{"id":10219,"date":"2013-04-07T05:18:55","date_gmt":"2013-04-07T12:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10219"},"modified":"2013-04-07T05:18:55","modified_gmt":"2013-04-07T12:18:55","slug":"open-thread472013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/07\/open-thread472013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;4\/7\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m running way behind today for two reasons.&#160; First, I overslept more than two hours.&#160; Second, I had to look harder then my norm to find material I want to cover.&#160; I\u2019m current with replies, and please pardon the brevity of my responses.&#160; Tomorrow appears routine, but I do have prep work to do foe Tuesday\u2019s volunteer work in prison.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 4:40 (average 5:26).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2013-04-07-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; 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:\/\/www.hillbillyvideo.net\/2012\/12\/19\/red-state-update-real-mad-obama-won\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hillbilly Video<\/a>: <\/font><font color=\"#000000\">Red State Update: Real Mad Obama Won<\/font><\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EineT9ZJEnE?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">This is a few months old, but I just found it. They do capture the essence of TEAbuggery!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/04\/07\/us\/politics\/tax-lobby-builds-ties-to-max-baucus.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>&#8230;No other lawmaker [than Baucus] on Capitol Hill has such a sizable constellation of former aides working as tax lobbyists, representing blue-chip clients that include telecommunications businesses, oil companies, retailers and financial firms, according to an analysis by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legistorm.com\/pro.html\">LegiStorm<\/a>, an online database that tracks Congressional staff members and lobbying. At least 28 aides who have worked for Mr. Baucus, Democrat of Montana, since he became the committee chairman in 2001 have lobbied on tax issues during the Obama administration \u2014 more than any other current member of Congress, according to the analysis of lobbying filings performed for The New York Times. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cK Street is literally littered with former Baucus staffers,\u201d said Jade West, an executive at a wholesalers\u2019 trade association that relies on a former finance panel aide, Mary Burke Baker. \u201cIt opens doors that allow you to make the case.\u201d &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I&#8217;m not surprised. In my opinion, BARF (Baucus Against Real Financial reform) Baucus is the Senates most bought DINO.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/tea-party-and-right\/gop-sincere-denouncing-its-bigots\">Alternet<\/a>: <\/font><\/p>\n<p>In a week\u2019s time the wide range of what was once considered routine GOP bigotry was on full display. Dave Agema, a former West Michigan state representative, and Republican National Committeeman called gays \u201cfilthy homosexuals.&quot; Next, Alaska Rep. Don Young blurted out the epitaph \u201cwetbacks\u201d in discussing the immigration issue. Then 23 members of the so-called White Student Union attended the Conservative Political Action Conference where its leader tacitly endorsed segregation and even slavery. <\/p>\n<p>In times past, the silence from the GOP officials and rank and file would have been deafening. It would have reconfirmed the standard knock against the GOP as a party of Kooks, cranks misanthropes, and, of course, bigots. But in each of the three cases, there was an outcry from local GOP officials, bloggers, and GOP campus groups. They publicly denounced the bigotry, and in the case of Young, House Speaker John Boehner, Arizona and Texas Senators John McCain, and John Cornyn, and Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus blasted Young\u2019s remarks. <\/p>\n<p>At first glance, this seems a signal that the GOP recognizes that it\u2019s widely considered the party of bigotry, and that it\u2019s willing to do something about it. But the sea change may be much less than meets the eye. Many top GOP officials are still mute on its party\u2019s bigots. The official record still stands that no top GOP official aggressively and consistently denounces the bigoted remarks or acts by a GOP operative, representative, or senator\u2026<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I&#8217;ll bet that in 2014, the GOP leadership remains active in supporting the worst of the worst in the general election. Whatever limited remorse we are seeing now reflects only their embarrassment of having their true colors exposed.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon:<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n<p><strong><font color=\"#0000ff\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline\" title=\"7Cartoon\" alt=\"7Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/7Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The first one someone could buy.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m running way behind today for two reasons.&#160; First, I overslept more than two hours.&#160; Second, I had to look harder then my norm to find material I want to cover.&#160; I\u2019m current with replies, and please pardon the brevity of my responses.&#160; Tomorrow appears routine, but I do have prep work to do foe <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/07\/open-thread472013\/' 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-10219","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\/10219","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=10219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}