Tuesday Open Thread
Welcome to your Tuesday open thread. Yes, it’s that time of day again. I’m sure you’ve got something you’re just burning to share, so here’s your chance.
We haven’t talked much about Ken Buck, the teabagging Senate candidate from Colorado. He’s a terrible person. A new story came out about how Buck refused to prosecute a rape when he was a District Attorney.
The alleged rape victim is back and determined to be heard. She told her story to the Colorado Independent and provided the tape of their meeting (click here for a pdf of the transcript), in which Buck appears to all but blame her for the rape and tells her that her case would never fly with a Weld County jury.
…
This victim, though, has worked as a rape victims’ advocate, and she refused to let the matter drop. When her meeting with Buck got her nowhere, she organized a protest rally at the DA’s office. She spoke with the media. Buck was forced to respond.
He said the facts in the case didn’t warrant prosecution. “A jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse,” he told the Greeley Tribune in March 2006. He went on to publicly call the facts in the case “pitiful.”
If he had handled it with a little more sensitivity, the victim, who does not want her name used, says it is possible she may have accepted the decision and moved on. But Buck’s words — as much as his refusal to prosecute — still burn in her ears.
“That comment made me feel horrible,” she told the Colorado Independent last week. “The offender admitted he did it, but Ken Buck said I was to blame. Had he (Buck) not attacked me, I might have let it go. But he put the blame on me, and I was furious. I still am furious,” she said.
It wasn’t just his public remarks that infuriated the woman. In the private meeting, which she recorded, he told her, “It appears to me … that you invited him over to have sex with him.”
Gender gap? What gender gap? One clear sign of a misogynist – they focus on the actions of the victim rather than those of the perpetrator.
Some Republicans dip their toes in the water in criticizing fellow Republicans. The Republican they’re criticizing is washed-up former Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Longtime observers say the two sides of Gingrich’s persona are in tension on a good day and in outright conflict on a bad. The recent comments linking Obama to colonial Africa and Democrats to food stamps sounded not simply anachronistic — the obsessions of an earlier generation — but also freighted with racial innuendo.
“He knows how to appeal to and arouse the conservative coalition,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). “But he also has a tendency to go one stop further than he should.”
As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) put it of the Gingrich approach: “The good news is it gets people to listen to you, but the bad news is your negatives go up.”
Wouldn’t you know, Newt is Reagan, at least according to Newt’s friends. Plus, they found another Republican to criticize him, his almost-certain rival for the GOP presidential nomination, Mitt Romney.
“Two of the most important commodities in a candidate running for president are focus and discipline — and he’s got neither,” said an adviser to Mitt Romney of Gingrich. “He could be a great help [to the party] if he’d so choose, if he’d only help with messaging and ideas and be less of a provocateur. But that’s not what he wants to do.”
Gingrich’s longtime spokesman, Rick Tyler, offered a robust defense of his boss’s rhetoric and said leaders who speak bold truths often cause more timid listeners to recoil.
“They are the same people who were upset when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the ‘Evil Empire,’” he said, adding that FDR, too, “said some pretty provocative things in World War II.”
How reasonable and bi-partisan-y of them. When they start criticizing Jim DeMint, Rush Limbaugh and the teabaggers in public maybe I’ll believe they believe in something other than their own careers.
Tags: Open Thread
In case you still think he cares about you.
As Fraud Scandal Grows, White House Opposes National Moratorium on Foreclosures.
Elizabeth Warren taking questions live on Facebook at 1pm.
I’m a little disappointed it’s on closed social media (Facebook) but at least it is an attempt to go around the MSM. If you aren’t logged in you can watch the video but you apparently can’t post questions, so I guess that is fair enough.
What does it mean if “banks have been systemically, fraudulently and illegally undermining this [home buying and mortgage] process?”
Great post on the implications “Why Foreclosure Fraud Is So Dangerous to Property Rights” :
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/10/why-foreclosure-fraud-is-so-dangerous-to-property-rights/
I am in love with this woman all over again (Warren):
“The credit card companies feel they are entitled to a certain level of revenue, that was set in a time where ‘anything goes…’ I’m just not there. Let’s see what a little competition will bring.”
Every time she mentions some bankster malfeasance she then says: “That’s all going to go away.”
Agreed a1… teabaggers completely missed the biggest threat to property rights that is going on right now (foreclosure fraud).
Teabaggerz and their ilk miss the point that property rights can only exist through regulations and enforcement of those regulations by law.
I am so totally OK with Sharon Angle in the Senate if it means Harry Reid won’t be majority leader anymore.
I am so not OK with this in HCR……now a 3.8% tax on home sales? As if our homes haven’t devalued enough!!!!
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/mar/28/health-laws-heavy-impact/
wrong JC
http://docs.house.gov/rules/hr4872/111_hr4872_amndsub.pdf
“The truth about the bill is that if you sell your home for a profit above the Capitol Gains threshold of $250,000 per individual or $500,000 per couple then you would be required to pay the additional 3.8% tax on any gain realized over this threshold.
Most people who sell their homes will not be impacted by these new regulations. This is not a new tax on every seller, and that correction needs to be made. This tax is aimed at so called “high earners” if you do not fall into that category you will not pay any extra taxes upon the sale of your home.” -JBlim
The truth is that only a tiny percentage of home sellers will pay the tax. First of all, only those with incomes over $200,000 a year ($250,000 for married couples filing jointly) will be subject to it. And even for those who have such high incomes, the tax still won’t apply to the first $250,000 on profits from the sale of a personal residence — or to the first $500,000 in the case of a married couple selling their home.
The health insurance companies all appreciate the fact that the federal government is extorting your money for their profits and that you’re all so okay with that.
HCR 2010 = WMD 2002. Obomba lied while real HCR died.
Thanks joe cass–but you sent me 153 pages!!!!! I knew if I posted it here, you would straighten it out. I read this, and thought there is no way this would get through not subject to an exemption, threshold or other delineation. But, I’m telling you–having lived in Philly and selling homes, you do get hit w/ sales tax–so it wouldn’t have surprised me. Thanks gang.
JC… whatever email list you got that link from, cancel your subscription.
Here’s what the realtors and the AARP have to say about HCR and home sales. It is better information.
go to snopes for a succinct answer, at http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/realestate.asp
You still have the $250K profit exclusion for individuals, $500K for couples, and AFTER that exclusion, only if you have taxable income over $200K (individual, $250K for couples) is there a tax.
This was falsely presented by Bonini at the JCC forum on 9/16–you don’t really expect a candidate for treasurer to know the rules on taxes, do you?
Federal Judge stops DADT – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/12/AR2010101203815.html?hpid=topnews
PSB – especially a candidate for Treasurer who has had IRS tax liens.
Bonini’s closet may yet open. We have to get past all the size 58 Suits first:)
federal judge just ordered the end to enforcement of DADT.
sorry–I see that this was already mentioned
Anybody know offhand what channel the debate is on tomorrow night?
PBS,CNN,CSPAN1 @ 7:30
PBS,CNN and CSPAN1 @ 7:30
“Department of Justice will Appeal GLAD’s Victory in DOMA Lawsuit”
So much for Obomba being a “fierce” advocate of gay rights.
http://www.glad.org/current/news-detail/government-appeals-glads-victory-in-doma-lawsuit/
By JULIE WATSON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, October 12, 2010; 7:11 PM
SAN DIEGO — A federal judge issued a worldwide injunction Tuesday immediately stopping enforcement of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, suspending the 17-year-old ban on openly gay U.S. troops.
U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips’ landmark ruling also ordered the government to suspend and discontinue all pending discharge proceedings and investigations under the policy.
U.S. Department of Justice attorneys have 60 days to appeal. Pentagon and Department of Justice officials said they are reviewing the case and had no immediate comment.
You know what’s hard to find? The actual audio of the interview with Helen Thomas which is the subject of this article:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-us-helen-thomas-interview,0,4719164.story?
Who knew that Helen would be so devious as to masquerade for like 70 years as a truth seeking, human rights concerned, anti-war journalist of the highest degree when she was just a simple anti-semite. Can’t trust anyone these days.
now that that little troll McVay is gone – I will tell you where to find the Waganen video as well as other candidate videos….
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/covering-the-pennisula/Fresh-Air-Delmarva/109217532471259
please share – plenty more video coming…….
friend the page and stay tuned…the fun has just started
“Who knew that Helen would be so devious as to masquerade for like 70 years as a truth seeking, human rights concerned, anti-war journalist of the highest degree when she was just a simple anti-semite.”
If you can’t tell the difference between hatred of Jews and hatred of Israel, I don’t think you’re in any position to judge who is an anti-Semite. Though she oversimplifies, and skips over the inconvenient truth that what she calls their original “home” countries often despised them, this is exactly what the situation looks like to the folks we now call Palestinians: A bunch of Europeans moved in and, by fiat of European powers, declared themselves a country. Imagine your reaction if an outside group did that here, and then criticize.