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March 18, 2006 09:00 AM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 43 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Yes, okay

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43 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

  3. Debate Results Are In: Beauprez Wins Debate

    9 out of 10 Beauprez staffer agree, Bob Beauprez won the debate. You can’t argue with results like that.

    Both John Marshall and Beauprez are in agreement, Bob won the debate hands down.

    Jack St. Martin could not be reached for comment. Insiders say he could go either way.

    ###

  4. Beauprez did win the debate.  The key moment came when Holtzman attacked the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which Beauprez later, correctly, died into Ronald Reagan’s vision.  Reagan was a diehard free trader, a vision honorably carried forward by George Bush.  Holtzman’s reversion to protectionist policies advanced by the AFL-CIO and the Democratic party — in front of a business group yet ! — took him way out of the Republican mainstream and alienated true conservatives.  It might be more accurate to say that Holtzman lost the debate than beauprez won, but lose it Holtzman did.

  6. Jim Welker is a racist because he forwarded an essay written by a BLACK man about BLACKS in New Orleans?

    There are more obvious racists in the Denver media.

  7. Marilyn Musgrave voted to extend CAFTA to 6 additional countries. Now the facts:

    On February 10th, the U.S. Census Bureau released data showing that the U.S.trade deficit reached a record-high $726 billion, or 5.8 percent of total U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), in 2005. This is an 18 percent increase over the U.S. trade deficit in 2004.

    This ballooning trade deficit is worrying for many reasons, especially coming on the heels of continuing news reports about plummeting U.S. manufacturing jobs. A rising trade deficit leads to the loss of jobs in traded sectors ? particularly good jobs in the manufacturing sector. A decade of rising trade deficits has contributed to the loss of over 3.2 million U.S. manufacturing jobs between 1998 and 2005. Trade agreements like NAFTA and the recently passed CAFTA exacerbate the situation, speeding up the rate at which U.S. jobs can be shipped overseas.

    Regarding the big-picture economic situation for the United States, the Center for American Progress? Senior Economist Christian Weller says:

    ?Large trade deficits are troublesome since they can jeopardize an economy?s long-term health. Trade deficits in excess of 4 to 5 percent of GDP raise worries about economic instabilities that can lead to rapid inflation, a sharp drop in the dollar, higher interest rates and falling standards of living? The U.S. government is a particularly large borrower on world markets. It has turned from a creditor to a debtor over just a few years. From March 2001 to September 2005, foreign lenders financed 81 percent of new treasury issues. The fear is that eventually investors will bring their money elsewhere, thus forcing higher interest rates and potentially causing a sharp decline in the dollar, higher inflation, and declining economic growth.?

    Reagan and Bush….Good for our country?  The facts can’t support that conclusion.

    I invite Voyageur to support his position with economic facts.

  8. You’re trying to argue in favor of protectionism? Take a look at the history of the world – open trade has consistently been one of the largest factors in improving economies. And one of the major reasons the U.S. economy has done so well is that it is a giant open market.

    There are some trade agreements that don’t make sense. And none is perfect. But in general reducing trade barriers is a giant plus for both sides.

    Give me a single example where high trade benefits have benefited the people in the country. (A few protected industries sure, but the people in general.)

  9. It is now state senator Betty Boyd as this morning, a Democratic party vacancy committee unanimously endorsed this fine legislator.

  10. The Central American Free Trade Agreement (known as CAFTA) is an expansion of NAFTA to five Central American nations (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua), and the Dominican Republic. It was signed May 28, 2004, and passed through the U.S. House of Representatives by one vote in the middle of the night by the U.S. Congress on July 27, 2005. El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic have also approved the agreement. Costa Rica has yet to vote on the agreement.

    CAFTA is a piece in the  FTAA jigsaw puzzle, and is based on the same failed neoliberal  NAFTA model, which has caused the “race to the bottom” in labor and environmental standards and promotes privatization and deregulation of key public services.

    Due to strong resistance by several of the CAFTA countries? parliaments who, when confronted by the reality of having to make the far-reaching changes to public health and other domestic laws required by the agreement are reluctant to actually implement the deal, the Bush administration was forced to delay the planned Jan. 1, 2006 implementation.

    I’m not supporting protectionism. I’m supporting wise trade policies, which neither Reagan or Bush understand. The totality of the economic consideration includes more than just credits and debits, it also includes fair labor practices, environmental protections, and yes, protections for American workers, manufacturer’s and the environment. What we have now is a mess. Thanks Reagan and Bush! You,ve done us all so well.

  11. Sir Robin,

    You keep venting your spleen about ‘facts’… and yet you avoid them like the plague.

    Here’s a “fact” for you:

    The House of Representatives (controlled by Democrats) approved NAFTA, by a vote of 234 to 200 on November 17, 1993, and the Senate (also controlled by Democrats) voted 60 to 38 for approval on November 20. It was signed into law by President Clinton on December 8, 1993, and took effect on January 1, 1994.

  12. Sir Drunk, of course you’re supporting protectionism, trade wars and beggar thy neighbor policies.  In the unlikely event you ever took even a single economics course, which I fervently doubt, you would have come across David Ricardo’s law of comparative advantage, which forever demolished the arguments in favor of protectionism.  In your hatred of George Bush, you automatically hate everything he does.  No serious economist would ever support protectionism.  Your way of thinking triumphed in the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act which was credited, rightly for worsening and prolonging the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Every president from Harry Truman on has fought for liberalized trade.
    Bill Clinton’s victory for NAFTA helped kindle the boom of the Clinton years.  It’s open and shut, your protectionist philsophy is a failure in every case.  In your world, the Alaskan Coffee Growers can keep out cheap Brazilian coffee and the Brazilian Snow Cone makers can keep out cheap Alaskan ice.  The result is that Alaskan Coffee costs $1,000 a pound and Brazilian snow cones $10 each.  There is absolutely no economic case to be made for protectionism, only the greedy pleas of special interests who hope to profit at the expense of consumers. There is a better case to be made for tarot cards and astrology than there is to be made for protectionism.  Marilyn Musgrave’s courageous vote on behalf of CAFTA was good for her district, good for America, and good for the cause of peace and prosserity around the world.  Only your all consuming hatred of Bush drives your stupid and groundless support of protectionism.  And, by the way, denying that you’re are a protectionist doesn’t shield you from the charge that you are.  It only proves you are a fool who doesn’t understand his own position or a liar who deliberately misrepresents it.  Stick to insulting American service men and service women.  Economics is miles and miles over your head.

  13. P.S. — I do thank Robin for one thing — proving my point that Holtzman’s attack on CAFTA was a betrayal of Republican and conservative principles.  Sir Robin and Marc Holtzman, hand in hand together, waging war on core American values.  Robin is such a whack job that he will come down on any side he thinks can be twisted to attack President Bush.  But Holtzman needs to think very hard about the company he’s keeping these days.  Beaurez’s spirited defense of the Reagan-Bush legacy is helping him shed the BothWays Bob label.  And Holtzman’s flirtation with the ultra-left on CAFTA is the worst thing to happen to his campaign since it digitally altered his photographs to make him look taller.

  14. You can stick with the facts, i’ll stick with the truth. Voyager, BMR, and Sir Robin… you’re on notice.

    My advice to you is to stop reading “books”. Me, I’ve never liked books. Too many facts, not enough heart.

  15. Boy, I’ve seen some extradinarily stupid posts before, but that is in a class by itself, Stephen Colbert.  Truth isn’t based on facts?  I understand that you don’t like books, but I seriously question if you ever read one.  Hell, I don’t even think you finished coloring the one your mother bought for you.  If your IQ drops one more point, they’ll have to water you!

  16. Bob–I mean Voyageur–you are so smart. You must read books and write columns. You must have been at the debate; you so accurately portrayed it. I think you should be a reporter, maybe even an editor. Please keep posting your objective, informative comments. Everyone finds them extremely useful.

  18. Jones,

    Andy Kerr and Ric Swain are the likely candidates to replace Boyd in 26.
    I do not know much about either, but the people I talk to all seem to know Swain and hold him in high regard.

    Messenbaugh was the front runner for a bit, but the AG ruled he didn’t have the right amount of residency. Pam Feely was considered, but from what I heard took her name out of consideration, as she wanted to remain at her job in the private sector.

  19. Energy savings today (well ok, next week)

    Our energy use is a gigantic problem. So large that even President Bush noticed it. And it’s not just the cost of oil, but how the money spent on it funds terrorism and limits our options in the Middle East.

  20. “Bob–I mean Voyageur–you are so smart. You must read books and write columns. You must have been at the debate; you so accurately portrayed it. I think you should be a reporter, maybe even an editor. Please keep posting your objective, informative comments. Everyone finds them extremely useful.

    Posted by: voyageurshouldtakeavoyagetohell at March 18, 2006 10:59 PM”

    –

    The name ‘voyageurshouldtakeavoyagetohell’…that just screams Holtzman college intern from the start. 
    But back to ‘vstavth’ and the attack: that voyageur is biased. Good god child, if you are going to attack someone for being biased, at least ATTEMPT to appear unbiased yourself.

    Also, a further (and still free!) lesson in logic and debate: attacking the person (ad hominem) and not the what they person said (the issue) only goes further to prove that the person being attacked via ad hominem methods was probably right in what they said. If they weren’t, the opposition should be able to refute the issue with solid reasoning instead of having to revert to “oh yeah? well you’re fat!” and the likes.

  22. Bob E.–I mean observer, I mean Voyageur–you know some big words. You must have learned those when you were getting all those advanced degrees, writing and editing all those stories, and teaching all those courses at all those universities as an adjunct. I wish I knew big words like you.

  23. Alan Shore’s closing argument

      Alan Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to
      be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They
      didn’t.

      Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed
      that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we
      kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture,
      I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood
      mute.

      Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists
      suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the
      right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for
      that. We did.

      And now, it’s been discovered the executive branch has been conducting
      massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and
      me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American
      people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven’t.

      In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is
      we’re okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure,
      illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial – or any trial, war
      on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

      There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there’s no
      clear indication that young people seem to notice.

      Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of
      withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way.
      Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential
      appearance, but we’ve lost the right to that as well. The Secret
      Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in
      effect, criminalize protest.

      Stop for a second and try to fathom that.

      At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a
      supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying
      something in protest, you can be removed.

      This, in the United States of America. This in the United States of
      America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?

      *Alan sits down abruptly in the witness chair next to the judge*

      Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. That’s a chair for witnesses only.

      Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.

      Judge Sanders: Please get out of the chair.

      Alan: Actually, I’m sick and tired.

      Judge Sanders: Get out of the chair!

      Alan: And what I’m most sick and tired of is how every time somebody
      disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is
      labeled unAmerican.

      U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Evidentally, it’s speech time.

      Alan: And speech in this country is free, you hack! Free for me, free
      for you. Free for Melissa Hughes to stand up to her government and say
      “Stick it”!

      U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Objection!

      Alan: I object to government abusing its power to squash the
      constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And, God forbid, anybody
      challenge it. They’re smeared as being a heretic.   Melissa
      Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes
      is an American!

      Judge Sanders: Mr. Shore. Unless you have anything new and fresh to
      say, please sit down. You’ve breached the decorum of my courtroom with
      all this hooting.

      Alan: Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29
      year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year
      was 1952. He said, “The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in
      which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats
      to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the
      patriotic cloak of anti-Communism.”

      Today, it’s the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked,
      “It’s far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.”

      I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights – we have to live up
      to that. We simply must. That’s all Melissa Hughes was trying to say.
      She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that room
      and speak for her.

  24. Jones:

    Look for Linda Mulligan to  become the front runner for HD 26. 

    From what I am hearing she has moved to the front of the pack and is very likley to get the nod Tuesday night.

  25. Very sad day today.

    Three years ago, George W. Bush ordered the unprovoked attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq to begin.

    There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — the big, main reason for the attack. We knew because the best information at the time, from the UN weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq, told us that there were not any such weapons there. We also now know, because of the Downing Street memos, that Bush knew all along that there was insufficient evidence of WMD on which to launch a full scale war.

    So Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Powell and Rice lied — and now 2,318 U.S. troops are dead along with thousands and thousands of Iraqis.

    Iraq is now embroiled in a civil war (according to former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi), and Bush and Rumsfeld continue to lie to us about what is really going on. But we know — and that’s why most Americans now finally understand what a tragic mistake it was to let Bush take our country into this unnecessary conflict.

    Real patriots that want to save this country from anymore of Bush’s and Cheney’s immoral ‘leadership’ can express themselves locally today and tomorrow — go here for details:

    http://www.metrodenvergreens.org/2006/03/commemoration_o.html

  26. Yes, Linda Mulligan is definitely the front-runner for HD 26.  I was at the Sheetmetal Hall where all five candidates spoke, and Linda Mulligan was CLEARLY the most experienced, articulate candidate in the room.  Plus she had like 25 people (many of them young people, including myself) who were there and pledged to walk precincts in support of her.

  29. In 2002 the Democrats lost the Senate because they lacked the guts to stand up to Bush on the WAR. IN 2004 Kerry lost the presidency because he would not stand against this terrible war.
    Only one candidate in CD 7 has the guts to oppose the war.

  32. tmgt: Thanks for posting the transcript of that particulat episode of Law and Order…something neither this administration, or many of the bloggers on this site seem to appreciate or understand.

    I don’t care who voted for NAFTA, that is not the point BMR-it wasn’t a partisan point, issue or debate…I’m arguing the merits. Go F*** yourself.

    This administration is dragging this country into the abyss. The assholes who continue to support his failed policies should start to examine REAL FACTS, not bullshit facts like BMR above.

    Voyeageur, you’re like a bad apple….you poison the whole barrel. Another f****** ingnoramus, without a vision, without a plan, without a soul and without a clue. What is your vision of the future? Lay it out. Bring it on, whatever! No clue! You’d love to continue the corporatocracy, special interest, environment be damned, unfair economic policies with your WW2 mentality. It’s way too late in your life for you to grow up. I pity you.

  33. The singular issue that will define this FAILED, WORST PRESIDENT EVER, will be the Iraq war. As Ameicablog states, you can’t spin a dead body! All this failed, miserable, incompetent, lying, immoral, wasteful administration can do is spin.

    That’s the crux of the problem George Bush and Dick Cheney are having with Iraq. (It’s also the reason Katrina had the impact it did in terms of exposing Bush as incompetent.)

    They can lie to the American people about domestic spying. They can lie about the economy. They can make up all sorts of bull about Bush’s Supreme Court nominees being mainstream, about how Bush really hasn’t polluted the air we breathe and the water we drink. How he hasn’t weakened America at home and abroad. But even with Bush lying about all of that, it takes time to prove, and that’s what Bush is counting on. The nation won’t know for years the damage that the Republican’s incompetence has caused (just think about global warming – Bush ignores it and lies about it, the Republicans in Congress help him blow it off, and it’s your grandchildren who will be paying the price, long after Bush is out of office).

    But when it comes to Iraq, Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and their Republican supporters running the Congress can talk all they want about how great things are going on the ground, but there’s nothing they can do to stop the growing number of dead bodies – ours and theirs – from proving otherwise.

  36. From the leftcoaster:

    Three years and what’s to show for it? According to Bush, progress.

    President Bush said Sunday he was encouraged by the progress toward forming a unity government in Iraq and asked Americans to remember the sacrifice of troops on the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion.

    Of course he is encouraged. He was encouraged in 2003, and 2004, and in 2005. He brought us “Mission Accomplished” on May 1, 2003. And on May 29, 2003, the WMD. Then on March 24, 2004, made a joke out of those WMD it turned out we hadn’t found. “Freedom reigned” on June 28, 2004, when “sovereignty” was transferred to Iraq. On August 30, he trumpeted our “catastrophic success.” On May 30, 2005, we discovered the insurgency was in its last throes, and on December 15, 2005, witnessed the myth of the purple finger.

    And throughout these interminable three years, Bush, glimmering in his “sunny nobility,” has remained stubbornly and doggedly attached to the optimistic talking points. For example, remember when the war started and Bush said we would be out of Iraq by the end of 2004? Here’s a reminder:

    None of this was anticipated at the start of the Iraq war by Bush administration officials; they were confident that the American military could topple Saddam Hussein’s government and pacify any left-over “dead end” loyalists of the old regime in about three months. Defense Department figures, reported by the Washington Post on March 19, projected reductions in American troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan from just over 200,000 at the time of the invasion to about 125,000 by September 2003; to 50,000 six months later; and — not counting troops left to garrison the permanent bases — to zero by the end of 2004.

    They were wrong, of course. Troop levels, after declining according to plan during the summer of 2003, began climbing again as the resistance grew — in response to a deepening economic and infrastructural disaster, and to the brutal nature of the American military occupation. With some fluctuations, since the beginning of 2004 the numbers of boots on the ground in Iraq have remained at about the 150,000 level (not counting expensive private “security contractors” hired by the Pentagon and private firms) — almost double the number that the U.S. could hope to sustain in the long run, given the force levels of the present volunteer military.

    The fact is what Bush says about Iraq is irrelevant. He is an incompetent buffoon who knows nothing beyond what is written for him in his talking points on any issue, much less Iraq. He has the counsel of some of the most unprincipled, opportunistic, and craven people to have “served” in government service. And he has been enabled throughout by a Republican Congress who have abandoned their obligation to this country.

    The real question is when will the Rubber Stamp Republicans stop being led by the nose by BushCo. The answer? Never.

    There is one answer for the nation–we can’t get rid of Bush until 2008. Throw the Rubber Stamp Republicans out on November  7, 2006.

    Then there are those who blog on this site who continue to try and support this administartion and it’s failed policies. Are they just ignorant, stupid or too proud (like the boy king) that they can’t admit their mistakes, while WE THE PEOPLE pay $200 million a day for this huge error. Where are the “It’s my money crowd” when you need them?

    The vitrioloc, name calling Voyageurs, BMR’s gecko’s and Iron Mikes apparently have super glue on their eye lids……pity, pity!

  40. “Oh won’t you take me home tonight?
    Oh down beside your red firelight
    Oh can you give it all you got
    Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round”

    T-Minus 1 Hour

  42. I don’t care who voted for NAFTA, that is not the point BMR-it wasn’t a partisan point, issue or debate…I’m arguing the merits. Go F*** yourself.

    *******************

    More ‘Deep Thoughts’, by Sir Robin.

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