{"id":14483,"date":"2015-01-11T00:00:26","date_gmt":"2015-01-11T08:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14483"},"modified":"2015-01-11T00:00:26","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T08:00:26","slug":"open-thread1112014-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/11\/open-thread1112014-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–1\/11\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 67.  I\u2019m still quite tired, after yesterday\u2019s outing, but it was worth it.  The pain in my foot is completely gone and will be for a couple months, when the cyst will be growing back.  Today is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, and I will be meditating, but tomorrow is my main concern, because my Broncos are entertaining the Colts in the late service.  May big horses overwhelm little ones.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 4:59 (average 5:46).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Media Matters<\/a>: <\/font>Fox News contributor and radio talk show host Erick Erickson declared that "the terrorists won in Atlanta" after right-wing media falsely claimed that Atlanta’s anti-gay fire chief was terminated for his religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

On January 6, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed dismantled<\/a> conservatives’ claims that Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran was fired over a book that he wrote which contains anti-gay remarks, explaining that Cochran’s lack of judgment in distributing the book to his employees, and not following instructions regarding his month-long suspension over publishing the book without notice to the city, is what led to his termination.<\/p>\n

On January 7, hours after a horrific terrorist attack<\/a> against staffers of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris that left 12 people dead, Erickson wrote [fascist delinked<\/em>] a blog post that likened the LGBT community to terrorists for objecting to the former Atlanta fire chief’s book, and stated that "the terrorists won":<\/p>\n

The Bottom line is this Republican hatemongers don’t get to use freedom of religion as an excuse to violate others’ legally guaranteed rights.  However, comparing LGBT Americans to the French terrorists is beyond obscene.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>President Obama\u2019s plan to offer Americans two years of college for free has come under fire from congressional Republicans, who are calling it a blatant plot to make Americans smarter.<\/p>\n

The G.O.P., which has benefited from the support of so-called \u201clow-information voters\u201d in recent years, accused Obama of cynically trying to make people smarter as a way of chipping away at the Republican base.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou take low-information voters and give them information, and pretty soon they\u2019re Democrats,\u201d Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said.<\/p>\n

Andy is right. It’s one of those socialist, Kenyan conspiracies!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>Last week Jon Stewart had an "impromptu theme" of social injustice. In one his skits he enumerated all the black males that were killed by police recently. In the process of his enumeration he had a bad call. It turned out according to the coroner’s report that Dante Parker died from from drugs in his body<\/a> and not from police action. This was according to San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos. <\/p>\n