{"id":11352,"date":"2013-10-12T01:15:31","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T08:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=11352"},"modified":"2013-10-12T23:45:27","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T06:45:27","slug":"open-thread10122013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/12\/open-thread10122013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–10\/12\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 120, and running late, because I overslept.  I had missed sleep, because Guitar Man woke up, unfortunately.  Fantasy football players, check your lineups for Sunday's games.  So far, this week,  I’m getting Monster Mashed<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today’s took me 3:31 (average 4:23).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>A group representing America’s hostage-takers today blasted President Obama for his repeated comparisons between them and the Tea Party Republicans, calling his remarks “degrading and hurtful.”<\/p>\n

The complaint came from the National Alliance of Hostage-Takers and Blackmailers, a watchdog group that monitors negative images of extortionists in the media.<\/p>\n

“As professional hostage-takers, we never take hostages unless we have a well-thought-out plan, realistic demands, and a clear exit strategy,” read the group’s official statement. “Any comparison between what we do and these inane Tea Party antics are derogatory and unacceptable.”<\/p>\n

The statement continued, “For years, our members have been subjected to offensive Hollywood stereotypes of hostage-takers as crazed madmen, cackling evildoers, and worse. The President’s hurtful remarks only reinforce those negative images.”<\/p>\n

Andy has a completely valid point. Comparing the Republican Party to criminals insults the criminals.<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Speaker John Boehner on Thursday said he was willing to delay briefly a disastrous default of the country’s financial obligations but was not willing to reopen the government. “I would hope that the president would look at this as an opportunity and a good-faith effort on our part to move halfway — halfway to what he’s demanded,” he said.<\/p>\n

That’s not much of a good-faith effort. Though Mr. Obama expressed approval that “cooler heads” were prevailing in the House, according to his press secretary, Jay Carney, he also made it clear that the offer needs to include an end to the shutdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In effect, Republicans are saying, "I'm pointing two guns at your head, I'll agree to put one of them in my pocket for a few minutes, if you agree to negotiate with the other gun still pointed at your head." That's not a reasonable offer.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Washington Post<\/a>: <\/font>The group had come all the way from Russia; part of a foreign-exchange program set up by Congress to show off the virtues of American democracy.<\/p>\n

But when they got here, neither Congress nor American democracy was having its best day.<\/p>\n

“No. No way,” said Ekaterina Ivanova, a TV journalist from Moscow, recalling her reaction when she heard what was going on.<\/p>\n

For some reason, the legislators who had paid for her to visit had now shut down the government they wanted her to see. “It’s a joke,” Ivanova thought.<\/p>\n

She’s right.  It IS a joke!  It’s a Republican joke on America!!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"12Cartoon\"<\/p>\n

Correction: I was half asleep when I made that cartoon, and I confused the USS Cole with the USS Liberty that Israel attacked in 1960.  I do apologize for my error.<\/span><\/strong> Hat-Tip to Lynn for the catch.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m writing for tomorrow, day 120, and running late, because I overslept.  I had missed sleep, because Guitar Man woke up, unfortunately.  Fantasy football players, check your lineups for Sunday's games.  So far, this week,  I’m getting Monster Mashed!! Jig Zone Puzzle: Today’s took me 3:31 (average 4:23).  To do it, click here.  How did […]<\/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-11352","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\/11352","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=11352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}