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March 04, 2015 06:39 AM UTC

Wednesday Open Thread

  • 11 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

"Solutions are not the answer."

–Richard M. Nixon

Comments

11 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread

  1. Here is an interesting read….

    The Price of Oil Is About to Blow a Hole in Corporate Accounting

    Bloomberg) — There’s one place in the world where oil is still $95 a barrel.

    On paper.

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires drillers to calculate the value of their oil reserves every year using average prices from the first trading days in each of the previous 12 months. Because oil didn’t start its freefall to about $45 till after the OPEC meeting in late November, companies in their latest regulatory filings used $95 a barrel to figure out how much oil they could profitably produce and what it’s worth. Of the 12 days that went into the fourth-quarter average, crude was above $90 a barrel on 10 of them.

     

    So Continental Resources Inc., led by billionaire Harold Hamm, reported last month that the present value of its oil and gas operations increased 13 percent last year to $22.8 billion. For Devon Energy Corp., a pioneer of hydraulic fracturing, it jumped 31 percent to $27.9 billion.

    This year tells a different story. The average price on the first trading days of January, February and March was $51.28 a barrel. That means a lot of pain — and writedowns — are in store when drillers’ first-quarter numbers are announced in April and May.

    “It has postponed the reckoning,” said Julie Hilt Hannink, head of energy research at New York-based CFRA, an accounting adviser.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/oil-at-95-a-barrel-discovered-in-sec-rules-on-reserves?cmpid=yhoo

  2. Stupid is like Stupid does:

    Like the shingles, "centrist" Democrats lay dormant in the body until they erupt again and your face feels like it's burning off. They all showed up at the Cafe today for lunch, and there was some whoopin' and hollerin' and triangulatin' going on, I'll tell you. I had to threaten to call the cops to stop them from dancing on the counter like scalded monkeys.

    "I have great respect for Sen. Warren – she's a tremendous leader," said Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), one of the members working on the policy proposal. "My own preference is to create a message without bashing businesses or workers, [the latter of which] happens on the other side." Peters said that, if Democrats are going to win back the House and Senate, "it's going to be through the work of the New Democrat Coalition."

    (You really get to smoke the good shit when you're that rich.-ed.)

    Who in the fk is brother Peters, you say? Glad you asked. Among his other qualities, he's rich as hell.

    And he's supported by the DSCC, not known for it's ability to pick winners and losers. (Mostly known for its ability to pick losers.)

    Scott Peters is a very wealthy conservative Democrat who bought himself a San Diego congressional seat in 2012. In one of the closest races in the country, Peters beat incumbent Republican Brian Bilbray 124,746-122,086, after outspending him $4,352,737 to $2,772,270. And not just outspending him; Peters ran one of the most self-financed congressional campaigns in history, having spent $2,757,452 of his own money. Since getting elected, Peters amassed a very conservative voting record that finds him voting with the GOP on crucial issues as frequently as he votes with progressives. He's not popular with Democratic voters in his own district and it was no surprise when the GOP mounted a strong campaign against him last year.

    Triangulation, baby!

    Actually, the great American middle-class was born at a time in which the top tax rate was in the neighborhood of 90 percent, and in which financial institutions were carefully regulated, and when there was a general political consensus that public investment and a thriving middle class were good for everyone. Damn, I liked Ike.

    Gabe Horwitz, director of Third Way's economic program, said moderates have been arguing the case for rebranding the Democratic Party around "the middle class and middle-class prosperity." "In the last election, Democrats, as a party, offered a message of fairness. Voters responded, and they responded really negatively," Horwitz said. "Democrats offered fairness, and voters wanted prosperity and growth."

    Remind me again. What was the fate of all those Democratic candidates who ran away even from this administration's very modest efforts at moderating income inequality? Nice to see you again, Senator Lundergan Grimes.

    (And Senator Udall.-ed.)

    No matter how hard, and how thoroughly, Dems get their asses kicked, they always see a way to move further right and continue their mistaken suckup to the 1% who dare call themselves Democrats. 

    Yeah, they have great cocktail parties, but they really do only have one vote each……for now.

  3. Am I the only one finding it oddly reassuring to see Alabama return to it's rightful place as the most fucked-up and intolerant state in the Union???  

    (Sucks to be Kansas — Losers!!!!)

    1. Not to out do the majority on the Alabama Supreme Court, Dr. Ben Carson explained the basis for his belief that sexual orientation is something someone chooses by analogizing to prison rapes.

  4. SCOTUS is hearing the latest attempt to gut ACA today.  Steven Brill has an excellent backgrounder article explaining why even Republicans involved with actually crafting the legislation don't understand why this frivolous lawsuit got this far:

    http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/03/02/the-supreme-court-hears-an-obamacare-fairytale/

    Given the unambiguous mountain of facts arrayed for the defense (and well-presented in the briefs submitted by the defense side), it is hard enough to see how the lawyers on the plaintiffs’ side could actually believe in their case. Their zeal in wanting to kill Obamacare is acceptable advocacy, I guess.

    But if a majority of supposedly objective justices decide to ignore the facts and buy their argument, they will have engaged in a breathtaking act of political activism. For those of us who have always regarded our highest court as a national monument to the rule of law, it will be profoundly depressing.

    Unfortunately, the GOP has succeeded in appointing many radical, activist judges since the Reagan days, who will ignore precedent, the law, and common sense whenever it suits their partisan interests.

    The fact that it got this far, and that we have legitimate concerns that SCOTUS would accept the premise of the lawsuit as valid, is just further proof of how far the GOTP is willing to corrupt our institutions that have served us well for over 200 years.  I really do think the GOTP is over-represented by members of an "End of Days" Death cult..

    1. Cautiously optimistic after today's oral arguments. Roberts kept quiet and Kennedy sounded like he was considering using the Court's ruling against ACA Medicaid subsidies against the plaintiffs in order to uphold the law.

      1. Assuming Roberts is a rational actor, yes, I would share your cautious optimism.  Based on their questions and comments, Scalia and Alito however, are ready to pull the trigger, with Thomas in agreement.

        Another great discussion about the implications and risks:

        So will the Affordable Care Act survive its second encounter with the Roberts court? I said earlier that this case is as profound in its implications as the earlier constitutional one. The fate of the statute hung in the balance then and hangs in the balance today, but I mean more than that. This time, so does the honor of the Supreme Court. To reject the government’s defense of the law, the justices would have to suspend their own settled approach to statutory interpretation as well as their often-stated view of how Congress should act toward the states.

        I have no doubt that the justices who cast the necessary votes to add King v. Burwell to the court’s docket were happy to help themselves to a second chance to do what they couldn’t quite pull off three years ago. To those justices, I offer the same advice I give my despairing friends: Read the briefs. If you do, and you proceed to destroy the Affordable Care Act nonetheless, you will have a great deal of explaining to do — not to me, but to history.

        http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/opinion/overturning-obamacare-would-change-the-nature-of-the-supreme-court.html?_r=0

  5. Wow, our GOP Congress has been a hive of activity this week. Inside of a little more than 24 hours, they had Bibi speak and bash Obama, they funded DHS, Boner apparently put down a nascent coup attempt, and they tried to override the Keystone. Now it's probably time to take a few weeks off for rest, relaxation and fundraising.

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