{"id":15381,"date":"2015-06-06T13:29:42","date_gmt":"2015-06-06T20:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15381"},"modified":"2015-06-06T13:29:42","modified_gmt":"2015-06-06T20:29:42","slug":"open-thread662015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/06\/open-thread662015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;6\/6\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Forty-nine years ago today, I graduated from High School.&#160; There are bands and festive floats passing under my window, but I don\u2019t think they are there to celebrate me.&#160; It\u2019s the Grand Floral Parade, the second and last of the Portland Rose Festival.&#160; Unfortunately, it\u2019s blocking my access to prime kitty basking in the sun.&#160; By the time it\u2019s over, it will be too hot.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 4:42 (average 10:02).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2015-06-06-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/civic.moveon.org\/raisetheestatetax\/share.html\" target=\"_blank\">MoveOn<\/a>: <\/font><strong>Ten Ideas to Save the Economy: Raise the Estate Tax<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Inequality slows economic growth. To prevent the rise of a new aristocracy, we need to raise the estate tax. <\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/M1BNvSQAujM?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The Reich on the left is right. America does not want a privileged aristocracy, but those are the ONLY people Republicans, the Reich on the right that is wrong, actually represent. This is the eighth video in the series. Please click through to <a href=\"http:\/\/civic.moveon.org\/raisetheestatetax\/share.html\" target=\"_blank\">MoveOn<\/a>, and share it from there.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/livewire\/judges-order-redraw-virginia-congressional-map\" target=\"_blank\">TPM<\/a>: <\/font>A panel of federal judges on Friday ruled that Virginia lawmakers must redraw the state&#8217;s congressional map because it places too many black voters in one particular district at the expense of their influence in other districts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause plaintiffs have shown that race predominated in Virginia\u2019s 2012 plan and because defendants have failed to establish that this race-based redistricting satisfies strict scrutiny, we find that the 2012 plan is unconstitutional and will require the commonwealth to draw a new congressional district plan,\u201d the judges wrote in the 2-1 decision, <a href=\"http:\/\/m.roanoke.com\/news\/three-judge-panel-rules-virginia-must-redraw-congressional-map\/article_79854b5e-15d6-54ce-99e0-6e031aa5f212.html?mode=jqm\" target=\"_blank\">as quoted by The Roanoke Times.<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;The panel of judges ordered the Virginia House of Delegates to redraw the map by Sept. 1, which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/virginia-politics\/federal-judges-bring-va-one-step-closer-to-a-new-congressional-map\/2015\/06\/05\/8a331de4-0bb7-11e5-9e39-0db921c47b93_story.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Washington Post points out<\/a> would force the state&#8217;s General Assembly to hold a special summer session. But the state&#8217;s Republican congressional delegation is likely to appeal the latest decision, according to the newspaper.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Republican attempts to steal elections never end!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/climate\/2015\/06\/05\/3666697\/norway-divests-from-coal\/\" target=\"_blank\">Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>The Norwegian Parliament <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stortinget.no\/en\/In-English\/About-the-Storting\/News-archive\/Front-page-news\/2014-2015\/hj9\/\" target=\"_blank\">voted Friday<\/a> to remove coal investments from the country\u2019s $890 billion government pension fund, which is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/06\/06\/science\/norway-in-push-against-climate-change-will-divest-from-coal.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">considered<\/a> the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world. <\/p>\n<p>Under the new policy, power and mining companies whose activities or revenue are at least 30 percent coal-related will be removed from the portfolio. <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Kudos to Norway. May this mark the start of an international landslide.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0606Cartoon\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"0606Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/0606Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forty-nine years ago today, I graduated from High School.&#160; There are bands and festive floats passing under my window, but I don\u2019t think they are there to celebrate me.&#160; It\u2019s the Grand Floral Parade, the second and last of the Portland Rose Festival.&#160; Unfortunately, it\u2019s blocking my access to prime kitty basking in the sun.&#160; <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/06\/open-thread662015\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/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-15381","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\/15381","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=15381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}