{"id":12701,"date":"2014-05-06T01:37:59","date_gmt":"2014-05-06T08:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12701"},"modified":"2014-05-06T01:37:59","modified_gmt":"2014-05-06T08:37:59","slug":"open-thread562014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/open-thread562014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–5\/6\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrows, and it\u2019s late in the day, as I\u2019ve been busy with a variety of tasks.  Good news!  I got the word that phase one of my formal volunteer training has been approved, and I\u2019ve been scheduled for phase two, institution specific training at OSP.  I\u2019ll be spending two nights away from home early next month.  Fortunately I\u2019ll be staying in a motel, not a cell.  :twisted:  Let\u2019s see\u2026 should I stay at the Super 8 Motel I used the last trip down, or the Motel 6 I used the trip before that? ;-)  Tomorrow morning I have a Podiatrist appointment for my quarterly surgery to cut the growth from my foot.  Therefore I may have little or nothing for you on Wednesday.  Day 15.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:57 (average 5:42).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Last week, House Republicans released a deliberately misleading report<\/a> on the status of health reform, crudely rigging the numbers to sustain the illusion of failure in the face of unexpected success. Are you shocked?<\/p>\n

You aren\u2019t, but you should be. Mainstream politicians didn\u2019t always try to advance their agenda through lies, damned lies and \u2014 in this case \u2014 bogus statistics. And the fact that this has become standard operating procedure for a major party bodes ill for America\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

About that report: The really big policy news of 2014, at least so far, is the spectacular recovery of the Affordable Care Act from its stumbling start, thanks to an extraordinary late surge that took enrollment beyond<\/a> early projections. The age mix of enrollees has improved<\/a>; insurance companies are broadly satisfied<\/a> with the risk pool. Multiple independent surveys confirm<\/a> that the percentage of Americans without health insurance has already declined substantially, and there\u2019s every reason to believe that over the next two years the act will meet its overall goals, except in states that refuse to expand Medicaid.<\/p>\n

Paul Krugman went on to say that Republicans will not admit they were wrong. I agree with him, and American voters must be informed over and over again that they are lying, until after they stop.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>Lie number one: The rich and CEOs are America\u2019s job creators. So we dare not tax them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The truth is the middle class and poor are the job-creators through their purchases of goods and services. If they don\u2019t have enough purchasing power because they\u2019re not paid enough, companies won\u2019t create more jobs and economy won\u2019t grow. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve endured the most anemic recovery on record because most Americans don\u2019t have enough money to get the economy out of first gear. The economy is barely growing and real wages continue to drop. <\/p>\n

We keep having  false dawns<\/a>. An average of 200,000 jobs were created in the United States over the last three months, but huge numbers of Americans continue to drop out of the labor force. <\/p>\n

This is just one of Robert Reich’s four biggest Republican lies about inequality. Click through for the other three. As always, the Reich on the Left is right and the Reich on the Right is wrong.<\/font><\/p>\n

From TPM<\/a>: <\/font>Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer’s attempt to lure Charles and David Koch out of the shadows appears to have fallen short.<\/p>\n

Steyer had challenged the conservative benefactors to a public debate on climate change. But the brothers aren’t interested.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not experts on climate change,\u201d Koch spokeswoman Melissa Cohlmia in told the Wichita Eagle<\/a> in an e-mail on Friday afternoon. \u201cWe do believe there should be free and open debate on the climate issue and it should be based on sound science and intellectual honesty."<\/p>\n

For guys who claim not to be expert, they sure spend a lot of $millions convincing sheeple that climate change is a hoax. What hypocritical cowards they are!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0506Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrows, and it\u2019s late in the day, as I\u2019ve been busy with a variety of tasks.  Good news!  I got the word that phase one of my formal volunteer training has been approved, and I\u2019ve been scheduled for phase two, institution specific training at OSP.  I\u2019ll be spending two nights away from […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-religion","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","category-47-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12701","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=12701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}