{"id":14863,"date":"2015-03-08T10:57:50","date_gmt":"2015-03-08T17:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14863"},"modified":"2015-03-08T10:57:50","modified_gmt":"2015-03-08T17:57:50","slug":"open-thread382014-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/08\/open-thread382014-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–3\/8\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

As it does every year, springing forward fouled up my night\u2019s sleep.  Worse yet, I\u2019ll have to wait until an hour later, before I can go bask in the sun.  70\u00b0 forecast.  Today\u2019s plan is to het my articles up and try to unspring.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:23 (average 4:54).  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 Westboro Baptist Church, long-associated with their deranged and ugly protests at the funerals of US troops, have been thwarted in their attempt to ‘protest’ at the funeral of actor Leonard Nimoy, who died on Friday. According to The Guardian<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The church posted a Twitter update lamenting its inability to picket the event, which it said was due to a lack of publicity over the location.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Awww…that’s a shame: the crazed, rancid bigots couldn’t make it.<\/p>\n

Those poor Republicans! How awful it must be to stew in their own hatred!<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Senator Rand Paul succeeded on Saturday in persuading the leadership of the Republican Party in Kentucky to help him resolve a predicament that could threaten his plans to run for president in 2016: a state law that prohibits candidates from appearing twice on the same ballot.<\/p>\n

To avoid running afoul of the law, Mr. Paul asked the state party to suspend its presidential primary, scheduled for May next year, and hold a caucus instead, a decision the party\u2019s executive committee adopted on Saturday. A caucus would help Mr. Paul in two ways. First, it is likely to be held well before May, meaning it could assist him in building his delegate count early in the Republican nominating contest. Second, because caucuses do not require actual ballots, it resolves the main legal question.<\/p>\n

Mr. Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky, has said that he intends to run for re-election while pursuing the Republican nomination for president. The move to a caucus system would relieve him of having to give up his seat.<\/p>\n

A temporary rule to allow a Republican to break a permanent law is Republican SOP.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>Months after Attorney General Eric Holder launched an investigation of Ferguson Police Department in the wake of Michael Brown\u2019s death, the Department of Justice released a 102-page report<\/a> detailing systemic race discrimination and abuses of power<\/a> in the embattled city. But despite the DOJ\u2019s damning findings, the city\u2019s mayor remains unconvinced<\/a> that widespread problems exist. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they\u2019ve shown is that it has happened. Now, how often has that happened? I don\u2019t know. Their assertion is it happens regularly. Based on what? I\u2019m not sure yet,\u201d said Mayor James Knowles III, during an interview Friday. \u201cDo they have a statistic that tells me that they\u2019ve examined every arrest that we\u2019ve made for the past four years and that half, or all, or 10 percent, or 5 percent are unconstitutional or without cause? They do not have that. They have not examined at that level that I know of at this point.\u201d <\/p>\n

He also maintains that there is \u201cno proof\u201d of gross civil rights violations. <\/p>\n

Say what?!!?  There is equally no proof that the sun rises in the morning, that the Pope is Catholic or that bears shit in the woods. When is the next election in Ferguson? I trust there will be better voter turnout.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0308Cartoon\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As it does every year, springing forward fouled up my night\u2019s sleep.  Worse yet, I\u2019ll have to wait until an hour later, before I can go bask in the sun.  70\u00b0 forecast.  Today\u2019s plan is to het my articles up and try to unspring. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:23 (average 4:54).  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-14863","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\/14863","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=14863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}