{"id":10158,"date":"2013-03-20T03:05:40","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T10:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10158"},"modified":"2013-03-20T03:05:40","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T10:05:40","slug":"open-thread3202014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/20\/open-thread3202014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–3\/20\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night I broke a fever for the second time.  I\u2019m still down, but I did add an extra Short Take.  I\u2019m not yet up to catching up on replies, and I hope to be back tomorrow.<\/font><\/p>\n

Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s took me 3:37 (average 5:48).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

From Bernie.org<\/a>: <\/font>Send a Message to President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner: No Budget Deal on the Backs of the Elderly, the Children, the Sick and the Poor.<\/p>\n

Click through to sign this petition for Bernie Sanders.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>In a sombre ceremony attended by former members of the Bush administration, the former Vice-President Dick Cheney marked the tenth anniversary of making up a reason to invade Iraq.<\/p>\n

The ceremony, held on the grounds of the Halliburton Company headquarters, brought together the former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and other key members of the lying effort.<\/p>\n

Calling the assembled officials \u201cprofiles in fabrication,\u201d Mr. Cheney praised them for their decade of dedication to a totally fictitious rationale.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking up a reason to invade a country is the easy part,\u201d Mr. Cheney told them. \u201cSticking to a pretend story for ten years\u2014that is the stuff of valor.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mr. Cheney added that their \u201csteadfast charade had raised the bar for all future administrations.\u201d<\/p>\n

While this, of course is satire, the underlying truth could be more relevant, nor could there be a more compelling reason to recognize that every Republican in office is one Republican too many.<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Senate Democrats plan to introduce after the Easter recess a bill widely supported by both parties that would increase the penalties for people who buy guns for those barred from having them, known as straw purchasing. But Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, told Ms. Feinstein on Monday that her assault weapons ban would not be included in the bill. <\/p>\n

\u201cI tried my best,\u201d Ms. Feinstein said with obvious disappointment. \u201cMy best, I guess, wasn\u2019t good enough.\u201d <\/p>\n

This month, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed four pieces of gun legislation: the straw purchasing measure; the assault weapons ban, which included limits on gun magazine sizes; a grant program for school security; and enhanced background checks for gun buyers. <\/p>\n

The Nevada Leg Hound, Harry Reid<\/strong>, who MUST be replaced<\/strong> as Senate Majority Leader, really screwed the pooch on this one.  He claims that he had only 40 votes for passage, but I wonder.  It\u2019s much easier to say no to the mothers of murdered children in the secrecy of the Senate cloak room than it is with a public vote.  But even if 40 is all there are, the Republican Party and the Democrats, who lack the spine to take on Wayne LaPierre and the gun industry, should be made to own their votes before the American people.  Instead, Harry Reid humped a few Republican legs, whined, rolled over and played dead.<\/font><\/p>\n

From MSNBC<\/a>: <\/font>Rachel on Republican Revision<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font> <\/p>\n

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

When we failed to charge these war criminals, I cringed, because I knew that Republicans would not be content with an accurate historical retelling. We must not allow these Republicans to rewrite the history of how they lied us into this tragic war. If we fail to remember the lesson of Iraq, as we failed to remember the lesson of Vietnam, the warmongers among us will lie us into another.<\/font><\/p>\n

Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\"20Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I broke a fever for the second time.  I\u2019m still down, but I did add an extra Short Take.  I\u2019m not yet up to catching up on replies, and I hope to be back tomorrow. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:37 (average 5:48).  To do it, click here.  How did you do? […]<\/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-10158","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\/10158","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=10158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}