9 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

1. "When Did That Become Okay". WOTD from Barack Obama.

   The beautiful town of Asheville, North Carolina, one of my favorite places in the country. Spent time there. Amazing people. Devastated. Hundreds of people killed. President Biden and Vice President Harris were down there meeting with local officials and comforting families, asking how they could help. Donald Trump at a rally just started making up stories about the Biden administration withholding aid from Republican areas and siphoning off aid to give to undocumented immigrants. Just made the stuff up. Everybody knew it wasn’t true. Even local Republicans said it was not true.

   Now the people of Florida are dealing with another devastating storm, and I want you to watch what happens over the next few days, just like the last time. You’re going to have leaders who try to help, and then you have a guy who will just lie about it to score political points. This has consequences, because people are afraid, and they’ve lost everything, and now they’re trying to figure out, how do I apply for help? Some of them may be discouraged from getting the help they need. the idea of intentionally trying to deceive people in their most desperate and vulnerable moments. My question is: When did that become okay? I’m not looking for applause right now. I want to ask Republicans out there, people who are conservative, who didn’t vote for me, who didn’t agree with me. I had friends who disagreed with me on every issue. When did that become okay? Why would we go along with that?

   If your coworkers acted like that, they wouldn’t be your coworkers very long. If you’re in business and somebody you’re doing business with just outright lies and manipulates you, you stop doing business with them. Even if you had a family member who acted like that, you might still love them, but you’d tell them you got a problem and you wouldn’t put them in charge of anything. And yet, when Donald Trump lies, cheats, or shows utter disregard for our Constitution, when he calls POWs “losers,” or fellow citizens “vermin,” people make excuses for it. They think it’s okay. They think, well, at least he’s owning the libs. He’s really sticking it to ‘em. It’s okay as long as our side wins.

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2. The race for President is so demoralizing. I'm so tired of hearing thing like "For 90 minutes today Trump rambled nonsense, called people names and threatened to use the US military against American citizens while smelling vaguely like french fry grease and shit. Average Americans still don't know Harris's stance on agricultural trade with the EU. This race is a toss-up."

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   1. “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” he said.

      For 39 minutes, Trump swayed, bopped — sometimes stopping to speak — as he turned the event into almost a living-room listening session of his favorite songs from his self-curated rally playlist.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/14/trump-music-sways-town-hall/

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      1. I've done MadLibs that make more sense than this reality! (From the same article…)

         The evening began to take a different trajectory when a man appeared to faint in the crowd. Trump paused his remarks. Attendees fanned the man and began to sing “God Bless America.” As the man waited for medical help, Trump mused: “While we’re waiting. So we had a beautiful evening. And I don’t know if they could get this song up quickly, but if they could work really quickly backstage while we’re waiting. ‘Ave Maria.’” The song began to play.

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         1. Makes sense, it is almost Xmas!

            (Let’s just be grateful TLump didn’t ask for Frosty The Snowman or Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, huh? That could’ve gotten a little weird.)

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3. Yay!  Our ballots arrived today and we both voted for Trump (hah!).  Already deposited them at a ballot drop.  Six page ballot in Denver!

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   1. Six pages? Yikes! Haven't opened ours yet. Karen was in hospital last week and we're still getting her settled back in. We'll probably get into them this weekend. 

       

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      1. Please give Karen my best wishes for a speedy recovery!  

         As for the ballot, even with the Denver and Colorado ballot guides, there were a few surprise items on the ballot that I never heard about.  Plus apparently, every judge in the state seems to be up for retention.

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4. The Head Quack-a-doodle-doo over on the Aurora City Council thinks Polis and Johnston are importing immigrants and wants Aurora to investigate and get to the bottom of it.  

   Polis refers Aurora city councilwoman’s comments to law enforcement after she says she has ‘haunting’ video evidence of Venezuelan gang

   “If the city council member is holding on to evidence of a crime, she should reach out to law enforcement immediately. The governor’s office takes any potential for evidence of a crime very seriously and alerted state law enforcement of the council woman’s comments about potential video evidence, and they have been in touch with the Aurora Police Department,” said Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman.

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