{"id":14797,"date":"2015-02-26T09:47:46","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T17:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14797"},"modified":"2015-02-26T09:47:46","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T17:47:46","slug":"open-thread2262015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/26\/open-thread2262015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–2\/26\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s prisoner volunteer day, and I\u2019m hurrying like crazy.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 2:38 (average 4:55).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From PRWatch<\/a>: <\/font>The Wisconsin Senate held a hearing of sorts on the GOP proposal to make Wisconsin a "right to work" state.<\/p>\n

The bill pushed by Wisconsin Senate leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) bears a striking similarity to the American Legislative Exchange Council "model" bill of the same name (see CMD’s side-by-side comparison here<\/a>). In his opening statement, Sen. Fitzgerald claimed that right to work legislation would "protect every worker" from being forced to join a union. He added that the legislation would save families from being uprooted by having to find non-union employers elsewhere. He presented no data or even anecdotal evidence to support these claims.<\/p>\n

The argument that the bill would protect workers from "forced" unionization is a red herring. The U.S. Supreme Court has long stated that nobody can be forced to join a union, or be forced to pay unions dues, or to have their dues go to political campaigns. What current federal and Wisconsin law allows, and what the right to work law would make illegal, are "fair share" agreements and fees in union contracts that make all represented workers, including those choosing not to join the union, contribute to the costs of worker representation on the job. <\/p>\n

Click through for more detail on how Fartfuhrer Walker’s vile minions are whoring themselves for Koch rocks.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>In the hopes of appealing to Republican primary voters, candidates for the 2016 Presidential nomination are working around the clock to unlearn everything that they have learned since the third grade, aides to the candidates have confirmed.<\/p>\n

With the Iowa caucuses less than a year away, the hopefuls are busy scrubbing their brains of basic facts of math, science, and geography in an attempt to resemble the semi-sentient beings that Republican primary voters prize.<\/p>\n

An aide to Jeb Bush acknowledged that, for the former Florida governor, \u201cThe unlearning curve has been daunting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest strike against Jeb is that he graduated from college Phi Beta Kappa,\u201d the aide said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take a lot of work to get his brain back to its factory settings.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the campaign of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, the mood was considerably more upbeat, as aides indicated that Walker\u2019s ironclad fa\u00e7ade of ignorance is being polished to a high sheen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that Scott instinctively says that he doesn\u2019t know the answers to even the easiest questions gives him an enormous leg up,\u201d an aide said.<\/p>\n

Andy’s satire is so accurate, that it might as well be factual.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>Texas State Rep. Debbie Riddle (R) has introduced two new bills that seek to criminalize the use of bathrooms by transgender people. Not only could trans people face jail time and fines for using gender-segregated facilities that match their gender, so too could businesses who make their facilities open to trans patrons.<\/p>\n

Businesses might post "Trans patrons peeing on Republican Reps permitted!"<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0226Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s prisoner volunteer day, and I\u2019m hurrying like crazy. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 2:38 (average 4:55).  To do it, click here.  How did you do? Short Takes: From PRWatch: The Wisconsin Senate held a hearing of sorts on the GOP proposal to make Wisconsin a "right to work" state. The bill pushed by […]<\/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-14797","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\/14797","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=14797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}