{"id":12167,"date":"2014-02-11T00:43:51","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T08:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12167"},"modified":"2014-02-11T00:43:51","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T08:43:51","slug":"open-thread2112014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/11\/open-thread2112014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;2\/11\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, and although my COPD is still severe, I do have a second article for you today.&#160; Conditions are improving, but still horrid.&#160; The freezing rain advisory ends later today, and I should be able to get out again before the end of the week.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 2:24 (average 4:12).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2014-02-11-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:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/when-they-say-cutting-taxes-on-the-rich-means-job-creation-theyre-lying-just-ask-this-rich-guy\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a>: <\/font>Meet Nick Hanauer. He\u2019s a very wealthy man, his family owns a lot of things, and he\u2019s invested in some big companies that started out small (ahem &#8230; Amazon&#8230;). He\u2019s got a few things to say about who the job creators really are in our country, and it goes totally against the standard trope you usually hear from politicians and talking heads. Delightfully so.<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"281\" src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/84187156\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"500\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" mozallowfullscreen=\"mozallowfullscreen\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"webkitallowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/84187156\" target=\"_blank\">INEQUALITY FOR ALL &#8211; The Power of Job Creators<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/user9355448\" target=\"_blank\">New Birch<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\" target=\"_blank\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It is certainly refreshing to see a member of 0.1% recognize that he and his ilk are not the job creators. We are.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/02\/10\/opinion\/krugman-writing-off-the-unemployed.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>&#8230;Some Republicans justified last week\u2019s filibuster with the tired old argument that we can\u2019t afford to increase the deficit. Actually, Democrats paired the benefits extension with measures to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/post-politics\/wp\/2014\/02\/06\/senate-hits-another-dead-end-on-unemployment-benefits\/\" target=\"_blank\">increase tax receipts<\/a>. But in any case this is a bizarre objection at a time when federal deficits are not just falling, but clearly falling too fast, holding back economic recovery.<\/p>\n<p>For the most part, however, Republicans justify refusal to help the unemployed by asserting that we have so much long-term unemployment because people aren\u2019t trying hard enough to find jobs, and that extended benefits are part of the reason for that lack of effort.<\/p>\n<p>People who say things like this \u2014 people like, for example, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/post-politics\/wp\/2013\/12\/08\/rand-paul-long-term-benefits-a-disservice-to-the-unemployed\/\" target=\"_blank\">Senator Rand Paul<\/a> \u2014 probably imagine that they\u2019re being tough-minded and realistic. In fact, however, they\u2019re peddling a fantasy at odds with all the evidence. For example: if unemployment is high because people are unwilling to work, reducing the supply of labor, why aren\u2019t <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/02\/08\/business\/us-economy-adds-113000-jobs-unemployment-rate-at-6-6.html\" target=\"_blank\">wages<\/a> going up?<\/p>\n<p>But evidence has a well-known liberal bias. The more their economic doctrine fails \u2014 remember how the Fed\u2019s actions were supposed to produce runaway <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ritholtz.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/qe-debasement-inflation\/\" target=\"_blank\">inflation<\/a>? \u2014 the more fiercely conservatives cling to that doctrine. More than five years after a financial crisis plunged the Western world into what looks increasingly like a quasi-permanent slump, making nonsense of free-market orthodoxy, it\u2019s hard to find a leading Republican who has changed his or her mind on, well, anything.<\/p>\n<p>And this imperviousness to evidence goes along with a stunning lack of compassion\u2026<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I snipped this from the middle of an excellent Paul Krugman editorial on Republican soft heads and hard hearts. Click through for the rest. It&#8217;s well worth the read.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/dc\/tea-party-veto-power-republicans\" target=\"_blank\">TPM<\/a>: <\/font>The tea party has <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/dc\/tea-party-groups-defeat-farm-bill\" target=\"_blank\">taken a series of hits<\/a> since it goaded Republican leaders into a costly and self-defeating government shutdown last fall. But the conservative movement remains formidable when it comes to pushing Republican leaders to just say no, at all costs, to new economic and domestic initiatives that aren&#8217;t essential to avert immediate crisis.<\/p>\n<p>The emerging dynamic is one where the tea party can no longer hold the basic functions of government hostage to conservative policy reforms, but has effective veto power over major new proposals that require bipartisan deal-making. It&#8217;s an important shift from the last three years since the nascent movement helped the GOP win more than 60 congressional seats and re-take the House in the 2010 elections, spurring a party-wide lurch to the right.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">In spite of mainstream Republican efforts to reign in the open InsaniTEA that is too obvious for them to successfully hide from voters, there is little actual difference between the two, except that Baggers are too stupid to realize how few people actually agree with them.&#160; The Tea Party provides a venue for the hatred, without which the Republican Party has no base.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0211Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"0211Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/0211Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"350\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, and although my COPD is still severe, I do have a second article for you today.&#160; Conditions are improving, but still horrid.&#160; The freezing rain advisory ends later today, and I should be able to get out again before the end of the week. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 2:24 <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/11\/open-thread2112014\/' 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-12167","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\/12167","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=12167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}