{"id":15347,"date":"2015-06-01T11:55:26","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T18:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15347"},"modified":"2015-06-01T11:55:26","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T18:55:26","slug":"open-thread612015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/01\/open-thread612015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–6\/1\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another month has arrived and it promises to be a very busy one.  I\u2019ve decided not to do a Monthly Report for May.  Activity was a little down, which was not surprising between volunteer work and medical mayhem.  I\u2019m still feeling very tired out.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 2:15 (average 4:19).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>A mere 240 people live in the rural northeast Iowa town of Kensett, so when more than 300 crowded into the community center on Saturday night to hear Senator Bernie Sanders<\/a> of Vermont, many driving 50 miles, the cellphones of Democratic leaders statewide began to buzz…<\/p>\n

…The first evidence that Mrs. Clinton could face a credible challenge in the Iowa presidential caucuses appeared late last week in the form of overflow crowds at Mr. Sanders\u2019s first swing through that state since declaring his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. He drew 700 people to an event on Thursday night in Davenport, for instance \u2014 the largest rally in the state for any single candidate this campaign season, and far more than the 50 people who attended a rally there on Saturday with former Gov. Martin O\u2019Malley of Maryland.<\/p>\n

Considering Iowa’s record of picking losers, I’m not sure whether this is a good sign for Bernie or not.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>The National Security Agency is compensating for the expiration of its power to collect the American people\u2019s personal information by logging on to Facebook, the agency confirmed on Monday.<\/p>\n

The director of the N.S.A., Admiral Michael S. Rogers, said that when parts of the Patriot Act expired at midnight on Sunday, intelligence analysts immediately stopped collecting mountains of phone metadata and started reading billions of Facebook updates instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a surveillance point of view, the transition has been seamless,\u201d Rogers said.<\/p>\n

While the N.S.A. has monitored Facebook in the past, it is now spending twenty-four hours a day sifting through billions of baby pictures, pet videos, and photographs of recently enjoyed food to detect possible threats to the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose status updates contain everything we want to know,\u201d Rogers said.  \u201cIn many cases, a good deal more than we want to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dang! Andy has documented the death of privacy!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Right Wing Watch<\/a>: <\/font>Former Pennsylvania senator and GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said yesterday at a campaign stop in Iowa that he worries \u201cabout anti-government rhetoric,\u201d according to a local paper<\/a> and to Washington Post reporter James Hohmann, who tweeted about the remark<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Really? The Santorum we know has spent the entire Obama presidency stoking mistrust of the federal government. Here are just fifteen examples, in no particular order, of Santorum\u2019s anti-government rhetoric in the past few years.<\/p>\n

Barf Bag Alert!! Santorum Bag Alert!<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n