{"id":13540,"date":"2014-08-26T00:53:34","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T07:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=13540"},"modified":"2014-08-26T00:53:34","modified_gmt":"2014-08-26T07:53:34","slug":"open-thread8262014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/26\/open-thread8262014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–8\/26\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 127.  Some of my comments last night were a bit out of kilter, because I fell asleep at the keyboard for two hours, and when I awakened I was not fully functional.  Today was a slow day for news.  Finding material took double the normal time, so I\u2019m writing in the evening, not the morning as usual.  Tomorrow I have a grocery delivery coming in the morning.<\/font><\/p>\n

Late Update<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

I fell asleep at the keyboard again. \ud83d\ude41<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 4:22 (average 4:56).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>G.O.P. chief Reince Priebus ripped President Obama on Sunday for consuming three meals a day while on vacation in Martha\u2019s Vineyard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith international crises boiling over in Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine, it\u2019s unconscionable that the President is having breakfast, lunch, and dinner,\u201d he said\u2026<\/p>\n

LOL Andy. I bet the reason Obama does that is to keep people from discovering that he’s black \ud83d\ude09<\/font><\/p>\n

From McClatchy DC<\/a>: <\/font>One day after losing a major airbase to Islamic extremists, Syria said Monday it was willing to work with other countries to fight terror groups in Syria provided they show respect for the Syrian regime and operate only with its permission.<\/p>\n

At least one third of Syrian territory is said to be in the hands of the radical Islamic State, and the loss of Tabqa airbase Sunday put the entire east Syrian province of Raqqa in the militant\u2019s hands, a severe setback for the regime of President Bashar Assad.<\/p>\n

Walid Al Moallem, the Syrian Deputy Prime Minister, told reporters that Syria is willing to cooperate with other countries \u201cas long as this cooperation is approached in a serious manner, without double standards\u201d and does not \u201cweaken Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

Effectively Syria is asking the US to partner with the brutal Assad regime, that employed chemical WMD against their own people, against ISIS, that murdered thousands. McConJob, Lindsey Poo and other Republicans have berated Obama for taking an active role in only Iraq, but not in Syria. This article illustrates the Syrian dilemma. We have no viable ally in Syria. It’s like being asked to side with either Neocons or Baggers.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The Nation<\/a>: <\/font>When Gogebic Taconite LLC began moving in November 2010\u2014the same month Scott Walker was elected governor of Wisconsin\u2014to develop an open-pit iron mine<\/a> in one of the most environmentally sensitive regions of northern Wisconsin, the Florida-based mining firm got a lot of pushback<\/a>. Residents of the region objected, along with Native American tribes. So, too, did citizens from across Wisconsin, a state that has long treasured the wild beauty of the Penokee Range<\/a>. Environmental and conservation groups voiced their concerns, as did local and state officials from across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n

The outcry heightened as Gogebic Taconite and its allies promoted a radical rewrite<\/a> of existing mining regulations in order to promote a project that could grow to be four miles long, more than a mile wide and 1,000 feet deep. Democratic and Republican legislators began to ask tough questions. Yet Governor Scott Walker remained \u201ceager to advance a mining bill<\/a>,\u201d according to Wisconsin media that reported extensively on the governor\u2019s determination to overrule objections to the grand schemes of an out-of-state corporation that newly released documents<\/a> show secretly steered $700,000 to \u201cindependent\u201d efforts to provide political cover for the embattled governor.<\/p>\n

I always like seeing more evidence surface that should be used to convict Scott Walker, the Fartfuhrer of Fitzwalkerstan!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0826Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 127.  Some of my comments last night were a bit out of kilter, because I fell asleep at the keyboard for two hours, and when I awakened I was not fully functional.  Today was a slow day for news.  Finding material took double the normal time, so I\u2019m writing in […]<\/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-13540","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\/13540","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=13540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}