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August 05, 2014 06:55 AM UTC

Tuesday Open Thread

  • 35 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

"Fear not, the people may be deluded for a moment, but cannot be corrupted."

–Andrew Jackson

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35 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

    1. What do you Western Slope folks think of Gwen Lachelt, the proposed chair of the Blue Ribbon Commission? And who will get to choose the non-industry members of said commission?

      1. I have a lot of respect for Gwen, but I remain skeptical about the whole process and particularly in putting it into the hands of the state legislature, which as far as I can tell is mostly unable to do anything substantive with the issue.  

      2. By reputation only, I understand Gwen Lachelt is a good choice but the make up of the commission could be a challenge for her.  It will be interesting to see if the varied interests can work together to produce a proposed solution,  Hate to say it, but I have my doubts.

        1. Concur w/ all the above about Gwen. A good choice, but if Hick has final say on the panelists, it will be beyond anything she can do except run an orderly meeting. This is ALL about the make-up of the panel.  If Gwen can pick 'em, with no veto from Frackenlooper, she might appoint a pretty good group.

          Then we will see what happens to the panels' recommendations if they don't line up with Hicks' position….

  3. Just wondering. I live in Littleton and am most frequently out and about in the Littleton and bordering Centennial area.  I've seen lots of people collecting sigs for 88, 89 and GMO labeling outside of stores and libraries and been approached many times but haven't once seen a collector for or been asked to sign the two pro-fracking initiatives or any of the other ones coming from the right. I  wonder if some of you saw a lot more of the right's petitions.

    1. I was approached several  times by the GMO people, who turned in 2x the required number of signatures yesteray, but not once by any pro or con fracking folk.

  4. Rs may not be able to get their loudest voices for bigotry to shut up so running away is their best option?

    Rand Paul was appearing at a fundraiser for Iowa Republican Steve King. (Because we need great Americans like Steve King to raise important questions about President Obama's true birthplace or speak hard truths about how most immigrants are drug smugglers with cantaloupe-size calves.) Paul, sitting at a table next to King, was just taking a big bite out of a sandwich when one of the attendees, Erika Andiola, tells King that she is a Dreamer. His reaction? Sheer panic:

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/rand-paul-flees-in-terror-from-mexican-immigrant.html

        1. And he's the type that gets all the coverage. As long as the grown ups in his party can't get his type to shut up, that's the image they present, as a group, to Latinos and non-Latinos alike. Only the non-Latino bigots are favorably impressed.

          1. King and Rand Paul are cowardly racists. 

            And yes to BC: "he's the type that gets all the coverage."

            If we truly had an adversarial press someone would ask King about his incredible hypocrisy and pettiness.

    2. Biggot and a liar:  "I was talking about drug dealers."

      ""For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,"

  5. And don't take my dirty hippy, liberal, socialist, commie word for it. Take it from the S&P:

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Economists have long argued that a rising wealth gap has complicated the U.S. rebound from the Great Recession.

    Now, an analysis by the rating agency Standard & Poor's lends its weight to the argument: The widening gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else has made the economy more prone to boom-bust cycles and slowed the 5-year-old recovery from the recession.

    Economic disparities appear to be reaching extremes that "need to be watched because they're damaging to growth," said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/05/inequality-economy-s-and-p_n_5649712.html

    2. The S&P is nothing more than a liberal front group stoking the flames of class warfare. 

      We all know that our new aristocracy will soon turn around and give all their new wealth to create jobs for the lowly underclass. If anything, they deserve a tax cut for their future generosity. 

    1. An interesting piece…worth reading. I don't disagree with the authors assessment of what happened. I feel some of that shock, just watching from a distance. After he won re-election, I think he genuinely thought the opposition would mellow and start to work with him. Of course, he was wrong.

       I, personally, have enormous admiration for Barack Obama. Without that cool, optimistic, greying head, where would we be by now?

    2. I don't believe it ever fully occurred to him that, instead of engaging in substantive debate, he would be confronted with empowered unreason and weaponized ignorance, or that a substantial number of Americans would believe that he was born in Kenya, or deliberately let American diplomats die in Libya, or now is proposing his own impeachment to raise money for the midterm elections. I don't believe it ever fully occurred to him that the Republicans would so loudly condemn their own ideas — in health care, on cap-and-trade — just because he tried to negotiate them, or that they would turn down a Grand Bargain on entitlements simply because he was the one who proposed it.

      It would have been nice if it had taken him the few months it should have rather than all these years to figure this out. Especially since he spent most of that time dissing and under-cutting his own side to pander to the other in vain attempts to get them to play nice when they promised, from before the first inauguration, to dedicate themselves to causing failure by denying the smallest victory to him at all costs. They never gave him the slightest reason to believe they didn't mean it but for five years he continued to delude himself. Now we're pretty much stuck with the consequences of that long learning curve until 2016 when we can elect a hopefully more savvy Dem President.

  7. Money quote:

    “If this requirement would not, in the face of all the evidence in the record, constitute an impermissible undue burden,” Judge Thompson wrote, “then almost no regulation, short of those imposing an outright prohibition on abortion, would.”

    In regards to Alabama's admitting privileges law for abortion providers.  

  9.  

     

     

     

    from Huffpost Politics….

     

    The Koch Brothers' Reign of Terror: How Their Great Wealth Is Buying Our Government

    an excerpt…go read the whole thing….

     

    The key players in many of these assaults are the Koch brothers – Charles and David – who have now obtained single-name celebrity status in the national political landscape. We know they are multi-billionaires – indeed, they are tied for sixth among the richest people in the world – and that Koch Industries is the second largest privately held company in the US. But what more do we really know about them, their wealth and the extent of their political activities? And just how have they each acquired their respective $40+ billion in net worth?

    It is, quite frankly, astonishing to me that they have time to keep building their corporate empire, since so much of their energy and time goes into buying influence and affecting policy in DC and beyond. In this election year alone, they have committed to spending upwards of $290 million to install their lackeys in public office across the country, and their slash-and-burn campaigns against Democrats are spreading and intensifying as the days dwindle before the 2014 election.

    But the Kochs aren't just an election year phenomena, as they also provide hefty funding to right-wing think tanks like the Cato Institute and The Heritage Foundation, as well as their own "social welfare" organizations like Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Partners and American Encore. They are also big players and funders of the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council ("ALEC"), which just had its annual meeting on July 30th in Dallas. Its agenda there, according to Rebecca Wilce in PR Watch, was to consider legislation that would, among other things, severely limit access to Medicaid, expand charter schools, expand US exports of "natural" gas obtained through fracking – as well as making it easier to frack – and undermine the EPA's Clean Air and Clean Water Regulations. ALEC has also been having a profound effect in several states nationwide, creating so-called "business-friendly" policies that destroy workers' rights and throttle unions.

     

     

     

     

     

    2. VICE: The Koch Brothers’ Fake Libertarianism: War, Forced Pregnancies, and Homophobia

      The largest media outlets in the country routinely describe the conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch, the shadowy megadonors behind much of the modern political infrastructure on the right, as selfless libertarians. Matthew Cooper of Newsweek claims they are "more libertarian than Republican, more Austrian economics than Christian Coalition." Daniel Schulman, author of a new book on the Koch family, recently told Jon Stewart on The Daily Show that the brothers do not "align with Republicans at all," adding that "David Koch has come out and said he's pro-gay marriage; they're pro-reproductive rights."

      It’s almost as if these journalists can’t accept that the rich men whose names are plastered all over elite cultural institutions in cities like New York are conservative Republicans. But the reality is that the Kochs are underwriting powerful political organizations with decidedly anti-libertarian views—like arbitrarily killing foreigners in detention and using the heavy hand of government to force women to carry undesired pregnancies to term.

      The evidence for the Koch clan’s supposedly libertarian beliefs—particularly on polarizing issues like gay marriage, war, drugs, and abortion—tends to consist of off-hand remarks made by David and Charles in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as a comment at the 2012 Republican convention.

      Following the Koch money paints a different picture.

  10. BTW, Colpols. For a few minutes earlier today I couldn't post here and when I signed off I couldn't get back on. Got a couple different kinds of page not available type messages. Tried again a little later and all was fine. Lucky it happened to me and not to David T or you'd be on his incompetent list along with all internet related things Obama.  Better watch it!

    1. Pols might share the same hosting service as HuffPo, because I got the same page errors on both sites at the same time a little while ago.  

      Thought it might have been due to an earlier power outage corrupting my laptop.  But I was able to get on to Google and CNN, so knew I could just wait it out.

       

  11. One less wacko bird in the GOP House aviary.  It looks like Kerry Bentivolio (Reindeer Farmer-Michigan) is losing his primary race to a (gasp) establishment Republican.  

    On the other hand, President Obama's teabagger cousin, the Kansas radiologist who thinks is sound medical professionalism to post x-rays of his patients on line w/ tacty comments, is holding Pat Roberts (the guy with visitation rights to a recliner in Topeka, but otherwise a DC resident) to under 50% in their primary.

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