{"id":11852,"date":"2013-12-25T01:15:37","date_gmt":"2013-12-25T09:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=11852"},"modified":"2013-12-25T01:15:37","modified_gmt":"2013-12-25T09:15:37","slug":"open-thread12252013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/25\/open-thread12252013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;12\/25\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, since tomorrow I need to be rested to cook.&#160; If you are traveling, please take extra care.&#160; Expect only an Open Thread at best on Thursday.&#160; May this day bring each of you all the joy you so richly deserve.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 3:09 (average 5:26).&#160; To do it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2013-12-25-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Fantasy Football Update<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Here\u2019s the latest playoff bracket from our fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"16Bracket\" style=\"float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; margin-right: auto\" alt=\"16Bracket\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/16Bracket.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"1150\" \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Congrats to the winners, and enjoy the last week of the fantasy season.<\/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\/ugh-food-stamps-are-for-lazy-freeloaders-well-lets-look-at-the-facts-mk2-6b\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a>: <\/font>&#8216;Ugh, Food Stamps Are For Lazy Freeloaders!&#8217; Well, Let&#8217;s Look At The Facts.<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Jw7uT1jOt0o?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">These are things Republicans do not want you to know.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2013\/12\/22\/1264127\/-Unemployment-benefits-and-the-fight-for-the-liberal-empowerment-agenda\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>There are a lot of things not to like from a progressive perspective about the so-called Ryan-Murray compromise budget <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2013\/12\/18\/politics\/senate-budget-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\">approved<\/a> this past Wednesday by the Senate and on its way to President Obama&#8217;s desk. Perhaps the biggest is the expiration of long-term unemployment insurance benefits. These cuts will provide a very inopportune lump of coal in the stockings of the least fortunate right at the time that they need these benefits the most. And with Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives, the probability of these benefits being restored once they expire seems barely a stitch above zero. <\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, as Greg Sargent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/plum-line\/wp\/2013\/12\/19\/dems-plan-big-christmas-push-on-unemployment-benefits\/\" target=\"_blank\">writes<\/a>, <strong>Democrats in the Senate and progressive institutions are refusing to concede the point. And whether they actually hope to embarrass Republicans into passing a new extension of benefits, or whether the only expectation is to use the issue to turn public opinion even further against a heartless Republican Party, the efforts involved look like they will be extensive<\/strong>. [<em>emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Click through for more about what Democrats will be doing to restore unemployment benefits.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/headline\/2013\/12\/24-3\" target=\"_blank\">Common Dreams<\/a>: <\/font>Alberta, home to massive tar sands reserves, has a new environmental regulator in town.<\/p>\n<p>Only this one is funded entirely by the fossil fuel industry, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edmontonjournal.com\/travel\/Alberta+environment+regulators+paid+industry\/9316498\/story.html\" target=\"_blank\">the Edmonton Journal reports<\/a> Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Roughly 150 publicly funded environment department staff including fish and wildlife officers, forestry officers, biologists, rangers and others who watch over the oil industry&#8217;s activities in the province are expected to move over to the new, industry-funded, Alberta Energy Regulator\u2014a shift initiated by the government&#8217;s environmental department as it shuts down its Energy Resources Conservation Board.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Having regulators dependent on corporate criminals for their paychecks is a wide open door for corruption and abuse.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"1225Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"1225Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/1225Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, since tomorrow I need to be rested to cook.&#160; If you are traveling, please take extra care.&#160; Expect only an Open Thread at best on Thursday.&#160; May this day bring each of you all the joy you so richly deserve. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:09 (average 5:26).&#160; To do <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/25\/open-thread12252013\/' 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-11852","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\/11852","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=11852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}