{"id":11059,"date":"2013-09-07T01:48:48","date_gmt":"2013-09-07T08:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=11059"},"modified":"2013-09-07T01:48:48","modified_gmt":"2013-09-07T08:48:48","slug":"open-thread972013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/07\/open-thread972013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;9\/7\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 85, and enjoying the cool weather, while it lasts.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 4:17 (average 4:55).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2013-09-07-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/a-bunch-of-young-geniuses-just-made-a-corrupt-corporation-freak-out-big-time-time-for-round\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a> (Hat-Tip to Pat A from Care2): <\/font>When you&#8217;ve got giant energy companies this scared, you must be doing something right. At 3:38, I snorted. Just sayin&#8217;. And at 4:43, he explains brilliantly what&#8217;s in it for you. <\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"480\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xh1qCf-ohOQ?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Kudos to the people of Boulder, CO, and down with the Koch sucking polluters!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.citizensforethics.org\/blog\/entry\/with-ensign-decision-court-hands-crew-fourth-victory-against-doj\" target=\"_blank\">CREW<\/a>: <\/font>On August 23, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge John Bates <a href=\"http:\/\/www.citizensforethics.org\/page\/-\/PDFs\/Legal\/CREW%20v.%20Department%20of%20Justice%20%28Ensign%20Investigation%29\/8-23-13_CREW_DOJ_District_Court_Ensign_Opinion.pdf?nocdn=1\" target=\"_blank\">handed CREW a major victory<\/a> in CREW v. U.S. Dep\u2019t of Justice (D.D.C.), in which CREW sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) for documents related to the now-closed investigation of former Senator John Ensign (R-NV).&#160; Sen. Ensign had publicly acknowledged he was the subject of a criminal investigation for efforts to cover up his affair with a former campaign staffer then married to his chief of staff.&#160; A special counsel hired by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics had issued a report finding the senator\u2019s conduct appeared to violate numerous federal laws, and there was widespread media coverage of the scandal. <\/p>\n<p>The ethics committee referred the case to DOJ for a further investigation, but the department declined to prosecute Sen. Ensign, instead prosecuting only the former chief of staff, Doug Hampton.&#160; DOJ refused to provide any records, claiming Sen. Ensign\u2019s privacy interests trumped the public\u2019s right to know.&#160; Ludicrously, DOJ claimed Sen. Ensign\u2019s privacy interests were so great the agency needed to protect even the mere fact of the investigation, notwithstanding Sen. Ensign\u2019s public comments about the criminal case and the significant media coverage.<\/p>\n<p>Accepting CREW\u2019s arguments, Judge Bates found Sen. Ensign\u2019s privacy interests were outweighed by the substantial public interest in records that would shed light on the DOJ investigation and the decision not to bring charges against the senator.&#160; As the court explained, \u201cCREW wants records showing what efforts DOJ took to investigate serious allegations of criminal conduct backed by \u2018substantial credible evidence.\u2019\u201d&#160; Given Sen. Ensign\u2019s status as \u201ca high ranking and high profile elected official who resigned following accusations of significant public corruption,\u201d the court concluded the substantial public interest outweighs Sen. Ensign\u2019s privacy interests. <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Kudos to CREW. Ensign was one of the pseudo-Christian C-Street Republicans who helped their Ugandan counterparts draft the law condemning gays to death.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/09\/06\/opinion\/the-federal-reserve-nomination.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>In July, when news broke that President Obama might nominate Lawrence Summers to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, several Democratic senators wrote a letter to the president in praise of Janet Yellen, the current Fed vice chairwoman who many presumed would be the nominee. The letter didn\u2019t mention Mr. Summers; rather, it recounted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/07\/26\/business\/in-tug-of-war-over-new-fed-leader-some-gender-undertones.html\" target=\"_blank\">Ms. Yellen\u2019s formidable qualifications and urged the president to nominate her<\/a>. Perhaps it was too subtle.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Obama is expected to announce his nominee soon, and, by all accounts, Mr. Summers is still a contender. It is time for senators of both parties who appreciate the importance of this nomination to tell the president that Mr. Summers would be the wrong choice. <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">America would have been far better off for Obama to have kept the progressive economic team that advised him through the 2008 campaign and helped him win the White House, instead of adopting Hillary&#8217;s advisors, including Larry &#8216;Wrong Way&#8217; Summers, one of the infamous Three Blind Mice. Tell him not to make that mistake again!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"7Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"7Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/7Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 85, and enjoying the cool weather, while it lasts. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 4:17 (average 4:55).&#160; To do it, click here.&#160; How did you do? Short Takes: From Upworthy (Hat-Tip to Pat A from Care2): When you&#8217;ve got giant energy companies this scared, you must be doing something <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/07\/open-thread972013\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/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-11059","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\/11059","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=11059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}