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June 12, 2009 03:37 PM UTC

Open Line Friday!

  • 84 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“They want to claim this guy didn’t have the ability to act on his own. He only could act if he was inspired by somebody. Well, who did he hate?  He hated both Bushes. He hated neocons. He hated John McCain. He hated Republicans. He hated Jews as well.  He believes in an inside job conspiracy of 9/11. This guy is a leftist, if anything. This guy’s beliefs, this guy’s hate stems from influence that you find on the left, not on the right.”

–Rush Limbaugh, yesterday

Comments

84 thoughts on “Open Line Friday!

  1. and I am a big, fat liar.  I know I am a liar.  Because I make up the most absurd things, for instance I too have regularly criticized the Republican party, I too have criticized Bush and McCain.  

    Many of my callers–and callers to those who have tried to mimic me like Sean ‘Blowhard’ Hannity and Glenn ‘Batshit’ Beck–criticize Neocons, preferring to imagine themselves ‘traditional’ conservatives–you know the ones who wish we lived in the 1950s when racism was not such a subtle thing and people who looked different than the (then) majority tended to be a bit more, well, compliant.

    Once upon a time I regularly railed against druggies.  Then I got popped.  I use to rail against perverts. Then I got popped.

    I pretend to have a moral compass, but really I will say anything to defend myself or inflame my audience because I want more money so I can by my next wife, more pills (being particularly fond of oxy and viagra), and perhaps take an unexplained trip or two to a couple of the top sex ‘tourism’ destinations.

    I am Rush. I am a liar and a hypocrite of immense proportions.   The GOP bows to me.

  2. Is there anybody out there – anybody – with the chutzpah to defend what Rush is saying? I’d like to hear it. Absurd in the extreme, it’s truly amazing he is still on the air.

    1. He says something outrageous like that, then the cable news networks excerpt it, play it every hour on the hour, and bring in talking heads to discuss it.

      You can’t buy publicity like that.

      Limbaugh loves the attention.

      1. is loving him, too. Every time he opens his mouth, the poll numbers for those identifying themselves as Republicans go down.  

      1. “Morals” as in none.  This America is so ugly the mirror should crack and break.  But, thanks to the First Amendment, there is no lower limit to the lies and filth that Brushball can spew.  

    2. Yep.  Apparently this is the newest garbage the rightie talking heads are selling.  The Nazis are really leftists. It therefore makes perfect sense to call Obama, socialist, communist and a Nazi all at the same time and the recent rash of nut job violence is all the liberals’ fault.  

      I’m thinking they’re down to the smallest core yet of people buying this stuff but that core includes some seriously disturbed and dangerous freaks.  

      Wacko celeb Jon Voight practically called for a coup at that big Republican dinner and he’s not the only one skating very close to calling for “stopping” our legitimately elected President and congress.

      People like Rush and his wannabes are treading very close to sedition (although not with this particular stupid comment which is just his usual bull) and, in his case, it’s not even motivated by misplaced ideals or passionate devotion to ideology but purely and simply for profit and celebrity.

  3. If you want to know what Rush is going to say at 10AM, listen to boyles at 5.

    Rush has 20 million listeners…Keith has approximately one million…but hey, “What? Me Worry.”

    The republiccans have used their control of the public airwaves brilliantly…they have consolidated the base; defined the terms of the political debates….and haven’t spent one red cent…

    while the dems sleep and the  “band plays on”…dems don’t  even see the iceberg…hell, don’t even believe in icebergs…

    1. It’s more of a reflection of Dems/Libs to be the proverbial cats to herd.  OK, and some stupid business decisions.  And I’ll add a healthy dose of distrust of authority, which the righties so revere.

      I followed Air America from day one, and its subsequent Lazarus attempts like Nova M.  Mike Mally, too.  It’s all a giant left wing clusterfork with plenty of blame to go around.

      Only Thom Hartmann seems to be a survivor, and he has had to jump nimbly due to the above history.  But his markets are few compared to the ole Lintball; the closest one to me in Sarasota is Miami.  TH trounces Rush in most of the markets where they go head to head.

      True, he is online from Noon to 3PM EDT, BUT one has to be a registered member of his site, and for me that’s peak activity times.  Oh, yes, week old downloads at http://www.whiterosesociety.org.  

      The current, very sad state, of left wing propaganda.  🙂

    1. Whoever wrote this must have a far left agenda whose political goal is to tie everything evil in the world to conservatives.  

      True conservatives respect the value of all individuals.  

      The Holocaust Museum guy is a neo-Nazi.  Like Lenin and Hitler, he was totalitarian.  

      My goal and the goal of most conservatives, Aristotle, is to promote freedom (with basic limits, of course) against the forces of totalitarianism, both domestic and abroad.  That is my motiviation.

      Your specific question is so incredibly twisted, it doesn’t warrant an answer.  My previous posts on this subject more than answer that absurd question.

      1. but I sort of agree with you. This guy was a racist, conspiracy theorist who hated the government as well as just about everyone that isn’t white. The Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking him since the late 1970s’.

        I’m not sure I’d label him a right winger so much as a truly vile racist that has a history of hate a mile long.

        1. First, racism in general is strongly associated with ultra-nationalism, because “nationalism,” in its original meaning, isn’t just about political states, but also about the ethnic homogeneity of political states (“nation-states”). Obviously, the concept never was quite so clear, and has only become muddier over time, but there is a racial-ethnic element to nationalism. Nazism was precisely this kind of pure ultra-nationalism, that saw the nation and the race as a single entity.

          Second, contemporary racism in America is strongly associated with white-separatism, which is a combined anti-government and racist movement.

          Conservativism in America is the more nationalistic of the two major political ideologies (though, as I have argued with Parsing, labor’s resistence to liberal immigration policies is a nationalistic aspect of one branch of the American left, and one from which I disassociate myself). One large branch of conservatives tend to favor “strong military” solutions over “exhausting diplomatic avenues” solutions (though some fiscal conservatives resent our overzealous military adventurism on the basis that we should husband our resources better). More generally, conservatives tend toward in-grou/out-group orientations: Even those fiscal conservatives referred to parenthetically in the previous sentence are opposed to military adventurism on the basis of a competing in-group/out-group perspective, one which also eschews humanitarian interventions abroad.

          While the two parties, and the concervative and liberal movements in America, were entangled in complex ways in the lead-up to the civil rights movement, it eventually fell to the liberal Democrats to carry it forward (who thus lost their southern supporters in the process).

          While most conservatives are not racists, racism is more correctly identified as an extreme branch of modern American conservativism than as anything else.

          Of course, as Barron and I discussed elsewhere, taxonomies are expedients, and are generally reductions of a more complex reality. More valuable than reducing the world to categories is to identify the continua: Racism is the extreme end of a particular continuum which ranges between a cooperative humanist perspective to a combative tribalist perspective, racism being the extreme expression of the tribalist tendency. Those most inclined to talk about “us” and “them,” to legitimate torture (of people who did not benefit from due process, and so whose guilt is merely someone’s supposition) to save us from terrorism, to villify those who cross political barriers in search of work in order to feed their children, whether “conservatives” or “liberals,” are those who are farther along that continuum in the direction of what becomes “racism” at its extreme.

          1. Whether you choose to call it “racism” or not, the left in today’s America is the party obsessed with identity politics.  It was the opposite 50 years ago, and I would have allied myself with the liberal cause at that time.  But nowadays most conservatives are against judging people based on their race.  

            1. whatever can be said about it, pro and con, it has absolutely nothing to do with “judging people on the basis of their race.” Rather, it is (a poor and insufficient) attempt to address the legacy of historical racism, which does not simply evaporate once legal racism is purged. The need to address that legacy is absolutely essential, and obvious to anyone who examines the social-economic landscape of American society, and analyzes the causes of the disparities that are blaringly obvious.

              And, frankly, it barely counterbalances persistent advantages that are still given, both intentionally and unintentionally, to those who are descended from the “former” ruling race-class-gender. Ivy league universities, for instance, reserve “legacies” for the children of alumni, a certain percentage of whom also benefitted from such legacies, pulling a racist history into the present by doing so.

              Of course, such intentional legacies are the smaller part of the problem: Heritable wealth and social connections were left untouched by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by Brown v. Board of Education, and by all other headway we have made into dismantling racism in America. The past does not simply evaporate when the present changes its mind. A real commitment to ending racism requires a real commitment to, as the Supreme Court once put it, eliminating racism “root and branch.” Your superficial commitment to a colorblind society leaves the roots and branches in place.

        2. Those of us who remember the 70s and 80s will recall how elected Republicans were the ones who opposed ANY legislation addressing racism, and were on the same side as the hardcore Klan types when it came to opposing the MLK holiday. That doesn’t mean Republicans were the same as Nazis, but there were more ends they could agree upon than the Nazis could with Democrats or liberals.

          But Phoenix is also correct in that it’s simplistic to just speak of this stuff in terms of left and right, since there are those on the extremes who certain agree with totalitarian tactics. But it’s hardcore cons who lately are using oxymorons like “liberal fascism,” thus oversimplifying and obfuscating things, and KK seems like someone who falls for that.

          But my point had nothing to do with the neo Nazi who attacked the Holocaust Museum. It was about Randall Terry saying that there might be more attacks, and KK’s earlier defense of water boarding (which he says is not torture) should American lives be at stake. I obviously made him uncomfortable so he’s dodging the question.

          KK, if your previous posts did in fact answer this question, I wouldn’t have posed it in the first place. You asked me a theoretical question about this; now I’m also asking you a theoretical question, albeit using a real world example of something that’s happening right now. If you think it’s “twisted,” consider this: Muslim extremists warn of how Americans provoke attacks all the time; if you can tell me how that’s qualitatively different from Terry’s statement that Obama’s administration is bringing this on, I’d like to read it.

          1. neither a particularly left-wing office, nor a particularly left-wing media outlet, associate this type of domestic terrorism with the right wing of american politics:

            DHS’s take on the issue of which political ideology is most closely associated with racist domestic terrorism

            Again, it’s not the reification of the taxonomies that I consider the important point here, but rather the recognition of which side of the continuum this kind of attitude is the extreme expression of.

          2. Start with the fact that Terry hasn’t been arrested for anything!  I’m not for prosecuting innocent individuals.  The three — yes, count them, just three — individuals who were waterboarded were — unlike Terry — not part of the American legal system and were directly responsible for murdering thousands of Americans.

            1. They were never tried, let alone convicted.

              And if being responsible for murdering thousands of innocent people is justification for waterboarding, than you must be strongly in favor of waterboarding Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. Because I got news for you: Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians were collateral damage in our invasion and occupation.

              Do you know why the American Constitution makes such a big deal out of insisting on Due Process? Because without due process, injustice is guaranteed. It’s true, as a legal matter, that non-Americans not on American (or, now, quasi-American) soil are not protected from our government by our Constitution: They are not legally guaranteed just treatment. But legality and morality are two different things, and international law does not depend on our Constitution.

              Are you saying that innocent Iraqis just don’t matter as much as innocent Americans? See above, on why racism is the extreme expression of the conservative default to tribalistic reflexes. Your attitude is proof of the truth of that analysis.

              Every legal observer I have heard or read on the subject, who had access to Guantanamo, was quite adamant in their insistence that a large number, probably the majority, originally imprisoned there, were completely innocent of any crime. But, as long as someone insinuates that they were, well, that’s good enough for you! They don’t need the protections that we grant American, because we don’t care if they receive justice or not.

              Wrong, wrong, wrong!!! Morally wrong, legally wrong, rationally wrong.

      2. Totalitarianism is considered “right” (with classical Libertarianism “left”) in some political analysis, and it’s completely separate from Socialism vs. Free-market Libertarianism, which most of us currently use as our left-right goalposts.

        von Brunn wasn’t a totalitarian…  He could be more appropriately associated to the radical militia movement (though unlike Roeder I don’t think he was actually associated with them).  He was anti-government, but I think that was driven by his view that the government had sold out his country to the other races.

        Unfortunately, he’ll wind up being tied to the “right” – and to conservatism – because of his racist views.  Racism is usually at its heart a “conservative” thought pattern – a fear of the change of racial composition, leading to a reactionary “principled” stand to maintain the status quo.

        Large parts of the GOP have accepted the various racist groups into their ranks in an effort to gain votes.  They’ve demonstrated their desire for these votes starting with Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”, passing through the Willie Horton ad, and arriving in 2009 with the deliberate attempt to discount some of the Jewish vote in the NY-20 recount effort.  The Republican Party has, sadly, thrown away its claim to be unsupportive of these despicable people, and I’ll celebrate the day they manage to ditch the social reactionary movement that’s taken control of the party.

        1. You do not see anyone from the Conservative/Republican tent making a coordinated, concerted, long term effort to disassociate their selves from these haters. And I’m sad to say that Mesa County has more than their share of these Republican skinhead types.  Racism is easily found at most any Republican event here, like the multitude of racial epithets hurled at the Sarah Palin rally or even racists songs being played at the Mesa County Republican Party Convention.  Of course, we never did see a public apology from the Mesa County Republican Chair.  But knowing who the chair was, that’s par for the course.

          You don’t even see Republicans like Muhammad Ali Hasan coming out to condemn racism, like when the Daily Sentinel editorial page editor published his racist editorial suggesting Muslim enrollment in our colleges is down because we are keeping terrorists out of the U. S., thus perpetuating the brain dead myth that all Muslims are terrorists.  Republicans tolerate racism because they know it garners them an uncertain number of votes.  And votes translate to money in their pocket, which is their real motivation.  Racism, institutionally ingrained, as when the Daily Sentinel’s former publisher went out of his way to write a column telling us how different the people of New Orleans are from us, during Katrina, in what I believe was an effort to deflect criticism of Bush’s failures during the disaster, just keep metastasizing the cancer of racism.

          Just once, I would like to see a tough principled Republican stand up to the likes of Trent Lott, Janet Rowland, Josh Penry, Dave Schultheis and Scott Renfroe. A Republican who truly makes the long term effort to rid their party of its bigotry would certainly get votes from those of us in the middle.  Until Republicans make a real effort to rid their party of this purification, they will always be known as THE racist party.

        1. that he’s against totalitarianism, except when it claims to be in defense of liberty (which, not surprisingly, it always claims to be in defense of). In Soviet Russia, in Nazi Germany, wherever it arises, to whatever degree and in whatever form, you can count on one thing: That all advocates of totalitarianist policies claim to be the greatest defenders of liberty.

          Thanks, KK. It just doesn’t get any clearer than that. The mere fact that you manage to associate an anti-government racist with “totalitarianism,” and that package with the left, is a tribute to a mind that possesses absolutely no coherence whatsoever. The problem with blind ideology is that the ideology almost always devolves into an incoherent, internally inconsistent tangle of vague but emotionally evocative assertions which the adherents associate with amorphous virtues, but are devoid of any logical integrity, and are equally ready to serve any proposition that can be framed within its rhetoric. KK is a tribute to just such tendencies.

              1. That’s just as much of a BS question.  It’s pretty clear that no matter what anyone does, says, or proves, we Republicans will continue to be smeared as racists here.  I am really seeing why LB and Haners left here.  There is no purpose in talking to someone who is so thoughtlessly convinced of your villainy simply due to your political affiliation.  There really is no purpose in a conservative coming here any more.  Congrats WST, you’ve taken one step closer to a perfect echo chamber.

                1. Are you saying it did not happen?  Why are you afraid to address the questions of racism?  You see, that is the problem.  If R’s had the cojones to take on the issue, they might just start to turn around the perceptions Americans have of the R Party and racism.  I’ve not asked anyone for an echo.  Quite the opposite.  It would be nice to see an R discuss ways to end racism in America.  But evidently, you do not think so.  Still, I do see why guilty people sometimes take the fifth.  It’s much easier than addressing the issues.

                2. There are extremists on the left, who take what I consider a rational and compassionate left-leaning philosophy to a limit that becomes offensively devoid of either compassion or reason. Similarly, there are extremists on the right who take what you consider to be a rational and pragmatic right-wing philosophy to a limit that becomes offensively devoid of either pragmatism or reason. The odious extreme expression of an ideology does not automatically mean that the more moderate expression is similarly odious.

                  As I argued above, racism is the extreme expression of tribalism, which is deeply engrained in modern American conservativism. I disagree with that tribalism, and find it offensive for some of the same reasons I find racism offensive, but I do not equate it with racism. It is neither completely irrational nor completely odious to argue that we live, in fact, in a fractured world, in which competing nations with competing cultures and values are in a struggle which is sometimes inherently violent, and that the defense of our nation and our values requires a combative attitude. Again, I stress, I disagree with this attitude, and think that it is counterproductive in the long run (though the realism of recognizing that we live in a fractured, dangerous and combative world must be incorporated into the attempts to make it less so). But it is not identical to racism. It is, however, unfortunately similar.

                  Beware, however, of your tendency to equate all use of government with “socialism,” for you are making precisely the same error that you accuse WST of, and with even less justification. Whereas the difference between racism and tribalism that I described above is one of degree more than one of kind, the difference between using government to pick up the slack where markets fail and using government to intentionally dismantle markets as the identified goal are not just differences of degree, but rather differences of kind.

                  Bottom line: We would all be wise to be more precise and analytical, and less sweepingly ideological, in our discussions of the challenges that face us, and the possible ways of addressing those challenges.

              2. I’d be glad to comment if I’d witnessed it, but I’ve been to dozens of GOP events and I’ve never, ever seen it.  How many GOP events have you been to and where?

                1. I didn’t see it, thus, I don’t know if it really happened.  Yet, you were not present for the water boarding but you make the assumption that they were indeed terrorists.  Can’t have it both ways.  By refusing to address the issue, all you do is reaffirm the American perception that Republicans tolerate racism in their ranks.  Do you wonder why your tent keeps shrinking?  

                  1. Racism would never be tollerated at any of the GOP events I’ve been to in Colorado.  If I, for one, had witnessed it, I would have confronted it head on.  

                    Unless you were alive in an earlier period such as the 1920s when we had a KKK cozy Governor in Republican Clarence Morley or Democrat Mayor Ben Stapleton, put up or shut up.  Such spurious statements are inappropriate.

                    1. Nearly every GOP campaign event for McCain/Palin there was overt racism among supporters. If you didn’t see it, you must have been closing your eyes the entire campaign.

                    2. It’s just not true.  If you’re going to make a serious allegation like that, then back it up.

            1. Read the links I provided above.  And yes, I did encounter racism by R’s during the campaign.  KK is like an alcoholic in denial of a drinking problem.  You need to first acknowledge that racism does exist at some Republican events.  Until you pull your head out and admit it, nothing will get solved.  But maybe that is the way you want it?  

            2. Really, I am.  My wish is to see as much racism and bigotry eliminated as possible in the years of life I have left.  (and I’m a few months older than David)  It is why I asked you the legitimate question:

              “Could you tell me why so many racists and bigots associate themselves with the Republican Party?”

              I’d really like your perspective on the reasons.  But as long as you take the irresponsible attitude that reality does not exist, then neither of us get anywhere.

              I was going to write:  “I want to see racism removed from the Republican Party as much as you do”.  Then, I realized the truth.  I want that FAR more than you do.

              As long as the base of the R Party, like cologeek, takes your attitude, expect more of the same.

              1. Yes, you are right there was someone who yelled a racial epithet at that rally.  I remember that.  GOP leaders denounced it.  There are rogue elements at major political rallies who are embarassing to the group at large and don’t reflect the group at large.  This includes elements of folks at Obama rallies as well.

                I’m not familiar with the Mesa situation you sited.  Was it a case of insensitivity, or downright racism?  Is this the only article about it?  I’m guessing most people would not have known the history of the song unless someone pointed it out.  Did someone deliberately choose it or just not know the history?  There’s a big difference.

                Needless to say, there is absolutely no backing for your assertion that “so many Republicans are racist,” if I recall your choice of words correctly.  I know many Republican officials, and none of them would tolerate racist behavior within their operations.  

                Be careful about applying rogue statements from people who may or may not be members of a group to the group as a whole.  In the wake of David Letterman’s grotesque comments, one could therefore question the Democrats’ views on rape.

            3. Evidently you did not watch, read or listen to media coverage during the campaign.  If you had, you’d know there were many instances of racism at Republican events.  Do your own research now, I can see it would be a waste of my time doing your homework for you.  

              Your revision of what happened at the Palin rally is truly laughable. It was not just “someone” as you put it, it was many “someones”. The article I linked to about the MC Convention was written by probably the most prominent African-American Republican in Mesa County, not a Democrat.  And if he says it was wrong, well, I guess that is good enough for me.  You even purposely misquote what I asked, to your twisted ends, although it is there in black and white for you to read.

              I guess if I was to think like a partisan Democrat I’d say, I hope the Republican Party keeps touting your line of denial, because it is R’s like you who will continue to ensure that the R tent keeps its fast shrinking dive into a permanent minority status.  But on the human level, your logic fallacies and spin are even more dangerous to humanity.  And that cannot be tolerated.  While I am sure their are honest R’s working to eliminate racism from the Republican Party, it is obvious that you are not one of them.

              You should probably add “kooky” to the front of your handle.  The KKK acronym would be a better descriptor.    

              1. Did direct mail showing him with a decades old picture of him in an Afro.  These were Democrat operatives, WST, not just rogue elements.  On the other hand, you’ve pointed to isolated incidents of people who do not speak for the GOP as proof that “so many Republicans are racists”.  Back at you.  Dems are more racist than Republicans.  Prove me wrong.  Don’t just throw out generalities based on anecdotes.

                    1. I have my humanitarian philosophy.  Let’s just leave it at that.

  4. Just read a fantastic article in Science Daily about the discovery of archaeological evidence of human activity preserved beneath Lake Huron. Evidence includes caribou drive lanes, stone piles, hunting pits and camps, beautifully preserved under the Great Lakes.

    Approximately 9,000 years old, this evidence is almost one of a kind because it’s been preserved unlike most archaeological sites that have been modified over time by farming and modern development.

  5. Being incredibly objective and fair – 🙂 – I bring to you a sad and funny story about an attempted robbery right up the road about 3/4 mile.  Seems like they picked the wrong guy.

    Short version: Guy gets off work from the PO at 3AM, truck follows him home, 16 year old dude gets out of truck with a shotgun, first guy drops to knees pretending compliance. Shoots Dude #2 in the stomach.

    I WILL approve of the fact that he wasn’t just carrying, but did his training and had his permit. Also, he didn’t do this with a love of guns giving him a hard-on, but a neighborhood history of increasing crime and the late hour shift he works made it logical.  

    http://www.heraldtribune.com/a

  6. So,now one of the “government” options being considered is a co-op.  Wasn’t this was the Blues were before they set themselves up as a for profit?  It would be better as a nation wide system than state by state, I’ll grant ya.

    The only difference I can see between a co-op and a real, genuine, single payer system is that the health care industry will make sure it doesn’t work. (Unlike Medicare and the VA system.) That’s where so many of the uninsured and uninsurable will head for that it will be bound to be “See, I told you it couldn’t work.”  It won’t be able to get additional funding w/o going hat in hand like Amtrak has to.

    And, if perchance it passes and succeeds, they will kill it because they will (will???) look bad by comparison.

    1. and it is true the uninsured and uninsurable will flock to this government co-op option, but I am also thinking a lot of healthy people may flock to it as well out of a desire not to get screwed by a private insurer in the event that they do get sick, or actually, you know, need coverage.

      Just my thought.  If people see and understand a co-op, which has a duty so serve its members, can be far different than a private insurer, which seeks profit almost always at the expense of its clients, people may migrate to it.  This would be a great avenue to get rid of private health insurers forever, which has to happen eventually if this system is ever going to be fixed.

      Being a cynic however, unfortunately I don’t see any way in the end that private health insurers and their lobbyists are not going to get their way.  They will find some sort of way to protect what they believe is rightly theirs, and that very well may be them killing this government option.

      1. I think that Obama and his team have a huge advantage over the health care plans of the past because of the grassroots support.

        I sure as hell haven’t given them any more money, but I’ve definitely made phone calls and written e-mails based on the e-mails I’ve gotten from the White House.

        Lobbyists may have had the edge in the past, but people are starting to get wise to the fact that they have the ability to lobby and influence too–if they work together and stand together. At least, for our sake, I hope so.

        1. Didn’t Obama get quite a lot of support from health insurers though ?  I also heard Obama say he didn’t want to “disrupt the system” too much, which to me sounds like keeping their sorry asses around.  I could be wrong.

          1. Frankly, I’m watching Obama with a wary eye.  I don’t trust him on this issue.  Please, prove me wrong.

            We know from the experiences of Medicare, the VA system, and all of the nations with some form of single payer HC that while not perfect, these structures serve the larger society well.

            Remember, POLsters. that May 2011 is when we will finally get some form of universal healthcare.  That is the date that I will be eligible for Medicare, not perfection, but better’n the nothing that I presently have. I read in the paper of people bitching about some piss ant fee they have to cough up, or here on this blog of truly an injustice, but at least they have some kind of coverage.

            I don’t. And yet I very willingly paid for those Americans in Medicare, Medicaid, the VA system, etc.  

      2. Let’s see…..I (also meaning David and other employers) can pay X amount of dollars with the private insurers, or X-30% with the co-op.  Hmmmmm, help me, this is a tough decision…….

        I think such a thing, this co-op would still have a higher percentage of the previously mensurable than private programs. Or, at least for some years until more and more healthy people pick up on it.  

  7. Harris Sherman, Ex Dir at DNR, is being considered for Under Sect of Ag, charged with overseeing the US Forest Service.

    Harris is responsible for the Governor’s pour relations with the oil and gas  industry and the preservationist community.  Now Harris gets to parachute out.  Epic.  

    Who do you replace Harris with at DNR?  Another in the long line of Denver/ Attorney appointments to the cabinet?  A west sloper?  

    Nothing good here for the Gov, but it is all good for Harris.        

      1. You read the papers.  Ex DNR, oil and gas rules, sits on COGCC board, ran legisation to get on COGCC Board, hired and directed Neslin, reniged on Roan Plateau agreement forged by Garfield County + DOW + Russell George.  I can go on. There’s your responsible part and you “facts”.  

        Please help me if you think the Governor has good relations with industry.  

         

        1. Asking for facts to support the claim that Harris Sherman contributed to Billy Ritter’s poor relationship with energy in Colorado is as absurd as asking for proof that there are peanuts in chunky peanut butter! Wow. Ralphie needs to update his RSS feeds!

    1. .

      And since I don’t know squat about the issues, I’m not going to favor one side or the other.

      And I graduated from Billy Mitchell HS.

      And I’ve been to the Western Slope.  They all love me there.  

      .

      1. University of Florida, 1964-1965.

        Mandatory ROTC for men, nothing like that for women.  I figured if I gotta, go for it all the way.

        The upside is that I got to march in LBJ’s inaugural parade – he never looked our way – and got a free ride to Mardi Gras and sucking down Pat O’Brians Hurricanes and a hangover at an innocent age 18 to wherever we were based.  

        A real wake up moment is when one of your kids brings home one of the PO Hurricane glasses…… Shit.

          1. I’d be proud to call you my brother, but I doubt if it’s “in arms.”  Real rifles, not a bullet to be seen for miles except at those north Florida cracker’s.  And I’m presuming they wouldn’t fit.

            1. .

              but I was in ROTC at Colorado College (they kicked the detachment off campus while I was enrolled) UCCS a decade after your stint.

              So that works, too.  You, me and Jared, ROTC brothers.

              .

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