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August 11, 2011 03:41 PM UTC

Thursday Open Thread

  • 87 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“If two contend together take not the part of either unconstrained; and be not obstinate in your own Opinion, in Things indifferent be of the Major Side.”

–George Washington’s 69th Rule of Civility

Comments

87 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread

  1. Whatever happens in the world is gist for talk radio and it always, ALWAYS, is reassembled as an attack on the so-called “progressives”…who are barely finished with yoga and just downing their granola, while talk radio has been  ALIVE for hours, with the continuing propaganda effort to divide and destroy America…

    The latest:  “The riots in London are a result of generations of creating dependency and class warfare.  We can expect the same urban violence in the US because the current administration is stirring the pot of class warfare and resentment against the “job creators.” We have already seen it in the Wisconsin unions demonstrations. We can expect to see it in the big cities like Chicago, DC and LA. It is all OBama’s fault. Furthermore, the expert on the lazy, dependency class, “You are doing a heck of a job” Brownie

    explains that was the real problem in New Orleans with Katrina…lazy people looting and the corrupt police running and people  refusing to help themselves.”

    1. Pretty much right on target. There were multiple reports out of England with parents being interviewed and complaining that the children and young adults from their neighborhood who are causing this distraction should be dealt with firmly. They are very, very disappointed. Also the UK cops are looking at Boston as a resource for how to deal with gangs.

      Now mayor Michael Nutter, yesterday he tried to get in front of this flash mob crap by telling his youth that he expects more, much more from them and they should straighten-up.

      As to new Orleans, Brownies leadership and the FEMA response could have been better. However, there was obviously something funny in the water to start with … I don’t want to say it was lazy people, but something was wrong with the core reactions from those impacted and the political leaders that guided them.

    1. that could be called liberal, MSNBC, and that for only a few hours daily. When one is on brown acid anything not similar or to the right of Faux News seems liberal. No one in right mind could consider CNN to be liberal. None of the networks are liberal, indeed they are just supporting status quo

      1. Give an example of so-called “liberal propaganda” on broadcast TV…that is the medium that also uses the public airwaves.

        I give examples.  If you can’t do the same, STFU.

        1. ABC, CBC, NBC and FOX.

          Every morning talk show, every weekend political show, every news cast and special report.

          Look for the fear of the day, for starters. For example a recent NBC nightly news report explained how the grid in Texas was at the highest capacity ever. The reporter and angle alluded to a calamity, instilling fear. What I saw was people remaining cool in an otherwise unbearable environment and the power company making money hand over fist. No need for fear.

          Fear this fear that. Healthy one week causes cancer the next. It is all total BS.

          1. Power grids have unlimited supplies.  Anyone who suggests otherwise is either a tool of the Grand Conspiracy to strip Liberty ™ or a fool deluded by that liberal talking head Sean Hannity.  

          2. Do you mean that the heat wave in Texas was so severe that the power grid might be compromised?

            So why was this biased?

            The reporter and angle alluded to a calamity

            how did they “allude”…was that your imagination?  

            Is it that  because NBC, etc. should not report on the heat waves because that might suggest global warming…and you are not supposed to believe in global warming?

            You are not making any sense.

          3. When I can listen to an entire show hosted by a conservative host without them whining about the “liberal media machine” I’ll CONSIDER the idea that mainstream media is part of some vast lefty conspiracy.

            I get my news from wherever the hell I want. I don’t need some jackass with a microphone telling me where I can and can’t get my news and how to interpret it.

          1. Sarah Palin is taking her bus tour to Iowa.  Now THAT is a gold nugget of news. She’s taking us on a hippie trail/head full of zombie, and we’re all taking the brown acid !

            Its just like Further, but with tax cuts !

          2. Dems don’t like Fox.  Fox  doesn’t like Dems or MSNBC.  But Obama has never attempted to interfere in any way with the rightie media’s right to do their thing.  Fox talking heads have the right to interrupt him and others Dems and talk over them in interviews. Obama and others have the right to say “Screw that.”

            When’s the last time you saw, say, Sarah Palin, giving an interview to Rachel Maddow? When’s the last time Palin failed to respond to any criticism by attacking the lame stream media? I think you’re doing what’s known as projecting.

                  1. That doesn’t even make sense. Dio does, though.  This is anything but a fighting WH. It’s been the let’s all hold hands and sing while the country burns WH.

  2. Maybe David will discuss the real unemployment level of 17% that could be going to 22%. HRC …. Anyone with thoughts on what her Presidency could have been or not?

    Source: AP


    WASHINGTON-The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell last week below 400,000 for the first time in four months, a sign that the job market may be improving slowly after a recent slump.

    Snip

    Applications fell in February to 375,000, a level that reflects healthy job growth. They soared to an eight-month high of 478,000 in late April, and have declined slowly since then.

    There were fewer layoffs last week in the manufacturing, transportation and service industries, according to the report. Only nine states reported an increase in applications.

    Snip

    The economy added 117,000 net jobs in July, the government said last week. That was an improvement from the previous two months. But it’s far below the average of 215,000 jobs per month that companies created from February through April.

    Many employers pulled back on hiring after signs emerged that the economy had weakened from last year. High gas prices and scant wage gains left consumers with less money to spend on discretionary purchases, such as appliances, furniture and electronics. Supply chain disruptions caused by the Japan crisis also dampened U.S. factory production.

    The economy expanded at an annual rate of just 0.8 percent in the first six months of the year, the slowest growth in the two years since the recession officially ended.

    Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics, said the declining trend in weekly unemployment benefit applications is an encouraging sign for the job market.

    snip

    Still, the outlook for the economy is dim. The Federal Reserve on Tuesday said it expects growth will stay weak for two more years. The Fed also acknowledged that the economy’s problems go beyond temporary factors, such as high gas prices.

    As a result, the Fed said it would likely keep the short-term interest rate near zero at least through mid-2013.

    Economists have slashed their growth estimates. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expects just 2.5 percent growth in the July-September quarter, down from its previous estimate of 3.25 percent. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced its estimate to 1.5 percent, down from as high as 3 percent several weeks ago.

    Growth of about 2.5 percent is barely enough to reduce the unemployment rate. The economy needs to grow by 5 percent for a whole year to bring down the rate by one percentage point.

    Snip

    In all, about 7.5 million people received unemployment benefits in the week ending July 23, the latest data available.

  3. You know and hate the source … RasmussenReports …. its like going to the dentist.

    The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 21% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -22 (see trends).

  4. a lousy, no good, compromiser! Clearly, everybody should have signed a bunch of no compromise pledges, stuck to their guns and we never should have become the United States of America.  This is the attitude that messed up those terrific seperate states rights from the get go.

    1. Actions, like elections, have consequences.  

      See: “Hey, I won”, Louisiana Purchase, Cornhusker Kickback, Carrying huge fake-ass gavel up Capitol steps…

      Stubbornness at this point is out of desperation, and per 2010 mid-terms, at the behest of the populace.

    1. Frankly the article is a poster board for expanding the health care act.  Men should be covered too.  Somehow I don’t think that’s what the article of you wanted.  You know, real men use condoms and get a vasectomy when they are done having children.  Condoms are cheap and my vasectomy cost me $5 24 years ago and would cost me $10 today.  Let’s see.  Why would any man buy a condom?  Well, it’s responsible, it’s safe and in the case of unmarried sexually active couples, it prevents a lifetime of expense and hardship from having a kid out of wedlock.  Man up here.

      1. just kidding. I bought my son a box when he turned 15. Showed him how to put one on a cucumber too. Had a talk about all those costs of raising a kid with someone you might not even like the next morning, etc. as opposed to being able to live and work wherever you want, go to school, make your own decisions, etc. Now I begin to wonder if I’ll ever have a grandkid 😉

        1. that you had a 15-year old who listened to anything you said, or that you THINK your 15-year old listened to anything you said?

          (The day after your conversation, I bet he told all his buddies at school something like. . . “you don’t ever want to eat the salad at my house.”)

      2. Everyone should be in charge of their own protection. If both parties take charge of their own birth control, then neither has to worry about the other’s level of responsibility with it.

      3. I’ve got a wall full of textbooks showing why men should use condoms; It’s a rhetorical question about economic incentives.  

        If it was a simple question of behaving responsibly we wouldn’t have a 50% unplanned pregnancy rate, and STD prevalence like we do. Most men hate condoms.  They’re not fond of vasectomies either.  The economic incentives in PPACA strengthen the meme that contraception is a “woman’s problem.”  

        1. Back in the day, when contraception was an issue for me, you bet your life that it was my problem.  No offense to all you XY Polsters, but I wouldn’t trust a one of you with something that important.  

          1. On a personal level, any woman who behaves otherwise is nuts.  

            I tell all my patients “men are dogs!”

            But it’s a “meta” argument, as “women’s problem” ghettoizes it, as opposed to a “fairness”, “social justice”, or “public health” issue.

    2. Because condoms also prevent STDs  and women may insist that men use them or forget about it?  

      Men also have an interest in making sure they don’t become father’s and liable for child support if that’s not what they had in mind?

      A pack of condoms is way less expensive than any birth control perscription but  way, way, way, way less expensive than supporting a child for 18 years?  

      Just a few  possible reasons that spring to mind.

  5. Kentucky Gives Creationist Theme Park 75 Percent Tax Discount For The Next 30 Years

    Williamstown, KY has already given them 100 acres at a steeply discounted price, already spent $200k in studies & grants, will invest $11 mil in freeway improvements, and promises $40 mil in sales tax rebates — this on top of the 75% property tax discount.

    All this because Ark Encounters LLC is boasting that they’ll bring 14,000 jobs to lil’ old Williamstown.  Right … in a town of about 2,500 people with unemployment running at 12%.  

    Any sane folks in KY?  Anyone sane enough to question the numbers spewed from the study, a study funded & held in private by the Ark Encounters LLC.

    This almost sounds like the Simpsons “Marge vs. the Monorail” episode.  Surely Rand Paul has something to say about this or any TeaParty comments?

    On a side note, this looks like it was torn right out of beej’s biology textbook:

      1. secular-humanistic faith-based assertion that this contains a “religious message” . . . when it is quite clearly and obviously a “hard science” research center.  Unfortunately not all of those folks live in Kentucky.

  6. Rep. Scott Tipton was scheduled to hold a town hall meeting in Cortez this last Monday.  I haven’t seen any report of the meeting.  

    Has anyone read or heard anything of this meeting?

      1. It is simply not true that every county in the 3rd CD has double digit unemployment rates.  They might be close to double digit(8, 9%) but I went to BLS stats and quickly found three that have rates lower than 10% (which is what I mean by double digits, or maybe Tipton counts on both sides of the decimal–in which case he should have said quadruple digits…as in 8.778%).  Why open your mouth and say something that is easily refutable in quadruple digit time? (i.e. .0003 seconds on the Google)?  And why, why oh why, does a reporter just write something down without bothering to at least verify the claim?  

        1. if you just round off the numbers you get double digits.  5.5% rounds off to 10%.  Duh.  Stop being so nit-picky.  Next thing you’ll want him to explain how cutting the local, state, and federal budgets will lead to growth.  After all, G (government) is one of the basic factors in GDP.  To most people who understand math, if we cut G then GDP will be negatively impacted.  If the economy shrinks, the G will have to go down because revenues will be less.  There’s some state that has had that experience.  Now who was it? … let’s think … Colorado, maybe?

        2. But go easy on the reporter. Small papers have skeleton staffs even in good times and they work crazy hours. Your criticism should be aimed at the editor, who should have caught it.

  7. According to Mitt Romney, any collective of individuals that somehow result in benefits to those individuals, is itself–as collective entity–a person, endowed by the Creator (Kronus?) with inaleinable rights.  Or something.

    1. Supreme Court (manned by corporate lawyers) has upheld the personhood of corporations.  He only said corporations are people and legally they are.  He didn’t say natural persons.  And congrats to him for being technically correct.  We need more Republicans to push this position and see where it gets them.  Maybe they could push for a national vote / constitutional amendment giving corporations full peopleness.

    2. Means testing for wealthier social security and Medicare beneficiaries is probably an idea that needs to be explored.  I like the fact that he actually throws out something of substance other than ” more tax cuts ! “

          1. My point was more that means testing is a way of doing something about entitlements that is acceptable to the wealthy.

            Your absolutely correct that impacts will be born, at least initially, by the middle class and potentially by the poor.  

            1. would have the biggest effect on the wealthiest without hurting them or their job creating capacity in the least. That’s why you don’t hear Romney talking about the cap. Means testing could very well just mean squeezing more out of the middle class.  

    3. Don’t they know when they are addressing their better.

      wait until 1:58

      Also – Obama has cut taxes for everyone.

      If I want to vote for someone who will raise taxes, I don’t think I have a candidate in the prez race.

      1. Oh yeah?! Next thing you’ll be saying he turned around the massive job losses under his predecessor, or that he saved some American industries like car manufacturing, or that he pursued and killed the mastermind behind some devastating terrorist attack! Foolish dreamer!

      2. Nobody’s happy.  Saw this at Gardners town hall too.

        I still think though that Romney is a good debater, and has his message down.  Maybe I’m just impressed that someone from the other side can actually form a complete sentence, and at least offer a tiny bit of detail rather than the vapid bumper sticker shit.  The bar is pretty low.

        1. Fake, astroturfed, wannabees.  They saw the actual rage of the Tea Partiers, and gave seminars on it at the SEIU Collective Retreat Camp this summer.

          1. if we had the Koch brothers running our training sessions.

            It’s true that teabaggers are full of ACTUAL RAGE. They always have been, and it’s the only way to get anyone to vote for the party of fuck-your-job/pity-your-former-boss. Aimless anger is easy to redirect toward the black guy in the white house.

            But Republicans have never in this century held a successful event without the whole thing being bankrolled by a few rich assholes.

            1. I keep forgetting.  I’m not angry about his policies – that has nothing to do with it.  It’s my raaaaaacism that won’t let me adore President Obama.

                  1. When Sarah Palin ran for the Vice Presidency (and before you switched sides), you used to tell us how anyone who disliked her was probably a sexist. Looking forward to hearing that again if Michele Bachmann gets on the ticket.

                    I don’t think you’re a racist, but you wouldn’t have many people showing up at your bought-and-paid-for rallies if those who resented black people weren’t allowed in.

                    Have you read some of the other posts around here?

                    1. Sometimes conversations on this blog feel like talking to a dog, who listens patiently and then looks out the window and shouts “Squirrel!”

                    2. I should have been more clear.  If all of the Tea Party rallies were attended only by frothing, racist, pre-paid Kochites, then how would that translate to the wave election of 2010?

                      Unless you’re implying that a majority of the country that voted in that election are frothing racist pre-paid Kochites.

  8. But it may be yours…

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/

    DENVER – Authorities say two Colorado police officers took wild, drunken ride through Wyoming on their way to a funeral in South Dakota.

    KUSA-TV reports (http://bit.ly/oqkeEr) that a volunteer firefighter on Wednesday spotted a police car from Aurora, Colo., driving erratically down a Goshen County roadway. The car was reportedly speeding, using its emergency lights to pass other vehicles and trash was flying out of its window.

  9. It is when I point out what I think is an example of downplaying rw wins, you take exception to what I am saying.

    But, see, you are now making my point.  

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