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September 04, 2014 06:21 AM UTC

Thursday Open Thread

  • 86 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

"To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires."

–W. E. B. Du Bois

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86 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

      2. Yep! From Sam just this morning, re yesterday's senatorial disaster in Kansas for the GOTP:

        During the past two weeks, polls in other states have moved even more in the Democrats’ favor. It’s safe to say that thanks to Chad Taylor’s decision, the Democratic Party is now the odds-on favorite to retain control of the Senate.

        Sucks being you, doesn't it Skippy and Zippy?

            1. I think you ought to get a pair of kneepads and go pay a "visit" to your last remaining hope and new bestest buddy in all the world Nate Silver, you pathetic worm. Your rising desperation is palpable and embarrassing.

          1. In other words, Piss Ants new fave, Nate Silver, included, R chances of a take over still aren't out of toss up territory and the common consensus is they're getting worse, not better. Certainly, don't see BWB or Corey's chances getting better and a little birdie told me internal polls have Romanoff ahead, though still within the margin of error.  All told, a lot better news for Dems than what Piss Ant and modster would have us believing.

              1. Just you keep clinging to and clawing at Silver, moran. We can't wait till you both fall flat on your sad asses.

                You're going down, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Your new best friend (ie sole hope) corporate baseball statistician cannot save you and your POS candidates, no matter how hard you wish for it.

    2. The RSCC will probably have to divert $$$ out of CO and into KS to help prop up Pat Roberts.  Who woulda thunk it?  Con Man Cory better hit up the Koch bros and AFP for more dough.

      1. Now that BP was found GUILTY of gross negligence in the Gulf FU, and facing much higher fines, that source of oily support may also be drying up for the Congressman from Area51 as well.  

      1. The Wall Street Journal notes that the least skilled and least educated workers have been pushed out by more skilled and educated workers taking minimum-wage jobs out of desperation.

        When the least-skilled and least educated workers are already being pushed out, any argument about what raising the minimum-wage might do to the least skilled and educated workers is moot. 
         

          3. Sure, here's the story and a link.

            Data from the site Legistorm, shows that, on average, Sen. Udall pays his women staffers 86 cents for every dollar earned by the men.  The analysis covered Federal Fiscal Year 2013 (October 2012 – September 2013), and included only full-time staffers who had been on staff the entire fiscal year.  The 17 women earned an average of just over $58,000 for FY13, while the 14 men earned $67,300.

            House staffs are much smaller.  Consequently, Rep. Gardner employed only six women and four men for the duration of the fiscal year.  However, Gardner’s office paid the women an average of $55,000, with the men earning just over $46,000.

            http://watchdogwire.com/colorado/2014/07/21/udall-pay-equity/ 

              1. D, you almost as stupid as CT.

                It was a joke.  A month or so back I posted a quote from Crazy Joe claiming credit for something the administration did.  CT did not get that it was a quote from Crazy Joe and went on for 10 paragraphs about what Crazy Joe claimed to be so, was not so.

                There is no ad where Udall was offering a bonus for whites and males.

            2. And how were men and women paid who worked in similar jobs?  Oh, the article you pointed to (you need to watch the trailing nonbreakable space) tells us where the differences are:

              The difference is almost completely accounted for by the senior staff positions.  Udall hired men to serve in the higher-paid Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff positions, while Gardner’s Chief of Staff was a woman.

              While I'd love to see a woman at the top of Udall's staff, hiring two men for your two top jobs versus one woman for your top one isn't a story about pay equity.

    1. Not good news for ACA opponents.  Based on the DC Circuit rules, a majority of the active judges who'll hear the case voted to review the decision (meaning they likely think it's wrong).  Two senior judges are also eligible to sit, but they split votes on the original case.

      If they reverse the panel, they're in conformity with the other court that's decided the issue and the supremes would be hard pressed to find a reason to bring this decision up.

  9. Our favorite piss ant will no doubt be gloating over nate Silver's assessment that Rs are likely to take over the Senate but here's the rest of Nate's story:

    An equally important theme is the high degree of uncertainty around that outcome. A large number of states remain competitive, and Democrats could easily retain the Senate. It’s also possible that the landscape could shift further in Republicans’ direction. Our model regards a true Republican wave as possible: It gives the party almost a 25 percent chance of finishing with 54 or more Senate seats once all the votes are counted.2

    Why so much uncertainty? Consider some of the challenges that election forecasters face this year:

    • The quality and quantity of polling has been poor. We have stunningly few polls in some states. In Colorado, for example, which could easily determine the balance of the Senate, no polls at all were published in August. And in many states, most of the polls we do have are from non-traditional polling firms, including those that conduct “robopolls” or Internet polls, or which have an explicitly partisan affiliation.
    • In contrast to 2010, when major swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin were key to the Senate picture, this year’s races take us all over the country, including to politically idiosyncratic states like Arkansas and Alaska. These states are harder to pin down: Arkansas has begun to vote strongly Republican for president, for example, but sometimes still elects Democrats to other offices. In certain other states, polls and partisanship diverge. Ordinarily in a year like this one, you’d give Democrats no chance at all in Kansas, for example. But polls show a somewhat close race there, and there’s further uncertainty because of the presence of an independent candidate.
    • Readings of the national mood are ambiguous. President Obama remains unpopular — and the president’s party has a long history of performing poorly in midterm election years. However, Democratsremain roughly tied with Republicans on the generic congressional ballot. That may reflect the Republican Party’s poor image, which remains quite a bit worse than that of the Democratic Party. But it could also mean there’s some upside for Republicans. On average in midterm years since 1990, the generic ballot has favored the opposition party by 5 percentage points by Election Day instead of being even.
    • We don’t yet have a good sense for the potential turnout and enthusiasm advantage. It’s reasonably safe to assume it will benefit Republicans; their (older, whiter) demographics are usually associated with higher turnout at the midterms. But we don’t have much evidence yet about the magnitude of this effect. One way of measuring the turnout edge is to compare polls that release results among both registered and likely voters in the same state. In 2010, Republicans polled a net of 6 percentage points better in the likely-voter surveys, a historic high. Compare that with a GOP advantage of about 2 percentage points on average in midterms from 1990 to 2006. This year, however, we’ve seen very few polls to release both registered and likely-voter results in the same state. That leaves us somewhat in the dark about whether 2010’s turnout pattern was a fluke.

     

    2. You did not mention that Nate thinks it more likely than not that Mark (ISIS is not a threat) Udall will soon be leaving the Senate.

      Not that it was significant or anything, but I did notice that.

    3. That sounds like Nate getting all his excuses out in advance.  Definitely not a confident forecast.  My bet is he's preparing his fans for a reversal.

  10. The DNA exoneration of these two death row inmates highlights the problems with the American use of the death penalty.

     In theory, the death penalty is an efficient solution to years of expensive incarceration of multiple murderers and sex offenders, who are unlikely to reform.

    In practice, execution is an unreliable and maybe unconstitutionally cruel method of punishment.It's also unjust, racist in application.

    It doesn't make the public any safer than lengthy incarceration or life sentences.

    And until we clean out decades of backlogged investigations of death row inmates who were railroaded into confessions or convictions, we have no way of knowing who deserves to die.

    This doesn't even address the moral and religious objections that people can't see into each other's souls to determine who is truly repentant or redeemed. It doesn't address the victim's family's needs for revenge or closure.

     

    1. In too many cases, it isn't anything to do with the family's wishes, or their desire for revenge, or closure, or whatever — it's usually much more often about the political aspirations of some get tough, law and order, prosecutor. 

      1. Exactly. And if it is a wish for revenge, that's why we have a justice system. To keep those most emotionally affected out of life and death decisions. How would a family feel if after their loved one's murderer was executed it turned out the person was as innocent as their loved one? Letting cooler heads prevail protects everyone. Removing the death penalty from the equation allows for horrific mistakes to be corrected some day. As far as the bargaining chip value, it's also been used to get innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit after being convinced they would surely be convicted and had better confess to save their lives. Easy to see why an African American might feel confession was his only chance of survival. And if it was off the table the Aurora theater shooter would have been tried or entered a plea by now.

        1. BC, I seem to recall that the Aurora shooter's lawyers offered a plea of guilty in return for life in prison, no parole. But the DA would have none of it.

           

          2. That's right. The fact that it's the defense attorneys' job to leave no stone unturned to save their client's life is what's dragging this out to the point of absurdity. It's not as if there's any doubt that he did it and it's not as if there's any doubt there's something very wrong with the guy. The prosecution, in insisting on the death penalty or bust, forces the defense to keep throwing up road blocks as long as they can. It could all be over with no chance of the killer ever getting out of prison with the death penalty removed from the equation

        1. I have always though "Bill Clinton National Airport" would have been more interesting: e.g. saxophone music wafting through speakers, while you wait for for flight

          1. He did get suspended time. Maybe the deal was made so he wouldn't take Reagan, already suffering from early stage dementia, down with him and treat the world to what would have been quite the pathetic impeachment circus. ​

  13. Big news day. Three senior ISIS members killed by strikes in Iraq. Holder gave great presser on decision to investigate Ferguson police force for a pattern of civil rights violations. Obama should watch it and take notes on how to do a presser. Joan Rivers died. VA Governor McDonnell and wife convicted on all but a few of the 14 counts against them. Throwing his wife under the bus apparently didn't gain him anything except universal contempt. How sad for the SOB. Breaking news interrupting breaking news all day.

    1. In other news:

      * 7th Circuit, in an opinion written by Judge Posner rules for marriage equality.

      * Ohio early voting restored by a Federal judge – without reason, you can't take away rights that have been granted. A novel ruling for a voting rights case, which if applied more broadly could have lots of implications.

      * Kansas SoS refuses to allow Dem. Senate candidate to withdraw from the race, because the candidate followed the advice of the Assistant SoS in drafting the notice – which was notarized and accepted in person at the SoS's office.

      * BP is recklessly negligent in the Deepwater Horizon disaster; Transocean Pacific (?) and Halliburton also negligent. Big fines and rough seas ahead.

  14. More Dem candidate misconduct:

    “Colorado citizens deserves representation by elected officials who will actually follow the laws that they enact and swear to uphold. There is no question that without Campaign Integrity Watchdog’s complaint, this illegal contribution would have passed unremarked – and unreturned. We are glad to see that Senator Zenzinger did the right thing by returning the contribution once she was charged with a campaign finance complaint, but it should never have been accepted in the first place,” said Matt Arnold, Director of Campaign Integrity Watchdog.

    Ouch!

    http://www.examiner.com/article/ciw-complaint-prompts-state-senator-to-return-illegal-contribution

    4. Has still Colorado state Senator and triple-dipper public funds grifter returned any of the hard-earned tax payer cash he (alledgedly) padded his pockets with?  Why hasn't Ryan Call demand such a scofflaw resign?  Has CIW filed a complaint?  Did I miss the CO Peak Politics story?  Is Complete Colorado on that yet?  

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