Wednesday Open Thread

13 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread”

1. Jon Stewart offers the most sensible commentary on the remnants of our nation’s slavery-enhanced economy and the fact that very little has been done in response to the chronic problem of unchecked police brutality and unprosecuted police murders of unarmed citizens.

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   Frankly, I think reparations for slavery is a good idea, and wouldn’t really mind if it took the form of social investment equality to make up for the south’s historic lack of investment in its own(ed) people and infrastructure. But of course, Southerners of a certain persuasion are the most hostile to any such thing and for that reason this “re-investment” will probably never happen.

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   1. And the problem is baked in to police culture regardless of the fact that 40% of the force is African American. Since 2011 almost 5.7 million has been paid out in settlements involving police brutality. Why do these people accept money instead of demanding justice? How can they expect justice in the face of the Blue Wall? In a city where “rough rides” that result in injury or death are business as usual? Where the officers responsible get away with it and the rest cover for them? Where the criminal officers are protected by the officers who are criminal accessories to their crimes? How many young black men’s lives have been ruined over crimes far, far less serious than the crimes routinely committed without consequence to the perpetrators, the Baltimore police?

      http://www.businessinsider.com/baltimore-paid-5-million-in-4-years-for-police-brutality-lawsuits-2015-4

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2. These are for Bernie Sanders:
   Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
   I’ve seen lots of funny men;
   Some will rob you with a six-gun,
   And some with a fountain pen–
   Woodie Guthrie– Pretty Boy Floyd

   You can arm yourself, alarm yourself
   But there’s nowhere you can run
   cause a man with a briefcase
   Can steal more money
   Than any man with a gun–
   Don Henley –Gimme What You Got

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3. From Morgan Carroll:

   Last night the Senate managed to defeat SB 232 — a partisan study commission to transfer / sell federal public lands to maximize revenue. We were able to kill it by 1 vote on the Senate floor because Sen. Larry Crowder joined all 17 Democrats to defeat the measure.

   Thank you, Senator Crowder.

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4. Dems in US Senate are ignoring the last election and will continue their Wall St. Banker endorsed, Michael Bennet/DSCC-failed strategies under the, ahem, leadership of Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and Jon Tester:

   Chuck Schumer … is using every bit of pressure he can bring to bear to force Alan Grayson out of the race for the open Senate seat in Florida. Schumer and Reid– and therefore the embarrassing Tester– are firmly behind the candidate Wall Street is demanding, Patrick Murphy (who has played ball with them from his position on the House Financial Services Committee and who they say can help balance Elizabeth Warren’s and Sherrod Brown’s anti-bankster sentiments).

   Does Harry Reid think Elizabeth Warren’s anti-banking sentiments need balancing? Apparently so.

   Sound familiar?

   Colorado’s two freshman senators, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, are part of a self-described centrist group of 15 Democrats meeting regularly “seeking to restrain the influence of party liberals in the White House and on Capitol Hill,” according to an account in Roll Call.

   The group has a “shared commitment to pursue moderate, mainstream and fiscally sustainable policies across a range of issues, such as health care reform, the housing crisis, educational reform, and energy policy,” according to a statement issued Wednesday by the group.

   I’m guessing Bennet had to lie his ass off about how his 2014 really coulda worked, or Reid made the massive mistake of putting him, and now Jon Tester, in charge of the DSCC to try to elect another Blue Dog Corporatist Democrat whom the banks will love but voters will most likely reject.

   Schumer must be very eager to give away the rest of the store to Wall Street, something Grayson would join Warren and Brown in opposing. (This is the mission Bennet accomplished in 2014, and who the writer is too kind to identify.-z) There’s more in Klein’s piece, including a stunning bit of irony (or hypocrisy) regarding new DSCC Chair Jon Tester’s role in this. For more on the despicable Patrick Murphy, start here.

   It’s clearly important to put people like Alan Grayson into the Senate. I also think it’s necessary to remove people like Chuck Schumer (and once-“progressive” Jon Tester) from ever holding office again as a Democrat.

   This assessment should include our dearest Michael Bennet, who maybe isn’t lying or wasn’t a bad choice for DSCC chair. Maybe Michael Bennet is just be a plain old corrupt politician who will never truly represent the people of Colorado in the U.S. Senate.

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   1. “Sound familiar?

      Colorado’s two freshman senators, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet”

      – See more at: http://coloradopols.com/diary/70569/wednesday-open-thread-110#sthash.PeFoRJLf.dpuf
      This Quote? is stale, in your “hunt for (never ending) Blue Dog November” You need a new editor, really.

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      1. What were you trying to say?

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5. Our own James Dobson revving up Anti-gay Crusader Battalion:

   I mean, honestly, this is just adorable.

   “While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross,” the pledge states. The signees are a who’s who of religious leaders including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, National Religious Broadcasters president Jerry Johnson, Pastor John Hagee, and Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse.

   The pledge was crafted by Rick Scarborough, the president of Vision America Action; James Dobson, the founder of Family Talk Radio; and Mat Staver, the founder of Liberty Counsel. “We’re sending a warning to the Supreme Court and frankly any court that crosses the line on the issue of marriage,” Staver told me.

   That’s the biggest bag of nuts you can buy at the counter, I’ll say that for them. First of all, in what sense is Rick Santorum — And have I mentioned recently what a colossal dick Rick Santorum is? — a “religious leader”? Second, what are these censorious, angry toddlers planning to do? I know they’re going to get loud and noisy on the issue of florists, and caterers, and pizza-delivery people, but that’s to be expected. Are they planning on disrupting civil ceremonies, making miserable the lives of elderly clerical help, throwing themselves in front of the limos and party buses? Is this just the usual suspects blowing the usual amusing hot-air, or does James Dobson plan to “pack the jails” with Christocentric nuisances? The world wonders.

   Dobson won’t do anything but raise money from the rubes who buy his hate and continue to be repulsed by something that so thoroughly consumes his thoughts.

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   1. It seems to me that even if they don’t declare bans on gay marriage unconstitutional they will have to find that, as with all other legal marriages, a gay marriage made in a state in which such marriages are legal must be recognized in every state. It would be no different than marriages made in states with varying ages of consent.

      If an 20 year old man marries a 16 year old in a state where the legal age of consent for a woman is 16 and then the couple moves to a state where the legal age of consent for a woman is 18 when the wife is still under that age, they take their legal marriage with them. The state in which they now live can continue to stick to 18 for consent for marriages contracted in that state but they have to recognize the couple as married since they were married legally in another state. Seems as though it will have to be the same for legal gay marriages because of the same full faith and credit issue regardless of whether or not bans on gay marriage are declared constitutional.

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      1. That’s the bet I’m making, too, B.C. They’ll split, leaving states that forbid it with their laws intact, while granting comity. That will, of course, render the forbidding states laws essentially symbolic, but allow politicians to continue to pander to the regressives.

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6. Ted Cruz has announced that Obama has inflamed racial tensions.

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   1. Well, duh! Racism is always the black guy’s fault. Ask any Republican.

      The GOP is really feeling their oats – not just nationally – but here in Colorado as well. Helps if you have most news outlets providing cover for your radical right wing stands.

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   2. “inflamed racial tensions.”

      that translates to, “pissed off a bunch of rednecks”…

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