{"id":14431,"date":"2015-01-02T00:08:59","date_gmt":"2015-01-02T08:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14431"},"modified":"2015-01-02T00:08:59","modified_gmt":"2015-01-02T08:08:59","slug":"open-thread122015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/02\/open-thread122015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–1\/2\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 58.  I spent most of the day collecting the data for our Monthly Report, which I planned to write.  Then I remembered that today The Oregon Ducks were playing the Florida State Seminoles in the BCS semifinals, and I decided to take the rest of the day off.  Therefore, this is tomorrow\u2019s only article, but I\u2019m pleased to announce that the Ducks, who so many experts said are not strong enough to compete with a physical team like the Seminoles, clobbered them 59 \u2013 20. \ud83d\ude42<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:49 (average 5:09).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  Hoe did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Nearly 20 months after Maryland abolished capital punishment, Gov. Martin O\u2019Malley said Wednesday that he would empty the state\u2019s death row by commuting the sentences of four inmates who were awaiting execution.<\/p>\n

What I thought was the sound of the wind, here in Oregon, was the howling of Maryland Republicans mourning their inability to murder the last four.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Huffington Post<\/a>: <\/font>At least six people have been jailed in Texas over the past two years for owing money on payday loans, according to a damning new analysis of public court records.<\/p>\n

The economic advocacy group Texas Appleseed found that more than 1,500 debtors<\/a> have been hit with criminal charges in the state — even though Texas enacted a law in 2012 explicitly prohibiting lenders from using criminal charges to collect debts.<\/p>\n

According to Appleseed’s review, 1,576 criminal complaints were issued against debtors in eight Texas counties between 2012 and 2014. These complaints were often filed by courts with minimal review and based solely on the payday lender’s word and frequently flimsy evidence.<\/p>\n

Leave it to Texas Republicans to assist 1% predators to illegally deprive victims of freedom.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Slate<\/a>: <\/font>The Supreme Court adds more sectarian religion to our lives.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Supreme Court\u2019s five conservatives ruled that legislative sessions in town council meetings can open with explicitly sectarian prayers. Almost immediately, town boards began inviting Christians<\/a> to speak at their meetings while excluding speakers of minority faiths (and, naturally, atheists<\/a>). In short order the Galloway majority\u2019s gauzy vision of pluralistic civic tolerance began to look a lot more like a governmental endorsement of Christianity at the expense of minority religions<\/a>. Increasingly, to the conservatives of the Roberts court, \u201creligious liberty\u201d means the freedom of religious majorities to push their religious beliefs on the rest of us.<\/p>\n

This is just what Slate considers the least horrid of the ten worst Republican civil liberties violations of 2014. Click through for the other nine.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0102Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 58.  I spent most of the day collecting the data for our Monthly Report, which I planned to write.  Then I remembered that today The Oregon Ducks were playing the Florida State Seminoles in the BCS semifinals, and I decided to take the rest of the day off.  Therefore, this […]<\/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-14431","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\/14431","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=14431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}