{"id":10003,"date":"2013-02-20T03:28:31","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T11:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10003"},"modified":"2013-02-20T04:45:20","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T12:45:20","slug":"open-thread-2202012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/20\/open-thread-2202012\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread-2\/20\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I&rsquo;m still running on a sleep deficit, because I spent much of yesterday helping my techno-phobic friend with Quicken.&nbsp; Nevertheless, I have three articles today.&nbsp; Tomorrow appears routine.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&rsquo;s tool me 3:57 (average 5:07).&nbsp; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2013-02-20-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&nbsp; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/front.moveon.org\/this-hidden-camera-footage-of-a-gay-couple-in-texas-will-shock-you\/\" target=\"_blank\">MoveOn<\/a>: <\/font>This Hidden Camera Footage Of A Gay Couple In Texas Will Shock You<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BZ6UF-3rNDI?rel=0\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Frankly, I am very pleasantly surprised at the reaction in Texas, but not that New Yorkers did not speak up.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/02\/20\/opinion\/campaign-donations-and-political-corruption.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>In a deeply worrisome move, the Supreme Court on Tuesday <a href=\"http:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/orders\/courtorders\/021913zor_19m1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">agreed to hear<\/a> a new campaign finance lawsuit that challenges long-established federal caps on the total amount an individual can contribute to federal campaigns in a two-year cycle. In a ruling last year, a special court in Washington correctly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fec.gov\/law\/litigation\/mccutcheon_dc_memo_opinion.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">upheld<\/a> those limits, which in some form have been included in federal law since 1974.<\/p>\n<p>If the justices were to overturn that decision, it would be the first time that the court has struck down a contribution limit as unconstitutional. That would eliminate an essential tool in combating the corrupting effects of money in politics.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">ARGH! I am troubled that the Fascist Five are about to ignore the Constitution and screw America with <em>Citizens United<\/em>, Jr. <strong>Money is NOT speech!<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com\/2013\/02\/19\/mcconnell-campaign-puts-the-spotlight-on-judd\/\" target=\"_blank\">CNN<\/a>: <\/font>With more than 20 months to go before the midterm congressional elections, incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell&#39;s team is already attacking Democrats for not yet fielding a candidate to challenge the Senate minority leader.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Bought Bitch Mitch is scared, because 55% of Kentuckians disapprove of him, making him the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2012\/12\/poll-the-most-unpopular-senator-84927.html\" target=\"_blank\">most unpopular Senator<\/a> in his\/her own state.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"20Cartoon\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/20Cartoon.jpg\" style=\"display: inline\" title=\"20Cartoon\" width=\"650\" \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Shhhh!&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t tell the Republicans!&nbsp; They haven&rsquo;t learned this on only 203 years.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&rsquo;m still running on a sleep deficit, because I spent much of yesterday helping my techno-phobic friend with Quicken.&nbsp; Nevertheless, I have three articles today.&nbsp; Tomorrow appears routine. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&rsquo;s tool me 3:57 (average 5:07).&nbsp; To do it, click here.&nbsp; How did you do? Short Takes: From MoveOn: This Hidden Camera Footage Of <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/20\/open-thread-2202012\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}