{"id":14612,"date":"2015-01-29T16:29:05","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T00:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14612"},"modified":"2015-01-29T17:29:01","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T01:29:01","slug":"open-thread1292014-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/29\/open-thread1292014-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–1\/29\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s day 85, and it\u2019s turning into a very busy day.  I am not a fan or supporter of Comcast, but for my building, I have two choices for broadband, that or my current provider Clear.  Clear has been purchased by Sprint, and they just raised their prices.  In addition, their service has dropped off.  I used to get 7 Megabits consistently, and now I\u2019m getting 5 on a good day.  As much as I hate to do it, I can actually save money with Comcast and get 120 Megabit service.  I\u2019m waiting for the installer to come.  That means that two of my five main email addresses will change, and I\u2019ll have to inform a lot of suppliers.<\/font><\/p>\n

It\u2019s in.  Damn it\u2019s fast!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 5:09 (average 5:34).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>The "Anti-Commandeering" Rule<\/strong>: In 1997, by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court, created an "anti-commandeering" rule<\/a>, which bans Congress from ordering state officials to carry out federal duties. The case was brought by two county sheriffs, who did not want to do background checks for firearm sales as ordered by the Brady Act. The new rule led to holes in the database that would allow persons prone to violence, like the killer in the 2007 Virginia Tech mass shooting, to get firearms. Stevens notes that the "anti-commandeering" rule could also cripple other Congressional acts, from routine administration of federal programs to emergency responses to national catastrophes or acts of terror. His fix adds four words (in bold below) to the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause:<\/p>\n

\n

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges and other public officials<\/strong> in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is just one of six proposed Constitutional Amendments written by retired Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens, to help fix the damage done to America by the Fascist Five Republican Injustices of SCROTUS (Republican Constitutional VD). Click through for the other five.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>In a historic Oval Office ceremony on Thursday morning, President Barack Obama signed an executive order closing Congress, effective immediately.<\/p>\n

The President said that the move would dramatically increase the efficiency of the federal government, noting how much he had accomplished since he stopped working with Congress in November.<\/p>\n

Additionally, he said, the elimination of Congress would result in annual savings of more than five billion dollars, which Obama said would be refunded to American taxpayers.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that \u201csome sticklers\u201d would argue that the Constitution calls for three branches of government, the President said, \u201cAll this order does is reduce that number by one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initial public reaction to the President\u2019s decision appeared to be overwhelmingly positive, as news of the executive order sent his approval rating soaring to seventy-nine percent.<\/p>\n

Bad, Andy!! Bad!! How dare you tease us with such a beautiful idea?!!?<\/font><\/p>\n

From NBC<\/a>: <\/font>U.S. regulators on Thursday raised the standard for high-speed Internet, voting that only connections with download speeds of 25 megabits per second or faster will qualify as broadband. The Federal Communications Commission’s previous definition of broadband was a download speed of at least 4 Mbps. The change, opposed by Internet service providers and Republican FCC commissioners, means nearly a fifth of Americans and more than half of those living in rural areas now lack access to high-speed Internet. The change is not expected to immediately influence how competitive the FCC formally views the broadband market. But it could give the agency more of a bully pulpit to push Internet service providers to increase connection speeds and support competitors formed by municipalities. <\/p>\n

Excellent idea.  This article is what set me off.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0129Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s day 85, and it\u2019s turning into a very busy day.  I am not a fan or supporter of Comcast, but for my building, I have two choices for broadband, that or my current provider Clear.  Clear has been purchased by Sprint, and they just raised their prices.  In addition, their service has dropped off.  […]<\/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-14612","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\/14612","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=14612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}