “the squad” won their seats in safe blue districts by upending more moderate Democrats in the primaries. They all easily won re-election this cycle and Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM), a Native American woman, won reelection in her safely Democratic district.

    In a clear victory for progressives, Marie Newman will represent Illinois’s 3rd congressional district in Chicago’s suburbs. In the primary, with endorsements from Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), she defeated incumbent Democrat Dan Lipinski, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, who had represented the district since 2005. In the general election, Newman defeated Republican candidate Mike Fricilone. Marilyn Strickland won her race in the state of Washington, making her the first black woman and first Korean American to represent that state in Congress.

    Several Democratic women flipped Republican-held districts, too. Carolyn Bourdeaux, a college professor, won a seat in the Atlanta suburbs. Deborah Ross and Kathy Manning won their races in Republican-held districts in North Carolina, helped by a court ruling that undid the GOP’s gerrymandering there.

    Most Democratic freshman women who won their races in swing districts in 2018 as part of the “blue wave” won re-election this year, despite the Republicans’ efforts to target them as too liberal for their constituents. Katie Porter, an outspoken progressive who won in 2018 in a swing district in Orange County (CA), won again this year. The others: Lucy McBath (GA), Abigail Spanberger (VA), Lauren Underwood (IL), Jahana Hayes (CT), Elissa Slotkin and Haley Stevens (MI), and Kim Schrier (WA).

    In most of the races where Republicans flipped Democrat-held seats, the GOP ran female candidates. In Republican-friendly Orange County (CA), two Asian American Republican women — Michelle Steel and Young Kim — defeated freshmen Democrats Harley Rouda and Gil Cisneros, respectively.

    In Arizona, a concerted grassroots campaign led by UNITE HERE, the hotel workers union, and Latinx groups targeted Latino voters and helped Biden and other Democrats carry the state. In the three vote-heavy counties with the largest Latino population — Maricopa, Yuma and Pima — Latinos backed Biden by more than 74 percent, according to a UCLA analysis. The same on-the-ground coalition helped Biden win in Nevada. Similar though smaller efforts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania also helped Biden win those states. The fact that Texas was even considered a swing state is a testament to the Democrats efforts among Latinos and white suburbanites, but the party lacked the organizing infrastructure that was so successful in Arizona and Nevada.

    1. Republican success came from …. according to Dave Wasserman of Cook Political Report, talking to Greg Sargent of the Washington Post "The Plum Line"  …

      Wasserman: Republicans did a complete 180 on recruitment. This year all 12 Republicans who picked up Democratic seats so far were women or minorities. Republicans nominated candidates who looked like their districts, and didn’t necessarily sound like [President] Trump.

      and

      Sargent: The whole explanation then becomes a lot more structural. The big story is that incredibly juiced-up Trump-base turnout allowed down-ballot Republicans to get lifted by that tide, and pocket all those votes, and then just add Republican-leaning swing voters who voted against Trump but for their Republican congressional candidate.

      Wasserman: I couldn’t have said it better.

  12. Someone needs to unleash the Tik Tok crowd to promote the concept of writing in Trump’s name for both GA Senate runoff races.  Elect Trump as a GA senator!  Elect him for both seats and double his power!  Q endorsed!!

        1. Among the mixed messages for Georgia voters …

           * Perdue has an outsider making his investment decisions independently versus Perdue told his advisor to dump a stock for a corp. he had been on the board of. And then told the advisor to buy back in.

           * Trump is going to come campaign Saturday versus Trump is going to come campaign NEXT Saturday.

           * Trump endorsed Raffensperger in 2018, saying he

          “will be a fantastic Secretary of State for Georgia,” arguing that he will “work closely with [Brian Kemp]” … and will be “tough on Crime and Borders” and “great for jobs,” issues that are usually outside the Secretary of State’s position.

          versus

          “Trump has egged on opposition to Raffensperger, labeling him a RINO in a tweet and amplifying calls from GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler for Raffensperger to resign.”

  13. Anyone else get their stimulus payment notice in the mail, complete with $rump’s signature? That was weird.

    P.s. I got the stimulus payment via direct deposit a month ago, and$rump’s letter was dated shortly after- November 4. But it didn’t arrive until yesterday. Was he trying to remind voters to be thankful to him or what?

  14. Ok, I think Trump's endgame is becoming clearer — after winning just 1 minor court battle vs. what, 36 faceplants?  He'll appeal to his newly installed SCOTUS team to overturn the election on the basis of incompetent representation since he obviously hasn't gotten a fair hearing in court yet!

    A federal appeals court on Friday rejected President Trump’s request for an emergency injunction to overturn the certification of Pennsylvania’s election results.

    The Third Circuit Court of Appeals said in a scathing 21-page opinion that the Trump campaign’s challenge of a U.S. District Court’s decision had “no merit.”

    “Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” Bibas wrote.

    Colorado's own Super Duper Legal Beagle is on it!

    Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to Trump’s campaign, said after the decision that the case would be taken to the Supreme Court. “On to SCOTUS!” Ellis said on Twitter.

     

    1. Marc Elias' twitter stream had this

      Abed A. Ayoub @aayoub

      The biggest question remaining with Trumps post election litigation is whether or not they will get to 50 losses. I believe they will reach this glorious milestone.

      Marc E. Elias @marceelias · 2h

      There have been 51 post election lawsuits. Trump and his allies are 1-38 so far. 50 losses is possible.

      Good news:  They ARE ahead of Charlie Brown's record for imaginary field goals …..

  15. Well that didn't last long….

    After saying that he would leave if, not when, the Electoral College elects Biden president, Trump has now said (in this morning's tweet) that he will leave if Biden can prove that he really received 80 million votes.

    Let's apply some of what passes as "MAGA logic." (Talk about an oxymoron.) Can Trump prove that Biden didn't receive 80 million votes? So far all those lost court cases point in only one direction.

     

    1. Trump Is Gaslighting Himself and Really Thinks He Won the Election, Mary Trump Says

      “He’s the only person I’ve ever met who can gaslight himself,” Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist and critic of her uncle, told VICE News in an interview on Monday. “I don’t think he’s ever accepted the truth of the loss. I don't think he’s psychologically or emotionally capable of that.”

      “Donald is a deeply damaged person,” Mary Trump said. “Probably the most central part of Donald’s psychopathology is the need to deny any reality that paints him as a loser or as somebody who is weak.”

       

  16. David Brooks finally got something correct:

    The Rotting of the Republican Mind

    Under Trump, the Republican identity is defined not by a set of policy beliefs but by a paranoid mind-set. He and his media allies simply ignore the rules of the epistemic regime and have set up a rival trolling regime. The internet is an ideal medium for untested information to get around traditional gatekeepers, but it is an accelerant of the paranoia, not its source. Distrust and precarity, caused by economic, cultural and spiritual threat, are the source.

    What to do? You can’t argue people out of paranoia. If you try to point out factual errors, you only entrench false belief. The only solution is to reduce the distrust and anxiety that is the seedbed of this thinking. That can only be done first by contact, reducing the social chasm between the members of the epistemic regime and those who feel so alienated from it. And second, it can be done by policy, by making life more secure for those without a college degree.

    Rebuilding trust is, obviously, the work of a generation.

     

     

    1. Mr. Brooks is still searching for a way for it to be alright to be a Republican. To somehow pretend it isn’t fully T***ps’ party and that someday the party of Eisenhower and Reagan will belong to the Heritage Foundation and K St. once again.

      He hasn’t succeeded, and I don’t think he will. We have a handful of Polsters who face the same dilemma.

      My advice? Give it up. Follow Ivankas’ suggestion and find something new. The GOP belongs to the occupant of the Whitest House.

      One of you conservative types want to ‘splain to this dumb liberal how you are gonna “take back your party”?

  18. Trump and his minions are lighting as many fires as possible, hoping to leave behind a crippled and politicized civil service subject to the whims of the next tyrant in the White House.

    The outgoing Trump administration is racing to enact the biggest change to the federal civil service in generations, reclassifying career employees at key agencies to strip their job protections and leave them open to being fired before Joe Biden takes office.

    The move to pull off an executive order the president issued less than two weeks before Election Day — affecting tens of thousands of people in policy roles — is accelerating at the agency closest to the White House, the Office of Management and Budget.

    The budget office sent a list this week of roles identified by its politically appointed leaders to the federal personnel agency for final sign-off.

    The employees would then be vulnerable to dismissal before Trump leaves office if they are considered poor performers or have resisted executing the president’s priorities, effectively turning them into political appointees that come and go with each administration.

  20. Here's a thought…..

    If Biden feels the need to appoint a couple of Republicans to his cabinet, here are two suggestions:

    Bill Cassidy, MD, for secretary of health and human services.

    Susan Collins, for secretary of transportation.

     

    1. Sneaky — Susan Collins for Transportation, as in "Here's an unlimited bus pass, hop on and we'll see you again after a few years", so the Democratic governor can appoint a replacement?

  23. Reports are that Trump will announce his campaign for 2024 before the end of the year, or possibly during Biden's inauguration. Why not? He can keep his grift going for at least 4 more years, keep the spotlight on himself, and continue to get his boots licked by elected Republicans. He can also spin any attempts to investigate him or prosecute him as politically driven attempts to keep him from office. 

    The GOP created a monster and it will continue to torment what is left of the party for years to come. 

    1. Yep, and it'll either keep the Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio campaigns on ice for 4 years, or they'll start a civil war within the GOP if they can't shut up and sit down for the great and mighty wizard and his traveling clown show!

    2. I have been waiting for one of our conservative Polsters to lay out the plan for "retaking the party" or, barring that, what is plan "b"? Who is going to lead the way?

      Are the Lords of Wall Street and the Titans of Industry willing to decapitate the party of the Orange King? They will have to in order to recapture any functional part of what remains of the GOP.

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