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April 01, 2025 08:16 AM UTC

Tuesday Open Thread

  • 31 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“The problem with quotes found on the internet is that they are often not true.”

–Abraham Lincoln

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31 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

  1. Measles has officially arrived in Colorado.  Well done, antivaxxers.  I would wish a pox on your houses, but apparently the virus has beaten me to the punch.  Looking forward to polio's reunion tour with support from iron lungs. 

  2. The new darling of the centrist Democrats, "Abundance Liberalism," which is just the same failed neo-liberalism of the past 40 years with a new name, blames regulation for all of the failing of liberal policies, while ignoring the effects of wealth concentration, industry monopolies/monopsonies, and increasing corporate capture of regulatory and legislative bodies. There is definitely space for an informed discussion about removing or replacing regulations that are not working, but this new movement will just further entrench corporate power and socialize the human and environmental costs of industry. The challenge of this time is not to find ways to cut regulations, but to find ways to reduce income inequality.

    Here's a well balanced response: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/03/23/the-meager-agenda-of-abundance-liberals/

    Getting rid of the stupid rules that slow progress and add unnecessary costs is an excellent idea. But it’s not remotely capable, by itself, of unleashing the prosperity and plenty that abundance liberals promise. And overpromising and underdelivering is a mistake Democrats cannot afford to make again. The road to abundance will be paved by a government that knows how to pave roads—and one strong enough to stand up to the corporate interests who prefer that those roads remain unbuilt.

    Let's also pay attention to the moneyed interests behind this neo-liberal rebrand.

    https://prospect.org/economy/2024-11-26-abundance-agenda-neoliberalisms-rebrand/

    In October 2024, a number of organizations held the Abundance 2024 conference. The event was sponsored by Arnold Ventures, Open Philanthropy, Renaissance Philanthropy, and Stand Together.

    • Open Philanthropy was co-created by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. It has close ties to AI firm Anthropic, which was founded by Daniela Amodei, the wife of Open Philanthropy co-founder Holden Karnofsky. Open Philanthropy is also closely associated with effective altruism, donating millions to Sam Bankman-Fried’s favorite philosopher Will MacAskill.

     

     

    1. I'd guess Bondi or Eastman or someone is probably working on a way to say T****'s situation is unique because he was cheated in 2020, so he gets an extra do-over which is clearly what the drafters of the 22nd amendment intended. So, sorry, no Obama.

      I was slightly worried when I saw on a talk show that maybe he could become vice president and become president if, say, the sitting president falls from a 17th-story window or something. But I don't think any but the sleaziest of lawyers could interpret this line of the 12th amendment in a way that he could take this path (of course, maybe I'm hopelessly stuck in normal times):

      But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

      Honestly, I think he's just trying to prime the media pump and spread the word so people will already be used to the topic and less shocked if he actually announces a run.

      1. The 22nd Amendment prohibits election to a third term. It says nothing about acceding to the office. The 12th Amendment does not come into play because there isn't constitutional ineligiblity to serve a third term.

        Does that make me a sleazy lawyer? Laurence Tribe agrees that the 22nd Amendment and the 12th Amendment do not prevent a person from serving three terms–is he sleazier than me? How about the jokers who wrote a 1999 Minnesota Law Review article (available at https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr/909/) (granted only one of them is a lawyer; the other was a Ph.D. student at the time but did become a political science professor)? And Dan Coenen must be sleazy as hell, too, what with his so-called "Harmon W. Caldwell Chair" in the totally made-up field of "Constitutional Law." You can check out his work at https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_artchop/1012/

         

        1. OK, I stand admonished and maybe deserve contempt. I believe the intent of the 22nd was to establish an actual term limit, but it does say "elected" in plain language.

        2. Crap!  Well then, since insurrection to a third term insn’t prohibited by the 22nd, then I guess America will have to suffer with this felonious huckster like a bad 1930s marriage — until death do us part????

          1. Gahhh! I was just reading someone talking about maybe naming him Speaker of the House, next in line after the Veep, and you don't even have to be a member of Congress to be named Speaker. I'd love to see a clarifying amendment to the 22nd to keep stuff like this from even being contemplated, but not holding my breath.

    2. Squirrel. Where!? Quite Easily Distracted. Stop Living in Trump's Psychodrama.

      Trump throws chum to the public whenever he want to distract from something else, and he knows how to play the press and random internet rubes with a cheap piano.

      Ignore the tarrifs on/off, Russia sanctions on/off, whatever. Do pay attention to the DOGE destruction of the science and 2025 whipping Harvard, and RFK creating pandemics.

      1. Agree with all that.

        And, as an added Orange Bonus, the felonious huckster insurrectionist has learned that there’s no grift more personally lucrative and rewarding than an American Presidential campaign.  So, in a way, I’m actually a little surprised there hasn’t already been an announcement for 2028?

        Let the campaign contributions begin!!!!!!!!!!!!

  4. Kudos to Sen. Cory Booker, who spoke for like 16 hours in the Senate yesterday! A snippet from AP:

    “These are not normal times in our nation,” Booker said as he launched into his speech. “And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more to stand against them.”

    1. He's still going, 2Jung. Other Democratic senators have wandered in and out of the chamber to spell him by asking questions, which allows him to sit and get some water for a minute or two, but he's still going strong. 

    1. David,

      I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding the role of the Colorado Energy Office is developing actionable policy and regulations as it pertains to the state's utilites. They are a toothless entity that is meant to a) dole out federal monies as available for certain energy projects, b) serve as the entity for non-PUC regulated entities to submit their Energy Resource Plans showing their 80/30 paths with no enforcement mechanism, and c) serve as a repository for non-PUC regulated entities to submit plans to meeting planning reserve margins with (again) no enforcement mechanism so when a rolling brownout does occur there's a place to begin the autopsy.

      Everything else is beuracratic nonsense that has no affect on actual energy development in the state.

      1. There's the official structure, like "Musk is not an employee of DOGE" and there's the actual structure, like "Musk is running DOGE." There's a reason it has 49+ employees. It heavily influences our actual energy policy from their pathways report to the proposed legislation (which is a very bad idea) they're trying to find legislative sponsors for.

        You're correct that legally energy policy is set by the utility companies, within the constraints of legislation, and then approved by the PUC. And that's it. In practice, it's a lot more complicated than that.

         

        1. I disagree with your analogy as, coming from the utility space, the Colorado Energy Office was/is viewed as far less effective of a policy making entity then you give it credit for.  DOGE it is not.

          The CEO is more akin to the CATO Institute then ALEC in terms of legislation and policy and serves as a good idea fairy with extremely limited influence. Just look at the evolution of the Clean Energy Plan's and the expansion to non-PUC regulated utilites which provides CO with a clear path towards the 80/30 goal.  That wasn't driven by the CEO, but rather industry and NGO advocacy at the legislature.

  6.  I'm just waiting for Federal Employees to get an email saying they need to open a Paypal account before they can get their paychecks…if there IS anything left in the Federal Payroll accounts after NaziTechBro is finished diverting billions to his personal accounts.

    Top Officials Placed on Leave After Denying DOGE Access to Federal Payroll Systems

    DOGE demanded full access to a US Department of the Interior system that handles even the Supreme Court’s paychecks. When top staff asked questions, they were put on leave

    For several weeks, say sources with direct knowledge of the situation, DOGE operatives have been seeking what they termed “full” or “system” access to the DOI’s payroll, human resources, and credentialing systems. Among the systems to which it demanded full access is the Federal Personnel and Payroll System (FPPS), which is housed in the DOI’s Interior Business Center and is used by dozens of federal agencies ranging from the Department of Justice to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to handle payroll and records associated with more than 275,000 federal workers, including at agencies outside the executive branch.

    https://www.wired.com/story/doge-access-federal-payroll-systems-officials-leave-interior/?_sp=cd7d3767-140d-457b-a64c-1230c5530c84.1743526833419

     

    1. It’s like a bad acid flashback into being trapped inside one of those 1970s fundamentalist end times tracts?

       And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

      Revelation 13:17

  7. For some reason I can't get this comment through moderation so I'll try without links:

    The new darling of the centrist Democrats, "Abundance Liberalism," which is just the same failed neo-liberalism of the past 40 years with a new name, blames regulation for all of the failing of liberal policies, while ignoring the effects of wealth concentration, industry monopolies/monopsonies, and increasing corporate capture of regulatory and legislative bodies. There is definitely space for an informed discussion about removing or replacing regulations that are not working, but this new movement will just further entrench corporate power and socialize the human and environmental costs of industry. The challenge of this time is not to find ways to cut regulations, but to find ways to reduce income inequality.

    Paul Glastris and Nate Weisberg have a thoughtful response posted 3/23/2025 at the Washington Monthly. Here's a quote:

    Getting rid of the stupid rules that slow progress and add unnecessary costs is an excellent idea. But it’s not remotely capable, by itself, of unleashing the prosperity and plenty that abundance liberals promise. And overpromising and underdelivering is a mistake Democrats cannot afford to make again. The road to abundance will be paved by a government that knows how to pave roads—and one strong enough to stand up to the corporate interests who prefer that those roads remain unbuilt.

    Let's also pay attention to the moneyed interests behind this neo-liberal rebrand. Dylan Gyauch-Lewis of the Revolving Door Project had a good piece on the Abundance 2024 conference, that can be found at The American Prospect (posted 11/26/2024). In addition to other analysis, he called out the organizations that funded the conference. 

    In October 2024, a number of organizations held the Abundance 2024 conference. The event was sponsored by Arnold Ventures, Open Philanthropy, Renaissance Philanthropy, and Stand Together.

    • While at times heterodox, Arnold Ventures funds a sizable network of neoliberal think tanks, including $3 million to the libertarian Reason Foundation and at least $1 million to the pro–pension privatization Retirement Security Initiative, which has led to founder John Arnold (a former Enron executive) comparing himself to the Kochs. Arnold serves on the board of Meta. The Arnold Foundation has also spent hundreds of millions of dollars pushing for school privatization.

    • Open Philanthropy was co-created by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. It has close ties to AI firm Anthropic, which was founded by Daniela Amodei, the wife of Open Philanthropy co-founder Holden Karnofsky. Open Philanthropy is also closely associated with effective altruism, donating millions to Sam Bankman-Fried’s favorite philosopher Will MacAskill.

    • Renaissance Philanthropy was founded by Tom Kalil with money from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. It was started with an explicit focus on AI, and Kalil himself is on the board of Sherpa.ai. Schmidt is also on the board of multiple AI companies and has invested in crypto. He believes that, rather than try to mitigate the damage of climate change, policy should double down on AI in the hopes that it will come up with a solution. Renaissance is extremely close with Schmidt Futures, Eric and Wendy Schmidt’s own foundation. Many Renaissance staff come from Schmidt Futures, including Kalil and their Economic Mobility Fund program director, partnerships manager, chief of staff, operations manager, and head of strategy and partnerships.

    • Stand Together is one of the primary institutions within the Koch network, and was created by Charles Koch. Like Arnold Ventures, Stand Together funds the Reason Foundation. It funds a wide range of conservative nonprofits, including the anti-LGBTQ Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a hate group. Its current CEO, Brian Hooks, is concurrently the president of the Charles Koch Foundation and previously was the executive director of the libertarian Mercatus Center.

    Arnold, Moskovitz, Schmidt, and Koch have other ties to the broader abundance movement. For instance, the Utah-based Abundance Institute, whose chief economist spoke at the Abundance 2024 conference, is closely related to Utah State University’s Center for Growth and Opportunity (almost their whole staff comes from the Center), which was established by a joint donation from the Charles Koch Foundation and the Huntsman Foundation (i.e., the Utah Republican family). It’s also part of the State Policy Network—a network of facially distinct, but actually deeply connected and coordinated, conservative think tanks bankrolled by billionaires like the DeVos family, the Walton Family, and, of course, Charles Koch. (The crown jewel of the SPN, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, was run for 15 years by Brooke Rollins, Donald Trump’s nominee for agriculture secretary.)

    There are too many organizations pushing for the abundance agenda to break down comprehensively, but here are several that have connections to corporate interests:

    • The Foundation for American Innovation (FAI), which co-hosted Abundance 2024 and is listed as a key institutional partner by the Inclusive Abundance Initiative, was seeded by Charles Koch and is part of the State Policy Network. It has a track record of attacking unions. Politico reported on its work around a Silicon Valley conference as part of a “Venture Capital-Fueled Ideology.”
    • Institute for Progress (IFP), which co-hosted Abundance 2024 and is listed as a key institutional partner by the Inclusive Abundance Initiative, has a bevy of corporate ties. In 2022, IFP received $110,000 from FAI and has FAI’s executive director on its board. One of the founding funders of IFP was Emergent Ventures, which is a project of the Koch-backed Mercatus Institute at George Mason University. Emergent itself was launched by a grant from Peter Thiel. (Thiel is a right-wing billionaire with a vast influence network at the intersection of techno-futurism and anti-democratic thought who has called technology an alternative to democratic politics to “unilaterally change the world.” Vice President-elect JD Vance is a known scion of Thiel.)
    • Both co-founders of IFP also formerly worked at Mercatus. Another of IFP’s board members is a program associate at Mercatus. Other funders include Open Philanthropy, Stripe’s Patrick Collison, and Schmidt Futures—and used to include Sam Bankman-Fried. IFP is extremely pro-crypto; one of its founders suggested distributing unemployment benefits via crypto wallets, and the other has peddled Bitcoin as a solution to people being underbanked in the developing world.
    • Niskanen co-hosted Abundance 2024 and is listed as a key institutional partner by the Inclusive Abundance Initiative. In 2023, Niskanen received money from Google, Stand Together, and Arnold Ventures. Two Niskanen fellows also published the manifesto urging for the creation of an abundance faction within the Democratic Party.
    • Chamber of Progress, which self-identified its work as a part of “a growing ‘abundance’ policy movement,” is a trade group started with Google seed money by Google alum Adam Kovacevich. Kovacevich proudly touts his college activism of leading an effort to cross the United Farm Workers picket line. Chamber of Progress’s partners (read: funders) include a16z, Circle, Coinbase, Google, Kraken, Ripple, and Waymo. (Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, is a venture capital firm heavily invested in AI and crypto. Co-founder Marc Andreessen believes that technology is the solution to every problem. He is also on Meta’s board.)

    Both of these are worth a read. Let's be careful about reactionary pressure to cut progressive politics out of the Democratic Party. The same billionaires currently dismantling the administrative state are behind this "abundance" movement, which in my opinion is just a rebrand for further austerity and wealth inequality.

    1. There's a million different takes on what Abundence Liberalism requires. There are some in it I disagree with mostly, some I somewhat disagree with, and some I'm in large agreement with.

      To me the biggie on regulation needs to be two-fold. First there is a process, that has a reasonable allowance for individuals and interest groups, to weigh out the plusses & minuses of a project. And there's a decision and we're done. At present we have everyone wanting to reduce CO2, but they don't want the transmission lines that requires or the wind farm or the solar farm in their backyard. And so we get years of multiple lawsuits.

      Second, we need to bring professional decisionmaking back to the government. At present we have it that everybody and their brother has multiple avenues to sue the government. And the government has addressed this by creating more and more rules & regulations so everyone in government has zero ability to do anything other than enforce those regulations.

      And then I would add: 1) Make it faster/easier/cheaper to build more housing, and 2) Provide abundent inexpensive reliable power.

      1. Thanks, David. I appreciate you reading. I agree there is always room to improve process in bureaucracy and reform legal processes. I don’t think that making it easier to build housing will improve the cost of housing situation very much. From my perspective most of the multifamily housing that gets built with those efforts is still very out of reach for low income families. The argument is that increasing supply will eventually lower prices, but that has not seemed to materialize.

         I think there should be a whole lot more public housing, which would both address shortages as well as provide negative pressure on rising rents, which are really out of hand and not commensurate at all with costs. I think the social housing model that is being used in Maryland is a good one to study and emulate. 

        https://www.socialhousingcenter.org/blog/in-montgomery-county-maryland-they-are-building-a-network-of-social-housing-and-it-cost-the-county-virtually-nothing-here-is-how-they-do-it

      1. Probably never too early to announce. Name recognition being as important as it is. I’m guessing a significant number of voters could not name either of our senators. 

        1. “Ummmmm, lemee’ see — well, I think there’s the one who occasionally has done a little bit of something?  And, then, there’s the other one who, if I recall, has never done anything?  AmIright?”

          1. Yeah…neither is a history maker. Both are adept at not making an impression. Hick has a bit more pizzazz and still has the Dr. Frackenlooper vibe, OilyBoy that he is..

            Both are " Friends of 17th St."

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