Thursday Open Thread

23 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

1. No shiny new update on the Coffman/House imbroglio? No fair. You got me addicted and I need my fix!

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   1. Lana Fore released a screen shot of her phone conversation with House showing that House called Naye at Fore's house on the morning of the 17th and discussed something. Meh. We already knew that from listening to the recorded conversation.

      Really nothing new – just an attempt by politichicks to package this as some big new revelation.  They're calling it a "bombshell" and saying that House is admitting infidelity, but I'm not seeing that in the released screen shot. He asks Fore "Why do people think my personal life has anything to do with my being Chair?"

      which seems like a reasonable question to me.

      Politichicks is now trying to make Pols part of the story – good luck with that. As I've said, we liberals are enjoying this soap opera entirely too much – but all the back stabbing and circular firing squads? That's all their own people.

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      1. Don't know why they think proving or disproving infidelity is the big deal with this story. If it's true it just adds fuel to the blackmail fire and it still makes no sense that it would just "come up" in the meeting in reference to concerns about suits for any reason other than intimidation. House is perfectly correct in saying his personal life shouldn't have any relevance here. This isn't the 50s when pols couldn't even survive a divorce. But thanks for throwing me a bone even though there's nothing really new here much less blockbuster.  It's not much but it's something!

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         1. Don't know why they think proving or disproving infidelity is the big deal with this story.

            I think it's 'cause they are desperate to distract us, BC…

            same with this from mama….”Politichicks is now trying to make Pols part of the story …”

            This has got to be giving a lot o' Republicans the heebie-jeebies.

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            1. At least we think alike, not to mention type simultaneously, on this subject.

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               1. 

                  indeed….

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         2. Wait. I do get why they're obsessed with this angle. It let's sites like politichicks use "Sex Scandal" in their headlines. So this isn't about blackmail, extortion, quid pro quo favors, covering up illegal financial maneuvers and conflict of interest at the highest levels of the AG office. Only lefties are interested in that stuff. It's just a little ol' sex scandal. Prove he did the deed and tried to get the mistress to keep quiet and it's all good.  Case closed. No more investigating required. Got it.

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            1. I'm beginning to think there's a paper trail or money trail somewhere that the outHouse Threesome doesn't want exposed. If this were just he said/she said with a side of sex, then they'd have just gotten their story straight and stuck with it. Instead, their caginess may indicate that there's some tangible proof somewhere that refutes their simple narrative. 

               Or not.

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               1. There's a lot of social media chatter about "irregularities" with the GOP party books. Supposedly a $21,000 difference between one month's ending balance and the next one's beginning balance.

                  They're blaming it on House or House's appointed bookkeepers, although it seems that there are usually several people who are involved with a big Party's books. At any rate, nobody's finding anything criminal, which is the point. Sloppy bookkeeping, maybe.

                  I'm not enough of an accounting geek to know, but since the Colorado GOP is a public entity, its books are searchable at the Federal Election Commission site. Search under "Colorado Republican Committee."

                  So if you know accounting, have at it.

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               2. The "Outhouse Three"…God, I love that……

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2. Claire McCaskill: Bernie Sanders not getting scrutiny for being a socialist:

   Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) unloaded on her Senate colleague Bernie Sanders on Thursday, saying the Vermont independent is far too liberal to make it to the White House.

   “I think that the media is giving Bernie a pass right now,” McCaskill said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I very rarely read in any coverage of Bernie that he’s a socialist. I think everybody wants a fight and I think they are not really giving the same scrutiny to Bernie Sanders that they’re giving to, certainly, Hillary Clinton and the other candidates.”

   McCaskill endorsed Clinton’s 2016 bid almost exactly two years ago, in June 2013, making her one of the former secretary of state’s earliest major Democratic backers. In the 2008 cycle, she endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama over Clinton.

   In a news search of "bernie sanders socialist" I get 33,000+ results. This proves McCaskill is a liar and a petty campaigner and that Hillary's team is afraid of the truths that Bernie speaks.

   And to show how principled McCaskill is, she led opposition to reforms in military sexual abuse procedures that were proposed by Kirsten Gillibrand of NY.

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   1. It's really too bad that we're not calling Bernie names, I agree. Think of all the childish things we could say about him if we really got around to it.

      Or, we could look at Bernie's policy proposals, his voting history… I would suggest, Sen. McCaskill, that on policy grounds its you who is out of touch.

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      1. +1

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   2. Damn straight, he's a socialist and proud of it.  Loud and proud.

      Consider:

      Social Security

      Medicare

      Medicaid

      Aid to Dependent Children

      Pubic Schools

      Obamacare 

      All socialism to one degree or another.   Yet, even here, "socialist" is conceded to be name calling.

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   3. You want your guy to win, say less.

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3. In the meantime, Attorney General Coffman isn't the only politician in the nation under fire for possible extortion claims…

   Maine Gov. LePage admits to holding $500,000 in school funding hostage to prevent House Speaker Mark Eves from getting a job as the school's president. There's talk of impeachment, and I'm kind of guessing that his public statements will generate a Federal investigation.

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4. Something weird at 710 KNUS.  In Peter Boyles' 4th hour (last half) this morning, Randy Corporon and Tom Tancredo were on for for some inside radio yakking and KLZ bashing.  But then Don Crawford Jr. (KLZ owner) called in and things got interesting.  I had gotten up at 3:30 to do some work and then gone back to bed, so heard it half asleep.  I was aware they had gone into Caplis's time and then someone else came on instead of Caplis.

   I downloaded the 4th hour podcast to listen again.  The podcast subtitle is "Tom Tancredo and Randy Corporon from KLZ, and Don Crawford Jr. calls in too!"  It downloads as 1:24.05, but the last 24 minutes is wiped.  No Don Howard Jr.  Also no podcast posting for today's Caplis show.

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   1. Yankee, you missed that lovely episode. Corporon, Clark, and Cook tried to resign in protest for their boss telling them they couldn't interview Tancredo until he OKd it. Because, OutHouse. Corporon interviewed Tanc anyway, boss Don Crawford called their bluff, and said, "You can't resign – your services are not needed any more." End of story.

      I'm doing the happy dance…..

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      1. I didn't miss that Mama.  I was following all that which was why I perked up when Boyles started teasing Corporon's upcoming appearance this morning.  He finally showed up at 8:30 which was when the weirdness started.  Why wipe Don Crawford's phone call?  Why no Caplis podcast?

         It must have finally dawned on Don Crawford what most of us have known for some time, that his Liberty Lineup was really the Clueless Clowns.

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         1. Sorry – I missed that it was on Boyles' show. I might listen to that, although Boyles gives me hives.

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            1. Me too, but I realized that would be the only coverage of the OutHouse saga today.  Start listening at 27:30.  Pretty bad radio, but it's worth it to hear big mouth Corporon sounding like a crybaby.  Don Crawford's call came in at 9 a.m. and there was twenty minutes of good radio, but it's not on the podcast.

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5. Thanks, California.  Only 47 more states to remove the religious exemption from.

   California Set to Mandate Childhood Vaccines Amid Intense Fight

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6. As we know, if you need to carry out massive voter fraud  — don't screw around — go with the Pros in the Republican Party!  Jeb Bush has all the experience necessary:

   Florida Voter Purge Fiasco May Complicate Jeb Bush's Appeal To Minorities

   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/25/jeb-bush-florida-voter-purge_n_7656764.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

   It became immediately clear that the effort was generating a slew of false positives. Voters in good standing, who happened to share names with convicted felons, but had never been in trouble with the law, were being taken off the voting rolls.

   But election officials in Tallahassee — led by Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who would later gain infamy over her controversial handling of the election recount — declined to make the process more transparent and uniform. 

   Charges that the purge was politically motivated grew louder when it was revealed that the man responsible for determining the parameters for voter removal was Emmett “Bucky” Mitchell IV — a Division of Election attorney who went on to become general counsel for the Florida Republican Party.

   The report found a “strong basis” for determining that violations of the 1965 Voting Rights Act had occurred during the election in Florida. While it did not find that “the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters,” the report singled out Bush and Harris, saying their “overall lack of leadership in protecting voting rights was largely responsible for the broad array of problems in Florida during the 2000 election.”

   “The state’s highest officials responsible for ensuring efficiency, uniformity, and fairness in the election failed to fulfill their responsibilities and were subsequently unwilling to take responsibility,” the report said. 

   African-Americans were nearly 10 times more likely than white voters to have their ballots discounted in Florida, the report found, and it singled out for criticism the felon voter purge’s “sloppy and irresponsible” implementation.

   And then during round to (2004 election) Jeb got even more sophisticated in his voter fraud scheme:

   The 2004 iteration of the felon voter purge — this time carried out by the Department of Elections itself — ended with a whimper when a peculiar (some would say "fishy") anomaly was discovered the summer before Bush’s brother stood for re-election.

   That year’s list of 48,000 felons who were to be purged from the voting rolls contained more than 22,000 African-Americans' names, but just 61 Hispanics. (In Florida, Hispanic communities tend to be more Republican-leaning than they are nationally.)

    

    

    

    

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