{"id":14035,"date":"2014-11-04T00:00:34","date_gmt":"2014-11-04T08:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14035"},"modified":"2014-11-04T00:00:34","modified_gmt":"2014-11-04T08:00:34","slug":"open-thread1142014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/04\/open-thread1142014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–11\/4\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 197, and more important, election day.  At this point, I think I can honestly say that I\u2019ve done everything I possibly could to help influence the outcome, and now it\u2019s time for me to do the one thing I hate doing most in politics: become a spectator.  Lets just hope that the Republican Party suffers from electile dysfunction, and that when it comes to turn out, they can\u2019t get it up.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 2:31` (average 5:20).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a> (Hat-Tip Pat A from Care2): <\/font>…The header on this [Republican] mailing says "Your Voting Record is Public Information!"<\/p>\n

Then, this ominous note: "The News and Observer reported last week that Barack Obama and Harry Reid’s operation plans to publish and share your voting records with your neighbors after this election."<\/p>\n

That’s big news right there.  Raleigh has a newspaper?  But I digress.<\/p>\n

The mailing continues…<\/p>\n

"The Republican Party wanted to make you aware of this, so Reid and Obama don’t have the chance to embarrass you for staying home on election day."<\/p>\n

And then… at the very bottom… is the (unintentional?) punchline…<\/p>\n

…there’s a list with my wife’s name at the top and a note that she didn’t vote in 2010, but did in 2012.<\/p>\n

Then, it lists the names of 4 of my neighbors, with notes showing whether they voted in 2010 and 2012.<\/p>\n

Let me say that again.  They have the very voting record they say the scary and threatening president is going to send to my neighbors, and they’re sending it to my neighbors…<\/p>\n

Click through for the whole story.  Have you ever seen a more classic example of criminal projection?<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>A stealthy coterie of difficult-to-trace outside groups is slipping tens of millions of dollars of attacks ads and negative automated telephone calls into the final days of the midterm campaign, helping fuel an unprecedented surge of last-minute spending on Senate races.<\/p>\n

Much of the advertising is being timed to ensure that no voter will know who is paying for it until after the election on Tuesday. Some of the groups are \u201csuper PACs<\/a>\u201d that did not exist before Labor Day but have since spent heavily on political advertising, adding to the volatility of close Senate and House races.<\/p>\n

Others formed earlier in the year but remained dormant until recently, reporting few or no contributions in recent filings with the Federal Election Commission<\/a>, only to unleash six- and seven-figure advertising campaigns as Election Day draws near. Yet more spending is coming from nonprofit organizations with bland names that have popped up in recent weeks but appear to have no life beyond being a conduit for the ads.<\/p>\n

Groups like B-PAC, supporting Joni Ernst, center, in Iowa, have poured millions into Senate races. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times <\/p>\n

The groups\u2019 last-minute fusillade of attacks helped push outside spending in races around the country to an average of at least $20 million a day last week. Total spending on Senate races reached $200 million in October alone, significantly more than in the same period before the 2010 midterms.<\/p>\n

As much as the Times tries to paint the problem as bipartisan, click through and note that virtually all the examples are Republican.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>An federal district court in Oregon has declared Secular Humanism a religion, paving the way for the non-theistic community to obtain the same legal rights as groups such as Christianity.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, October 30, Senior District Judge Ancer Haggerty issued a ruling<\/a> on American Humanist Association v. United States, a case that was brought by the American Humanist Association<\/a> (AHA) and Jason Holden, a federal prisoner. Holden pushed for the lawsuit because he wanted Humanism \u2014 which the AHA defines as \u201can ethical and life-affirming philosophy free of belief in any gods and other supernatural forces\u201d \u2014 recognized as a religion so that his prison would allow for the creation of a Humanist study group. Haggerty sided with the plaintiffs in his decision, citing existing legal precedent and arguing that denying Humanists the same rights as groups such as Christianity would be a violation of the Establishment Clause in the U.S. Constitution, which declares that Congress \u201cshall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court finds that Secular Humanism is a religion for Establishment Clause purposes,\u201d the ruling read.<\/p>\n

The decision highlights the unusual position of the Humanist community, which has tried for years to obtain the same legal rights as more traditional religious groups while simultaneously rebuking the existence of a god or gods. But while some Humanists may chafe at being called a \u201creligion,\u201d others feel that the larger pursuit of equal rights trumps legal classifications.<\/p>\n

The Court correctly ruled what I’ve been saying all along. Atheism is a religion. In my opinion, it is the religion that requires the most faith of all.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"1104Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 197, and more important, election day.  At this point, I think I can honestly say that I\u2019ve done everything I possibly could to help influence the outcome, and now it\u2019s time for me to do the one thing I hate doing most in politics: become a spectator.  Lets just hope […]<\/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-14035","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\/14035","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=14035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}