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November 25, 2014 07:15 AM UTC

Tuesday Open Thread

  • 47 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

"An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot."

–Thomas Paine

Comments

47 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread

    1. Harley, who are "the animals", in your opinion?

      In MY opinion, and I hope you're not including me in your "animals" category, the Grand Jury has just declared open season on young black men in Missouri. 

      I don't condone criminality, but I totally understand the reaction. 

      1. "the last 10 shots"

        These racist officers are egged on every day by Rush and Hannity and Levin and Savage. They probably listen to their ideological heroes to and from work, and maybe even in their squad cars. 

      2. The grand jury got to listen to real evidence and then came to a conclusion based on real evidence.  How quaint?  They came to a different conclusion than the progressive white cop went hunting for innocent black man, devoid of evidence and reality story put out by the media.

        1. the prosecutor made sure to discount certain witness' testimony at the news conference and surely inside that grand jury. He didn't discount the testimony of Witness 40 – google it, the "evidence" is a sick joke. 

          And I don't think he discounted the testimony of Wilson, who testified he thought Brown was like Hulk Hogan or a demon. Maybe the prosecutor could have highlighted that. Or that Wilson thought Brown was "bulking up to run through the shots." 

          As if anyone could run through 12 shots…….unless they had that fear put into them every day all day.

      3. Really? The Grand Jury has "just declared open season on young black men"–really?

        With those "young black men" committing 93% of the crime in America–who is declaring war on whom?

        Now, as far as the Grand Jury decision, let us go back in time just two months ago, to a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Plumhoff v. Rickard, in which the Supremes gave police officers an allowance to do exactly what was needed to in dealing with a possible shooting scenario. If Brown wasn't so stupid and arrogant, he would be still alive and stealing from the neighborhood grocery.

        As for the animals–all one has to do is look at the carnage in Ferguson Monday night.

          1. "I just don't understand why they terrorize their own neighborhoods and damage people's property."

            "They are criminals and thugs."

            I understand. It is a far different reason than why white, suburban kids do it…

            Oh, White America…

            1. And just to top off the news out of Ferguson–the church that Micheal Brown "attended" was, according to news reports Tuesday morning, burned. Oh the irony.  

            2. You left out pictures of LoDo after a Broncos win but your point is well made.  Never try to make sense of anger and rage regardless of race, nationality, creed, gender, or sexual orientation.

              I'm reminded of Election Night 1992 when some of my brothers and sisters in the GLBT community went to DEM headquarters yelling and screaming when Amendment Two passed.  Maybe it was convenience (Dem HQ was downtown Denver, GOP HQ was somewhere in Stepford) but I couldn't understand why we weren't targeting the actual proponents of Amendment Two.

              1. My wife was covering that story for the old community access program, The Lambda Report  that nightFrank.Her car got trapped at the Radisson. I'll never forget how frightened I was that the whole city might explode. God bless Wellington Webb. He got out of bed, came downtown and defused the situation. Had the Democratic Party not let the crowd into the event at the hotel…I shudder to think.

                1. So true.  Webb came through.  Even Romer did.  He was photographed holding a "No on Two".  

                  A picture which reappeared courtesy of Bruce Benson's campaign in '94 to show how out of touch Romer was with the voters.  

                  And what was Romer's margin of victory over Benson during that year's Republican wave election?

        1. Harley, ease up on your Fox news feed. 69% of the crime in America is committed by white people, since white people are still the majority. This is per the FBI.

          And yes, Prosecutor McCulloch, who has never found a white officer guilty of violence against a black suspect in 14 years, by promoting the "Mike Brown was a violent thug" meme as "evidence", by suppressing the measurable distance Mike Brown ran before he was gunned down (148 feet), by indiscriminately "data dumping" what the grand jury saw, has in fact reinforced the "open season on young black men" in Missouri. McCulloch had determined from the get-go that there would be no indictment of Darren Wilson. He was going through the motions, hoping, probably, that people would tire of protesting and emotions would die down. Obviously, neither of those things happened….because the conditions which led to Brown's murder still exist – poor black folks in Ferguson being used as cash cows, unequal justice, abuse by white officers.

          This could have been a real step for justice and racial healing; instead, it has made that day more distant. I hope that Atty General Holder will find the entire Ferguson police department guilty of misconduct.

          1. MJ, Great idea.  Maybe the white cop should just take one for the cause?  That would make your pathetic liberal conscious feel just fine. After all, he is just a cop.  And the cause of social justice is so just.

    1. Once you have set and saved your the "Stylish" app per the instructions provided by progessicat @: http://pastebin.com/NsrUPcFV

      then, all you need to do is edit, and add another comment command line to add the name of any other user you don't wish to view.  For instance if you didn't want to see any of my snarky comments you'd add the comment line:

       .comment-author-diogenesdemar > div > .comment-body {display:none!important}

    2. Apparently, I've created a crazed censorship monster laugh

      Early on in my instructions here, I gave an example of how to add others using my own username.  For the most part, that will work with anyone on the site.  If there are spaces in the name, substitute dashes ("-") just like in the line that hides AC.

      There are at least a few users whose comment-author name is different from the displayed name (Duke Cox is dukeco1, iirc) (I found that during testing– I like to read Duke's posts surprise).  This is probably either a holdover from an older version of the site that shortened names or folks started with a different username and the site only changes the displayed name when changes are made.

      You can find out anyone's comment-author name by viewing the HTML source of a page where they've commented and scrolling to their comment.  Around there you'll see a list element (<LI>) enclosing the comment.  That element has a long list of classes (<li class="comment byuser comment-author-harley even thread-even depth-1 wp-unread-comment" id="li-comment-571948">), one of which is the comment-author-????? class you need.

      1. I don't think of it as censorship, the idiots are free to rail on in any fashion they choose for the "benefit of whomever they choose.  For me you've created a "personalized comfort control" tool . . . 

        I don't make too much noise advocating for anyone to remove of anyone else (mostly) from their viewing, and, btw I have more than two names I'm not viewing.  Its the same fashion as my preference not to waste my time watching any FOX NEWS channels, or most Adam Sandler or Julia Roberts movies . . .    

      2. Woah – WP/CP has a killfile feature via CSS? That's cool. I didn't know any blog system had killfile functionality. Haven't seen a system that has since freakin' NetNews readers.

        Don't worry, AC – you'll still have at least one part-time reader; this site is low enough volume that I can skim past you manually when you're being extra idiotic (which tends to be most of the time, but hey, I'm a nice guy…).

  1. Oil Seen Dropping Another $30 by ICAP on Commodity, Dollar Cycle 

     

    New York-traded crude oil will probably drop another $30 in the next two years as long-term cycles in commodities and currencies converge, no matter what happens at this week’s OPEC meeting and Iran nuclear talks, according to brokerage United-ICAP.

    West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, has collapsed five times since the contract’s introduction in 1983, said Walter Zimmerman, chief technical strategist for United-ICAP in Jersey City, New Jersey.

    The plunges in 1986, 1991, 1998, 2001 and 2008 coincided with an OPEC price war, recessions and financial crises, and were also tied to cycles in commodities or the dollar, said Zimmerman, who was calling for a drop in oil prices as early as April. “This time we have both.”

    “Crude is heading lower, with the high $40s or low $50s being touched by 2017,” Zimmerman said. The long-term cycle points to the dollar moving higher and the euro declining into 2016, while commodities move lower through 2016 and 2017, he said.

    The average drop during the previous five major declines was about 62 percent, according to Zimmerman.

     

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-24/oil-seen-dropping-another-30-by-icap-on-commodity-dollar-cycle.html?cmpid=yhoo

     

    This is going to affect the industry in Colorado dramatically…

    So I have a message for newly elected state rep. Dan Thurlow…

    Dan…contrary to your profoundly misinformed opinion, this is the reason O&G operations fluctuate and sometimes decline rapidly…NOT REGULATIONS..!!

    Get an education, Representative Thurlow, so you don't keep embarrassing yourself in public.

    1. Assuming that prediction is accurate, the ramifications both domestically, and in particular internationally, would be profound.

      Fracking needs at least $80/bbl to be profitable on average:

      http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-17/oil-is-cheap-but-not-so-cheap-that-americans-won-t-profit-from-it.html

      So expect to see an industry self-imposed fracking ban, until prices recover.

      But even more interesting is that this knocks the legs out from under both Iran and Russia's economies.  They need $100/bbl to keep their economies afloat.  

      Their reactions could be alarming, like something from a Tom Clancy novel (a'la "Red Storm Rising")

  2. Praise the Lord and Pass the Bipartisanship – Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner will work together in Harmony and Civility:

    There was nothing flashy about the first meeting between U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and newcomer Cory Gardner after the latter's Election Day victory.

    No bourbon or beer was served — thus disqualifying it from the trendy "summit" label used nowadays — and the setting inside Bennet's office could best be described as modest.

    But the hour-long powwow between Colorado's next two senators was significant for another reason.

    Not only did the incumbent Democrat and incoming Republican promise to bridge their bipartisan differences and form an alliance, but thanks to a rare combination of politics and personality, there's an outside chance such a collaboration actually could form.

    This will, of course, benefit Gardner and Republicans most, Democrats and the possibility of anything getting done the least. That's the way things have been going lately..

    Bennet, if he had a clue, could refine and reinforce any liberal credentials he might have. (Does he have any?) This would actually support the president and help his reelect bid. I doubt that will happen.

    Then when it comes time for Colorado's voters to choose between real Republican Mike Coffman and almost Republican Mikey Bennet, the choice will be obvious.

    1. Voting for Keystone certainly didn't burnish Bennet's credentials as someone serious about reducing mankind's carbon footprint and slowing accelerating climate change trends.

    2. HRC has bravely taken no stand one way or the other. Steadfastly silent. The fact that so many Bennet trashers are also HRC supporters, as they were Romanoff supporters when he primaried Bennet, doesn't even surprise me any more. The capacity for self delusion apparently knows no partisan bounds. I voted for Bennet in the primary and the general and will support HRC if she's the Dem candidate but I never fool myself about what I'm getting.  

  3. BTW. About Obama being a super criminal constitution trashing emperor because of tweaking an ACA requirement time line and taking some highly limited and perfectly legal action on immigration since Boehner won't bring the bi-partisan Senate bill to the floor…

    During a Fox News interview Sunday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) argued that only Congress is authorized to legislate federal immigration policies and said Obama was "defying the law, defying the constitution" and "behaving in an unprecedented way." Congress' exclusive immigration powers include ending all deportations and permanently altering a specific group's immigration status. Obama's order does neither.

    While Obama’s new policy may be more expansive than previous presidential orders on immigration, the order itself is certainly not unprecedented.

    Since 1956, two presidents — both Republican — have employed executive orders to implement immigration reform. In 1981, Ronald Reagan moved to defer the deportation of roughly 100,000 undocumented immigrants. In 1990, George H.W. Bush also used his executive powers to relieve 1.5 million undocumented immigrants of deportation.

    In fact, Obama has issued fewer executive orders than every president since 1901. While Democratic presidents have relied on executive orders more frequently than Republicans over the last 100 years, Obama’s average executive orders per year in office fall nearly 3.3 points below George W. Bush, 8.4 below George H.W. Bush and roughly 14.5 points below Ronald Reagan.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/24/barack-obama-executive-orders-immigration_n_6213800.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

  4. Looks like the GOP has decided that if the Electoral College prevents you from grabbing the Presidency, break that too:

    Last week, a Republican state lawmakerintroduced a bill that would change the way the state awards its 16 electoral votes. Instead of winner-take-all, an arrangement that clearly benefits Democrats in states like Michigan, the winner of the state’s popular vote would get half of Michigan’s electoral votes, with an additional electoral vote awarded for every 1.5 percent of the vote received above 50 percent. The second-place major party candidate would get the remainder.

    Even if this doesn’t fly in Michigan—there’s the potential for some deal making, because legislative Republicans need Dem backing on a roads bill—expect to see similar bills introduced in populous states with high electoral vote counts andGOP-controlled legislatures. This is a new spin on a GOP scheme to create a more favorable Republican playing field for the 2016 presidential election. And if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere—and will.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/18/gop-states-hitlist-abortion-unions-hillary.html

    1. Of course Republicans aren't actually interested in a nationwide popular vote for President, nor are they looking to implement a split electoral college in states they control. This maneuver is only for swing or light blue states that are controlled by Republicans at the state level right now.

      In other words, it's strictly a bid to retain their relevance at the Presidential level.

      1. They made a run at this same stunt in PA a few years ago when they had the governorship and both houses of the legislature.  Cooler minds — or at least the outside chance that Mittens might have carried PA — prevailed.

    1. We also need Dems making sure all of this is as well known to the general public, not just political minded Dem supporters who read blogs, as all the GOTP lies. This should have been featured in ads across the country.

  5. It was bound to happen.  Senator Rafael "Ted" Cruz (Tea Party-Calgary) has offered POTUS some unsolicited advice as to who should be the next Sec of Def:  Joseph I. Lieberman.

    I'm guessing it's a non-starter.

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