Thursday Open Thread

16 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

1. Time to update the Big Line and include more candidates. For example: Norm Olsen.

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   1. Time to a rest give it.

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      1. 

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   2. We'll do it first thing tomorrow.

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      1. We need a Big Line on Trump even staying in the race. Right now it's about 50/50.

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         1. And a Big Line line on the Big Line satisfying all the mewling readers, too ???

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         2. Hey Zap, you aren't alone in wondering when, not if, Trump gets tired of his charade and pulls out:

            TRUMP: I don’t know. Whatever it is, it is. Look, all I do is tell the truth. I’m a truth-teller. All I do is tell the truth. [bah, hah, hah! ed.] And if at the end of 90 days, I fall short because I’m somewhat politically correct even though I’m supposed to be the smart one and even though I’m supposed to have a lot of good ideas, it’s OK. You know, I go back to a very good way of life. It’s not what I’m looking to do. I think we’re going to have a victory, but we’ll see. At the end, it’s either going to work or I’m going to have a very, very nice long vacation.”

            http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-pivot-founder_us_57ac6c75e4b0ba7ed23f2a0e?section=&

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            1. Clearly, this is a man who is not accustomed to having people challenge him. The above sounds a lot like a man who is ready to tell everyone around him to fuck off, grab his golf clubs, and take off a couple of weeks.

               The gunfight at the OK corral is brewing…I think the Republicans are desperate to fix this before the Olympics are finished and America starts to pay attention again. 

               It seems to me,the most important characteristic a president must possess and continue to cultivate is humility. George Bush had little of it but was not above it. President Obama has it in abundance. To Donald J. Trump, it is a word that only applies to others.

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               1. ….even though I’m supposed to be the smart one and even though I’m supposed to have a lot of good ideas, it’s OK.

                  Is this one of those things that "people are saying"? The people whose voices he hears in his head perhaps?

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   3. Norm's clearly there, but he's has no effin' chance; makes it hard to see him. 

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2. Who or what is Norm Olsen? Why should people be interested?

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   1. Lookee what I found…an archive. Coloradopols used to do "third party weeks". Norm Olsen was featured. Apparently, he's a Libertarian and a "militiaman".

      Here's a suggestion for a regular feature, Pols…dig into your wayback machine, since you have this handy archives, an say, "10, years ago in Colorado history,"…… For example I saw a diary titled "Playing the gay card again". I didn't read it, but it would be interesting to compare how attitudes have changed. Or when Dick Lamm declared that it was one's "duty to die", compared to today's right to die initiative. Of course, depressingly, we might also find that some things never change. Anyway, just a suggestion.

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3. and as we let Crazy Republicans distract all of us from any rational discussion of policy we shouldn't forget the complete failure of Austerity and the bad faith politics of Republicans who insist on and Democrats (like Udall and Bennet) who agree with it.

    [T]he typical American household has not seen its income rise since the beginning of the Great Recession.

   The key difference is in how the government responded to the Great Recession, compared with previous busts, EPI argues.

   When the federal government wants to counteract a sharp pullback in consumer demand, it uses either monetary policy or fiscal policy.

   To enact monetary stimulus, the Federal Reserve lowers the target federal funds rate ― the interest rate at which banks lend to one another overnight ― reducing borrowing costs throughout the economy.

   Boosting economic growth through fiscal policy entails either cutting taxes or increasing public spending. 

   In the early 1980s, the economic circumstances allowed monetary policy to play a bigger role than it could in recent years, EPI argues. 

   Since interest rates were already low in the wake of the Great Recession and inflation was nonexistent, the government needed to rely much more heavily on fiscal stimulus to fill the gap in demand, according to EPI.

   Obama, understanding this, advocated for the massive stimulus package, some two-thirds of which was on public spending for items like rebuilding train and road infrastructure.

   But state and local lawmakers ― mostly Republicans ― cut back on spending so severely that total government spending per person ― at the federal, state and local levels ― is lower now than it was at the worst point of the Great Recession, according to EPI.

   Heckuva job, Austerians, even simple road and sewer work is a government function that happens only after significant damage and disaster and a usually mind numbing debate about funding such extraordinary activity as filling potholes and stuff.

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   1. Beat me to it, Zap. I had that all set to post!

      Of course it's what we nutty libs have been saying all along. But if we're so nutty why is our view backed up by decades worth of data? Wait! I think I've got it.

      Conservative economic theory is clearly not data based so it must be faith based. If God can plant all those fossils to test their faith in the literal truth of the biblical creation narrative why couldn't he arrange for fifty or sixty years worth of apparent utter failure to test their faith in the holy tenets of conservative economic theory? 

      Obviously Kansas is the supreme test of all tests. If you can continue to believe in conservative voodoo economics in the face of Kansas….  you've passed with flying colors. You've got the Devil on the run!

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4. Moddy will be happy.
   Drumpf™ is up by 11 in Texas.

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   1. Would that be the same State Republic that "loser" Romney won over Isis's founder by just 16 in 2012?

      The same State Teapublic that Lyin' Ted Cruz, son of Kennedy's assassin, hung a 17-point wallop on Drumpf just two months ago?

       Tee hee hee, snerk. . .

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