Friday Open Thread

18 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

1. What's up with the giant users online number right now? What are they reading?

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2. Because, why not?

   http://www.smosh.com/smosh-pit/photos/things-look-just-donald-trump

   Happy Friday All!

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   1. I’ve had this on my Facebook page for a while, just waiting for the right time to use it for something.

       

      

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3. At least he's not your congressional candidate (although, if you live in CO-4, you may have trouble telling the difference).

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4. Coming soon to a blog near you?

   BUSTED: Pro-Clinton Super PAC Caught Spending $1 Million on Social Media Trolls

   Correct The Record (CTR), which is operated by Clinton attack dog and new owner of Blue Nation Review David Brock, launched a new initiative this week called “Barrier Breakers 2016” for the purpose of debating supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders — or “Bernie Bros,” as they’re referred to in Correct the Record’s press official release — on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other social media platforms.

   The “Barrier Breakers” will also publicly thank Hillary Clinton’s superdelegates and fans for supporting her campaign. The paid trolls are professional communicators, coming from public relations and media backgrounds.

   The official press release at the link included provides a less antagonistic view of the program. For those who might not know, Correct the Record is a super PAC that coordinates directly with the Clinton campaign through what it believes is a loophole that allows such coordination.

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   1. Who knew? HRC has her own pet Moderatus on retainer.

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      1. Once a hatchet man, always a hatchet man, I guess.   Though why championing Hillary makes one a troll is something pseudo needs to explain.   For the record, I am happy to report that my own money comes directly from the Koch brothers, in Kruggerands.  And my #stopmartinomalley campaign is succeeding brilliantly.

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         1. BUSTED! Hillary supporters trying to keep BernieBots from calling Superdelegates in the middle of the night to harass them for having different views called "Trolls" by online "journalistic outlet" 

            /yawn

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5. The Congressional Hearing on Fetal Tissue Turned Nasty. Here Are the Top 5 Moments.

   Panel members called the hearing a "farce," "witch hunt," and "kangaroo court."

    

   Like her or not, DeGette is earning her  pay on these.

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6. The "No Labels" Bullshit Squad is back in business. 

   Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, co-chairman of the nonpartisan “problem-solving” advocacy group No Labels, has a novel theory of what we’re seeing this campaign. “Take a look at the two most interesting, surprising candidacies of the presidential year,” he said Thursday at an event celebrating the release of No Labels’ “policy playbook” for the 2016 election. “They want people to do something different. The best politics may be unconventional politics.” Lieberman, unconventionally, was explaining why he believes the moment is ripe for entitlement reform.

   Perhaps No Labels has been watching a different election. Anger and the appetite for breaking the status quo in Washington are absolutely the gusts lifting the campaigns of Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders. But working people across the country are not packing these rallies to demand the sort of technocratic dickering No Labels offers in its new 60-point policy platform, introduced Thursday at a luncheon in Washington’s luxury Mayflower Hotel. 

   Voters' motivations may be similar in both parties, but somehow it's always Democrats who get the most pressure to conform to these kind of ad hoc campaigns, and Republicans who are excused for their Historic level of Obstructionism and their non-stop vitriol aimed at President Obama and anyone or anything associated.

   And I don't know if they've bothered to look lately, Cory Gardner still gets a "problem solver" status from the group, while Michael Bennet does not. 

   No Labels was founded in 2010 as a group comprising centrist Democrats and Republicans to counteract the entrenched gridlock that had begun to define the Obama era. (Another purpose: to offer sinecures to figures like co-chairmen Lieberman and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, whose political careers were ended due to lack of popularity within their respective political parties.) A cursory glance at the news suggests that such gridlock still exists six years later and shows little sign of abating, ever. 

   Someone predicted Republicans' psychotic hatred of the president would abate after his re-election. Can you say "NOT!" ? I knew you could. 

   Republicans also promised that if given legislative reigns they'd be able to govern. Go ahead and say "NOT!" again. And again.

   What's high up on the No Labels issue list? Social Security:

   No Labels puts forth a couple of relatively pain-free ways to do it. The reason it’s not happening, and the reason Sanders and Trump promise not to fiddle with it (unless it’s to increase benefits), is that they recognize that people do not trust Washington even to try “reforming” it right now. It wasn’t so long ago, after all, that the serious people of D.C. were trying to “reform” Social Security by shoving it into the stock market; the recession thankfully buried that idea for at least a generation.

   And it helped bury Mark Udall's Senate career.

   Oh, there is a shared anger among Republicans and Democrats erupting this cycle. But it’s not about how politicians haven’t figured out a way to put their bickering aside and eliminate regulations that obstruct capital formation, or whatever. It’s a populist anger against a system that people believe is rigged in favor of elites and unresponsive to average voters.

   Some politicians have figured that last part out. Those that haven't may soon join Lieberman and Huntsman on the DC think tank dinner circuit. 

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   1. No Labels,  my ass. They just snip off the tags…..

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   2. Helpmeet out, Zappy.   What's the difference between "no labels," "no guts" and "no brained?"  I get so confused at times listening to Lieberman.

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      1. Now, now, V, these are the supposed adults in the room.

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         1. Try this for a label, James: Has beens.

            Yes, being for entitlement reform guarantees you  a spot on Sunday morning talk shows when there is nothing substantive going on.  But unless they are willing to put serious tax reform on the table, and they never are, it's just pompous self-congratulation.

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            1. agree, V. It will be awhile before we oldsters die off in sufficient numbers for that to happen.

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7. I'd be happy to cut my social security benefits if the money went to a good cause like cutting taxes on the Koch Brothers .  Sure I would.  We all would.  

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8. Some Days the Good Guys Win.

    

   WASHINGTON — Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia used his executive power on Friday to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons, circumventing the Republican-run legislature. The action overturns a Civil War-era provision in the state’s Constitution aimed, he said, at disenfranchising African-Americans.

   The sweeping order, in a swing state that could play a role in deciding the November presidential election, will enable all felons who have served their prison time and finished parole or probation to register to vote. Most are African-Americans, a core constituency of Democrats, Mr. McAuliffe’s political party.

   Amid intensifying national attention over harsh sentencing policies that have disproportionately affected African-Americans, governors and legislatures around the nation have been debating — and often fighting over — moves to restore voting rights for convicted felons.

   In Kentucky, Gov. Matt Bevin, a newly elected Republican, recently overturned an order enacted by his Democratic predecessor that was similar to the one Mr. McAuliffe signed Friday. In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, vetoed a measure to restore voting rights to convicted felons, but Democrats in the state legislature overrode him in February and an estimated 44,000 former prisoners who are on probation are now eligible to register for voting.

   “There’s no question that we’ve had a horrible history in voting rights as relates to African-Americans — we should remedy it,” Mr. McAuliffe said in an interview Thursday, previewing the announcement he made on the steps of Virginia’s Capitol, just yards from where President Abraham Lincoln once addressed freed slaves. “We should do it as soon as we possibly can.”

   The action, which Mr. McAuliffe said was justified under an expansive legal interpretation of his executive clemency authority, provoked an immediate backlash from Virginia Republicans. They issued a statement Friday accusing the governor of “political opportunism” and “a transparent effort to win votes.”

    

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9. I'm glad we did this a long time ago. Restoring a person's full citizenship is a further incentive not to do what got them locked up in the first place.

    

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