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April 20, 2015 07:47 AM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 62 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Hubris is one of the great renewable resources.”

–P. J. O’Rourke

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62 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

    1. I rarely use cannabis myself, but I’m all for more freedom and choices for consumers seeking to treat various ailments without supporting Big Pharma, and an end to the Drug War.So I’ll celebrate 4/20 in that spirit.  

    2. 16 years ago, the school shootings at Columbine also happened.

      Thusushering in an era in which we try to explain and mitigate such horrors by blaming music and tweaking school dress codes.

          1. No proof of clinical “madness” or mis-wiring. Almost every kid gets teased or bullied at some point to some degree. No evidence they endured anything out of the ordinary. Lots of kids also have only a small group of friends. Most aren’t part of the elite popular crowd. That’s what makes it elite. Absolutely nothing uncovered about the perpetrators explains why the did what they did when millions of other kids in similar circumstances, including those on medication for various alleged conditions (I believe that only a fraction of kids medicated for ADHD actually have any clinical condition at all and that new popular diagnoses like “oppositional disorder” are pure bull) don’t do anything of the kind. Mis-wiring can only be considered another guess, not an explanation.So far it’s all just guesses. If an explanation other than a guess exists, there isn’t any proof of it so far.

            1. Actually, the article I linked to describes why the FBI and a team of psychological professionals came to the conclusion that Klebold was a psychopath based on a thorough review of the case.

              Psycopathy explains what Klebold did.  It is about a mis-wired brain, not feeling left out.  And the diagnosis was based on things uncovered about the killers.

              1. Guesses. A diagnosis about someone they’d never met based on a review of the case? In the first place, psychology is far from a hard science and this particular brand of long distance psychological post mortem fails to rise above the level of speculation, leaving aside the fact that most psychopaths don’t kill anyone. Nobody knows why this happened. Nobody is ever going to know. 

  3. New national CNN poll out this morning shows Hillary Clinton absolutely DESTROYING the clown-filled tractor trailer of simpering, whimpering GOTP wannabe dolts:

    Clinton 56% vs Bush 39%
    Clinton 58% vs Christie 39%
    Clinton 55% vs Rubio 41%
    Clinton 58% vs Huckabee 37%
    Clinton 58% vs Paul 39%
    Clinton 60% vs Carson 36%
    Clinton 59% vs Walker 39%
    Clinton 60% vs Cruz 36%

    What’s that? Benghazi and EmailGate still not doing the trick? Well, there’s always Vince Foster! LMAO!

    ESAD, GOTP.

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/20/politics/2016-elections-republican-field-poll/

      1. Of course, but the overall trend, at least at this early stage, is crystal clear, despite the enemy’s best attempts to assassinate Hillary’s character early on, and she enters the 2016 fray with between 225 and 250 EVs already locked up, depending upon whom you ask. Some say even more.

        1. Fingers crossed there’s no late breaking non-petty Cinton scandal (you never know with the Clintons) or Dems will be well and truly screwed with the all the eggs in one basket.

          2. True again, but let us not overlook the extremely high propensity among every one of these wannabe GOTP knobs toward gaffing out, and the very high likelihood of each having one or more major scandals detonating right next to or directly beneath them.

            The Clintons and the Democratic Party aren’t the only ones walking a perilous tightrope here, and most if not all of their “imperfections” are already well know, unlike the enemy’s…

            1. Agree. And nobody knows how to go for the jugular like the Clintons if their enemies give them half a chance. Remember the late, desperation it’s a 2 AM phone call ad in 2008, making Obama out to be a dangerous choice in dangerous times? Not unlike the coming rightie we’re all gonna die if we we elect Obama ads? Clintons certainly can be counted on not to hesitate out of high road considerations, that’s for sure. There will be no repeat of an above the fray Obama not responding immediately to the ridiculous birthers or a Kerry waiting until Swift Boat lies are firmly entrenched. Whichever clown car occupant makes it out of the GOTP primaries, I’m all for making sure they get obliterated ASAP by any and all possible legally permissible means. Definitely a Clinton strength. In fact, that’s probably the best reason I can think of for supporting HRC with some enthusiasm even though I don’t much like her.

        1. Yikes! If authentic, there are no words to describe the level of depravity this photo represents.  

          Was he infatuated with the film “Cabaret”?  That’s about the most innocent interpretation I can think of.

        2. OMFG — is that really Walker? It can’t be! We couldn’t possibly get that lucky!

          But if so, his political career just died, and I will dance and spit joyfully on its grave.

              1. If it featured Obama or HRC it would be on 24 hour loop on Fox with every host expressing outrage and without a single caveat indicating that it might not be real. No mere hoping it was true. it would be true as soon as somebody’s uncle passed it along. No detour to Snopes or any other manner of fact checking required. That’s why, when somebody tells you CNN (as if that’s leftie) or MSNBC is just like Fox but for lefties, you can tell them that no other “news” network, center to left, is in any way comparable to Fox, especially not MSNBC and especially not Rachel Maddow which do not make stuff up or pass on every anti-conservative internet rumor that comes their way as established fact without checking it out. Only Fox and the rightie radio brotherhood do that. We on the left hope and enjoy but verify. 

          3. I really wish you were right. but here’s how I think it will go down. 

            Rival Republicans who are behind the leaking of this picture, will blame Liberal Democrats for putting up such A provably false image. Then, when there are real scandals of Scott Walker making, they can point to this and say and say, “See? Damn liberals will say anything about him. “

        4. This will take its place in the political almanac right besides Dan Savage’s newfangled definition of “Santorum” and Rick Perry’s three government agencies he would abolish if elected.

    2. I predict foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation will be their newest scandal.  Yesterday, Carly girl was talking about Bill’s hormones (like that has anything to do with her hormones).  I think if they can’t find anything else, they will just make it up.  The whole party is despicable.

      1. That kind of stuff isn’t big enough. For one thing the public mainly accepts that all pols accept money from anybody. They’re going to have to do better.

  5. The Well-heeled 1%-ers who live around the DC beltway, and the ones who go there looking for their nodding approval (looking at you, MU), are dying to cut Social Security and other meager benefits that go to the poor and elderly:

    Chris Christie is working his way back into the hearts of the Villagers with strident calls to cut Social Security:

    There is nothing like a big, macho Republican demanding that the government cut the meager benefits of the old and sick to get the Washington press corps stimulated, as Chris Christie proved again last week. The political media couldn’t find enough superlatives to describe him. They excitedly said his plan was “provocative, and risky“, that he was smartly positioning himself as “one guy willing to talk straight about the government’s unsustainable finances” — which was all part of the narrative of him being a hero who is “authentic and brave and tells it like it is.” What a man.

    This classic beltway assumption — that cutting the safety net is the very essence of political courage and ideological integrity — goes all the way back to the early days of Ronald Reagan, when he was making stuff up about Social Security going broke in 1964. The trend continued well into the ’90s and ’00s, culminating with the press’s cheerleading for George W. Bush’s ambitious attempt to slash the program in 2005.

    But it took on even more of a febrile quality when, early in his term, Barack Obama mused about hopes for a Grand Bargain which included cuts to “entitlements.” There had always been Democrats who backed the idea, but it came as a happy surprise to the political establishment that one who was portrayed as being very liberal (though he wasn’t.-ed) would join the chorus.

    The Grand Bargain seems to have finally died a much belated death. (Although it could pull a “Walking Dead” on us.) Udall had the shamelessness to call in Elizabeth Warren to campaign for him last year, after he had campaigned against Social Security, and for Bowles-Simpson (BS) and that so-called “Grand Bargain”, for the previous five.

    It seems as though our dear Sen. Bennet is still trying to figure out what to do about his seat. He’s incapable of doing anything as bold as a Roosevelt or Truman would, and will most likely be about as bold as Udall was. Heh…

    I won’t miss him. But hey, at least he has a (D) behind his name, right?

    1. End or dramatically raise the cap. Let  all or most of the upper income brackets pay the same percent of their income as everybody else. Welcome young immigrants and offer them a path to citizenship so they can come out of the shadows and contribute, especially the ones who came here as children, got solid educations and could get higher paying jobs and contribute more if they were legal. 

    2. Agree Bowles-Simpson is just the same discredited conservative austerity policy watered down a little. So maybe a little less bad than what we see in all wacko rightie Kansas but still very bad. Not sensible at all.

    3. When the Elephants start trumpeting about Social Security being an entitlement, they need to be reminded that it didn’t “go broke”; the fund was raided to bankroll NASA. That’s when it became a line item in the budget. The money was never paid back into the fund. Republicans were all for that, lest the Soviets get to the moon first and set up missile silos there. Some of these younger Republican candidates need a history lesson.

    1. So does that put both North Carolina and Alabama in the DOJ’s sights for a declaration that they need pre-clearance under the VRA? That was one of the suggested fallbacks when SCOTUS struck down the Congressional list of states needing pre-clearance…

    2. That makes me happy, DP. Eventually, my faith in SCOTUS just may be restored. We’ll see how they come down in Obergefell v. Hodges (the pending marriage case to be argued next week).

    1. Far out, man….cool

      I will immediately add two or three more of Willies’ tunes to my repertoire and use them as a segue into a mention of Willies’ new enterprise.

  11. Here is today’s update on the schizophrenic Republicans and gay marriage:

    Scott Walker:  opposes same sex marriage, skipped the ceremony (said he was traveling) but attended the reception of a gay couple’s wedding

    John Kacich:  opposes same sex marriage but has been invited to a gay wedding and plans to attend

    Rick Santorum:  vehemently opposes and won’t attend (no word on whether anyone would invite him)

  12. Nothing sells guns like fear:

    The NRA Has a New Reason for Gun Owners to Buy More Guns

    Unfortunately for the NRA, the problem with using crime as a rationale for owning guns is that violent crime in the United States keeps going down. For that matter, so does the percentage of older, white men, who just happen to be the demographic that buys and owns most of the guns. So sooner or later, if these trends continue, the NRA is going to have to craft a new message and find a new reason for all those guys and gals walking around armed.

    .

    But Wayne-o and his PR staff have evidently come up with their latest scare technique, which came at about the 4th minute of his speech to NRA members when he mentioned that “terror cells” were operating in cities all across the United States and that a major terrorist attack was about to take place.

    At last year’s meeting Wayne-o told the audience that terrorists were just one of a large group that were threatening America, a group which included home invaders, drug cartels, campus killers, airport killers, power-grid destroyers — it was quite a list. This year he got his act somewhat more focused, pulled the ‘terror cells’ out of his hat, and then reminded his listeners that only a national CCW law and every NRA member renewing their dues would truly make Americans safe.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-weisser/nra-annual-meeting_b_7099472.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

    That would also explain why Ken Buck was trumpeting the ISIS terrorist cells just across the border.  Buck’s probably on commission…

  14. A worthy read on revisiting the Ludlow Massacre in today’s New Yorker

    A different kind of violence is visited upon today’s miners. There are no overt, bloody showdowns between striking workers and armed National Guardsmen whose paychecks come from corporate barons. But industry money—in the form of fees paid by mine companies for consultant work—still appears to influence the diagnoses of doctors and radiologists, according to copious research compiled by the Center. And the coal industry’s go-to law firm withheld dissenting medical evidence that supported miners’ claims in eleven of the fifteen cases featured in the report. As a result, ailing and dying miners are denied the support they are owed.

    There are eighty-five thousand coal miners left in the United States, but, while many are union members, the influence of the United Mine Workers was already waning by the early eighties, according to the Center for Public Integrity report. Today the union represents about twenty thousand active miners, according to the Wall Street Journal. Instead of union pressure, it was more likely the Center’s investigation that prompted the Department of Labor to announce, in February, a series of reforms that will make it easier for miners with black-lung disease to collect their medical benefits. A hundred years ago, it took a great and deadly injustice to spur lasting government reform. Here’s hoping we learn from it.

  16.                                                2015 Denver Auditor Election

    Mr. O’Brien has proven track record of Quality ,Trust and Honesty. He was appointed by the Colorado State Legislators to be the State Auditor for 11 years. I think that body knows what it is doing. Mr. Nevitt is pointing out that Mr. O’Brien has never been elected, big deal. He has never run for any office. He is running as an Independent candidate, he will not have any pay backs to dish out after he is elected like his opponent. It is clear to see that all of these endorsements Mr. Nevitt is getting are from offices that he has been associated with for the last eight years. There will be a tremendous amount of conflict of interest in Mr. Nevitt’s office. How can Mr. Nevitt possibly conduct an audit in the office of City Council when he just left there and it’s members are still there? Then there is the Mayors office, just to name a few. These offices are all endorsing someone that has never had any experience in Auditing. Makes one wonder, doesn’t it? I’m voting for Qualifications, trust and honesty.That is Tim O’Brien

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