{"id":14554,"date":"2015-01-21T00:00:27","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T08:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14554"},"modified":"2015-01-21T00:00:27","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T08:00:27","slug":"open-thread1212015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/21\/open-thread1212015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–1\/21\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 77.  Tonight is Obama\u2019s SOTU address.  I\u2019ll write an article on that tomorrow to publish shortly after midnight Thursday.  Tomorrow is also a grocery delivery day, and if I wasn\u2019t already busy enough, Thursday is a Prison volunteer day.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:32 (average 5:18).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>The first thing to know about the lawsuit<\/a> brought by two dozen states to block President Obama\u2019s executive actions on immigration is that it is a meritless screed wrapped in flimsy legal cloth and deposited on the doorstep of a federal district judge in Brownsville, Tex.<\/p>\n

The second thing to know is that the judge, Andrew Hanen, may well look kindly on the suit. He made news in 2013 with a politically charged ruling accusing the Obama administration of criminally conspiring with Mexican drug cartels to smuggle children over the border (he really [propaganda delinked] said that), which is surely why the plaintiffs like their chances.<\/p>\n

The judge held the first hearing in the case on Thursday and could rule as early as next month. If he blocks Mr. Obama\u2019s actions \u2014 which seek to protect millions of immigrants from deportation and to grant them permission to work \u2014 this would complicate things for the administration, which is planning to start signing people up for the programs in February.<\/p>\n

ARGH! Scarier still, the Fascist Five may just back Hanen up!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: In a laughable display of desperation, the American Family Association is demanding that Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse themselves from the four marriage equality cases it recently agreed<\/a> to hear. Their unhinged press release [pseudo-Christians delinked] titled Kagan and Ginsburg: Recuse Yourselves! is a study in head-up-ones-ass reasoning.<\/p>\n

\n

Both of these justices\u2019 personal and private actions that actively endorse gay marriage clearly indicate how they would vote on same-sex marriage cases before the Supreme Court,\u201d said AFA President Tim Wildmon. \u201cCongress has directed that federal judicial officers must disqualify themselves from hearing cases in specified circumstances. Both Kagan and Ginsburg have not only been partial to same-sex marriage but they have also proven themselves to be activists in favor of it. In order to ensure the Court\u2019s integrity and impartiality, both should recuse themselves from same-sex marriage cases. Congress has an obligation to Americans to see that members of the Supreme Court are held to the highest standards of integrity. The law demands it, and the people deserve it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You can be sure that the hate twins’, Standartenfuhrer Scalia and TEAbag Thomas, personal and private actions even more clearly indicate how they would vote on same sex marriage cases, but you don’t hear these Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians whining about them. Click through to see how the author debunks their lies.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>Nebraska landowners have launched two separate lawsuits that, if successful, could serve to delay or even stop the construction of the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.<\/p>\n

The lawsuits<\/a>, filed last week<\/a>, represent Nebraska property owners\u2019 second attempt to challenge the constitutionality of a law that gave the Keystone XL pipeline a legal route through the state and, by extension, their property. The landowners claim that TransCanada \u2014 the Canadian company that wants to build Keystone XL \u2014 made direct threats to use eminent domain and seize their land if they did not consent to having the pipeline run though it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand with landowners to protect property rights and a constitutional pipeline routing process,\u201d said<\/a> Jane Kleeb, director of Bold Nebraska, a group that has been at the center of the state\u2019s Keystone XL opposition movement. \u201cWhile we fight to ensure TransCanada and the state of Nebraska do not run roughshod over farmers and ranchers, we also call upon President Obama to reject Keystone XL now.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don’t care how Keystone XL is stopped, as long as it is stopped.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0121Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 77.  Tonight is Obama\u2019s SOTU address.  I\u2019ll write an article on that tomorrow to publish shortly after midnight Thursday.  Tomorrow is also a grocery delivery day, and if I wasn\u2019t already busy enough, Thursday is a Prison volunteer day. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:32 (average 5:18).  To do […]<\/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-14554","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\/14554","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=14554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}