CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
July 16, 2016 07:01 AM UTC
80 Comments
Littwin: The terror of the Nice attack is a test.
http://youtu.be/kb-yB4OxGBA
There’s a fat man, in the bathtub, with the blues . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/nyregion/chris-christie-lost-out-on-the-job-he-wanted-and-his-bad-year-got-worse.html
The Turkey coup attempt sounds like a Tea Party militant's wet dream.
Just before it start, Erdogen had a visit from Tancredo, Coffman and Mizel.
Donald Drumpf has called for a ban on all poultry imports until we figutre out this thing about turkey.
Clearly, a complicated and delicate international situation, fraught with peril at any misstep, which will require US leadership . . .
. . . from a President with short fingers and a large Twitter presence!!
Sounds like our old spooks are nostalgic for the good old days when we never met a military coup we didn't like and weren't happy to support.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cia-officials-turkey-coup-advice_us_578a2d02e4b08608d334c32c?section=
I'm only posting this to announce my resignation from the Democratic Party on March 2nd, 2016, and went unaffiliated until two weeks ago when I registered as a member of the Green Party.
Go Jill! #JillNotHill. I am voting for Arn Menconi as a replacement for one sold-out Democrat here in Colorado
Have a great summer!
You go, DP! I'm tempted,and I do understand your thought process, but this is not the year I feel I can afford a symbolic vote. Hillary will probably take Colorado easily, but it all depends on who turns in their ballots. QPoll shows it to be a much tighter race nationally, with HRC only ahead 1-2 points.
I'd like to see the Green party built up to be a viable party, as it is in Parliamentary systems which are not built around the bipolar party madness.
I can't think of any year that would be a good one for a "symbolic" vote. Of course it's possible that having had to read and discuss the symbolism in the damned Scarlet Letter three times, Jr High, High School and college, never finding the damned thing any less tedious than the first time, may have soured me on the whole "symbolism" thing.
I just vote for the best of my realistic choices every time. Don't see why I should bother to vote "symbolically" especially since our votes are anonymous and I don't imagine the world is waiting with bated breadth for a "symbolic" message from yours truly in any case.
It's going to be HRC or Trump, Glenn or Bennet, etc. The rest is just posturing and patting oneself on the back for being so principled.
I kind of hate the Scarlet Letter, too. I try not to teach it until senior English, if then….and make it more relevant with discussions of slut-shaming, unwed motherhood then and now, how does Puritan ideology influence us today, etc. It doesn't help that the movie was so racy that teens come into it hoping for hot sex scenes which never materialize.
As for the rest…..agree to disagree – again.
I'm sure it may seem so in most cases, but I would submit that "symbolism" is far more powerful than cynicism and can be an intense drug for the impassioned heart. I have not forgotten the late 60s and early 70s. I still occasionally perform, " For What Its Worth" when the mood strikes me.
I remember politics before endless hours on the phone, another parade in the hot sun, miles of canvassing, far too many public events and way too many speeches. I remember how hot our blood ran back then…sometimes the heart is in it. And if it is misguided. Well…I suffered that same fate a couple of times and learned from it…it is the way….
As long as there aren't enough nitwits to hand the election to Trump…. fine. It isn't idealism to insist that HRC will be just as bad as Trump. It's willful blindness. Just as it was willful blindness to insist that Gore would have been just as bad as Bush.
Choosing between the real choices rather than the symbolic or statement making choices with so much on the line is not cynicism. It's being responsible.
When we elect HRC and a Dem majority Senate and save the Supreme Court, fighting side by side with Bernie Sanders to do so, I just hope all the Bernie or Busters who failed to join Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and the rest of us by helping us to achieve that goal will remember that, no matter how much time they put in to supporting Bernie, how many hours they volunteered, how much they contributed to him, when push came to shove they deserted him and they will have no right to share in any accomplishments that result from defeating Trump and taking back the Senate and the Supreme Court from the rabid right.
Instead they will have chosen to make it more difficult to achieve those things. They will have added themselves to the supporters of Trump as those the rest of us had to overcome. If that's idealism you can keep it.
In an "ideal" world, . . .
. . . probably none of us would qualify for membership.
“nitwits”
So if you don’t approve, that makes them “nitwits”?
Your graciousness is overwhelming….
Why should I be gracious? We aren't High School students practicing our debating skills and good sportsmanship in a polite competition with no real world consequences. This is about whether or not our next president is going to be Donald Trump, for God's sake.
I don't feel at all gracious towards those who intend to help make President Trump possible and that's exactly what anyone who doesn't vote for HRC in this election is doing.
If you're someone who wants Trump be President that's fine. But if someone is a Bernie or Buster and claims that undying unconditional refusal to vote for HRC has something to do with support for Bernie and his policies, one after another of which are being taken up, in whole or in part, by HRC to Bernie's increasing satisfaction, then I feel completely justified in considering that person to be a nitwit and in saying so.
It's not as if being gracious will change such a person's mind or that I'm running for Miss Congeniality and need to avoid losing points.
It's about the very real future of my very real country and the very real world. I don't respect those who consider the smug satisfaction of making a point more important than the outcome of this election and won't pretend otherwise to be "gracious". Not to put too fine a point on it but screw that.
I guess principles is thrown out in the window. I guess by not voting for Clinton or Trump, I'm not allowed to have principles and my integrity intact. By giving my vote away to someone that has absolutely zero interest in the platform, whatever the Dems put in, only going to favor those who made her.
I'm sorry, but this one, I'm going with Jill as a viable principled vote. I'll be happy to leave here until day after the elections when the result is in.
DP,
If the day before you cast your vote you saw that the race here in Colorado was Trump: 40, Clinton: 40, Johnson: 12, Stein: 8, how would you cast your vote?
You don't have to leave, dp. Just be prepared to take a fair amount of crap for your electoral choice, Luckily, this blog isn't like kos, which actively bans commenters who promote the Greens. Pols is one of the few blogs on the left or right which doesn't censor commenters.
I'm choosing differently than you this election – casting my meager vote and voice on the side of holding back the darkness, keeping the human race from tipping over the cliff one more time into proud fascism.
But the effects of climate change are real, and accelerating. The tip of Florida is eroding daily.
Island nations are disappearing. If the Greens can make a strong case for real national security, and put up a candidate with political experience, there is a chance to build a viable 3rd party which could make a difference. Perhaps yours.
I appreciate that … from one pain in the ass to another?
I can be a pain in the ass, no doubt about that. But besides our natural shyness, we are bound by the fact that we do live on this planet, not in the clouds where days are spent calculating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Dante reserved the lowest circle of hell for those who couldn't take a stand. Neither of us is likely to take up residence there.
Sorry, V. The lowest level of Hell is reserved for betrayal, not simply exercising your constitutional rights (voting for whomever you choose and talking about it), which is what you seem to be trying to say… you consider a non-vote for Hillary to be grounds for damnation as a betrayer.
And yes…a pain in the ass…certainly. But, a lovable PITA. I'm off to help my nephew install a sliding glass door this AM. Ya'll keep the bitchin' going til I get back…
.
…just made the “rights” argument, mama….see if that works
I never said Dustpan was a traitor. I said he's an idiot. Or, in Lenin's phrase, a useful idiot.
#UsefuldiotsforTrump.
Sadly I believe those who plan to throw way their vote on someone they know can't possibly win, isn't even in the race, instead of supporting the only viable better (by many magnitudes) option to a truly appalling candidate do believe that self righteousness is the worthiest basis for taking a stand. We're the less enlightened beings what with our insistence on dealing with plain old earthly reality.
Matt Taibbi nails it:
None of which changes the reality that in this particular election the only alternative to HRC isn't just a much worse option but an unthinkable one in Trump. That is all.
Isn't it, in the end, an ethical issue? We vote at the ballot box – using election rules as the boundaries of our choices – who will lead this country.
The current rules say the person with the most votes at the end of the day wins. We can help to ensure that a viable choice crosses the finish line first, or we can stick to our principles and only vote for the best candidate, allowing someone antithetical to our principles to win.
You can try justifying it by saying you'd like the party that half represents your values to burn in order to attempt to make your own more pure party ascendant in the next election, but the fact that the real opposition party now has four years to burn down the place (figuratively, we hope) doesn't give you a lot of ethical cover. And if the Democratic Party is somehow destroyed by it, which party do you think they'll invade and "corrupt" when they go?
OK, so you think dustpuppy is morally wrong. I get it.
Morally wrong, no. Just wrong. And staggeringly self-centered. But he can join Moddy in anchoring the Trump campaign here.
Got it! dustpuppy = Donald Trump.
I think at some point in each of our lives, we make decisions which go against our objective ethical best judgement – we're not Vulcan-trained logical robots.
I also think Taibbi is wrong to try to diminish the ethical impact of our election choice, even when that choice might not be our ideal candidate, and that's what I was responding to.
Well, Canine, he certainly does equal … Prefer helping Trump win to helping his only real opponent win, an opponent who, by any subjective standard, is far preferable in light of Puppy's alleged principles than Trump.
Just like Taibbi, Canines finds these moral equivalency tirades "tiresome." But, please, carry on.
ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……..
Hey, Duke, For What It's Worth reminded me of a couple of other, similar pieces. Have you ever heard Billy Joel's Angry Young Man or Harry Chapin's Remember When the Music? The Chapin piece was on the album of the same title (it was charting when he was killed in the car accident). The Joel piece was on the Piano Man album; his first successful effort.
Oops! I intended this as a reply to Duke on the “posturing” remark. Not sure how it got so far down the thread.
hey skinny
I wore out a couple of versions of "Piano Man" ( LP and cassette)….love that stuff…I don't recall the Chapin piece, but I will remind myself. His ballad, "Taxi", is an incredible song. In fact, that entire "Heads and Tales " album was, overall, a brilliant piece of work. …"Six String Orchestra" from the album "Verities and Balderdash" is a particular favorite.
You have good taste in music, it is apparent
I goofed. Remember When the Music was on the Sequel album. BTW, if you've never heard it, the title track is a sequel to Taxi, set ten years after the events in the original song. Someday, when you're in town for a Pols meet-up, you can drop by our place and have a gander at our music collection. I have brothers between ten and thirteen years older than I. They all had different musical tastes, so I got a pretty broad education. Karen says "our collection spans from acoustic to zydeco but 'R' is for reggae not rap."
So, you are voting for Trump and Daryl by the back door? What's the matter — you don't have the guts to vote for them directly?
Guess he must think Bernie and Warren are sell outs and HRC would be just as bad as Trump.
This is America, V. Remember?
Scolding Bernie supporters, or any voter, for that matter, is treading on thin ice. The effect may not be what you want. With all due respect, if dustpuppy chooses to vote for Trump or anyone else, that is not subject to scrutiny….by you, me, or anyone else. If the Democratic Party leaders are so fucking, dog-ass stupid they cannot read the giant neon sign just placed in front of them, then they deserve what ever fate befalls them…even if resembles the debacle going on over there in Cleveland.
Yes, Duke , this is America and that means that if Dustpuppy supports fascist assholes, directly or indirectly, I have the right to call him on it. Freedom of speech is not the sole right of assholes.
There is no right not to have one's decisions subject to scrutiny. Subjecting decisions to scrutiny is exactly what all of us should be doing every day to make informed decisions as responsible citizens. Feel free to subject any of mine to scrutiny. If you think I'm being a putz and say so I promise not to complain that you are "treading on thin ice" where my rights are concerned. I might counter complain that you're being an ass but none of that will have anything to do with any of our rights.
Dustpuppy, come back and fight your own battles. Don't just drop a Green bomb and disappear like that.
I know where this leads – but I'm not up for any escalating flame wars tonight.
Duke wasn't making a "rights" argument. He was making an "effectiveness" argument, I think. His point was that DP or other Bernites will be completely unmoved by Vger's accusation that they "haven't the guts" to vote for Trump directly.
Sweet reason can sometimes win when insults and bullying do not. I may try to persuade one or two of my newly Green friends to vote for HRC this election. I have that right, and they have the right to ignore me. I respect their decisions – I think they respect mine.
You – V, BC, probably the majority of Polsters – don't respect the decision to vote Green – you've made that clear. Message 100% received.
And for sure, you all have the right to insult, put up and knock down straw men, and bully all you like. It won't change anyone's mind or vote, but venting might feel good.
You also have the right to try reason – adult to adult, claim and evidence, "scrutiny" as BC says. It doesn't happen on here much, but it could. What a concept.
I'm a Green. There are Green Party candidates in the ballot this fall.
Jill Stein.
Arn Menconi
Both would be an outstanding replacement for Clinton and Bennet respectively.
Thought you were leaving. Let me hold the door
"Outstanding" [without even the slightest bit of a prayer] . . .
So what are you trying to accomplish by that post, pup? (And, by that I mean, beyond your obvious personal attention seeking.)
Good luck with it, dp. I'm glad you chose the Green Party. I am sticking with the Democrats at this point because I still hold out hope that not everyone in Washington DC has had his brain eaten by ants. And, I have down ticket races that matter to me and I want to be able to vote in primaries.
Keep us posted as you get to know better the party and its people .
No it doesn't and hasn't until this election since the days of DLC triangulation. That goes for Obama as well who ran as a centrist.
Uh, No.
Jill is a homeopathic anti-vaxxer.
Actually, Dr. Stein advocates for an impartial agency to oversee and evaluate all remedies and medicines. By "impartial", she means without a Board with conflicts of interest because of being lobbyists or otherwise employed by pharmaceutical companies.
She admits there's a lot of "snake oil" out there, and stops short of saying that all homeopathic remedies are safe.
Her actual quotes:
from Patheos:
I occasionally use simple homeopathic sleep /anxiety remedies: Calms Forte, and Rescue Remedy. I have no idea why they work, but they do. Homeopathic remedies, in contrast to most of the "snake oil" supplements out there which promise to recharge your brain, rejuvenate your sex life, cure cancer, bla bla, are very affordable, usually under $10 a bottle, or pennies a dose, so profit isn't the motive.
The supplement industry badly needs regulation and truth-in -labeling law. Even my brother-in-law, who is one of the most militant anti-GMO fighters around, and whose own livelihood depends on credulous supplement buyers, admits that.
As far as being anti-vaxxer, Stein isn't. But she wants vaccines to be tested and regulated by parties without a financial interest in the outcome:
You know, I'm still voting for HRC because of that Trump threat. But I have to say that I like what I'm finding out about Stein. Keep it up, y'all. You just might persuade me to the dark side.
I know exactly why your homeopathic remedies work : Placebo effect. That's another term for the healing power of our lord Jesus Christ, Christian science , Lourdes etc. And good for you for tapping the power of the mind to heal itself. Homeopathic remedies are basically distilled water, so $10 a bottle still gives the makers a fair profit. But they won't harm you as long as you don't use them in place of necessary medicine, like my insulin. Since anxiety is a mental thing, by definition anything that eases it works. For my part, I just burn incense to my statue of Hillary.
You do that. Do you chant?
Of course, I chant:
"Don't stop thinking about tomorrow…
I'm late to the discussion, but wanted to throw in a couple of points.
Individual choices about party registration are unlikely to be swayed, so Godspeed, dustpuppy. Hope your going and your votes for Jill Stein and Arn Menconi give you some satisfaction. Beyond your choice of voting for those you find more appealing, what do you hope to accomplish?
I'd be interested to hear anyone explain why someone who has been elected to a Town Council position is an excellent choice for one of the most complicated jobs in the world.
I'd be interested to hear the plan for the Green Party to grow from the 2012 results to something approaching competitiveness. What steps are needed to move from a candidate getting less than $1 million in donations and matching Federal funds and less than 0.4% of the vote?
James ID: Short answer: No, town council experience does not prepare one for the Presidency. Her medical experience is more impressive; I'd like to see Dr Stein in a cabinet position on health or overseeing the FDA, though.
As far as fundraising goes, hers took off after Sanders endorsed HRC: $80,000 in 24 hrs. That accelerates the pace ~$200K Stein for Pres has raised so far. So is she viable and ready to be President? No, I can't say that she is. But I do want to see the Greens become a viable party.
So this election, I think, is a start towards what I'd like to see: A parliamentary-style election where there is runoff voting between top two choices. That way, a minority party would have to have the buy-in of at least half the voting population. I have no idea who may be working on this or what progress has been made. But Democratic and Republican parties are not set in stone, nor is their existence mandated in the Constitution.
Let the best ideas win in the marketplace.
If HRC keeps her promise to propose a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, that will be another start towards the goal of a more representative and responsive government.
HRC has to get elected first before she can keep any promise. In our era passing a constitutional amendment is virtually impossible but putting it out there to rally around is certainly worthwhile and it's good that she promises to do so.
The most likely realistic solution would be a Supreme Court that would overturn Citizens United. Once again, that can only happen if HRC is elected. Voting Green or writing in Bernie or leaving the top of the ballot blank in this election make it harder for the rest of us to get that done.
A Republican victory makes anything you describe less likely to happen any time in the foreseeable future and for much damage, such as a near complete far right takeover of the Supreme Court for decades, a certainty. First things first or we may never get to next things.
Finally, Jill Stein fans ought to take a closer look. Even if the she could win would the people who support Bernie really want her to? I think not.
Constitutional amendments are very slow. Just fill the current vacancy, find a good case, and flip it. What is done 5-4 can be undone 5-4. For keeping your eye on the prize of the court, MJ, you deserve praise. For putting his ego above his brain, Dustpuppy deserves to be what he is: Donald Trump's lawful prey.
Jill Stein and her Green Party platform make Bernie Sanders look like a right wing radical. Were the unthinkable to happen and Stein got elected, China and Russia would control the world's economy.
I agree with V-Ger regarding Mr. Dust Puppy. The gentleman is naive at best. The Green Party candidate in 2000; Ralph Nader's ego; gave the country George W. Bush as president and we all know how that turned out (John McCain, my choice, would have been the nominee until some dirty tricks happened in the South Carolina primary).
Not my candidate, not my circus. Nevertheless, i'm curious, as I suspect that your "China and Russia would control the world's economy" statement is just a wee bit over the top.
On what do you base this statement?
I never saw Nader as the ideal candidate I'd like to have if only that were possible. Never felt that my heart belonged to Nader but I had to be sensible and vote for Gore.
I pretty much thought Nader should have stuck with being a consumer advocate, his only apparent area of competence, and, as a presidential candidate, was a narcissistic selfish little putz running out of spite who would have made a truly crappy President and, in the event, probably helped to elect one.
Jill Stein may be a very nice well meaning person. I have no idea. But I think she'd be an equally crappy president, completely unqualified by anything in her resume, and that the Green Party as a whole would be better off as an advocacy group than as a political party.
What are the odds that Trump will use the word "cornholio"? And then attack the media for being "politically correct" when they report it?
Am I missing something with the Beavis & Butthead references? First Pseu, now you. They make me want to drink heavily.
And, all over FB
reference is to “TP for his bunghole”
Guess you didn't have an overgrown kid husband and an actual male kid during that era. You probably wouldn't get Ren and Stimpy references either.
I had both, plus classrooms full of 7th grade males, all of whom apparently needed TP for their bungholes.
This is why the B&B references make me reach for strong drink.
Is there some deeper meaning to this adolescent toy escapism? Can anyone explain the new Pokemon craze? Is politics just too infantile now, so we have to reach for more mature pursuits such as Cornholio and Pokemon?
The combination of terrorist attacks we can’t stop plus the political reality show that won’t stop does push me to deep silliness. Maybe guys have the same impulse.
Gahhh.
I watched just enough of that crap to see what it was doing to many of the kids that couldn't or wouldn't look away.
It does not appeal to me in any way.
Doesn't appeal to me either. But I do get the references. That is all.
My son was an ardent B&B fan. Today, he has a PHD from BostonCollege and teaches Philosophy at Trinity College, focusing on Plato and Heidegger. Go figure!
That is why I didn't say all the kids, V.
Kind of surprised still not to be seeing anything here about the latest violence…. the ambush in Baton Rouge that left three officers dead, another still not out of the woods, another message from the President right after the attempted coup in Turkey, right after the terrorist attack in Nice, right after the massacre of police officers in Dallas, right after two more highly questionable shootings of African American men, right after Orlando. It's getting to where we seem to alternate between domestic and international tragedies every other day. Literally. No wonder Obama is so grey.
Frankly, I'm too numb about Dallas /Baton Rogue to comment. My son–in-law is Denver cop. He's a good man, a good dad, a good husband. Every time he puts on that vest and goes out in the line of fire, I cringe at what this country is becoming. Millions of psychos with millions of guns and a few good men and women manning a thin blue line between anarchy and civilisation. Sometimes I wish I was Christian so I could at least pray for them.
V, you don't have to be Christian to pray. It all goes to the same place IMHO.
I'm agnostic, m j, so yes, all prayer goes to the same place — the uncaring cosmic void. Like other forms of meditation, it can affect one's own behaviour. But it does not allay external threat.
I'm in the same boat as V. I was heartbroken after Castile and Sterling were killed. I was scared after the Dallas officers were killed and now, after the killings of the Baton Rouge officers I'm just sad.
The worst part is that it's not the deaths that make me the saddest. It's the reaction to the deaths that hurts the worst. So. Much. Hate. I just don't know what to do or say because there are so many people who seem so willing to hate.
And so willing to hate in such a black and white, literally and figuratively, fashion. You have to hate people who are concerned about the danger even law abiding young black men can find themselves in due to our culture's baked in racism or else that means you have to hate all law enforcement officers. If you express any understanding of the one the haters insist you must hate the other. They just won't recognize that you don't have to hate anyone….. because they're haters. That's how they view the world.
And they are Trump's most avid fans and loyal base.
Well put, BC. Two independent investigations, one local, one federal, cleared the officer who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson. Witnesses who supported the Brown was murdered story were found not to be credible. witnesses supporting the officer to be credible, And objective forensic evidence supported the officer's story.
Yet Brown — and other cases where police were cleared of misconduct — continues to play a mythic role in the discussion over violence. Maybe that is because while his death was not police misconduct, it was a tragedy. He apparently stole some cigarillos from a 7-11 and was selling them as loosies when police arrived.
The tragedy is that a young, able bodied, African American male was reduced to such petty crime, as was the one in Baton Rouge selling [probaby pirated] CDs.
Why can't this country create jobs and dignity for such people? Roosevelt had the CCC. The government can borrow for 30 years at 2 pct — about nothing after inflation. Do it, put these men [yes, and women too] laying bricks, sawing lumber, building schools, building a nation. Restore labor unions to their rights and open up apprenticeship programs. Stop blacklisting ex-offenders. Create jobs in nursing homes and hospices for an aging population.
Don't blame Michael Brown for being shot by the cops and don't blame the cop who shot Michael Brown in self-defense. Blame a Congress and a media that celebrates when the S&P hits a record 2167 today (Yay S&P. Take State!] and is blind to the agony and hopelessness gripping 50 million Americans,
Until we do, the 24-hour news cycle will just go on reclycling the cynicism of Joseph Stalin: "A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."