Open Line Friday!

28
  by: Colorado Pols Fri March 22, 2013 at 6:22 AM MDT

"You hold a mirror up to the left, they see themselves in it, and they blame you for what they see."

–Rush Limbaugh, yesterday


Full story: Open Line Friday!

28 Community Comments, Facebook Comments

  1. PitaPita says:
    Fri March 22, 2013 at 7:35 AM MDT

    Is there anyone but me that believes the leg. needs to take a hard look at an overhaul of DMV and the miserable funding now that the state coffers are making a comeback?  It's not unheard of here in GJ to set for up to 3hrs. to get your drivers license renewed and if you are fortunate enough to have a job – that is a lot of  time off.  Even students are being turned away and told to go pay for a private driving test before they then must go back and pay up for their regular driving license.  These kids and their families may not have that extra $30-40 to spare. 

    It really is a pathetic way to run a state agency.

  2. Albert J. Nock says:
    Fri March 22, 2013 at 8:18 AM MDT

    I hate command and control.  Nowhere did #64 Nationalize os should I say Stateize the Cannabis trade.  IF it did, then screw #64, it was a mistake…

    http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22840315/colorado-lawmakers-question-proposed-marijuana-business-rules

     

  3. DavidThi808DavidThi808 says:
    Fri March 22, 2013 at 8:20 AM MDT

    Todays trivia question:

    One president notorious for being a man of few words was challenged by a dinner guest that she could get him to say at least 3 words. WHo was the president and what was his reply?

  4. DavidThi808DavidThi808 says:
    Fri March 22, 2013 at 8:22 AM MDT

    And now from a Python conference we have a story of political correctness run amuck. What should have resulted in an apology instead had several people being fired and a company having their business seriously damaged.

  5. DavidThi808DavidThi808 says:
    Fri March 22, 2013 at 8:26 AM MDT

    What's going to happen in Cyprus? Iceland was the first country to tell the international financial system to take a hike. (And because they did they're well out of the recession unlike the rest of Europe.) But Cyprus is also part of the Euro so it's a bit more difficult there.

    They might cause a major problem throughout Europe. On the flip side they might part from the Euro, stick it to the large account holders, and come out fine like Iceland. At which point there would be 2 countries showing the best route forward is not austerity, but sticking it to the large financial interests.

    • Urban Snowshoer says:
      Fri March 22, 2013 at 9:45 AM MDT

      @DavidThi808

      I was a bit perplexed by those arguing that taxing accounts was needed to prevent a collapse. If anything, the proponents of the asinine plan had it backwards: i.e. taxing bank accounts would make it a lot more likely to get bank runs and a subsequent collapse.

      If your accounts are being taxed to bailout people who made some extremely poor decisions you’re probably going to be wondering: (1) what’s to say my accounts couldn’t be taxed again at some point in the future and (2) you may question whether it’s worth keeping money in an account at all,   Thankfully, that asinine proposal for funding a bailout via account taxes failed.     
       

  6. Gray in Mountains says:
    Fri March 22, 2013 at 10:23 AM MDT

    OK, not political but what about the Rams last night? They rocked. Hopeful for CU

    • BlueCat says:
      Fri March 22, 2013 at 12:17 PM MDT

      And what about the Nuggets extendeing their second best in the NBA after ther the Heat winning streak to 14, including  wins over some of the best teams, two over OKC,  becoming the first team in the league to beat OKC 3 times this season? Even though they played an inferior team in the 6ers last night and played badly and without Lawson and red hot Chandler?  How about sweet Cory Brewer making that late 3 and, shortly after, calmly sinking 3 free throws after being fowled on a 3 to win the game by a single point, a game they trailed by 8 points after a lack luster performance with only a minute and a half left? 

      These Nuggets keep finding ways to win whether they're playing their best or not and no matter who's sitting out with or playing through injuries. They do it with trust in each other, different players rising to the occasion every game and depth that pretty much gives them two first strings.  They do it with points in the paint, rebounding, blocks, turn over inducing steals, all of it feeding those super fast breaks that, so far, seems to be making up for the fact that they aren't terribly good shoooters. They do it with spectacular highlights from Faried and McGee,  increasing flashes of brilliance from Lawson, solid smart play from Kufos and solid D from Igoudala, who's capable of his own highlight flashes, and Chandler's skills and aggression.  And  of course, whenever the youngsters (and we're so young and fresh it's crazy) start losing their cool  and things start getting out of control there's old Andre Miller to calm them down and get them back on track or win the game himself.  Unselfish, ball to the open man play. Rooting for each other like a bunch of kids, bench going crazy for the guys on the floor.

      No matter how far they go, this is a team to LOVE and I do.

  7. DaftPunkDaftPunk says:
    Fri March 22, 2013 at 12:42 PM MDT

    Republicans lie like a cheap rug, or wear them on their heads, or something…

    But Cruz is simply wrong to claim that the “lesson from Reagan” was that “you reduce spending, you reduce the debt” to turn the economy around. Reagan increased both. Historical budget figures from the Congressional Budget Office show that clearly.

    • Federal outlays (total spending) rose by 40 percent under Reagan’s first four budgets (fiscal year 1985 vs. Carter’s last budget for fiscal 1981). That was two-and-a-half times faster than the rate of inflation, which rose 16 percent during the same period, as measured by the Consumer Price Index.
    • And far from cutting debt, Reagan borrowed more heavily than previous presidents. In Reagan’s first term, debt owed to the public increased by nearly 91 percent by the end of fiscal year 1985, compared with what it had been at the end of Carter’s fiscal 1981.

    Furthermore, as mentioned, Cruz errs badly when he attempts to blame Carter for “out-of-control regulation.” As mentioned, Carter signed numerous deregulation measures. One free-market-oriented commentator chose the occasion of Reagan’s 100th birthday to praise Carter, not Reagan, as “deregulation’s hero.” Thomas A. Firey, senior fellow as the Maryland Public Policy Institute, wrote: “It was the peanut farmer from Georgia who pushed the United States toward a market economy, not the one-time actor from California.”

    Problem is, laime-brained Republicans believe the lies.

    • Urban Snowshoer says:
      Fri March 22, 2013 at 1:17 PM MDT

      @DaftPunk

       

      The private sector hires out of  economic necessity not altruism—the claims that reducing spending will automatically result in private hiring is complete garbage. If the private sector isn’t hiring if sufficient capacity to cancel out the job losses resulting from spending, cutting spending just increases unemployment. The problem with austerity is that cutting spending–in a recession or otherwise weak economy– results increased unemployment; higher unemployement  reduces revenue flowing in, which results in further spending reducedings, and the process repeates itself a vicious cycle..  

      If you need to reduce spending to reduce the deficit, or balance the budget, the time to do it is when the is economy is strong and lots of places are hiring, not a recession.     

        • BlueCat says:
          Sat March 23, 2013 at 12:30 AM MDT

          Gee, who could have foreseen that with less take home pay middle class people would spend less and businesses would suffer? And remember  the payroll tax break was the only one Rs were for ending a while back. The only one that wasn't  defined,as they defined ending the tax breaks for zillionaires, as a tax raise.  While no amount of cuts for the rich needed to be paid for because they would pay for themselves with spiffy new jobs (never happened), Rs insisted that the payroll tax cut did too need to be paid for, apparently because it would somehow not  create jobs  as  they said tax breaks for the rich would do.

          Of course none of this matters because it's not about real world consequences.  It's the "philosophy" that matters. They dress it up by pretending it's about free markets (that's a laugh with too big to fail or jail and all the heavy government subsidies to oil, gas, pharma, you name it in the big corporate world), liberty, small government, self reliance, and the opportunity society but it's really about naked, I got mine screw you losers greed.

  8. DaftPunkDaftPunk says:
    Fri March 22, 2013 at 5:14 PM MDT

    The Israelis hate Obama.  Meddling in their affairs will never advance progress in the Middle East…Wait, what?

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Friday apologized in a personal phone call to Turkey’s prime minister for a deadly commando raid on a Turkish ship in 2010, in a sudden reconciliation between the two countries that was partly brokered by President Obama during his visit to Israel this week, according to Israeli, Turkish and American officials.

    • BlueCat says:
      Fri March 22, 2013 at 5:27 PM MDT

      And don't forget all those Israeli University students cheering all his points about the dignity of the Palestinians and the need to try to see things through their eyes and how Israel cannot survive  as a democratic Jewish state unless the Palestinians have their own state so, as hard as a real two state solution may be, there simply aren't any other viable options

      .Agreeing with those sentiments in  the US may get you called a terrorist loving anti-Semite but a huge number of Israelis agree.  And J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-Peace organization, is giving Americans who agree a voice against the  alliance of hardliners and evangelicals who are going to be the death of the state of Israel if they have their way.

    • Gray in Mountains says:
      Fri March 22, 2013 at 5:31 PM MDT

      I watched President Obama's speech yesterday. Really good speech. Very well received with one heckler ala Joe Wilson. The Pres was very open about a 2 state solution.

      It has been noted many times that AIPAC takes a much more toxic view that actual, like Israelis

      • DaftPunkDaftPunk says:
        Fri March 22, 2013 at 5:51 PM MDT

        And that dumbass heckler's tirade afterwards was directly contradicted by Obama's own speach.

      • BlueCat says:
        Fri March 22, 2013 at 7:26 PM MDT

        Israelis have to live there, American chicken hawks don't.  Most Israelis have to serve in the military at some point.  Many who have served have been appalled by what they see resulting from their government's policies, including many who served in the upper military and intelligence echelons. Of course the ultra-orthodox who, along with militant American groups, are among the most militantly don't give an inch hateful, are excused from military service, something a lot of Israelis want to see change.  Ordinary Israeli soldiers have to see  people, not abstractions.

        It's something to think about at Passover, which starts Monday night and celebrates freedom from oppression and the aspiration and struggle to be a free people with a homeland instead of a suppressed minority under another people's thumb.

        Of course, in the story of Passover the Jews were enslaved because they were thriving so that they had become too numerous in Egypt for the Egyptians comfort. They were suppressed because they were feared. In a relatively short time the Palestinians within the borders of a single state of Israel will no longer be a minority.  Then what?  Mass ethnic cleansing? A successful uprising? 

        It's a shame these two peoples who want the same thing can't seem to find a way to let themselves and each other have it.

  9. The realistThe realist says:
    Fri March 22, 2013 at 8:16 PM MDT

    Perhaps someone has already commented on this odd connection, and I just missed it.

    There was also rather strange footage on local Denver news at 6pm (I haven't found it yet online) of the Governor getting angry at a reporter who was asking him about his friendship with the alleged perpetrator's father, and asking if he had been involved in any way in the son's release from prison, etc.

     

    • DaftPunkDaftPunk says:
      Fri March 22, 2013 at 9:32 PM MDT

      That's a nockwurst level link dump.

      Interesting article.  There's no make-work desk job the government could have these people doing?  Learning coding skills?

      • DavidThi808DavidThi808 says:
        Sat March 23, 2013 at 8:54 AM MDT

        On an iPad doing more than a link takes a LOT of time. So yeah, just a link when I'm on my iPad.

        As to the jobs, the article does a good job of discussing that. What kind of desk job is there for people who don't have a college degree (or equivilent)?

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