{"id":10365,"date":"2013-05-28T01:34:34","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T08:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10365"},"modified":"2013-05-28T01:34:34","modified_gmt":"2013-05-28T08:34:34","slug":"open-thread5282013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/28\/open-thread5282013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–5\/28\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

I need to make today another short one, with this article only, because leg pain kept me up.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:55 (average 4:49).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>1.5 million low-income Texans may go without health care coverage after lawmakers in the state voted against<\/a> expanding Medicaid using $100 billion in federal funds offered under President Obama\u2019s health care law. The decision comes almost a year after the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government cannot require states to enroll more Medicaid beneficiaries. <\/p>\n

The proposal, sent to Gov. Rick Perry (R) on Sunday, says state health officials \u201cmay only provide medical assistance to a person who would have been otherwise eligible for medical assistance or for whom federal matching funds were available under the eligibility criteria for medical assistance in effect on December 31, 2013.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government fully funds Medicaid expansion until 2016 and gradually reduces its contribution to 90 percent in 2020 and subsequent years. Texas \u2014 which has the highest percentage of uninsured residents \u2014 would never pay more than 7 percent of the cost of providing coverage to Texans, but Texas Republicans argued that \u201ceven $1 in the name of \u2018Obamacare\u2019 was a dollar too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas Republicans will provide RepubliCare, marking 1.5 million residents for the RepubliCare death benefit.<\/font><\/p>\n

From McClatchy DC<\/a>: <\/font>The exact location of the anti-poaching operation is secret, as is the number of rangers who will be on duty. Also confidential: where the drones will fly as they search out poachers intent on slaying rhinos for their horns \u2013 one killed every 11 hours in South Africa alone. <\/p>\n

But over the next several days, Tom Snitch thinks that his project, at a private game farm adjoining South Africa\u2019s famed Kruger National Park, will prove that unmanned aerial vehicles can end the scourge of rhinoceros poaching.<\/p>\n

God help the poor rhinos that have the misfortune to be saved through the use of those evil drones!! \ud83d\ude09<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font><\/p>\n

The D.C. Circuit federal appeals court has unusual power, acting as a feeder to the Supreme Court and holding jurisdiction over cases involving federal agencies. That makes it a prime subject for Republican obstructionism, and until the confirmation of Sri Srinivasan<\/a> last week\u2014the first confirmation of an Obama nominee to the D.C. Circuit\u2014there were four vacancies out of 11 spots on the court. Srinivasan’s confirmation brings Democrats into parity with Republicans on the D.C. Circuit, at four judges each. But, writing at Dissent, Moshe Z. Marvit shows that the court’s Republican skew<\/a> has been much stronger than those numbers imply:<\/p>\n

\n

However, this simple count ignores a key feature of the federal judiciary: senior judgeships. Many judges do not retire, but instead choose senior status, which makes their seat officially vacant but places them on part-time work. <\/p>\n

On the D.C. Circuit, there are six senior judges, which is almost the number of active judges, with five having been appointed by Republicans. In all the cases decided in 2013, almost 70 percent of the three-judge panels included at least one senior judge. As a result, almost 80 percent of the panels in 2013 were composed of exclusively or a majority of Republicans.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

The D.C. Circuit will become a lot more controversial in shout order, because Obama intends to nominate judges to fill all three vacancies at once<\/a>. Expect intense screams to come from the Judiciary Committee, where the Republicans are virtually all wing nuts: Grassley, Hatch, Sessions, Graham, Cornyn, Lee, Cruz, and Flake.  What a collection of InsaniTEA!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"28Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I need to make today another short one, with this article only, because leg pain kept me up.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:55 (average 4:49).  To do it, click here.  How did you do? Short Takes: From Think Progress: 1.5 million low-income Texans may go without health care […]<\/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-10365","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\/10365","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=10365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}