{"id":12249,"date":"2014-02-25T02:37:43","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T10:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12249"},"modified":"2014-02-25T02:37:43","modified_gmt":"2014-02-25T10:37:43","slug":"open-thread2252014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/25\/open-thread2252014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–2\/25\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow.  The board meeting went quite well, and my dinner was a hit.  I made a casserole with five kinds of rice, shrimp, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, peas, mushrooms and green onions.  We had black cherry pie (store-bought) for dessert.  I did the research before the meeting, met, took a cat nap, and just finished cleaning up the mess.  I\u2019m ready for another cat-nap, and this is tomorrow\u2019s only article.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 2:40 (average 4:37).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Remember the \u201cdeath tax\u201d? The estate tax is quite literally a millionaire\u2019s tax \u2014 a tax that affects only a tiny minority of the population, and is mostly paid<\/a> by a handful of very wealthy heirs. Nonetheless, right-wingers have successfully convinced many voters that the tax is a cruel burden on ordinary Americans \u2014 that all across the nation small businesses and family farms are being broken up to pay crushing estate tax liabilities.<\/p>\n

You might think that such heart-wrenching cases are actually quite rare, but you\u2019d be wrong: they aren\u2019t rare; they\u2019re nonexistent. In particular, nobody has ever come up with a real modern example of a family farm sold to meet estate taxes. The whole \u201cdeath tax\u201d campaign has rested on eliciting human sympathy for purely imaginary victims.<\/p>\n

And now they\u2019re trying a similar campaign against health reform.<\/p>\n

Paul Krugman goes on to explain the many ways in which Republicans are lying to create imaginary victims. Click through, please.<\/font><\/p>\n

From TPM<\/a>: <\/font>The 2014 handicapping is underway, and the consensus is clear: Democrats face a tough battle to maintain control of the Senate. They’re defending too many seats in red states where President Obama and his signature health care reform law are unpopular.<\/p>\n

They’re also at a structural disadvantage. Turning out the base, conventional wisdom and historical precedents say, is the key element for midterm elections, and Republicans have done it better.<\/p>\n

But Democrats might have a secret weapon in a couple of those key Senate races. Activist groups and state lawmakers are working to get Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion on the ballot in Louisiana<\/a> and Montana<\/a>, where they have vulnerable candidates and GOP officials have refused to adopt the provision.<\/p>\n

I consider this an excellent strategy. Any ballot measures that motivate apathetic lefties off their lazy butts is a plus in my book. That\u2019s far better than listening to them whine about the results, after not voting.  Progressive ballot measures should be pursued in all 50 states.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Crooks and Liars<\/a>: <\/font>Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) appeared on Fox News<\/a> Sunday with Chris Wallace this week to discuss the situation in Ukraine and to further her bona fides as a member of the Tea Party brain trust.<\/p>\n

Asked by Wallace what happens now that the nation\u2019s Parliament has voted President  Yanukovych out of office and he has refused to step down calling the vote a coup, Ayotte said that it was time for President Obama to act.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say, Chris that they need to focus on forming a unity government,\u201d she said.  \u201cYanukovych needs to step aside, and I will say this, now that the Olympics are over, we need to watch the behavior of the Russians<\/a>, and I believe the President needs to up his game and send a clear unequivocal public message to Putin not to interfere in what is happening in Ukraine.  To let the Ukrainian people determine their future, to insure that there is no interference in their sovereignty and I think this is an important time for him to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course the Olympics<\/a> are not over, today is the final day, but that is a minor issue, the President already has done what she wants already, he has been calling for a unity government in Ukraine all along.  He and Putin discussed the issue in a phone conversation<\/a> on Friday which a senior White House official described as very \u201cconstructive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The poor Bagger! Now that Ayotte has learned that Obama had done it, she’ll have to condemn him for having done what she asked.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0225Cartoon\"<\/font><\/p>\n

The Republican Party displayed the most recent.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow.  The board meeting went quite well, and my dinner was a hit.  I made a casserole with five kinds of rice, shrimp, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, peas, mushrooms and green onions.  We had black cherry pie (store-bought) for dessert.  I did the research before the meeting, met, took a cat nap, and […]<\/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-12249","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\/12249","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=12249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}