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December 19, 2020 07:12 AM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 81 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“In politics, yesterday’s lie is attacked only to flatter today’s.”

–Jean Rostand

Comments

81 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread

    1. Bassists who started as guitarists, Ed King included, tend to make top-notch bassists. That fact is front and center right now, as I've been listening to a lot of Tal Wilkenfeld lately.

      More relevant to your post, I recently found out that long-time King Crimson drummer Pat Mastelotto was a founding member of Mr. Mister.

          1. The laws for the formation of counties must have changed a lot by the time that Kansas came along. 

            Back when Kentucky was the western frontier entire states would be formed by subdividing a single county or territory.

              1. I’ve always wondered why such small counties like Sedgwick and Phillips aren’t combined; or Clear Creek and Gilpin; or Ouray and San Juan. And Moffat County was formerly part of Routt County.

                In general, I think the metro Denver area has far too much government, especially with all the special districts. No, I’m not being anti-government.

                Indianapolis and Marion County, where I came from almost 40 years ago, pioneered a form of metropolitan government in 1967 called Uni-Gov. All parts of the county became part of Indy except several other, already incorporated, towns, including Speedway, home of “you-know-what.” Uni-Gov, which saved taxpayers a lot of money, was the brainchild of then Indy Mayor Richard Lugar. Lugar went on to have a distinguished career as a US Senator.

                1. Sedwick/Phillips combined pop: 6,612

                  Yuma/Washington combined pop: 14,871

                  Kit Carson/Cheyenne/Kiowa combined pop: 10,962

                  Throw all seven of them together and you get the population of Pueblo West.

                  Since we 51st-staters loathe government and, like our subsidy-driven farms, demand efficiencies in the delivery of services and products, consolidation would be more in line with our predominant ideology than secession. They could almost achieve what they say they want to from secession by just making everything east of Byers one big county.  Declare the territory a Second Amendment Sanctuary, fire up drilling rigs, round up the snowflakes, confiscate all of the COVID vaccines and ignore the fact our cows fart belch.

                  It’s a fun mental exercise and since I’ve got plenty of quarantine time on my hands it kills some time! 

                  1. Early in his first term as guv, Roy Romer proposed combining the counties in the San Luis Valley into one. The idea was to promote efficiency. He was shot down in flames, barely escaping a tar-and-feathering in Alamosa.

                    It turns out people count on local county government jobs. Who knew?

                    1. We stand by while we witness our feedlots on the eastern plains consolidated into a handful of Brazilian-owned enterprises; the pork industry has consolidated into a China enterprise.  County budgets – jobs are one of the last things we can put a wall around because federal farm policy is driving everything else (in the rural parts).  

                      I was [mostly] being sarcastic above because we have zero problems with what’s happening to agriculture on one hand – while we get a serious case of the vapors over the same thought related to county governments. 

            1. Ethnicity is a big factor in this sort of thing. In central Minnesota, the settlers kept to their own, with Norski towns, German towns and such. I even saw a bumpersticker on a purple Taurus in Granite Falls that said, “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.” Go figure.

              Anyway, the community isolation was responsible for things such as Stearns County Syndrome, a developmental issue based in inbreeding. So much so it (SCS) was the deciding factor in locating the largest instution in the state in the neighboring county, Kandiyohi county where I lived.

              Looking at the way it all happened is a fascinating look at history. There is another side. I recommend two books …in order…

              Hanta Yo by Ruth Beebe Hill  and Bury My Heart at Wounded knee, by Dee Brown. The two paint vivid pictures of Native societies before and after the white man arrived.

              In toto…not pretty.

               

  1. I have, lately, begun to smell "rat" more and more.

    Russia engages in a long standing, pervasive hack of our government and industry. T***p says nothing.

    The Whitest House and its minions are starting to block access to J.B. & co. The "conservative house rebellion" seems to still have legs..

    Too many things are still unresolved and the president is fully and, I daresay, certifiably mad. His rage is not likely to diminish and he may take a savage and deadly turn. Let's not forget…he is still the most powerful man in the world.

    1. I suspect they didn't "hack" anything. Remember that little chat they had at the G-8? I'd bet my Christmas money Yammie-pie gave his man-crush a set of keys.

  2. Ben Kuck is worried, folks. 

    GOP congressman says he's more worried about COVID-19 vaccine than disease itself

    GOP Rep. Ken Buck (Colo.) this week said he will not be taking the coronavirus vaccine, explaining that he is “more concerned about the safety of the vaccine” than the “side effects of the disease.” 

    “It is my choice,” Buck told Fox Business host Neil Cavuto on Friday. “I’m an American and I have the freedom to decide if I’m going to take a vaccine or not and, in this case, I’m not going to take the vaccine.”

          1. My grandfather died after an amputation, and I don't regard that as a joke.  As far as Buck getting covid, whatever happens is just Darwin doing his job!  But it is just foul to wish someone a painful death after an amputation.

            1. There's 2 ways to get to herd immunity: either get the vaccine or get sick.  If the Bucks of the world want to get sick, have at it. In the menwhile, until I can get a shot, I'll wear a mask.

    1. Kind of ungrateful of Buck . . .

      . . . I mean, really, after all the hard work and effort, those endless days and nights and weeks and months of nonstop toil and research and testing in the private Presidential laboratory, that his golden orange Ttump put into personally discovering, creating, and manufacturing these vaccines?  The nerve! . . . 

      Gotta’ wonder why Ken’s now dropping a giant dookie into Donnie and Melania’s celebratory Christmas punch bowl?

      1. I haven't heard any kind of loud chorus rising trying to give dump credit for the vaccines. He's been all over the place on the issue between 'hoax' and 'only i can solve it' that nobody seems to know how to spin it and if they spin it before he does and their story differs they might get tweeted at.

        Oh noes!!!!!

        Dump's built that island too. He's the only one who will stand on it.

    1. Technically, vaccines are not 18th century technology, I think…but I certainly get your point and heartily agree with your direction for Bucks’ future.

  3. Once again, the Democrats are forced to negotiate with terrorists bent on destroying our nation.

    Toomey, a conservative lawmaker on the Senate’s banking committee, has demanded provisions be included in the covid relief package that would curb the ability of the Fed to restart emergency lending programs for localities and small businesses.

    Why this last minute grenade from the GOP?  Because they can, of course.

      1. Who else?  Moscow Mitch with his evil cackle in the background

        Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Senate Republicans on a private call Saturday afternoon that the party should stick by Toomey’s plan, according to two people who requested anonymity to share details of the call.

        1. You answered the easy question of who gave permission … to Toomey, et al.

          More broadly, they CAN because the Ds give McYertle permission to give permission.

          If all Schumer does is show you the top of his head and pat the podium with his angriest fist, it’s a green light to McYertle’s outrageous liberties and tendencies to fuck America right up the ass. Have you ever seen or heard D leadership raise their voice in outrage?

          McYertle has broken the bounds of the totally checked-out dump now and has taken all initiative into his own hands. He has veto-proof majorities on wherever he force-feeds dump.

          The only bright spot is that McYertle wants to maintain some measure of status quo so that he has a longer runway for his destructiveness, Dump is in a hurry.

          1. (and don't forget Leoffler got to 'write off' the cost of her new personal jet in its entirety in year 1):

                1. The opening few moments from The Aristocats???

                  The warm up act at this year’s Liberty University Conservative Family Values Christmas Pageant???

                  Both???

                  That is a tough one.  I’m really not sure, . . .

                  . . . but, if you slapped a holster belt along with a couple of six shooters on that whatever it is, I’d be willing to bet we’ll see Calamity Q-bie trying out something similar before too very long?

                  . . . probably with a dancing chorus line of glittered, shirtless young CCU MAGAmen twirling ARs (with noticeably extended magazines).

  4. Please note: They jumped the Kraken with 59-1 court cases, but now they are preparing the next episode by seizing the voting machines and appointing krak prosecutor Sidney Powell as a special investigator into the fraud and declaring another election in the swing states.

    The White House meeting included Giuliani, Powell, General Flynn, who has been running around advocating an Executive Order to declare martial law. My Q-anon qrankpot has ben braying about it for the past few days, but it just made the New York Times and Politico today.

      1. Math has never been their strong suit. 59-1?  We're WINNING!!  Trickle down?  We promise it will end up in the middle and lower class after it's passed through our hands!! 

    1. Security clearance for Powell?  Couldn't they just borrow Jareds? 

  5. The few words from greedy old perverts are not supporting of the "idiot and imbecile".in his coup attempt.  With pompeo trying to save his butt from prosecution by continuing to state the russians did it, and the Pentagon sending out a little note saying they are not going to join any junta, it looks more like play acting to let the toddler feel like a big person.

    1. There is always the priority to cushion $rump’s ego. But the purge of Defense leadership and replacement with unqualified loyalists should make everyone nervous. 
      They’ve denied the Biden team access to homeland security and defense email, meetings, and databases, which is unprecedented. One has to wonder what the hell they’re hiding…corruption? Plans for a coup? The encouragement and permission for white nationalists to go nuts, while downplaying right wing violence and blaming Antifa and BLM? 

      1. I think they are hiding their coup attempt, to the extent that is possible. Russia has mounted a cybernetic invasion of the United States. Trump has no intention of responding, since many keys to the gates were probably supplied by Russian agents working from the Whitest House, whether that was the Screaming Yam directly or some other Putin operative.

        Putin will create a national disaster that Joe Biden can do nothing about because we have been betrayed by the Trumplican© party and its criminal leadership.

        Isn’t this how they all do it?

        p.s.- Watch for a mobilization of the Trump militia. He may not be able to use the military, but he can order them to stay out of it.

        1. These are the keys that are at the center of this story about this massive hack.

          I strongly doubt that anyone in the WH (and especially dump; Chris Krebs sez he was unaware) has the tech competence to hand them out. It would be easier to hack a system and steal the keys than to train jared how to send them via whatsapp.

          My $0.02 is that dump & co were totally unaware of this hack going on. dump is just too stoopid and loose-lipped to be trusted with info like that. Putin would not need or want his ‘help’ on this.

          Russia didn’t have any help finding the security hole in Solarwind’s systems. They stumbled on lax-to-nonexistent-to-negative internal security protocols, exploited it with a time-delayed activation time and then opened all the doors themselves once their trojan horse had been installed in Solarwinds’ customer’s systems; like hiding in the bathroom of some dept store and then going on a 2 AM shopping spree.

        2. I think you're right, Duke. I think we're in for some sad disasters between now and January 20, and after due to what Trump and Putin have been doing to weaken our national security. Frankly, we don't know how much we have left of our national security from a cyber hacking point of view. I'm looking forward to seeing our military (in some literal or figurative way) haul Trump's large, corrupt ass out of the White House – we may come to that. 

          Here's what concerns me the most: We have a simmering civil war in the U.S. The Republicans have not been punished for allowing Putin's puppet to remain in power for a full 4-yr term, doing an as-yet unknown amount of damage to our country. We have a substantial number of people who don't believe COVID is real, and are drawing out the pandemic by refusing to comply with even minimal precautions, endangering (and killing) others and damaging our economy. Most Republicans seem completely content that their party has been taken over by traitorous extremists (or unqualified idiots like Boebert). They want power and that's all that matters. 

          And of course I'm concerned, too, re: what Trump and his enablers will try to do in the near future. I sent my 30 days eviction notice to Trump online last night. It would be nice if everyone on the right side of history did this.

          1. Indeed.

            I notice most Republicans are still afraid to take responsibility for their favorite president. It seems to me, the hand of God weighs heavily on them.

            It is difficult for most reasonable people to understand the power of Jesus…or, I should say, the misguided, terrified souls that are so easily used by messengers who exploit their already misplaced faith.

            The pressure by Christian establishments to keep supporting the Orange is ginormous, no matter how loathsome or traitorous he has become. Anti-abortion justices was just the beginning.

            The American Taliban have tasted success. They are rabid…rabid animals are dangerous. How many legs they have makes little difference.

            1. Max Shields has a great thread on the Civil War narrative that gives Captain Bone Spurs his morning wood:

  6. Happy  Solstice- the days get longer from now until summer. Literally, and hopefully figuratively, the darkest days of 2020 are behind us.

    As a bonus, we get a big ball of light on the western horizon- a once-every 20 years conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. NASA put out a helpful video, with diagrams, on how to observe the so-called “Christmas Star”. 
     

    1. Thanks for the heads up tree.  Saw phenomenal Neowise Comet this summer and just saw large number of shooting stars from last week’s Geminid  meteor shower.

  7. Michael Bowman:

    We stand by while we witness our feedlots on the eastern plains consolidated into a handful of Brazilian-owned enterprises; the pork industry has consolidated into a China enterprise.  County budgets – jobs are one of the last things we can put a wall around because federal farm policy is driving everything else (in the rural parts).

    The former is capitalism in action and you can't do anything about it unless you're a bigger fish w/the bucks.

    The latter is government and it is influenced by votes.

    It is capitalism that moved jobs overseas as well. Capitalists moved jobs for lower productions costs like wages and enviro regs.

    How can anyone address that economic reality without introducing major market distortions? Not by regulation probably. Make capitalists patriotic and moral? Good luck.

    1. There’s an abundance of empirical evidence to show the DOJ/Congress has failed in the world of consolidation (agriculture and otherwise).  Akin to the mythical free market in electricity, the folks like Brophy and Gardner often pointed to in voting/implementation phase of Amendment 37, the coal industry had mastered the art of privatizing the profits and socializing the costs.  

      Industry defined the equation of cheap and the rest of us were stuck with the invoice.

      This is a regulatory and policy failure.  If you haven’t read the book Methland, it’s worth the time. Written twenty years ago but centered around the collapse of the then-predominantly-union-based meat packing plants in the Midwest.  Enter George Gillette (same thing for Wilbur Ross in the coal industry, take your pick) He starts buying up plants, busts the unions, then puts them into bankruptcy to shed the pension obligations then. (all these guys go to the same school).   Consolidates plants, imports foreign labor they hire for lower wages – and then transfer the social costs of integrating the families into the health and education system onto the local community.  The Mexican cartel followed these corporate raiders around the region, getting the displaced workers hooked on meth.  

      It’s a true story based specifically on the town of Oelwein, IA. If these are the kinds of issues you care about you won’t be able to put the book down. 

      We wouldn’t need to worry ourselves much about market distortions if the market had to capture/account for externalities.  It’s fair to say the market is drastically distorted today – for all the wrong reasons.  

      1. yes

        Accounting for and establishing the value of externalities would be an effective way of making capitalism less harmful to the human and natural systems involved. But it requires matching the speed with which capitalism acts to provide for its own needs with providing compensation or protection for the needs of those needs in the name of economic and environmental justice, etc.

        It's the perfect storm for politicians, lobbyists and lawyers with a fairly predictable outcome.

        1. A perfect storm, perfectly engineered by that group. 

          You could use this example of almost any legacy product (energy, high-fructose-corn-syrup laden food, etc):

          Public Utility Commissions across this country for decades mandated the only cheap, reliable fuel source for generating electricity was coal.  So for a few decades coal was king, not having to account for its externalities while emerging wind and solar technologies had to compete against that equation.  

          The problem was, the negative externalities to coal approached something north of 14-35 cents/kwH.  We delayed this transition unnecessarily by (arguably) 2-3 decades.  

          There is an equally-troubling equation using fossil-based aromatics in gasoline v. advanced biofuels from ag waste.  That entire system is protected by your aforementioned politicians, lobbyist and industry lawyers. 

           

      2. On the other hand, the distortions don't have the power for huge amounts of time.  The various coal raiders managed to make a profit for awhile, mainly by using existing contracts which propped up prices, getting the government to buy into continuing contracts (various sorts of price supports), to take on costs (black lung, pensions, environmental mitigation), and to stymie competition (solar, wind). 

        Meanwhile, market forces gathered and political support waned. 

        This past weekend, the Navajo Generating Plant's 3 stacks came down, made obsolete by natural gas, solar and wind prices dropping and potential for additional costs  swiftly rising.

        1. Some have legs, some don't.

          We're still subsidizing O&G

          Giving socialist cash subsidies to Venezualan beef moguls

          Welfare cowboys like the Bundys

          Anon and anon and anon

          1. JiD – you're right that these engineered distortions are exposed to the tests of time.  I remember 17 years ago having a national REA executive point his finger in my face and tell me this country's energy grid would collapse without coal baseload.  Remember the PR waged by IREA and Tri-State about how Amendment 37 would cost our state billions and drive business away? The laughable War on Rural Colorado campaign by the same clowns becasue of SB-252? At the time there were in fact twenty new plants on the drawing board nationwide (including the $1billion boondoggle in Holcomb, KS they tried to tie around our neck).  We can now imagine a day where not a single domestic plant will be operational.

            My core argument has, and will continue to be, that good public policy is essential.  Given that nearly half this country sees government, thus policy, evil in any form just makes our policy work exponentially more difficult. The irony is that the rejection of progressive policy on new energy sources, new crops, new global markets, by our "freedom fighters" is always an economic detriment to our rural communities. 

            Here's the exhibit for today: 

            We spend $4 billion annually on domestic sugar production that has an annual negative externality of $1 trillion.  

            “So 30% – 40% of healthcare expenditures in the USA go to help address issues that are closely tied to the excess consumption of sugar.” Credit Suisse Report – Sugar: Consumption At A Crossroads (PDF here)

            1. Practically any argument launched by any coal addict from industry can be shout down w/a little knowledge of some of the research done at NREL. Some time ago they came up with the findings that a renewable energy grid does not need a coal baseline. Things survive just fine w/o it.

              1. From our homegrown Rocky Mountain Institute:

                Reimagining Grid Resilience in the Energy Transition

                The United States is seeing a shift to a more decentralized generation portfolio, along with similar growth in market share of other distributed energy resources (DERs) including end-use efficiency technologies, internet-connected demand flexibility, and storage. This represents a fundamental change in power system architecture and a departure from the centralized model that has governed our approach to resilience to date.

          2. For true, for sure.

            One of the raps I throw on Unca Joe and the Clinton/ Obama way of capitalism is its deference to the notion that the captains of industry know what is best for them, and what is best for them is best for the rest of us.

            I am fundamentally at odds with that principle. 

            Corporations are not, and will never be people. Money is as much censorship as it is speech…that dog won't hunt.

  8. It’s an extraordinary week when I find something worth watching on television anymore; this week was doubly extraordinary.

    First recommendation:  Euphoria: Trouble Don’t Last Always — a powerful, poignant Christmas special unlike anything you’ve ever seen.  (HBO, HBOMax)

    Second recommendation:  Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom — just out on Netflix.  The Denzel Washington directed movie of the August Wilson play; just the year’s most tremendous acting and dialogue.

    1. I found a good show too … Good Girls Revolt

      It's an Amazon product

      A cross btwn Mad Men and Newsroom

      Set in the late Viet Nam War era in NYC, it centers on the lives of the staff of a news magazine in competition with Time and Rolling Stone. Rigid gender biases as to who can have what role in the magazine and then several relationships inside and outside the mag.

      Entertaining and bingeable.

    2. If I may humbly suggest, check out the music each Saturday night on PBS Channel 12. It’s almost always worth watching. Last Saturday, I skipped through Austin City Limits as I’d seen the show. The Kate hour following was an hour of Delbert McClinton and his band. What a treat!

      (“The Kate” so called because it comes from the Katherine Hepburn arts center in Connecticut)

      A Saturday PBS show I’ve seen twice this year, and will watch a third time if it’s on, is Robbie Krieger and Friends. Krieger of course was the guitarist in the legendary band The Doors.

      1. Well, I’ll be (properly pronounced, L-I-B), something you and I both sincerely agree upon.  I do watch those fairly regularly and have liked and followed Delbert for years (unfortunately I missed the first half of this week’s show).

        One other great movie/concert/performance I saw recently this year, David Byrne’s American Utopia; the movie Spike Lee directed is also out now on HBO — music, dance, art, theatre — all just WOW!!! Anyone who hasn’t already seen this (three or four times) owes it to themselves as a Christmas treat.

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