{"id":11791,"date":"2013-12-13T00:14:10","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T08:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=11791"},"modified":"2013-12-13T00:14:10","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T08:14:10","slug":"open-thread12132013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/13\/open-thread12132013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–12\/13\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I planned to rest all day, but following the best laid plans of mice and men, my Christmas present to me came early, and I could not resist opening it.  Because I am not an Olympic weightlifter, because I do not have engineering degrees, and because I obviously do not speak the language of whoever wrote the documentation, there is nothing easy about unpacking, setting up and installing a color laser all-in-one.  Six hours later, my first color document in hand, I crawled into bed for a few hours.  I\u2019ll be moving back to full-time blogging over the next couple weeks.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:42 (average 5:02).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Religious Agony<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\"1212-Broncos20-Chargers27\"<\/font><\/p>\n

Had I been able to watch and meditate properly, this would never have happened.  It\u2019s Comcast\u2019s fault!! \ud83d\udc7f<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>LA-Sen<\/strong>: Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu is running a new ad<\/a> that’s all about her efforts to fix Obamacare\u2014specifically, the legislation she introduced<\/a> that would require insurers to keep offering individual plans that they’ve been cancelling as the insurance exchanges have opened up. While the bill is a political winner for her, I’m not so sold on how her spot presents things, since the first 10 seconds contain news clips that only remind viewers of the debacle in the first place, before even getting to Landrieu’s attempt to ameliorate the problem.<\/p>\n

LA is especially tough, since Republicans used Katrina to make the state, and especially New Orleans, more white, but we clearly need a progressive to challenge Landrieu for the Democratic nomination.  However, in the general election, voting for even this DINO garbage is better than voting for a third party and giving it to a Republican. Click through for more election news.<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Representative Paul D. Ryan\u2019s eight terms in Congress have produced much political celebrity and Republican respect but just two laws bearing the Ryan name \u2014 a renamed post office and a modified excise tax on arrows like the ones he uses for bow hunting. <\/p>\n

Then on Tuesday he struck a budget deal with Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, that affixed a new label to the polished veneer of Mr. Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican: deal maker and, to some, traitor.<\/p>\n

To be honest, I’ve been too far out of the loop to render an opinion on this budget deal, but there must be at least something positive about it to bring on the ire against Fartfuhrer Walker’s pet Ayn Rand disciple.  So it\u2019s 90% bad, at worst.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>With her confirmation to the second highest court in the nation very early Thursday morning, Judge Nina Pillard should immediately rocket to the top of the Democratic shortlist of potential nominees to the Supreme Court. Though there are a number<\/a> of<\/a> Democratic<\/a> judges<\/a> who possess the youth, brilliance and legal credentials required from a new Supreme Court justice, Pillard brings something to the bench that is quite rare among judges \u2014 she\u2019s won two of the most important civil rights victories to reach the Supreme Court during her career.<\/p>\n

She would never have been confirmed, had not Leg Hound Harry finally taken my advice, used his ObamaBalls, and nuked the Republican Filibastards.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"1213Cartoon\"<\/font><\/p>\n

The implications boggle the mind.  Had we had a competent President, September 11, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the biggest tax giveaway to the super-rich in history, and the Republican financial collapse and recession would not have happened.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I planned to rest all day, but following the best laid plans of mice and men, my Christmas present to me came early, and I could not resist opening it.  Because I am not an Olympic weightlifter, because I do not have engineering degrees, and because I obviously do not speak the language of […]<\/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-11791","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\/11791","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=11791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}