{"id":12817,"date":"2014-05-20T01:25:31","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T08:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12817"},"modified":"2014-05-20T01:25:31","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T08:25:31","slug":"open-thread5202014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/20\/open-thread5202014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–5\/20\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, and it\u2019s a busy day of cleaning, grocery planning, and appointment scheduling. I also need to rest, because Thursday is a prison volunteer day.  Day 29.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today’s took me 3:49 (average 5:03).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>By any normal standard, economic policy since the onset of the financial crisis has been a dismal failure. It\u2019s true that we avoided a full replay of the Great Depression. But employment has taken more than six years<\/a> to claw its way back to pre-crisis levels \u2014 years when we should have been adding millions of jobs just to keep up with a rising population. Long-term unemployment is still almost three times<\/a> as high as it was in 2007; young people, often burdened by college debt, face a highly uncertain future.<\/p>\n

Now Timothy Geithner, who was Treasury secretary for four of those six years, has published a book, \u201cStress Test,\u201d about his experiences. And basically, he thinks he did a heckuva job.<\/p>\n

Click through to see the way Paul Krugman trashes Timmy the Tool, just like Robert Reich did.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is an evil genius capable of masterminding the most elaborate cover-up in U.S. history and is also a frail old woman with brain damage, leading Republicans charged on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus led the attack while appearing on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d where he said that the American people should be wary of electing a woman who is capable of orchestrating the complex conspiracy to whitewash Benghazi while, at the same time, being too old, feeble, and brain damaged to serve in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese two aspects of Secretary Clinton would have me very concerned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Did Andy nail the hypocrisy of these mutually contradicting Republican lies, or what?<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>The Poor Don’t Cheat As Much<\/strong><\/p>\n

An analysis<\/a> of seven different psychological studies found that "upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals." A series of experiments showed that upper-class individuals were more likely to break traffic laws, take valued goods from others, lie in a negotiation, and cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize. <\/p>\n

And this doesn’t even begin to examine the many, many significant  cases<\/a> of fraudulent behavior in the banking industry. Or private equity firms that cheat their investors over  50 percent<\/a> of the time. Or the many unscrupulous corporate  tax avoidance<\/a> strategies.<\/p>\n

This is just one of five ways in which the poor are demonstrably more ethical than the rich, who Republicans represent. Click through for the other four.<\/font><\/p>\n

Late Update<\/strong>: The Judge ruled Oregon\u2019s Republican ban on gay marriage unconstitutional today, and same-sex couples have already married in Oregon.<\/font><\/p>\n

\"0520Update\"<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0520Cartoon\"<\/font><\/p>\n

If you think politics is dirty now, you wouldn’t believe the Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians’ politics there!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, and it\u2019s a busy day of cleaning, grocery planning, and appointment scheduling. I also need to rest, because Thursday is a prison volunteer day.  Day 29. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today’s took me 3:49 (average 5:03).  To do it, click here.  How did you do? Short Takes: From NY Times: By any […]<\/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-12817","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\/12817","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=12817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}