{"id":10787,"date":"2013-08-05T02:24:51","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T09:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10787"},"modified":"2013-08-05T02:24:51","modified_gmt":"2013-08-05T09:24:51","slug":"open-thread852012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/05\/open-thread852012\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–8\/5\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing for tomorrow, day 51, at 11:00 AM, it\u2019s already 89\u00b0 at my desk.  ARGH!<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 4:17 (average 4:31).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

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

Yes, I know that if you’re one of the beltway insiders who spends their evenings thumbing through the index of This Town, it’s probably shocking to see a headline saying that Republicans are consciously pursuing a policy of starvation … but this isn’t a question of opinion. It’s fact:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

House Republicans are proposing to double their food stamp savings to nearly $40 billion by rolling back waivers for able-bodied adults and targeting funds to states that are willing to impose greater work requirements on the parents of young children.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’m surprised Wal-fart isn’t making a huge stink over this. If Republicans roll back waivers for able bodied adults, most of Wal-fart’s work force could starve.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>The fact is, America\u2019s suicide rate is on the rise, and Conservative economic policies are to blame. <\/p>\n

In a study released in May<\/a>, Professors David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu of Oxford University in England found that suicide rates in both the U.S. and U.K. increase when working class wages and wealth decline. <\/p>\n

The study calculates, for example, that there were 4,750 \u201cexcess\u201d suicides during the recession period in the U.S., compared with suicide rates before the recession.<\/p>\n

See? RepubliCorp has a free death benefit, just like RepubliCare!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Robert Reich<\/a>: <\/font>Job-growth is sputtering. So why, exactly, do regressive Republicans continue to say \u201cno" to every idea for boosting it \u2014 even last week\u2019s almost absurdly modest proposal by President Obama to combine corporate tax cuts with increased spending on roads and other public works?… <\/p>\n

…The real answer, I think, is they and their patrons want unemployment to remain high and job-growth to sputter. Why? Three reasons:<\/p>\n

First, high unemployment keeps wages down. Workers who are worried about losing their jobs settle for whatever they can get \u2014 which is why hourly earnings keep dropping. The median wage is now 4 percent lower than it was at the start of the recovery. Low wages help boost corporate profits, thereby keeping the regressives\u2019 corporate sponsors happy\u2026 <\/p>\n

Robert Reich has outdone himself again. I gave you just a small taste here. Click through to see how well he has the Republican Party pegged!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"5Cartoon\"<\/p>\n

April Glaspie said<\/a>, "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait."<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing for tomorrow, day 51, at 11:00 AM, it\u2019s already 89\u00b0 at my desk.  ARGH! Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 4:17 (average 4:31).  To do it, click here.  How did you do? Short Takes: From Daily Kos: Yes, I know that if you’re one of the beltway insiders who spends their evenings thumbing through […]<\/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-10787","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\/10787","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=10787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}