{"id":15113,"date":"2015-04-25T12:56:46","date_gmt":"2015-04-25T19:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15113"},"modified":"2015-04-25T12:56:46","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T19:56:46","slug":"open-thread4252015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/25\/open-thread4252015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–4\/25\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a very busy day with volunteer projects to get done, and a three day volunteer trip to Salem to plan for next month.  I hope you are all enjoying tour Spring weekend.  It\u2019s still rainy here.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 2:42 (average 4:38).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From AP<\/a>: <\/font>John Legend has launched a campaign to end mass incarceration.<\/p>\n

The Grammy-winning singer announced the multiyear initiative, FREE AMERICA, on Monday. He will visit and perform at a correctional facility on Thursday in Austin, Texas, where he also will be part of a press conference with state legislators to discuss Texas’ criminal justice system.<\/p>\n

"We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country," Legend said in an interview. "It’s destroying families, it’s destroying communities and we’re the most incarcerated country in the world, and when you look deeper and look at the reasons we got to this place, we as a society made some choices politically and legislatively, culturally to deal with poverty, deal with mental illness in a certain way and that way usually involves using incarceration."<\/p>\n

Legend, 36, will also visit a California state prison and co-host a criminal justice event with Politico in Washington, D.C., later this month. The campaign will include help from other artists \u2014 to be announced \u2014 and organizations committed to ending mass incarceration.<\/p>\n

Kudos! This is so necessary!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Blue Oregon<\/a>: <\/font>Stand up to the gun lobby and pass SB 941<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gun violence claims too many lives. In the past two years, reasonable gun safety proposals haven’t even gotten a vote in the Oregon Legislature.<\/p>\n

But it’s a new day. The Oregon Firearm Safety Act would expand the background checks system to individual sales (in addition to gun shops and gun shows). It will close a loophole that is used by those who want to circumvent background checks.<\/p>\n

It’s reasonable. It’s modest. And it doesn’t infringe on the rights of responsible gun owners. <\/p>\n

Sign the petition<\/a> and let’s make Oregon safer.<\/p>\n

This for mainly Oregonians, and I support it fully! Click through<\/a> to sign.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>:<\/font>On November 26, 2013, 38-year-old Ervin Edwards, partially deaf and mentally ill, was arrested by police for sagging his pants<\/a> and taken to the West Baton Rouge Parish jail in Louisiana. He only lived for a few more minutes inside of the cell. <\/p>\n

For 18 months, police have lied over and over again about what happened the night Ervin Edwards died in their custody. Now that a video of their despicable actions has been released, it’s clear they murdered this man and left him to die all alone in his jail cell. The Advocate has provided an annotated video.<\/p>\n

 <\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Click through for the lies. This is how Republican police handle the crime of saggy pants.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0425Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a very busy day with volunteer projects to get done, and a three day volunteer trip to Salem to plan for next month.  I hope you are all enjoying tour Spring weekend.  It\u2019s still rainy here. Jug Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 2:42 (average 4:38).  To do it, click here.  How did you […]<\/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-15113","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\/15113","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=15113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}