{"id":12634,"date":"2014-04-27T00:02:15","date_gmt":"2014-04-27T07:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12634"},"modified":"2014-04-27T00:02:15","modified_gmt":"2014-04-27T07:02:15","slug":"open-thread4272014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/27\/open-thread4272014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–4\/27\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, resting up t6o recharge, and preparing to confront a mess in my kitchen area.  Politics Plus will be offline for approximately 30 minutes, sometime between 7 PM Sunday night and 3 AM Monday morning.  Our HSP will be doing a kernel upgrade on the servers.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:48 (average 5:52).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Christian Science Monitor<\/a>: The Democrats face some challenging math in their quest to hold onto the US Senate. In all, 21 Democratic-held seats are up for election this November, versus 15 Republican-held seats. And political analysts deem far more of the Democratic seats vulnerable.<\/font><\/font> <\/p>\n

To take control of the Senate, the Republicans need a net gain of six seats. One already looks set to flip: the seat held by retiring Sen. Tim Johnson (D) of South Dakota.<\/font><\/p>\n

Twelve other Senate races are seen as competitive \u2013 10 seats held by Democrats, two by Republicans. Here\u2019s the rundown.<\/font><\/p>\n

We\u2019re losing a couple good Democrats to retirement.  The rest are DINOs, but we need them to tip the balance.  Click through for an excellent analysis of the challenges we face to keep the Republican Party out of the driver’s seat.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The Oregonian<\/a>: Cover Oregon closed one of the sorrier chapters in the history of Oregon state government Friday when it opted to dump its troubled $248 million health insurance exchange in favor of the federal exchange.<\/font><\/p>\n

The federal exchange doesn’t feature many of the bells and whistles Oregon officials had hoped to offer in their in-house system. But the federal exchange works and offers certainty that the Oregon exchange did not.<\/font><\/p>\n

Actually that is good news for Oregon. The company they had hired, Oracle, really screwed the pooch with their substandard design performance.<\/p>\n

From Politicus USA<\/a>: Reckless coastal development is heading to Georgia, courtesy of the Nathan Deal administration. Naturally this marsh killing policy was announced on Earth Day. <\/font><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never been to Georgia, you\u2019re missing out. Georgia\u2019s 300,000 acres of tidal marshes are a source of huge pride in the Peach state, for good reason. Not only are fishing and shrimping a large source of recreational, family-owned businesses, but the state has always taken a much more protective stance towards its coasts and marshlands. The birds and the stunning scenery are a testament to past policies of preservation.<\/font><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just Georgians who benefit from the preserved and protected coast. The Center for a Sustainable Coast estimates that \u201cGeorgia\u2019s tidal marshes are about a third of those remaining on the U.S. east coast\u2026\u201d You won\u2019t see the kind of built up, destroyed coasts in Georgia that you will see in South Carolina. <\/font><\/p>\n

Or rather, you wouldn\u2019t see that in the past, but the Nathan Deal (R-GA) administration is doing what Republican governors do best (see Rick Scott\u2019s similar actions in Florida, and Rick Snyder\u2019s giveaway of public parks to corporations in Michigan) \u2014 selling out public land, interest and national treasures to big business. <\/font><\/p>\n

The Center for a Sustainable Coast explained in a statement, \u201cOn Earth Day, Georgia\u2019s Environmental Protection Division Director Judson Turner announced a radical policy change that will eliminate protective buffers along Georgia\u2019s tidal marshes. This came as a result of a dubious reinterpretation of language in the 1978 Georgia Soil Erosion and Sedimentation (E&S) Act, used to protect waters of the state.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

This is how Republicans celebrate Earth Day!<\/p>\n

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

\"0427Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, resting up t6o recharge, and preparing to confront a mess in my kitchen area.  Politics Plus will be offline for approximately 30 minutes, sometime between 7 PM Sunday night and 3 AM Monday morning.  Our HSP will be doing a kernel upgrade on the servers. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me […]<\/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-12634","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\/12634","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=12634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}