{"id":12039,"date":"2014-01-17T01:26:09","date_gmt":"2014-01-17T09:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12039"},"modified":"2014-01-17T01:26:09","modified_gmt":"2014-01-17T09:26:09","slug":"open-thread1172014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/17\/open-thread1172014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;1\/17\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m writing for tomorrow and running late, because I overslept by several hours.&#160; That\u2019<\/font><font color=\"#0000ff\">s a good thing.&#160; I\u2019m not going to push myself to return to full time blogging for a week, because I have to spend two nights in Salem next week for prison volunteer work and our annual organizational meeting for it.&#160; While I\u2019m slightly improved, I want make sure I don\u2019t knock myself back down before then.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 2:55 (average 4:25).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2014-01-17-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:\/\/on.msnbc.com\/19vEYkL\" target=\"_blank\">MSNBC<\/a>: <\/font>Hope fades for long-term unemployed<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"500\" src=\"http:\/\/player.theplatform.com\/p\/2E2eJC\/EmbeddedOffSite?guid=n_hayes_e_140115\" width=\"635\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">International readers, try Googling this in a day or two. I could not find it anywhere else. Jeff Merkley and Oregon are leading the way against Republican class warfare.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/01\/16\/us\/politics\/air-force-suspends-34-at-nuclear-sites-over-test-cheating.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>The Air Force said on Wednesday that 34 officers responsible for launching the nation\u2019s nuclear missiles had been suspended, and their security clearances revoked, for cheating on monthly proficiency tests that assess their knowledge of how to operate the warheads.<\/p>\n<p>At a news conference, Deborah Lee James, the secretary of the Air Force, said the officers, at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, either knew about or took part in texting answers to the routine monthly tests. <\/p>\n<p>Eleven Air Force officers \u2014 including two accused in the Malmstrom cheating scandal, as well as one other nuclear missile officer \u2014 have also been the focus of suspicion in an illegal drugs investigation, defense officials said. <\/p>\n<p>Although the Air Force has been plagued in recent years by scandals, the current revelations are particularly alarming because they involve America\u2019s nuclear arsenal, where errors could be catastrophic.    <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">One of Obama&#8217;s biggest mistakes has been to leave Bush\u2019s Republican officials in most key positions involving military oversight. The military needs higher quality oversight, especially since the Bush Regime purged the competent officers who opposed his military fiascos, resulting in a military leadership culture in which extreme ideology trumps even minimal ability. Clearly it&#8217;s long past time to clean house.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/content\/erik-rush-calls-military-remove-obama-office\" target=\"_blank\">Right Wing Watch<\/a>: <\/font>Far-right columnist Erik Rush has come to believe that efforts to impeach and remove President Obama from office are unlikely to succeed, so he is now is calling on \u201cmilitary personnel\u201d to \u201clend their support to an effort by Congress to remove the president through methods other than impeachment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a WorldNetDaily column [<em>World Nut Daily delinked<\/em>] today, Rush doesn\u2019t specify the extra-constitutional means he hopes to use to oust Obama, but he does regret that such a move is \u201cless likely than it otherwise might have been given the widespread purge that has taken place within the military.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Previously, Rush has called for Obama\u2019s ouster \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/content\/erik-rush-remove-obama-office-any-means-necessary\" target=\"_blank\">by any means necessary<\/a>,\u201d and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/content\/garrow-rush-obama-should-be-tried-and-executed-over-mythical-emp-plot\" target=\"_blank\">repeatedly<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/content\/erik-rush-government-officials-should-be-hanging-dc-fruit\" target=\"_blank\">advocated<\/a> <strong>executing the president<\/strong>.&#160; [<em>emphasis added<\/em>\u201d]<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The Republican Party has an endless supply of seditionists ready to commit treason, and the party leadership refuses to denounce their efforts. Some Republican members of Congress even attend their functions.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0117Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"0117Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/0117Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CWiIYW_fBfY?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m writing for tomorrow and running late, because I overslept by several hours.&#160; That\u2019s a good thing.&#160; I\u2019m not going to push myself to return to full time blogging for a week, because I have to spend two nights in Salem next week for prison volunteer work and our annual organizational meeting for it.&#160; While <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/17\/open-thread1172014\/' 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-12039","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\/12039","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=12039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}