{"id":12231,"date":"2014-02-22T00:01:16","date_gmt":"2014-02-22T08:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12231"},"modified":"2014-02-22T00:01:16","modified_gmt":"2014-02-22T08:01:16","slug":"open-thread2222014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/22\/open-thread2222014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;2\/22\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m writing for tomorrow and feeling slightly improved from yesterday.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 4:42 (average 6:35).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2014-02-22-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\/if-you-think-only-poor-people-need-welfare-wait-till-you-see-what-really-rich-folks-do-with-it?c=upw1\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a>: <\/font>Here&#8217;s an amazing video that clearly explains why welfare doesn&#8217;t work how you think it works. At 6:38, we find out the obvious about who the biggest welfare user in the country is.<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-rtySUhuokM?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I was correct in my estimation of who America&#8217;s biggest welfare user is, and I fully agree with the premise of this video.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/borowitzreport\/2014\/02\/republicans-to-discontinue-use-of-e-mail.html\" target=\"_blank\">The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>Citing the scandals embroiling Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the Republican Governors Association today ordered its members to discontinue the use of e-mail, \u201ceffective immediately.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>According to a memo sent to all Republican governors, \u201cAny plots, schemes, conspiracies, or violations of campaign-finance laws should be conducted using pay phones or easily disposable cell phones such as the ones used on \u2018The Wire.\u2019 \u201d The governors were instructed to read the memo once and then either burn or eat it. <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">LOL Andy!! I bet PIGnocchio ate his!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2014\/02\/19\/us-vw-usplant-idUSBREA1I0S820140219\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a> (H\/T <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2014\/02\/19\/1278780\/-VW-reconsiders-expansion-in-South-after-no-UAW\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a>): <\/font>Volkswagen&#8217;s top labor representative threatened on Wednesday to try to block further investments by the German carmaker in the southern United States if its workers there are not unionized.<\/p>\n<p>Workers at VW&#8217;s factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last Friday voted against representation by the United Auto Workers union (UAW), rejecting efforts by VW representatives to set up a German-style works council at the plant.<\/p>\n<p>German workers enjoy considerable influence over company decisions under the legally enshrined &quot;co-determination&quot; principle which is anathema to many politicians in the U.S. who see organized labor as a threat to profits and job growth.<\/p>\n<p>Chattanooga is VW&#8217;s only factory in the U.S. and one of the company&#8217;s few in the world without a works council.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I can imagine fairly well that another VW factory in the United States, provided that one more should still be set up there, does not necessarily have to be assigned to the south again,&quot; said Bernd Osterloh, head of VW&#8217;s works council.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;If co-determination isn&#8217;t guaranteed in the first place, we as workers will hardly be able to vote in favor&quot; of potentially building another plant in the U.S. south, Osterloh, who is also on VW&#8217;s supervisory board, said.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Kudos to VW&#8217;s works council. If Republicans insist on blocking the way the company wants to deal fairly with workers, those jobs should go to states that Republicans do not control.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0222Cartoon\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"0222Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/0222Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"654\" height=\"354\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m writing for tomorrow and feeling slightly improved from yesterday. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 4:42 (average 6:35).&#160; To do it, click here.&#160; How did you do? Short Takes: From Upworthy: Here&#8217;s an amazing video that clearly explains why welfare doesn&#8217;t work how you think it works. At 6:38, we find out the obvious <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/22\/open-thread2222014\/' 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-12231","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\/12231","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=12231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}