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October 24, 2014 06:26 AM UTC

Friday Open Thread

  • 97 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."

–Frank Zappa

Comments

97 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread

          1. I'm three time zones away and can't hear you – could you find a bigger font, nitwit?

            Geebuz you interweb presence is reeking of desperation today.

      1. Was just going to post a few things about how things are going for the 47%.

        How Chipotle and others steal from their employees:

         It’s estimated that employers rob their workers of more than $50 billion each year, more than triple the $14 billion taken from the victims of all robberies, burglaries, larcenies, and car thefts in 2012. The problem is getting worse, not better, as the number of wage theft cases filed in federal court increased from 5,000 in 2008 to nearly 8,000 last year.

        These practices all violate the Federal Labor Standards Act, but to try and reverse the trend, some cities and states have enacted ordinances to crack down harder.

        This one I really like as I've always wondered what our outsourced jobs are worth in other countries:

        A Silicon Valley company that digitizes images said Thursday that an "administrative error" led to it paying eight workers flown in from Bangalore, India just $1.21 an hour to work 120-hour weeks installing computers in the company's headquarters.

        Electronics For Imaging paid the workers $40,000 in back wages and overtime and a $3,500 fine after the U.S. Department of Labor investigated the payroll violation based on an anonymous tip, a department official told The Huffington Post.

        "These folks were not only not getting time-and-a-half when working extremely long hours, they weren't making the basic minimum wage," Michael Eastwood, assistant district director for the Labor Department's San Francisco division said.

        In a statement, the company said it didn't realize it was illegal to pay workers temporarily in the United States the same wages they earn in their home countries. The $1.21 was equivalent to what the employees made in Indian rupees.

        “We unintentionally overlooked laws that require even foreign employees to be paid based on local U.S. standards,” the company said in a statement.

        Eastwood said the company also failed to keep documentation of the hours worked by the Indian employees. Though the workers were only owed $20,000 in back pay and overtime, regulators doubled that amount to $40,000 in the settlement to compensate for damages.

        Regulators seem to have made them honest on this one, but this is surely not the only time it's happened.

        1. EFI has long been on my list of companies that are "evil", and the company's claim that it "didn't realize" it couldn't pay foreign workers their foreign salaries when working inside the US is ridiculous. The Feds let them off very lightly – only requiring back pay and a minimal fine of $3500 (which doesn't even amount to the petty cash drawer to a company that long had a stranglehold on colorspace mapping algorithm patents)

    1. We wouldn't have to worry about minimum wage if A) the old manufacturing sector well paying jobs, along with the power of the unions, weren't disappearing for the masses and being replaced with minimum wage to low wage jobs for powerless workers on such a huge scale and B) if minimum wage was worth anywhere near as much in buying power as it was, say, 40 years ago. The only viable solution in the foreseeable future is to demand a minimum living wage for all workers to get the American middle class moving forward again after decades of stagnation and slippage.

      If you're in the top 1% you're doing many times better than a 1 percenter  did in the 70s. The middle class isn't doing any better at all.  No progress. Period. That's no way to run a consumer economy dependent on a majority middle class with money to spend.

      Providing more opportunity, training, etc. for advancement into higher income jobs is great, although we're no longer anywhere near number one in upward mobility anymore either, but that's it's only a small part of the solution because of simple arithmetic. No matter how much opportunity and how hard people work you can't squeeze more than 1% into the top 1% or 10% into the top 10%, etc. You're still going to need decent living wages for the majority unless you want a banana republic style society with a tiny elite and 90% struggling poor.

      History tells us that kind of society is not at all compatible with the American system of government set forth in our constitution. If the wealth gap continues to grow at its present rate, the 200+ year great American experiment will soon be over and done with on American soil. Decisions like the Citizens United abomination hasten that day. A living minimum wage is the only way to put on the brakes and there isn't a scrap of evidence, despite what righties say, that raising the minimum wage costs the economy jobs over all. None.

      And yet I drive by run down rentals and modest homes with GOTP campaign signs out front. It's truly tragic that so many to low to middle income Americans are so ignorant and easily manipulated into pretty much slitting their own throats.

      1. "…let me simply say that Walmart is the largest employer in the United States. It is paying its workers, if you include its part-time workers, on average $8.80 an hour. Now, compare that to 1955 when the largest employer in the United States was General Motors and it was paying its workers in today's dollars $37 an hour."

         – Robert Reich

    1. The really extraordinary part of that story is that nearly half of the voters in Kansas fail to see the disaster and are still supporting Brownback.

  1. 9 News had a sorry up this morning about JeffCo parent’s being passed that their kids have been photoshopped into mailers for Woods/Sanchez/etc

    I only saw it in passing, so I don’t have details.

    1. I saw it on ch7 as well, posted to it to another thread "'students being used as pawns" additionally, the mailers were using the Jeffco School District logo begging a cease & desist . Signs were photo shopped to read "I want my future back"

  2. "Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Contributor", err, Turd Blossomdoing what he does best…

     

    Rove also used his platform to misleadingly stoke fears about higher premiums and insurance cancellations in Colorado — a state his political action committee (PAC), American Crossroads has invested nearly $500,000 in negative advertisements against incumbent Colorado Sen. Mark Udall (D).  And though the Journal disclosed his affiliation with American Crossroads, it did not disclose his affiliation with Crossroads GPS, a PAC that has invested more than $8.6 million attacking Sen. Udall according to Open Secrets.

    In reality, Colorado has benefited greatly from health care reform.  According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, Colorado's uninsured rate fell from 17.0 percent in 2013 to 11.0 percent by mid-2014. The state's success in expanding health insurance coverage actually beats the national average, which fell from 18.0 in the third quarter of 2013 to just 13.4 percent a year later: 

     

    1. Udall and too many other Dems have been terrible on Obamacare messaging since 2010. Highlight the good parts, and vow to fix the bad parts, it is a winning message and the right solution to the problem.

      1. I agree.  They let the tea party frame the debate in 2010.  Andrew Romanoff says an overwhelming number of Americans support the affordable care act, while a majority oppose Obamacare.   The Dems have done a lousy job of education.

         

      2. Drew, The problem with that approach is they have not done anything to fix the bad parts.  Shaheen in New Hampshire took that approach and was asked what she would do to fix the problems and she said she would appoint a commission.  The truth is the Dems own Obamacare.  Some voters like it, many more don't.

            1. I've finally arrived…you've given me a nickname!  What you dumbasses miss – as OrangeFree commented earlier – is a large chunk of the unfavorables are because it doesn't go far enough, ie: universal health care.  You ignorant turds can't decipher the data – and then assume you're winning. 

              1. yes, achole is once again wrong http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/23/americans-are-clear-obamacare-just-isn-t-liberal-enough.html My favorite part The  answer, for 15 percent of Americans, is that they oppose the Affordable Care Act because it’s not liberal enough in its approach toward health care reform. Indeed, when you look at the full results, you see an electorate that either supports Obamacare or wants a more liberal alternative. There’s still an open question as to what those 15 percent want, but—if they support more liberal policies—then it’s fair to say they don’t want to dismantle the law. What Republicans want—a majority that opposes Obamacare and wants its repeal—just doesn’t exist.

                1. Exactly — we could've had the public option initially.  

                  Another choice would be Medicare for all with optional private gap policies if desired.  We don't even need single payer, although that would be the third choice.

                  All GOTP'ers can think is to drag us back to the bad old days of runaway medical inflation, big executive bonuses for denying care, and tens of millions of citizens going completely without coverage, leading to expensive emergency room care that gets passed on to taxpayers.

                  Numbnuts like Moddy and AC think that's a good thing!

            2. Memorandum

              To: Asshat Carnie, Libtard Pols Troll

              From:  Progressicat, poster

              Subject:  Look at the question on your own goddamned chart

              "Given what you know about the health reform law…"  As has been the case since inception, they don't necessarily know much, which is why this question polls about even, but questions which inform people about the law, or ask them about features of the law, get much higher favorables.  And, of course, most folks still want repair rather than replace.

               

        1. I agree they own the ACA, and have done a terrible job defending it. AC, the old system sucked. The GOP has not offered a coherent alternative, and people see the need for reform so a repeal is foolish. Coloradans are smart enough to figure that out.

    1. Next up:  ad with child in foreground and woman tied up by man in mask with gun in background.  Cue ominous music.

      Kid: "My mom voted for John Hickenlooper in 2010"

      (Three shots ring out)

      Kid: (tears rolling down face) "Now I don't have a mommy anymore."

      Paid for by Beauprez for Colorado

    1. Great program!  Veterans (the real patriots, not trolls like the WIF that pukes on this page on a regular basis) 'get it.  They understand the real costs, both in human and financial terms, that stem from our addiction to oil.  They understand the perils of climate change, an issue that was brought to light during the Bush administration in the DOD's 2008 Quadrennial Review. 

      Even given all that, the Post apparently missed that our Patriot Snipe Hunter-turned-Catfisher has signed the Koch Climate Pledge promising Congressional inaction on climate to his money masters – and promised CPAC that Republicans are committed to defunding climate research.

      What could possible go wrong?

  3. A couple of very interesting write-ups concerning our senate race:

    Will Colorado Democrats' Voter Utopia Save Mark Udall? – NationalJournal.com

    Tracing the Line in Colorado, a State Split Left and Right – NYTimes.com

    Are Colorado Polls Underestimating Democratic Turnout? – NBC News.com

     

    Another indicator of how very close the CO senate race is (without the bullshit of crap pro-GOTP pollsters Suffolk and Quinnipiac and foXX nooZe in the mix):

    Reuters poll finds Colorado guv and Senate races in statistical tie – The Denver Post

     

    And finally, here's why you want to knock off as many GOTP governors as humanly possibly, and why you don't want these slimy, corrupt, anti-American right-wing sons of bitches ANYWHERE NEAR the electoral process:

    Christie: Republicans Must Control the 'Voting Mechanism' | New Republic

     

    1. Thanks for those links.  Reading the one about Christie was especially telling:

      … Christie is “treating the right to vote as discretionary, depending on [his] party’s needs, which makes voter suppression just another day at the office”that he believes Republicans must cheat to win now, so that they can live to cheat another day.

    1. You missed the dKos article that asks why pollsters seem to consistently underestimate Democratic performance in Colorado. Ask Ken Buck and Mitt Romney how well the polls predicted their Colorado victories – oh, wait…

      (PS – the Daily Kos predictor charts are based solely on poll averages – they aren't an independent analysis by the folks at dKos.)

  4. achole will hate this polling data  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/24/1338707/-100-percent-vote-by-mail-makes-Colorado-extra-unpredictable     The best part  :* 82 percent received a ballot in the mail
    * 83 percent of these Presidential Surge Voters have already voted or plan to vote
    * 22 percent have already voted in the survey. The voter file shows 90,446 of them have already cast a ballot, comprising 21 percent of all votes cast through Wednesday
    * Senator Udall leads 48-34 percent among these Presidential Surge Voters
    * 55-36 among those who already voted
    * 48-36 among whites, 56-29 among Hispanics
    * 44-40 among men, 52-29 among women
    * 53-27 among cell phone voters, but Gardner leads 44-42 among landline
    * Governor Hickenlooper leads 49-32 percent with slightly higher margins across subgroups

    1. Aww, look what you just made ACHole do!  Now he's going to have to change his underwear 🙂

      You realize the reason he keeps posting those poll graphs isn't for our benefit.  It's to reassure himself only.  He's just whistling past the graveyard…

      1. Details of that poll  https://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50742/images/PNA%20CO%20Presidential%20Surge%20Voters%20Poll%20Memo.pdf   

        There are 1 million active registered voters in Colorado who voted in 2012 but didn't vote in 2010 or registered after 2012. They were sent a ballot last week. In our survey, 83 percent say they have already voted or plan on voting. According to Catalist voter file returns from Oct 23, 2014, 89,000 have already voted (making these Presidential Survey voters 21 percent of votes cast already).

    2. Denverco, You know what numbers I really, really like.  Today's release by the Secretary of State.

      Total Ballots returned:  518,600 (28.4% of 2010 total)

      Republican:  43.8%

      Dems:  31.7%

       

       

      1. Ha. Unclear on the concept. You better hope those (still meaningless at this point) numbers turn around, actually; Republicans need a greater margin to win elections than that. Remember how many more Republicans than Democrats turned out in 2008 and 2012, and yet we sent our electoral votes to Obama?

        1. NuckinFuts the Troll just keeps flailing anf flailing and flailing, waving his atrophied arms like he's suffering a seizure, jumping up and down, browning his threadbare shorts, hoping somebody — Dear God please, SOMEBODY — will actually listen to him, take his BS seriously, and maybe, just maybe, become "demoralized."

          LMAO at the fucking idiot loser.

      2. *yawn*.. and yet you forget that there are /SANE/ Republicans out there.. oh like the Jeffo parents who are completely turned off by the right-wing fuckwits, and at the end, it'll be more Democratic that ever.

         

         

      3. As our WIF likes to say, "when you take out all the noise..." 

        The Denver/Boulder/Jeffco/Arapahoe numbers (where the election will be decided) looks like this:

        51,723 (D)  / 50,381(R) Those, plus 33,286 (I) who are breaking left…and we haven't even yet hit the Dem wave, with what even as Ms. Maher describes as a typical early advantage for Republican (if, indeed, one exists)

        Maher agrees that Republicans "are inherently more Pointdexterish" than Democrats in terms of being detail-oriented and mailing back their ballots promptly

        These numbers are clearly not breaking in favor of our WIF.

         

        1. Spot on. The vibe coming from Team Udall is a calm, steady confidence. Don't think the Gardner cabal isn't noticing…

          The real wave is yet to come. I suspect when it makes shore, the troll will be no more.

          1. Things are calm with Team Udall in the same way a calm exists when someone passes in the night.  Udall accepts his fate.  He ran a poor race in a bad year to be a Dem and lost.

        2. The Bowel man is still full of it.

          Gardner is looking good.  Ds need to make up a lot of ground.  Based on the number so far it looks like Udall will lose by 5%.

      4. Hmmm. Wonder why Thing1 hasn't posted a link to the Denver Post source, nor mentioned that 77,000 unaffiliated voters have also turned in their ballots? Udall had a 12 point lead against Gardner with Independent/Unaffiliateds on the last poll I saw. Also, 16% is the highest % of ballots returned out of all the counties.

        Oh, perhaps he just would prefer that we all despair and prepare for GOP DOOM!

        Not happening, Thing1. Here is an excerpt from the real numbers:

         

        Ballots returned 2014 election* County / Active voters** / Dems / Reps / Independents / % returned

        Adams — 207,565 / 8,778 / 7,830 / 5,725 / 11%

        Arapahoe — 323,527 / 13,548 / 18,813 / 9,554 / 13%

        Boulder — 187,402 / 9,469 / 5,342 / 5,263 / 11%

        Broomfield — 36,147 / 1,814 / 2,329 / 1,557 / 16%

        Denver — 349,387 / 11,869 / 4,948 / 5,094 / 6%

        Douglas — 187,939 / 5,689 / 16,110 / 5,655 / 15%

        Jefferson — 347,240 / 16,801 / 21,278 / 13,375 / 15%

        Weld — 137,508 / 3,583 / 7,307 / 3,363 / 10%

        Colorado — 2.9 million / 105,401 / 145,824 / 77,285 / 11%

        1. One must also remember not every republican is a wacko like AC and moderatus. There are sane republicans who will vote for Udall. These numbers will turn around. A lot of independents will vote for Udall.

        2. Rs always are in the majority with early mail ins. This time, with all mail, that's going to be amplified. I'm guessing the late Dem catch up will be amplified too.  We'll just have to wait and see. Nobody on either side will know what this first all mail midterm election is going to look like until it's over. In the meantime I'd suggest ignoring Piss Ant.

          1. That's the wonderful thing – Piss Ant aka known as Thing1 aka the troll is VERY easy to ignore. I don't read what he posts, and I don't respond to his posts. It's EASY!

             

  5. Here's an enlightening read regarding the basic problem Republicans seem to be having — after the GOP governor's won in 2010's wave year and implemented their cherished Voodoo economic policies, they've screwed the pooch, as it were, and the backlash is building steam:

    Kansas, of course, offers the quintessential case of a state-level backlash. Governor Sam Brownback explicitly fashioned his state as a laboratory for the conservative program, especially on taxes, and the results have been catastrophic. (Josh Barro reports today that the state’s revenue loss, which Brownback explained away as temporary, runs even deeper than expected.) Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Michigan’s Rick Snyder, and Florida governor Rick Scott, all circa-2010 Republican governors in purple states, all face dire threats of losing their seats after a single term. North Carolina GOP governor Pat McCrory, not facing reelection until 2016, has so poisoned the state’s voters against his party that Democratic Senator Kay Hagan leads nearly every poll.

     

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/republican-governors-might-save-the-democrats.html

  6. Looks like the GOP might not even hold Georgia for Pete's Sake!  Are GOP candidates really all mean, vile and insensitive creeps once you peel back the thin veneer of humanity?

    IN GEORGIA: CNN MAKES FIVE POLLS FAVORING NUNN – A new CNN/ORC poll gives Democrat Michelle Nunn a 47 to 44 percent edge against Republican Rep. David Perdue. This survey is the fifth in the past week to give Nunn a slight advantage, with earlier polling ranging between 1 and 3 percentages points. Twelve of 14 previous polls conducted since early September had given Perdue advantages ranging from 2 to 10 percentage points. [Insider AdvantagePollster Georgia chart]

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/24/georgia-polling_n_6041168.html

    1. And here we have a bunch favoring Gardner. Why don't we all calm down and admit we really can't know for sure what all of this means. At this point we need to keep supporting GOTV , quit feeding the trolls every time new numbers come out and accept that there is now only one poll that counts and it won't be complete until Nov. 4. May the force be with the good guys.

      PS. They promised  the deluge of calls would stop after we got our ballots in. Hand delivered ours Monday AM. Got the "You have voted message" crossing me off the list as of the next day at the tracking site. Got two more calls asking me to vote for people today. If you promised to make calls days ago and are still working on the list you got days ago, please ask for an updated one!

      1. Sorry — personal bias — being a 4th generation Georgian, and having donated money to Nunn's campaign, I had to share the encouraging news!

        But yes, I agree, Nov. 4th is the only poll that matters at this point, so no feeding the troll (but I reserve the right to make nasty remarks behind his back 🙂

        1. Just meant to point out it makes little sense to posture and happy dance when it's our candidate with a few polls showing a smallish lead and claim the same means nothing when it's the other guy's candidate. I wish Nunn all the best.

    1. ISIS and Ebola are doing very well for us.  Thanks for asking.

      Another Muslim attacking a police officer with a hatchet yesterday in NYC.

      Another case of Ebola yesterday in NYC.

      Dem government incompetence continues to be on display.

    1. Our resident experts on political website etiquette, Moddy and AC, will accuse you and me of politicizing another tragedy.  The ammosexuals say that after each school shooting.  So everyone puts the subject aside until everyone forgets about the latest shooting or, until a new shooting pushes the last one off the front pages.

       

       

      1. Rush referred to this doctor's daily 6 pm program on KLTT (I think).  It was a much better defense of 105 than the one by that lady on Ch 12 the other night.  Of course, the poor lady was constantly being bullied and interrupted (and I'm afraid, outmaneuvered) by some chemical industry shill from the West Coast.  I have never listened to Rush before, but at least in this instance was favorably impressed.

        1. KLTT 670 am, another God and Country station, but with a lot more God than KLZ.  The program is "God's Plan for Your Health".  A shudder making title, but the Rush segment was just common sense w/o religion.

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