{"id":15566,"date":"2015-07-06T12:53:47","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T19:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15566"},"modified":"2015-07-06T13:16:44","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T20:16:44","slug":"open-thread772015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/06\/open-thread772015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;7\/6\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I actually made it out for a few minutes this morning to visit the corner store and pick up some staples, and I actually managed some kitty solar basking.&nbsp; I left at 8:00 AM, and by 8:30 the heat had driven me back inside.&nbsp; Even in the coolest part of the day, the hallway temperature outside my door stays over 90&deg;.&nbsp; This heat wave is getting really frustrating!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&rsquo;s took me 4:45 (average 6:28).&nbsp; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2015-07-06-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&nbsp; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Fantasy Football Recruiting<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">We still need one or two new player for <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/lbf.league.fantasy.nfl.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Lefty Blog Friends<\/a><font color=\"#0000ff\">, our fantasy football league.&nbsp; Viv and her Hillbilly Lefties are now onboard. Welcome!! How about you?&nbsp; For more information, <\/font><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/10\/politics-plus-fantasy-football-2015\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a><font color=\"#0000ff\">.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/a-mom-goes-to-a-hearing-about-minimum-wage-to-make-a-point-i-think-it-worked\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a>: <\/font>Amanda Monroe testified at a hearing about raising the minimum wage to show why $15 per hour would make all the difference in the lives of her and her son.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/STJ544Z5cKY?rel=0\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Very well said!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/election-2016\/5-radical-bernie-sanders-ideas-many-americans-strongly-support\" target=\"_blank\">Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has been described as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/morning-joe\/watch\/mccaskill--bernie-is-too-liberal-to-win-471130691652\" target=\"_blank\">radical<\/a> or fringe by some but many of Sanders&rsquo; views and policy proposals are supported by Americans, according to public opinion surveys.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Health Care For All<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sanders is critic of the Affordable Care Act, arguing that it doesn&rsquo;t go far enough and calling for a &ldquo;Medicare-for-all&rdquo; single-payer healthcare plan, similar to programs in most developed democratic nations.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We are the only major country on earth that doesn&rsquo;t guarantee healthcare to all people as a right and yet we end up spending much more than they do. So I do believe that we have to move toward a Medicare for all, single-payer system,&rdquo; Sanders told <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/tv\/sanders-calls-for-single-payer-health-care-we-need-to-join-rest-of-industrialized-world\/\" target=\"_blank\">ABC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The idea is extremely popular among Democrats, with nearly 80 percent in support <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/healthcare\/229959-majority-still-support-single-payer-option-poll-finds\" target=\"_blank\">according to a January 2015 poll by the Progressive Change Institute<\/a>. The poll found that a majority of Americans overall supported a Medicare-for-all insurance option.<\/p>\n<p>And seven in 10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning respondents agreed with the statement, &ldquo;it is the responsibility of the government in Washington to see to it that people have help in paying for doctors and hospital bills.&rdquo; Three-quarters of Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents disagreed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gallup.com\/poll\/4708\/healthcare-system.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">according to the most recent Gallup survey.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I shared one of five listed. Click through for the other four.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/crooksandliars.com\/2015\/07\/greece-eu-take-your-austerity-and\" target=\"_blank\">Crooks and Liars<\/a>: <\/font><\/p>\n<p>As an untrained observer watching events unfold in Greece from afar, it certainly appeared to me that the IMF was doing its very best to nullify Greece&#39;s government with its demands for austerity measures in a country already dealing with a deep economic crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Evidently it appeared that way to Greeks, too, who soundly rejected the IMF austerity plan in favor of something else. What that something else is, exactly, is yet to be determined.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com\/2015\/07\/05\/europe-wins\/?_r=0\">Paul Krugman<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Tsipras and Syriza have won big in the referendum, strengthening their hand for whatever comes next. But they&rsquo;re not the only winners: I would argue that Europe, and the European idea, just won big &mdash; at least in the sense of dodging a bullet.<\/p>\n<p>I know that&rsquo;s not how most people see it. But think of it this way: <strong>we have just witnessed Greece stand up to a truly vile campaign of bullying and intimidation, an attempt to scare the Greek public, not just into accepting creditor demands, but into getting rid of their government. It was a shameful moment in modern European history, and would have set a truly ugly precedent if it had succeeded.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But it didn&rsquo;t. You don&rsquo;t have to love Syriza, or believe that they know what they&rsquo;re doing &mdash; it&rsquo;s not clear that they do, although the troika has been even worse &mdash; to believe that European institutions have just been saved from their own worst instincts. If Greece had been forced into line by financial fear mongering, Europe would have sinned in a way that would sully its reputation for generations. Instead, it&rsquo;s something we can, perhaps, eventually regard as an aberration.<\/p>\n<p>And if Greece ends up exiting the euro? There&rsquo;s actually a pretty good case for Grexit now &mdash; and in any case, democracy matters more than any currency arrangement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Click through for more detail. It is sad that some (very few) Europeans have made a point of badmouthing the US. While most of the criticism leveled against this country is deserved, perhaps these folks should focus some of their attentions inward. I am <strong>NOT<\/strong> referring to the excellent constructive criticism from folks like Lona and Pat.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"0706Cartoon\" border=\"0\" height=\"449\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/0706Cartoon.jpg\" 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\" title=\"0706Cartoon\" width=\"650\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I actually made it out for a few minutes this morning to visit the corner store and pick up some staples, and I actually managed some kitty solar basking.&nbsp; I left at 8:00 AM, and by 8:30 the heat had driven me back inside.&nbsp; Even in the coolest part of the day, the hallway temperature <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/06\/open-thread772015\/' 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-15566","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\/15566","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=15566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}