Monday Open Thread

16 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

1. Speaking of monsters …

   I was amused to read Colorado mentioned on HuffPost this morning.  Linking to CBS' Face the Nation, the article says Trump campaign chair thinks he can expand the map. 

   Specifically, Parscale thinks Trump could win Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico. The four states combined would mean 24 electoral votes. 

    

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   1. Meanwhile in KKKrazytown…

      As Trump stands by Charlottesville remarks, rise of white-nationalist violence becomes an issue in 2020 presidential race

      Those events have pushed the rising tide of white nationalism to the forefront of the 2020 presidential campaign, putting Trump on the defensive and prompting even some Republicans to acknowledge that the president is taking a political risk by continuing to stand by his Charlottesville comments.

      “The president’s handling of Charlottesville was not one of the finer moments of his time in office,” Republican strategist Ryan Williams said. “He shouldn’t take Joe Biden’s bait and re-litigate this controversy.”

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   2. 

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2. Shall we gather at the river?

   The fetid swamp-ridden river.

   Here at the Potomac River.

   We all know that Trump Stinks!

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3. A bit of bad news: former Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) passed away on Sunday at age 87. He was a statesman extraordinaire and a solid representative of his party.

   I first met him, as a kid, in 1967 when he was running for mayor of Indianapolis, my home town. One of the things he did was unify most municipal governments in Marion County, the so-called Uni-Gov effort. Uni-Gov cut the tax rates while increasing services. Have always wished that metro Denver had a Uni-Gov style of government instead of all the taxing entities, including a myriad of special districts, that we have.

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   1. Good luck with the idea of a Uni-Gov for the Denver Metro area.  While there are some mergers of services (fire services, in particular), the City and County of Denver doesn't even control all of the contiguous land within the city's outer borders.  I live close to Glendale — and of course, there are other "not Denver" parcels nearby.

      For those who like language … at one point, such unattached enclaves (especially in church hierarchies) were known as peculiars,

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      1. I used to live in southeast Denver; near Evans and Monaco; prior to moving to Lakewood in 1995. There are "peculiars" north of Evans along Oneida and Quebec (if I'm recalling boundaries correctly) and along South Holly, south of Evans.

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4. It’s like prescribing a band-aid for a cancer . . .

   Joe Biden Says Trump Is an Aberration. He’s Wrong.

   https://newrepublic.com/article/153715/joe-biden-says-trump-aberration-hes-wrong

   This notion, that Trump is somehow an alien figure who has, Svengali-like, hypnotized the GOP, is a comforting fallacy. But the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is not all that ails the country’s politics. Trump is just the symptom—the Republican Party is the disease.   

   It’s not clear which Republicans Lockhart is talking about, but “exploding deficits” (mostly as the result of debt-financed tax cuts for the wealthy) have been the distinguishing feature of every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan. It’s been almost a quarter century since Republicans started regularly shutting down the federal government as a political tactic. The Southern Strategy of exploiting racial resentment was first employed by “Mr. Conservative” Barry Goldwater to win in the Old Confederacy in 1964 and has never been abandoned by the party. And there is a clear, direct line from Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens” to Donald Trump’s Mexican “rapists.   

   It was the Republican Party that chose Trump over a field of candidates including Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich—not in spite of Trump’s xenophobia, but because of it. It was the Republican Congress—led by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan—that wrote Trump’s tax cut bill, the one that has exacerbated wealth inequality and created a $1.1 trillion deficit. (Does Ryan, the “fiscal conservative” have any regrets? No, he’s incredibly proud of it.) It’s the Republican Party’s elder statesmen such as Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley who are not only enabling, but also cheering on Trump’s executive power grabs and his refusal to comply with Congressional oversight.

    

    

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5. Rosenstein just quit.

   More shoes to drop, I'm sure.

   https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/441236-rosenstein-submits-resignation-letter-to-trump?userid=289091

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6. American farmers facing worst economic crisis in three decades 

   Glutted grain markets have sparked a years-long price slump made worse by a trade war with top buyer China. As their revenues decline, farmers have piled on record debt — to the tune of $427 billion. The industry’s debt-to-income ratio is the highest since the mid 1980s, when Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp organized the first Farm Aid concert.

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   1. Don’t tell me these farmers aren’t watching enough FOX?? . . . 

      . . . wasn’t some pfrequent-pfliar Pfruit edumacating us dumb libs just the other day by passing along how the country is doing absolutely MAGAnificent???

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      1. I'm afraid our poor pfruit has a serious case of PD ( Pear's Decline, a real thing) The symptoms have lasted for more than two election cycles.  It's time to call a doctor.

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         1. Doctor?

            Not the coroner?😛

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   2. FTR –
      – I was at Farm Aid.  1985 Veteran's Stadium, Champaign, IL I worked most of the day, setting up, selling concessions, watching the show.

      – When I see rich people inflating the debt to income ratios, I think
      — who is the buying opportunity for when the bubble pops?
      — Whose equity is at risk and about to be transferred for pennies on the dollar?
      — how will the bailout be structured this time?

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      1. I've been to all of them since 2006.  This next round of consolidation is going to be brutal.  

         Happy 86th Birthday today to the Red Headed Stranger! 

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7. Is that a lump of (unmarketable) coal in your pocket, Fluffy, or are you just glad to see me? 

   Renewable energy will surpass coal in April & May

   King Coal is dying, and this month will see a new milestone in the decline of what was the largest source of electricity generation for the 20th century and even the first few decades of the 21st.

   According to an analysis of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), renewable energy sources including hydroelectricity are set to generate more electricity than coal, for the first time ever.

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