{"id":10340,"date":"2013-05-23T03:20:47","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T10:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10340"},"modified":"2013-05-23T03:20:47","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T10:20:47","slug":"open-thread5232013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/23\/open-thread5232013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–5\/23\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I got some rest so I have another article for you today.  I\u2019m still on light duty, but hope to gain strength as time goes on.  I am disappointed, because today is a prison volunteer day, and I\u2019m not up to it yet.  Have a fantastic day.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:46 (average 4:54).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Raw Story<\/a>: <\/font>Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Friday declared that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would have murdered the participants of the original 1773 Boston Tea Party and and would have \u201ckilled off\u201d half of the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n

In a 30-minute floor speech to express his outrage over a report in The Daily Caller [propaganda delinked] that said the Department of Homeland Security was \u201cprotecting the free speech rights of pro-Shariah Muslim supremacists,\u201d Gohmert noted that President Barack Obama\u2019s administration had a number of other problems like the recent news that the IRS had scrutinized the tax-exempt status of tea party and other conservative groups. <\/p>\n

\u201cHomeland Security has had reports warning their employees about the dangers of people that may be involved in such heinous activity as being classified as evangelical Christians or as being concerned about the Constitution and that people should be following the Constitution, and concerned about people who may have tea party in their name,\u201d he explained\u2026<\/p>\n

On the other hand, had Gohmert been alive in 1776, he would have been in an asylum. That he is in Congress, instead of an asylum, today, if there is a difference, is a sad commentary on American voters.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>In a dramatic departure from existing White House procedures, President Obama requested today that his staff start cc\u2019ing him on stuff. <\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I know a lot of you think I\u2019m really busy and you don\u2019t want to bother me,\u201d the President reportedly told his staff in an Oval Office meeting. \u201cBut cc me anyway. It\u2019s good for me to keep up on what\u2019s going on around here.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not good when I turn on the news and they\u2019re talking about something at the White House and I\u2019m like, whoa, when did that happen?\u201d Mr. Obama added. \u201cI think cc\u2019ing me would go a long way toward fixing that.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe put a Post-It note on your computer saying, \u2018CC POTUS,\u2019 so you don\u2019t forget,\u201d he said as the meeting broke up\u2026<\/p>\n

Humor aside, I do think it would behoove Obama to be a bit more inclined to direct his staff, instead of his tendency to allow them complete independence.<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Throughout months of Republican \u201cinvestigation\u201d into the tragedy in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 last year, the Central Intelligence Agency has escaped the scrutiny and partisan bashing aimed at the State Department and the White House. But we now know that the C.I.A., and not the State Department or the White House, originated the talking points that Republicans (wrongly) insisted were proof of a scandal. It was more central to the American presence in Benghazi than the State Department, and more responsible for security there. <\/p>\n

The C.I.A.\u2019s role needs to be examined to understand what happened and how to better protect Americans…<\/p>\n

I fully agree, but understand that Republicans have a supremely important reason for ignoring the CIA and focusing on the State Department. Hillary is not in charge of the CIA.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"23Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I got some rest so I have another article for you today.  I\u2019m still on light duty, but hope to gain strength as time goes on.  I am disappointed, because today is a prison volunteer day, and I\u2019m not up to it yet.  Have a fantastic day. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:46 […]<\/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-10340","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\/10340","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=10340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}