{"id":14286,"date":"2014-12-09T00:38:09","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T08:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14286"},"modified":"2014-12-09T00:38:09","modified_gmt":"2014-12-09T08:38:09","slug":"open-thread1292014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/09\/open-thread1292014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–12\/9\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 34.  I\u2019m still down sick.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 5:40 (average 5:40).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font>From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font><\/p>\n

Politico declares in a headline<\/a>, "House sends Obama message with immigration vote." Well, yes they did, but it might not be a message on immigration at all, as some key paragraphs in the story reveal. The message behind that vote is that the Speaker John Boehner has no more control over his members now than he did before the election…<\/p>\n

…Just like those 50-plus Obamacare repeal votes. Yes, the House Republicans demonstrated once again that they’re really good at voting on "messages" to President Obama, but not so good at doing stuff. This is all too reminiscent of the march toward the shutdown just over a year ago<\/a>, where they were whipped by Sen. Ted Cruz into making a meaningless statement on Obamacare defunding and doing something really stupid. <\/p>\n

The message they’re really sending to Obama is that Boehner still isn’t capable of leading, and that for the next two years the House is going to be as fucked up as it has been for the past four.<\/p>\n

Will they stop with mere stupidity or pass through to TEAbuggery?<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>Rick Santorum: Separation of Church and State is a Communist Idea.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sure hope Rick Santorum runs for president again. This theocracy booster told listeners that the words separation of church and state do not appear anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. You know where they appear?  \u201cIt was in the constitution of the former Soviet Union,\u201d Santorum said in a conference call with members of right-wing pastor E.W. Jackson\u2019s STAND America.<\/p>\n

Whoa!<\/p>\n

Someone needs to do some time-traveling quick to inform the Founding Fathers that the amendment they drafted into the Constitution is a commie plot to separate us from Jesus!<\/p>\n

This blatant lie from Rick "Google My Name" Santorum is just one of last week’s five worst Republican Moments. Click through for the other four.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>The 2012 and 2014 elections were the most expensive in American history and were financed largely by corporate money. So why are American companies so eager to put up so much cash for political influence? Because it pays. A lot. <\/p>\n

A report<\/a> issued last month by the Sunlight Foundation, a government accountability group, found that for every dollar the nation\u2019s most politically active companies spent on political influence, they received $760 from the government in the form of federal business and support. In total, the yearlong study reported that 200 of the country\u2019s top campaign donors spent $5.8 billion on political lobbying and campaign contributions between 2007 and 2012 and received a whopping $4.4 trillion in return. <\/p>\n

By contrast, the federal government paid the nation\u2019s 50 million social security recipients $4.3 trillion during the same time period. <\/p>\n

Dang!  Welfare for the rich is the most expensive thing we do.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"1209Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 34.  I\u2019m still down sick. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 5:40 (average 5:40).  To do it, click here.  How did you do? Short Takes:From Daily Kos: Politico declares in a headline, "House sends Obama message with immigration vote." Well, yes they did, but it might not be a message […]<\/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-14286","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\/14286","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=14286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}