{"id":10950,"date":"2013-08-26T01:53:06","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T08:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10950"},"modified":"2013-08-26T01:53:06","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T08:53:06","slug":"open-thread8262013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/26\/open-thread8262013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–8\/26\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 73,. and yesterday I was still so tired that I slept through the first 3\/4 of the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  How impious of me!  Tuesday is a prison volunteer day, and Thursday is a Doctor appointment that will take 6 \u2013 8 hours travel time, so I may be intermittent this week.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:14 (average 5:00).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font>From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font><\/p>\n

ON the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech, Kerry Bentivolio, a Michigan congressman, has a dream, too: to impeach the nation\u2019s first black president.\u201cIf I could write that bill and submit it, it would be a dream come true,\u201d the freshman Republican told a local G.O.P. club meeting Monday in Birmingham, Mich., in a video posted on YouTube and reported by BuzzFeed. <\/p>\n

Bentivolio graciously conceded that he\u2019d have to come up with some grounds first. \u201cI went back to my office and I have had lawyers come in,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd these are lawyers, well \u2014 Ph.D.\u2019s in history \u2014 I said, \u2018Tell me how I can impeach the president of the United States. What evidence do you have?\u2019 You\u2019ve got to have the evidence.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

If he did not already have evidence of an impeachable offense, why should he want to impeach the President?  However, if he wants to file Articles of Impeachment, bring it on! But it’s his OTHER job that really worries me. No way should this vile Teabagger be a Santa Claus!!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>Justice Scalia wonders aloud if citizens should have rocket launchers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How do you solve a problem like Scalia? The Supreme Court\u2019s most shoot-from-the-hip, right-wing, Tea Partying, really un-judge-like judge mused this week in a speech in Montana about what sort of arms are protected under the Second Amendment. Might \u201cshoulder-fired rocket launchers\u201d be protected? Perhaps, he concluded. Scalia reminded the crowd that the framers of the Constitution put that amendment in there, after all, to preserve the right of the people to revolt against a tyrannical leader. <\/p>\n

OK, that\u2019s kind of extreme. Even the gun nuts aren\u2019t making that argument, usually defending their right to bear all kinds of arms for some sort of self-defense against real or imagined criminals\u2026<\/p>\n

What a piece of SCROTUS! This is just the first if seven outrageous statements from Republicans in the last week<\/strong>. Click through for the other six.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Common Dreams<\/a>: <\/font><\/p>\n

Defying orders from Russian authorities to stay out, a Greenpeace boat entered the Northern Sea Route off Russia\u2019s coastline Saturday to stage a peaceful protest against dangerous plans on the part of oil giants Rosneft and ExxonMobil to drill near the Russian Arctic National Park.<\/p>\n

The entry is a bold challenge to Russia’s collusion with the oil industry\u2014also rampant in the U.S. and across the world\u2014by banning environmental activists and monitors yet welcoming oil drilling exploration vessels with open arms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe refuse to let illegal attempts by the Russian government to stop us from exposing dangerous oil drilling in the Arctic," declared Christy Ferguson, Greenpeace Arctic Campaigner aboard the ‘Arctic Sunrise’ Greenpeace ship. "The Russian Arctic National Park is a special place full of rare and threatened Arctic wildlife, and faces an infinitely greater threat from reckless oil companies than a fully equipped Greenpeace icebreaker."\u2026<\/p>\n

Kudos to Greenpeace! The people deserve the truth!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"26Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 73,. and yesterday I was still so tired that I slept through the first 3\/4 of the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  How impious of me!  Tuesday is a prison volunteer day, and Thursday is a Doctor appointment that will take 6 \u2013 8 hours travel time, so I may […]<\/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-10950","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\/10950","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=10950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}