{"id":13188,"date":"2014-07-09T00:02:09","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T07:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=13188"},"modified":"2014-07-09T00:02:09","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T07:02:09","slug":"open-thread792014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/09\/open-thread792014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;7\/9\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 79.&#160; It\u2019d 89\u00b0 outside, but my A\/C is keeping me in cool cat mode.&#160; Stepping into the hallway of the building is like walking into an oven.&#160; Tomorrow is grocery delivery day from Store to Door.&#160; I\u2019ll have ice water ready for Mary.&#160; She deserves it.&#160; On Friday I have physical therapy, and on Saturday I have a meeting I can\u2019t postpone.&#160; Both involve a few blocks walk in the heat, so I\u2019ll probably be pooped this weekend.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 4:11 (average 4:53).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2014-07-09-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\/arkansas-has-a-lot-of-explaining-to-do-why-are-they-the-only-state-in-america-with-this-law\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a>: <\/font>The below video from Vice News has me feeling pretty apoplectic. That&#8217;s right, I had to use a 5-cent word for angry because I&#8217;m afraid the landlords below will evict me from this post if I don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9G2Pk2JZP-E?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">As a former landlord, I can appreciate the plight of property owners, when tenants become squatters, who refuse to pay. However, Arkansas is on the other extreme, and it\u2019s gross injustice. Although the video maker evades assigning blame, Republicans control the AR legislature.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/dc\/house-gop-appropriations-bill-blocks-epa-rule\" target=\"_blank\">TPM<\/a>: <\/font>House Republicans escalated their confrontation with President Barack Obama on climate change Tuesday with the release of government funding legislation that reverses the administration&#8217;s new rules to limit coal pollution.<\/p>\n<p>The legislation, released by the House Appropriations subcommittee on interior and environment, is one of 12 appropriations bills to keep the government running when money expires on Sept. 30\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;Page 129 and 130 of <a href=\"http:\/\/appropriations.house.gov\/UploadedFiles\/BILLS-113HR-SC-AP-FY2015-Interior-SubcommitteeDraft.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">the bill<\/a> state: &quot;None of the funds made available by this Act shall be used to propose, finalize, implement, or enforce&quot; any regulation under the two key sections of the Clean Air Act &quot;establishing any standard of performance for emissions of any greenhouse gas from any modified or reconstructed source that is a fossil fuel-fired electric utility generating unit.&quot; The sections, 111(b) and 111(d), are <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.epa.gov\/carbon-pollution-standards\/what-epa-doing\" target=\"_blank\">the ones that the EPA cited<\/a> as legal justification for its carbon pollution standards.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Republicans seem bound and determined to kill us for the Koch Brothers and their ilk. What this means is that, barring a continuing resolution, Republicans are refusing to fund the government unless they can hamstring the EPA in the process. As I predicted, this is the next round of Republican sedition.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/election\/2014\/07\/08\/3457455\/rick-scott-illegal-law-enforcement\/\" target=\"_blank\">Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who is facing a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/epolls\/2014\/governor\/fl\/florida_governor_scott_vs_crist-3545.html\" target=\"_blank\">tough re-election fight<\/a> against former Gov. Charlie Christ (D) kicked off a tour on Monday highlighting his <a href=\"http:\/\/cltampa.com\/politicalanimal\/archives\/2014\/07\/07\/rick-scott-begins-the-tough-on-crime-part-of-his-re-election-campaign#.U7vl8fldV8E\" target=\"_blank\">tough-on-crime<\/a> law enforcement credentials and his support for 85 percent mandatory minimums [<em>GOP criminal delinked<\/em>] for anyone convicted of a crime. But while the presence of uniformed police officers at the event made it appear that they were there to support his approach, many apparently were simply on-duty officers who thought they were there to provide security \u2014 in violation of state\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.leg.state.fl.us\/Statutes\/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&amp;Search_String=&amp;URL=0100-0199\/0104\/Sections\/0104.31.html\" target=\"_blank\">ethics law<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Tampa Tribune <a href=\"http:\/\/tbo.com\/news\/politics\/on-duty-officers-line-up-behind-scott-at-campaign-event-20140707\/\" target=\"_blank\">reported Monday<\/a> that Scott\u2019s Tampa \u201cLet\u2019s Keep Florida Safe [<em>GOP criminal delinked<\/em>]\u201d event at Patrick\u2019s Uniforms featured \u201cat least a half-dozen on-duty law officers in uniform\u201d providing the Governor with a \u201cbackdrop of uniformed law officers.\u201d Their presence apparently was in violation of Section <a href=\"http:\/\/www.leg.state.fl.us\/Statutes\/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&amp;Search_String=&amp;URL=0100-0199\/0104\/Sections\/0104.31.html\" target=\"_blank\">104.31<\/a> of the Florida Statutes, which explicitly prohibits any \u201cemployee of the state or any political subdivision\u201d from participation \u201cin any political campaign for an elective office while on duty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Once again, a Republican has<\/font><font color=\"#0000ff\"> demonstrated that they consider the law mandatory for others, but optional for themselves.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0709Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"0709Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/0709Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 79.&#160; It\u2019d 89\u00b0 outside, but my A\/C is keeping me in cool cat mode.&#160; Stepping into the hallway of the building is like walking into an oven.&#160; Tomorrow is grocery delivery day from Store to Door.&#160; I\u2019ll have ice water ready for Mary.&#160; She deserves it.&#160; On Friday I have <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/09\/open-thread792014\/' 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-13188","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\/13188","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=13188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}