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May 09, 2015 12:28 AM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 22 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one’s voice.”

–Ambrose Bierce

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22 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

  3. Speaking of Chaps:

    Colorado Springs man intends to run for Klingenschmitt's seat

    By Ryan Maye Handy •  Published: May 8, 2015 

    When Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt announced his plans to run for the state Senate, he guaranteed House District 15 voters would have to choose their third representative in three elections.

    Josh Hosler hopes he gets the nod in 2016.

    Hosler, a Republican, said Thursday that he will run for the seat Klingenschmitt, R-Colorado Springs, will vacate to run for Senate District 12.

    Republican Senate President Bill Cadman will reach his term limit next year.

    Thank, ummmmm, god, or God for that.

    This Hosler guy apparently has retained some sanity and social skills and says he will appeal to Springs Republicans who can recognize those traits. We shall see. Then he highlighted some of the shenanigans of our favorite Wacko Bird from the religious enclave:

     Dr. Chaps was temporarily banned from a committee over incendiary remarks and has made headlines for calling President Barack Obama a demon, comparing U.S. Rep. Jared Polis to a terrorist group and refusing to meet with gay and lesbian leaders unless they agreed to and paid for background checks.

    Wow. Missed that last one, which, like Ted Haggard, makes one wonder how much time and effort Dr. Chaps spends in his basement thinking about Teh Gay and how to resist its siren call.

    1. I noted Hosler's candidacy for HD15 a couple of days ago. S'OK, Pols will have a diary up about it any day now….wink.

      So Zap, onto your favorite schtick, from a policy point of view, is it a good or a bad thing that Chaps will likely be replaced in HD15 by a moderate Republican, or what passes for one these days? How about from a politics point of view?

      1. hmmmmm, I'm going to have to give that one some real thought. It is quite the conundrum, if I do say so myself.

        My first thought is that the way El Paso R's are burning through candidates we might see ol' Doug Bruce in action again. Can you cast leg. votes from your jail cell?

  4. This is just sickening….

    America's richest congressman says America's poor are 'the envy of the world

     

    Darrell Issa, the richest man in Congress, said America has made "our poor somewhat the envy of the world."

    Asked by CNNMoney whether he feels personally responsible to address income inequality in the United States, the Republican Congressman from California said "absolutely." But he noted that America is the richest country on earth and implied that those in poverty here are better off than the poor in other nations.

    "If you go to India or you go to any number of other Third World countries, you have two problems: You have greater inequality of income and wealth. You also have less opportunity for people to rise from the have not to the have," said Issa.

    Taking a cue from Tom Cotton…

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/08/1383245/-Congressman-Darrell-Issa-America-s-poor-are-the-envy-of-the-world#

    1. Nice that our poor aren't as badly off as in third world countries. How about in other wealthy countries? How about in northern and western Europe, for instance? Are our poor the envy of poor in those countries? Is having poor who are better off than in third world countries something that should be considered any sort of accomplishment by the the United States of America in line with the the right's accepted dogma of American exceptionalism? Our poor aren't as badly off as the poor in India doesn't sound all  that exceptional to me. 

  5. First, India would like to believe that it is better than Third World at this point. Second, I would suggest that economic mobility here in the USA isn’t what it used to be. Third, I don’t see Congressman Issa doing a whole lot to help the poor ANYWHERE.

    I’ll stop now; Issa is so willfully ignorant that one could rant on for hours…

    1. India might not like to think of itself as third world but its poor are pretty darned poor and a pretty low bar for the country that proclaims its exceptionalism. There was a time when we had the most prosperous middle class, the be most upward mobility, health care that really was the envy of the world even if it was pricey. We aren't on top in any of those categories or in education. It's also silly to keep claiming we are freer than the people of any other country anymore. 

      Pretty much the only area where we're still number one in the world is our military capability and it's scary to think where that would be if not for the influx of European scientists fleeing the Nazis during the war years and the Nazi scientists (google paperclip) we invited to come work here after the war. Wait. There are two other categories where no other modern industrial state can top us…. ridiculous bible thumping science denying pols and the size of the wealth gap.

    1. +10.

      Colo. Springs District 11 went through one of those Reactionary Republican takeovers several years back. All those Jihadists for Jesus, Willie Breazell, Sandy Shakes, Eric Christen (3 names that have gone to infamy) made about the same mess of it as the current crowd is in JeffCo.

      The recall effort, dubbed End the D11 Chaos, was launched in June just after the board's 4-3 vote to fire former superintendent Sharon Thomas. Initiated by community activist Ann Oatman-Gardner, along with former D-11 board members Mary Ellen McNally and Norvell Simpson, the campaign garnered 500 volunteers, over $22,000 and nearly 35,000 signatures to put a recall to the district's voters.

      "We launched our effort on Sandy's irresponsible decision-making," says Oatman-Gardner, referring specifically to Shakes' votes to hire Thomas, then fire her a year later. "We said, "Fine, if we are going to do a recall, Eric's time is up.' He is a roadblock. But he is also pro-voucher, and we didn't like that."

      The school voucher debate which centers on allowing parents to use public school dollars for private school tuition has roiled through District 11 since 2003, when Christen, Shakes, Cox and Breazell were elected with the massive financial backing of local developer and voucher proponent Steve Schuck. Christen, Cox and Breazell never accomplished the reforms that they say would give parents more choice. (Shakes has shifted allegiances between the pro-voucher and pro-public-school factions on the board.) In the 2005 school board election, a strong counter-campaign ushered more traditionally minded candidates John Gudvangen, Sandra Mann and Tami Hasling to fill three vacant seats.

      Republicans hate government, and vote government haters in, who then proceed to ruin the functionality of government, which, it turns out, many people actually rely on whether they know it or not.

      1. Exactly. They only want to be in government to commandeer what they want, like tax dollars to give affluent parents what amounts to big fat coupons for big fat discounts at private schools the riffraff can't afford even with a damn voucher (see madco's link) and destroy the rest. These are selfish, greedy, delusional pin heads who wouldn't last 15 minutes if they ever succeeded in shrinking government to bath tub drowning size.  Fools that they are, they honestly believe that they are rugged, superior, self reliant, real Americans and Christians, entirely paying their own way with their own money despite all the things government provides and which they all depend on every single day of their mean spirited ignorant little lives. And low profile, low turn out school board elections are the ideal place for them to infiltrate before the non-voting majority knows what hit them. 

    1. Not any time soon. First Dems would have to stop losing majorities in both houses.Then they'd have to win a veto proof majority in the Senate while holding the House and the WH. Then they'd have to get all Dems on board. I wouldn't be doing all that much quaking if I were Scalia or Thomas. They might not live long enough to have to worry about it at all. I think all of these visions of quaking righties (in the Supreme Court over this. In the Colorado GOP over Carroll) are pretty long on wishful thinking. It's generally the establishment Dem pols doing the quaking.

      1. There's a much bigger problem than that. Any attempt to implement a code of ethics for the Supreme Court by the other branches of government would trigger a major separation of powers pissing match.

          1. I don't think rightie morons like Huckabee and Carson (yes a surgeon can be a moron about everything but surgery) are going to be winning any of those pissing matches with their slightly different arguments, the upshot of both being that the Supreme Court shouldn't be the final judges of whether laws are constitutional or not.

            In Huck's case his understanding of the role of the Supremes is even more outlandish than Carson's. He thinks they are making law when their decisions do not do anything of the kind but do determine whether or not laws infringe on constitutional rights and therefore whether or not they can be allowed to stand. If they find, for instance, that laws against gay marriage violate a constitutional right they would not be making law mandating gay marriage, as Huck seems to think, but would be deciding that laws against it can't stand because they are unconstitutional, a difference he just doesn't get  Even George Will thinks his position is that of a dangerous nut. George Will, for God's sake.

            The right has been doing pretty well with the majority conservative Supreme Court ever since the bloodless coup that installed the unelected GW but even the most conservative justices aren't going to go for the new rightie drive to destroy their power. People with power kind of like it. The conservative Supremes may even decide that the elected right has gone so wacko and become so dangerous they might want to reevaluate their BFF alliance with it.

            Here's to the wackos taking the entire conservative power structure and its failed trickle down/austerity slash and burn economics and provincial religious right anti-science mania over the nearest cliff so we can get back to being the country with the most prosperous upwardly mobile middle class with the best health care, education, infrastructure and innovative science and technology on the planet.

  8. On the other hand, it might finally define the nebulous "good behavior" during which the Federal judiciary may serve, according to the Constitution. 

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