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September 15, 2006 05:04 PM UTC

Friday Open Thread

  • 38 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Not a moment too soon.

Comments

38 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread

    1. I totally trust Bob Caskey on this thing.  He knows what he is doing.  Maybe this thing isn’t as bad as it sounds at first.  Can I change my mind? 

      However, Bernie said it was wrong and now Bernie looks like a hypocrite by keeping the money over the max amount from LLC’s in his own campaign.  If it is wrong for Bob to do this Bernie – it is wrong for you to do it!

      I guess, if Bob Caskey gives Bernie enough rope – Bernie will hang himself with it.

    2. Funny, I went to the gjds website early, early this morning and saw this same story FG, gut then around 8:00am I went back to the website and viola!  the story magically disappeared and has been missing all day long.  Wonder what kind of unethical high jinx those nutty editors have planned?

  1. John Zakhem said in relation to a meeting to discuss SOS rule changes that he suspected that some donors to small donor committees were foriegners because:

    “Looking at the names of contributors, we made a deduction that many were non-U.S. citizens.”

    Hmmmm.  Exactly how do you deduce based on a name that a person may or may not be a U.S. citizen.

    Some might look at the surname Zakhem and wonder if indeed it that is the name of a U.S. citizen.

    What about Beauprez?  Might someone suspect that is a ‘foriegn’ sounding name and the person might actually be a Belgian citizen and not a U.S. citizen?

    Where is Tom Terrific when you really need him?

      1. Toodles et al: the point isn’t whether there’s a law about foreigners contributing. It’s about how Zakhem can figure out who’s foreign by “looking at the names”!

        Positively Tancredo-esque. (Of course, there’s another name that sounds like a “dang furriner.”

        1. I dont know Roger D, havent seen many of his posts that I can recall, so I wasnt sure if this was a post that I should be like “Wait a sec….My last name is Toodles! Are they going to do a background search on me!”

          I agree it is utterly ridiculous, as if there was a last name that is truly American. And I have never gotten the whole last name bit either. If i see someones last name I can not distinguish whether it is jewish, french, russian, whatever, with the exception of greek. My girlfriend is greek and I think greek last names are both hilarious and awesome.

          1. I once had a job where I was the hiring supervisor, and our HR director – an African-American – told me to interview every applicant whose name “sounded black” even if they weren’t remotely qualified. Luckily the HR director relented after some further discussion.

            But this is more of the same sort of nonsense.

            PS: Yes, Greek names are really cool! My favorite is “Stavros.”

  2. Wonder how the Rocky poll numbers will affect future debates? There’s a lot of anticipation for the Oct 4th oil and gas debate between Beauprez and Ritter in Rifle.

  3. The down and dirty race has now made the national blogs .  It won’t be long before the money starts rolling in from both sides.  Paccione can pull this out in this atmosphere, especially after watching Bush’s meltdown today.  The man is certifiable and it is really starting to show.  His erractic behavior is going to drag down the entire GOP party.

    1. The immigration issue is going to kill Angie.  I like her and plan to vote for her, but imigration is the new gay marrige.  Sorry to say she doesn’t have much of a shot.

      1. Musgrave is doomed.

        Ms. Jesus Christ herself, Marilyn Musgrave, get’s ads pulled from TV because she’s dirty, filthy, stinking liar.

        Hey Musrkat!  God called.  He said leave him alone.

    2. I read a blog post today on Daily Kos (yes, I know – it’s not nearly unbiased) that said Musgrave might be in for a really rough ride because she broke FEC rules about advertisements.

      The post said that Musgrave failed to put in the proper “I’m Marilyn Musgrave and I approve of this message” or some other similar FEC required blurb.  The penalty, according to the poster, is pretty well-defined: the offending campaign has to pay full price for all future broadcast ads for rest of the campaign cycle.  (Apparently campaigns get some significant discounts for broadcast ads…).

      Anyone want to confirm or deny and provide some links?

          1. …that I’m drooling all over the possibility of effectively dividing Musgrave’s warchest in half because she’d have to pay full price for future ads if this is true.

            But I haven’t seen any confirmation yet, so I guess it stays in the “rumor” department for a while more yet…

    1. That’s the problem with the GOP, since they have failed to stand for anything, they’re now trying to repackage themselves as hip and cool.  When it’s all over, will we be hearing Owens and co. saying, “my bad”.  Doubt it. They always pass the blame.

    2. for 13,000 murders, rather, collectively the system that he and his fellow prosecutors (and you) defend is a cause in those murders.

      Look, who ever you are, there are plea bargains and then there are plea bargains that go too far.  Prosecutors who shine their “conviction rate” often go too far.  The results are clear.

      Are you actually defending a system that gives a child sex offender two years?  Do you defend a system that results in 13,000 murders over a 17-month period?

      Listen, I don’t have a favorite beer baron (I lean to the Green side on most issues) but I have the same standing (as the family member of a victim of violent crime) as Cindy Sheehan has (as the family member of a soldier killed in Iraq) and if we’re going to count heads the plea bargain system is killing a lot more Americans than the war in Iraq.

      But I guess you agree with your favorite President when he tells us we are fighting the good fight and there’s no other way, so let’s keep on keeping on.

      Don’t worry, be happy, and support the system.

      1. Your argument rests on the idea that the plea bargain system is the cause of 13,000 deaths.  I couldn’t disagree more.  The  deaths are results of individuals making bad choices.  Those choices are often the direct result of a broken system… broken education system, broken drug enforcement system, etc.  But, not a RESULT of the plea bargain system. 

        In contrast, you may argue that without plea bargains, convicts would not have the OPPORTUNITY to commit another – but opportunity is NOT causation.  Throwing away the plea bargaining system because there is an opportunity for future criminal acts goes far.  In fact, without plea bargaining, MORE criminals would be on the street.

        To convict a sex offender at trial the prosecutor must convince the victim to testify against the accused in court (unless there are corrabative witnesses).  This means putting a child, battered wife, or other victim under the glare of the attacker.  If you have ever seen this happen, 2 things oft-occur.  Either the witness refuses to testify or the witness will start to testify and clam up.  If this happens, then the judge will likely declare a mistrial at best, or more likely drop the charges for lack of evidence.  The result, the sex offender goes free.

        If the accused will not testify, the prosecutor will offer a plea bargain.  This is because the prosecutor needs the testimony of the victim to prove guilt.  The 6th Amendment will not allow a conviction unless the accused can confront the accuser(unless you’re in Gitmo apparently). Without a plea bargain the sex offender will go free.  Is a plea bargain with a sex offender automatically a plea bargain that has ‘gone too far’?

        Usually, the VICTIM will ask for the plea bargain to avoid confrontation with the accused (if you don’t like the idea of confrontation, take it up with the 6th Amendment).

        Simply put, it is the victims of sex offenders and their willingness to testify that drives the decision to offer a plea. 

        Again, the only way to prevent the 13,000 deaths is to lock all the accused away forever. 

        Finally, there is no correlary between support of plea bargaining and the support of the Bush Administration as you imply.  Just the opposite.  The idea of plea bargaining is premised upon the right to trial, a right to face your accusor and a right against unlawful detention.  I think you will agree that secret prisons, indefinite detentions and inhumane at best or torture at worst run counter to these rights. 

        It’s noble to fight for freedom, it’s exercising that freedom that is so hard under this administration. 

        1. Thankfully, you acknowledge the 13,000 fellow human beings killed in just one 17-month period by convicted criminals released on supervision (probation, parole, work release, community detention, etc.) through the plea bargain system.  The killing continues as we speak and so the toll of this slaughter mounts day by day.

          You argue, “The deaths are the results of individuals making bad choices.”  Yes, they are.  Those individuals are prosecutors like Bill Ritter and John Suthers who support the current system, not seeming to mind that 15 fellow human beings are meeting violent, brutal deaths each day because of it.

          You advance the cold blooded argument that the plea bargain system is fine as it stands and it is the education system and the drug enforcement system that are responsible for releasing violent criminals who murder into the community.  While I don’t disagree with you that the education and drug enforcement systems are in great need of reform, you can hardly argue that they are the DIRECT cause of releasing violent offenders into the community.

          (Is it George Bush’s party that shares the blame for his policies or his teachers?)

          You then go on to blame the victims for the plea bargain system, stating, “Usually, the victim will ask for the plea bargain to avoid confrontation with the accused.”  This is the typical fall-back of prosecutors around the country and plainly not true.  As every working prosecutor knows, victims and their families need a lot of hard lobbying to accept a plea bargain.

          When victims have a support system (women’s rape counseling, victim advocates, family members, a good prosecutor) they want to see the case through.  It is when they are faced with an unsupportive prosecutor’s office worried more about clearing its case load that they break down and just give up.  Then it’s therapy for five or ten years, lethargy, maybe a broken marriage, a decline in income because they can’t work, and alcohol problems.

          Instead of defending the system, maybe you could join others in supporting legislative changes to make the system work better for the victims of crime.  Some states have enacted laws that allow closed circuit or video testimony for vulnerable victims, like children.  This makes the threat of trial more real (and the conviction rate for child rapists is very high and the sentences at trial very tough) and gives a prosecutor greater leverage in negotiating a very tough plea bargain for child sex offenders, something more than the 2 years and no registry as a sex offender that was the result of the case in question.

          I must say, you defend the rights of criminals as passionately as I do the rights of victims.

          This is a good debate, please, let’s continue.

          1. I’m happy to continue talking about this issue… and appreciate your candor.  My thoughts are based upon the idea that the actors are ‘the accused’ and the ‘accuser.’  At any proceding I believe that we must defend the presumption of innocence. 
              If the default is the ‘criminal’ and the ‘victim’ then the game is already over.  It’s more than semantics to me.
              I respect your opinion, but, as you know – disagree.

  4. … so we can get Peter Boyles off his daily rants on illegal immigration? I swear, the guy is making me spew my Starbucks just about every morning.

    Today it was all about how the Southern Poverty Law Center supposedly “lied” about Tancredo’s singing Dixie in South Carolina. In typical Boyles fashion, he accuses people of saying things they haven’t and ignores the facts.

    Apparently no one disputes that Tancredo spoke from a Confederate-flag-bedecked podium, and that a racist group called League of the South said he was “our guest” and had about 25 member “Red Shirts” present out of 200 total attendees.

    Now “Americans Have Had Enough” says that they were the REAL organizers of the event, and the League was lying. But that doesn’t make SPLC liars: they were reporting what the League said on its own website in encouraging its members to attend en masse.

    Plus, AHHE’s claim to be the organizer doesn’t seem to jibe with reports by Rightwingnews that “Sons of Confederate Veterans” was also sponsoring the event.

    Plus, AHHE’s claim that the Confederate memorabilia just “happened” to be there because the event was held in a museum rental hall doesn’t jibe with the museum’s photos of its rental halls on the museum’s own website, which don’t show any Confederate memorabilia.

    (And how stupid do they think we are, anyway? What kind of place would rent out a hall with PERMANENT Confederate-battle-flag decorations on its podiums, etc.? What if they rented out the hall to the NAACP?)

    The REAL scandals aren’t who “sponsored” the event but why Tancredo is so darn popular among white supremacists, and why he meekly went along with his audience hootin’ and hollerin’ and singing Dixie because he wanted to “be polite”.

    1. Yes, and step dad died right in the middle of the vitriolic, homophobic ’04 campaign when Karl Rove was waving the red flag of gay marriage across the country.

    2. The story wouldn’t have gotten any play at all except that Rove tried to suppress it. (The story also adds that he tried to suppress the book’s documentation of his ties to Jack Abramoff.)

      He’s losing it. He never really recovered from Plamegate and Bush’s “staring powerlessly out the airplane window” moment after Katrina.

        1. Can any of us ever forget that “My Pet Goat” moment?  (which actually ran for seven minutes……at least according to the clock in Farenheit 9/11)

          1. “If I ever saw that deear in the headlights look on one of my officers in time of war, I’d fire him!”

            He’s pathetic in so many ways. They all are. The Gang of Six (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Rumsfield and Rove) will, if there is any justice, face long prison terms.

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