{"id":10664,"date":"2013-07-21T01:23:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-21T08:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10664"},"modified":"2013-07-21T01:23:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-21T08:23:52","slug":"open-thread7212013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/21\/open-thread7212013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–7\/21\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m running on little sleep, as I write for day 37, because the next door neighbor from hell, a likeable enough fellow, but playing with a 48 card deck, decided to have a noisy day and night.  Asking him to shut-up works, but only for a few minutes.  ARGH!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 4:43 (average 6:07).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>After days of angry protests and mounting public pressure, President Obama summoned five of his closest advisers to the Oval Office on Thursday evening. It was time, he told them, for him to speak to the nation about the Trayvon Martin verdict, and he had a pretty good idea what he wanted to say. <\/p>\n

For the next 15 minutes, according to a senior aide, Mr. Obama spoke without interruption, laying out his message of why the not-guilty ruling had caused such pain among African-Americans, particularly young black men accustomed to arousing the kind of suspicion that led to the shooting death of Mr. Martin in a gated Florida neighborhood. <\/p>\n

On Friday, reading an unusually personal, handwritten statement, Mr. Obama summed up his views with a single line: \u201cTrayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.\u201d <\/p>\n

It is a shameful thing that almost 50 years after the Voting Rights Act, now emasculated by Republican Injustices on SCROTUS, black families are talking to their children about how they can act around white people. Republicans see this as not being so uppity. I see this as second class citizenship. Shame!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Roll Call<\/a>: <\/font>A meeting of Senate Republicans on Wednesday grew tense as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told his members he could have gotten a better deal on nominations than the one negotiated by rank-and-file Republicans.<\/p>\n

McConnell\u2019s tone, according to multiple sources, implied that he had been kept in the dark about the talks between some in his own ranks and Democrats. However, those same Republicans say they kept McConnell updated throughout their negotiating process.<\/p>\n

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., got so frustrated with McConnell\u2019s presentation of events, that he called \u201cbullshit\u201d loud enough for the room to hear<\/strong>, nearly a half-dozen sources said. The heated exchange underscored the \u201cbuyer\u2019s remorse\u201d among some Republicans, especially leaders, one senior Republican said on background. [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n

This is one of few chances you’ll get to witness me saying this about a Republican. Kudos to Bob Corker (R-TN).<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>In about two weeks, House Republicans will begin their summer vacation, taking nearly the entire month of August off and returning to work after Labor Day. And what will their schedule look like after returning from vacation<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\n

After taking almost the entire month of August off, House leadership has penciled in just nine workdays for September.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To be fair, September has just 30 days, and they’re already spending the first two of those days on vacation. If you subtract the 8 weekend days, that leaves just 20 workdays left in the month. So it’s not like they’re spending all of their time screwing around doing nothing\u2014they’re only taking off 11 of the first 20 workdays after their vacation. <\/p>\n

This is just how much Republicans care about solving America’s problems.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"21Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m running on little sleep, as I write for day 37, because the next door neighbor from hell, a likeable enough fellow, but playing with a 48 card deck, decided to have a noisy day and night.  Asking him to shut-up works, but only for a few minutes.  ARGH! Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me […]<\/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-10664","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\/10664","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=10664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}