{"id":12116,"date":"2014-02-02T01:00:31","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12116"},"modified":"2014-02-02T01:00:32","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T09:00:32","slug":"open-thread222014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/02\/open-thread222014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–2\/2\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/font>\u2019m writing for tomorrow, feeling very tired, and running quite late, due to the time it took to gather the data for tomorrow\u2019s Monthly Report.  This will give you an idea just how much work that is.  Because I do so much online I clean up my cookies and temporary Internet files several times per day.  I did so immediately before and after my data collection session.  I accumulated 329 Megabytes of temporary Internet files during the session.  Tomorrow is also the highest holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My sainted Broncos will be worshiping to protect the divine Orb from the infernal Republican Seachickens (may they fall into the hands of KFC). ;-)  If you have to ask what I\u2019ll be doing, you may want to stay away from IQ tests for the sake of your self esteem.  So don\u2019t expect much on Monday, please.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:50 (average 5:23).  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>Responding to fresh charges that he knew about the controversial lane closures on the George Washington Bridge last fall, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie today asked for the public\u2019s patience while he makes up a new story. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday you have heard some allegations that are shocking and explosive,\u201d he told reporters at a hastily called press conference. \u201cAll I ask is that the people of the great state of New Jersey give me sufficient time to invent a new story that explains my way out of this.\u201d <\/p>\n

Governor Christie said that he had spent the past few hours in closed-door meetings trying to come up with a new narrative that absolves him of any guilt in the bridge scandal, but while he was definitely denying the allegations, \u201cso far, we don\u2019t have a winner.\u201d <\/p>\n

LOL Andy! Sometimes fact is funnier than fiction!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>The crocodile tears are flowing at Politico where right-wing law prof Eugene Kontorovich tries to make the case for why early voting is a bad thing<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

A single Election Day creates a focal point that gives solemnity and relevance to the state of popular opinion at a particular moment in time; on a single day, we all have to come down on one side or the other. But if the word \u201celection\u201d comes to mean casting votes over a period of months, it will elide the difference between elections and polls. People will be able to vote when the mood strikes them \u2014 after seeing an inflammatory ad, for example. <\/p>\n

Voting then becomes an incoherent summing of how various individuals feel at a series of moments, not how the nation feels at a particular moment. This weakens civic cohesiveness, and it threatens to substitute raw preferences and momentary opinion for rational deliberation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Because right-wingers value nothing more than civic cohesiveness and rational deliberation…at least when it means being able to corral voters into a single workday when their votes can most easily be denied, delayed and  frustrated by impossibly long lines, specious challenges and insufficient ballots. <\/p>\n

Click through for even more. That Prof has his Doctorate in Bullshitology!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>The Latest Voter Suppression Catalog: North Carolina.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Until the Republicans took control of the governor\u2019s mansion and Legislature in 2012, North Carolina pioneered some of the most progressive election laws in the South. Since then, the GOP has ressurrected the ghost of Jim Crow, narrowing options to register, to vote early, and to obtain a ballot on Election Day. Bill Moyers noted these abuses in a detailed report<\/a> this month, but even he didn\u2019t recite everything that\u2019s gotten worse.<\/p>\n

North Carolina\u2019s GOP has also ended<\/a> straight party voting in 2014, where a voter can pick all of a party\u2019s candidates. Its governor won\u2019t<\/a> fill a vacant U.S. House seat held by a Democrat until November, instead of holding a traditional special election. The last time the state\u2019s elections were this rigged was more than<\/a> a century ago, legal scholars said. <\/p>\n

This is just one of eight insidious Republican attacks your freedom by trying to steal elections they cannot win honestly. Click through for the other seven.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0202Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, feeling very tired, and running quite late, due to the time it took to gather the data for tomorrow\u2019s Monthly Report.  This will give you an idea just how much work that is.  Because I do so much online I clean up my cookies and temporary Internet files several times per […]<\/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-12116","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\/12116","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=12116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}