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December 10, 2021 11:03 PM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 48 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Humanity is in danger of being trapped in this world by its moral adolescents.”

–Omar Bradley

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48 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Watching the tornado fallout over six heartland states, (Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi) 5/6 of which voted for Trump in 2020, and have legislatures that deny climate change and suppress voters. They currently promote “state’s rights” to allow them to further Trump’s autocracy.

    Yet now, they need Federal agencies under the Biden administration to survive and rebuild: the National Guard, FEMA, HHS, Homeland Security, and more.
    It’s always good to see the community pulling together after disasters.
    I just wonder if the aftermath will lead to people rethinking those anti-democratic ideas. What would Trump have done to help them? What did he do to help them during the pandemic?

    New York Times coverage: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/11/us/tornadoes-midwest-south
    CNN coverage:
    https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/kentucky-tornado-midwest-south-storms/index.html

    Previously in this spot:

    Placeholder to prevent Pear’s latest list of Q talking points from being the pinned post all weekend.

    1. I am beginning to sense something about to happen. We have been watching the "Orange Shitshow" for a while now, hoping all along for that moment when we find the straw that breaks this camels' back.

      I can't exactly say why. Maybe it is the slowly increasing number of Republicans speaking out.

      Most notably, Chris Christie's calculation that he should take on Trump. His level of unhinged ass-kissing was something to behold. Now he has "come out"…accusing Trump of "giving me Covid -19".

      There are other signs of weakness. America is rapidly recoiling from the truly repulsive behavior of the "TrumpyKids of Congress", Gaetz, Gosar, Gohmert, Greene, and Glockbert.

      I am not predicting here…I know better…but I think the "worm is turning", as my Dad used to say.

      1. I think I agree – but I also know that it's going to be very difficult for the "worms" to turn against authoritarianism. And dilution may be the solution to "pollution" on the Supreme Court. 

        1. I think the SCOTUS angle is critical. Does Roberts want his legacy to be that of, perhaps, the most political High Court ever? Does he want to be remembered for his jurisprudence…or his politics?

          He needs to be concerned that congress will, in fact, intervene here. Hopefully, it will keep him honest.

          1. As Senator Whitehouse pointed out, Roberts gave Republican-favoring partisan rulings 73 times in 2017-2018. On cases where the Dem-appointed justices dissented with the other Republicans, he favored the Republicans 92%. 

            The dude articulated the precedence of replacing “hotly contested” precedents without scheduling a rehearing.

            Roberts best be comfortable with being a most blatant partisan judge. Honesty is not in his rulebook.

            1. Roberts is only “calling balls and strikes,” just as he so famously promised . . .

              . . . no one asked if he’d be favoring one particular team at bat?

              (Effin’ lawyers . . .)

              1. And like umpires, what he calls is ALWAYS right.

                Unlike umpires, he can't be relegated to only games out of the spotlight, put on probation, or even put on a "correction plan."

    2. KWTree gets the “sky is falling “ award for being the first to attribute the tornados to climate change.

      Climate change is a political hoax for government to get more of poor peoples money and convince them to accept a minimal life style.`

      Let the group think begin.

        1. Unlike Ttumpy who had sex with a pornstar named Stormy and then thought he was a meteorologist, what profound experience has made Pfruit a climate expert? 
           

          Cold to the north, warm to the south.  It was 82 in Memphis the day of the event.  Climate change = more heat and energy in the atmosphere = super storm events .  It’s just math Pfruit  

           

      2. The tornados were not the result of climate change. They were God’s revenge upon Kentucky giving us Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell.

        We need to explain this stuff in terms the local morons can understand.

        1. This 👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾 (or there was another ghey wedding somewhere in the South this weekend?)

          Watch mainstream news ignore the good work FEMA will provide in the aftermath, a testament to competent folks now running our governmental agencies.  

      3. "Climate change is a political hoax for government to get more of poor peoples money and convince them to accept a minimal life style."

        "A minimal lifestyle?" You mean like turning the lights off when you leave the room, adjust your thermostat when you're not home, drive a car which gives you greater mileage, and change your light bulbs?

        Jeez, Pear, it's not like the government is asking you to do something extraordinary donate one of your kidneys (or wear a mask) to save the planet.

         

         

        1. Raise your hand and shout amen if you’re as touched as I am this morning by Pfruit’s deep expression of concern for the poor? . . .

          . . . Those of you who raised your hand, let me translate his blargle:  “We shouldn’t be saving earth — in consideration of all those poor. Because, as all good FOXpfruits know: The poor don’t need no steenkin’ planet!”

      4. Not the first, Pear. Although there isn’t consensus, most environmental scientists agree that a warming planet has changed weather patterns. It’s made hurricanes and  tornadoes more frequent, and intense. It’s shifted weather patterns everywhere in the world; here  in Colorado, we’re seeing drought drying up the western and southern parts of the state, and our main climate consequence is wildfires. 

         So if you choose to label  scientific inquiry and emerging agreement as “group think”, I assume that as a proud  “free-thinker”, you’re preparing your drivers for driving off the edge of the flat earth. Also instructing them to deny the evidence of their senses: it isn’t getting hotter and drier, and winters now are just as snowy as ever. 

        Fox News is always your source, and they were quick to pre-emptively claim no connection between tornadoes and climate change. But even some Fox local channels connect drought in the southwest to tornado alley moving east. 

        USA today on shifting of “Tornado Alley”

        Washington Post – planetary warming “adds fuel” to tornadoes.

        Yale Climate Connection: charted Data over time shows tornadoes increasing in variability, frequency, intensity

        FEMA is preparing for the “new normal”. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fema-tornadoes-new-normal-climate-crisis_n_61b6644be4b089ee1c35f2d0

      5. Climate change is an established fact.  To me, the definitive study was of ice core samples in Antarctica going back centuries. They showed steady buildup of CO2 since the industrial revolution.  Without question, these greenhouse gases cause more solar energy to accumulate in the atmosphere.  That energy must dissipate in some form.  Hurricanes, tornadoes and other extreme weather events thus become more frequent.

        In all likelihood, we are about to see a "hockey stick" rise as permafrost melts and releases massive amounts of methane.

        These are facts that can't be wished away.

        Einstein's theories were once derided as "Jewish physics."  But even if you believe that E does not equal  MC2, stay away from ground zero during an atomic bomb test.

        1. Believing in climate change is like believing in Santa Claus. Every year you see evidence of men in red suits with white hair claiming to ride reindeer powered sleds who enter your house from the fireplace. 

          You know Santa Claus only exist to convince you to spend money on people you may or may not care about. Good ol prosperity Jesus, right Blowman.

          So it is with government they convince you be be afraid so you will spend money of things that make no difference.

      6. State One: Create a political hoax for government to get more of poor people's money and convince them accept a minimal life style
        Stage Two: ???????
        Stage Three: Profit!

      7. Ah, pear, demonstrating that you don't understand climate change.  Meanwhile, climate scientists will continue to explain why humanity will suffer its effects, and in ever-increasingly bad ways

    3. I'm betting on Biden NOT throwing any paper towels or other clean-up supplies. 

      Probably won't hold up funds appropriated and obligated by career officials, keeping agencies and civic institutions from being able to help citizens, either. There will not be blue tarps serving as roofs for more than 4 years.

       

        1. To my knowledge, "Alex" Baldwin  never shot anyone. But you are a moron, so there is that.

          Oh. By the way…that climate change thing…?…You are completely wrong.

          So…there is that, too.

           

  3. Heather Cox Richardson, again puts today's news in the historical context:

    After World War II, under Chief Justice Earl Warren and Chief Justice Warren Burger (both appointed by Republicans), the Supreme Court set out to make all Americans equal before the law. They tried to end segregation through the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision prohibiting racial segregation in public schools. In 1965, they protected the right of married couples to use contraception. In 1967, they legalized interracial marriage. In 1973, with the Roe v. Wade decision, they tried to give women control over their own reproduction by legalizing abortion.

    Justices in the Warren and Burger courts protected these civil rights by arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment required the Bill of Rights to apply to state governments as well as to the federal government. This is known as the “incorporation doctrine,” but the name matters less than the concept: it said that states cannot abridge an individual’s rights, any more than the federal government can. This doctrine dramatically expanded civil rights.

    But opponents of the new decisions insisted that the court was engaging in “judicial activism,” taking away from voters the right to make their own decisions about how society should work. That said that justices were “legislating from the bench.” They insisted that the Constitution is limited by the views of its Framers and that the government can do nothing that is not explicitly written in that 1787 document. They wanted to replace the court’s interpretation of the Constitution with a view that preserved its “original” intent.

    …

    In Texas, the legislature has taken away from its citizens a right guaranteed by the Constitution, and the Supreme Court has declined to assert federal power to stop it.

    In a partial dissent from today’s decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “the clear purpose and actual effect of S.B. 8 has been to nullify this Court’s rulings,” and quoted an 1809 decision that said, “[i]f the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery.” Roberts warned his colleagues that “the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system…is at stake.”

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor was blunter. Texas has launched “a brazen challenge to our federal structure,” she said, one that “echoes the philosophy of John C. Calhoun, a virulent defender of the slaveholding South who insisted that States had the right to ‘veto' or ‘nullif[y]’ any federal law with which they disagreed.” 

    Under this old system, what civil rights will be off-limits?

    The court’s “choice to shrink from Texas’ challenge to federal supremacy will have far-reaching repercussions,” Sotomayor wrote. “I doubt the Court, let alone the country, is prepared for them.”

     

      2. Nah.  It’s DOA.  “Precedent” is just another word for nothing I don’t agree with.

        This SCOTUS will rapidly overturn any law that infringes the bearing of arms (even those completely unimaginable in the eighteenth century); they won’t find “abortion” or it’s antecedent foundations anywhere.

  4. Man, if this line from the Guardian about the Coup PowerPoint is true:

    The powerpoint was presented on 4 January to a number of Republican senators and members of Congress, the source said.

    It would put things like Josh Hawley's clenched fist to the mob and someone's shrill frenzied speech in the House saying "I have constituents outside this building right now" in an awfully troubling extra new light. What did they know, and when did they know it?

    1. And the same shrill voice tweeting "Today is 1776," plus tweeting when Pelosi had been "removed from the chambers." Within weeks of Jan 6 there were calls for Boebert to be expelled from the House. And here we are.

    2. In my estimation, the "Freedumb Caucus" knew exactly what was planned, and may well have even been party to it. Hawley gave away the game with that gesture.

    3. It appears to be. 

      I just spotted a headline saying the guy who wrote it just said publicly that he gave Meadows a copy and briefed him on it. Additionally…he spoke to Meadows at least 10 times the evening of Jan. 5.

      Oh, heck…maybe they were just talking about Russian orphans…or something.

  5. Jeff Timmer Republican, and Senior Advisor to Project Lincoln:

    We are not divided by politics. We're divided by Republicans on one side and pro-democracy Americans on the other. The divide is elemental and existential, not partisan. Wrong vs right; chaos vs rule-of-law; destroy vs preserve. There are more of us than there are of them.

  6. Heather Cox-Richardson again. She provides a must-read summary of the attempt to overthrow the constitution. Truly, a must-read:

    On January 4, Trump called Pence to the Oval Office to pressure him. Eastman presented his case to Pence; Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short; and Pence’s legal counsel, Greg Jacob. On that day, someone presented the PowerPoint to a number of Republican senators and members of the House. 

    Apparently, none of the people briefed called the attention of the FBI to the coming attempt to overturn the election.

    On the evening of January 5, Trump called Pence to a meeting as his supporters were gathering on Freedom Plaza near the White House. The people in the streets were cheering and waving “Make America Great Again” flags. Trump asked Pence to throw the election to the House of Representatives; Pence again said he did not have authority to do anything other than count the certified electoral votes. 

    And then, according to Costa and Woodward in Peril, Trump asked: “Well, what if these people say you do?” gesturing to the crowds outside. “If these people say you had the power, wouldn’t you want to?”

    Pence, who would have been the face of the insurrection if he had done as he was asked, still said no.

    1. So…

      The testimony and evidence we are finally getting verifies Trumps’ attempt to overthrow the elected government of the United States. 

      Yesterday, R&R, while commenting on behalf of CHB, asked me what else he could do besides give money to Glockberts’ opponent.

      I have time to answer that now.

      Face the truth. Stop defending the party that put Donald J. Trump in the White House. The party that exploited the Tea Party and, with added poison turned it into the White, Christian, hate missile that is MAGA.

      I really don’t think the handful of “moderate” Republicans continually lionized by CHB are going to change the direction the MAGA movement has taken the GOP. “We” need your voice.

       Unlike me, there are numerous (I won’t say many 😉) people who respect CHBs’ opinion…far more than there are prepared to take my advice.

      Being called out by a Democrat does not bother anyone I know in the GOP. But from a fellow “conservative”…I think they will listen. 

      Your fellow Republicans will avert their gaze and let it happen unless YOU…those of you who know how to say it, start addressing this issue wherever and whenever you can.

      So, yeah, that’s what you can do. A few bucks is nice…but the public narrative is more important. It is the GOP that needs a revolution…not the USA.

      1. "Being called out by a Democrat does not bother anyone I know in the GOP. But from a fellow "conservative"…I think they will listen." 

        That's right. And isn't that the point behind the Lincoln Project and other such groups? They remain Republicans (rather than start a new political party) to call out the nut jobs in the primaries, and when the nut jobs win, they remain Republicans but vote Democratic.

        Would you prefer they register as Democrats and flood the Party of Free Stuff with social/cultural issue moderate/liberal, but fiscal conservative voters? (Not that there's anything wrong with that happening.)

        1. I'm going to agree with R&R, here. We don't need more Democrats; we need more anti-Trump Republicans hauling the 60% Q-anon Republicans back to sanity.

          It isn't by any fault of R&R or CHB, and perhaps they can't actually do anything about it; maybe run as primary spoilers or as a right-wing Jill Stein. The Right-wing-o-sphere is 80% Fox, and 80% Bannon/Epoch/Newsmax, For the mathematically challenged, that adds up to more than 100% because there is some overlap.

          1. PH. 

            I am confused.

            Your first paragraph is what I am trying to say.  All those “moderate” Republicans who claim to be anti -Trump  need to do more than drop names and send a check.

            Which one of you is going to attend a Glockbert event and “get all up in her grill” about issues? Which of you are challenging the Colorado Republican caucus to condemn pew-pews’ rhetoric?

            If that is happening, why aren’t we seeing such opinions posted here?

            You may consider all my questions rhetorical. I don’t expect anything new and different. 

        2. Right. Nothing wrong with that happening.

          Please take a moment and consider how many of your assumptions about Democrats might be wrong.

          Your people (Republicans) are the ones who label me…not me. Just as you resent the term, "deplorable", perhaps we are bone-tired of hearing about, "free stuff".

          What I am trying to tell you is a half-assed POV focused on bashing Dems, A la Glockbert and crew, is the distraction your party needs while it methodically dismantles our democracy.

          I just don't hear the conservative sound machine loudly defending Liz Cheney.

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