{"id":15932,"date":"2015-08-27T12:20:31","date_gmt":"2015-08-27T19:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15932"},"modified":"2015-08-27T12:20:31","modified_gmt":"2015-08-27T19:20:31","slug":"open-thread8272015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/27\/open-thread8272015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–8\/27\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because tasks here have given me a very late start, and because the news seems dominated by only two stories, I\u2019m going to take an easy day and make this the todays only article, so I will not be sending links today on Care2.  After today we have several day\u2019s of cool weather and forecast, and we may have something called \u201crain\u201d, whatever that is.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 2:44 (average 4:15).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>Beth Clarkson has extensively studied voting patterns in Kansas and noted several troubling statistical anomalies, ones that always benefited Republican candidates. She pressed for further transparency and was consistently rebuffed. She decided to sue Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Sedgwick County Elections Commissioner Tabitha Lehman:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

While it is well-recognized that smaller, rural precincts tend to lean Republican, statisticians have been unable to explain the consistent pattern favoring Republicans that trends upward as the number of votes cast in a precinct or other voting unit goes up. In primaries, the favored candidate appears to always be the Republican establishment candidate, above a tea party challenger. And the upward trend for Republicans occurs once a voting unit reaches roughly 500 votes. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not just an anomaly that occurred in one place,\u201d Clarkson said. \u201cIt is a pattern that has occurred repeatedly in elections across the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pattern could be voter fraud or a demographic trend that has not been picked up by extensive polling, she said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

She wants to look over the hard copies to check the error rate. You’d think in America, the heart of democracy, this would be a fairly simple request. But, no. Last night, Kris Kobach asked a judge to block the release:<\/a><\/p>\n

In areas where Republicans control voting machines with no paper trail, such statistical anomalies are especially common nationwide, and they always favor the Republican candidate. At times, to ensure a Republican win, they even count more votes than a precinct has voters. So the reason Kobitch<\/em> wants to block the release is obvious.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Vox<\/a>: <\/font>America is an exceptional country when it comes to guns. It’s one of the few countries<\/a> in which the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected, and presidential candidates in other nations don’t cook bacon with guns<\/a>. But America’s relationship with guns is unique in another crucial way: Among developed nations, the US is far and away the most violent \u2014 in large part due to the easy access many Americans have to firearms. These charts and maps show what that violence looks like compared with the rest of the world, why it happens, and why it’s such a tough problem to fix.<\/p>\n

\"0827GunHomicides\"<\/p>\n

The article has 17 excellent maps and charts. I shared 1. Click through for the other 16.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Raw Story<\/a>: <\/font>One of the Kentucky county clerks who is defying court orders to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples said his religious faith requires him to notify LGBT people that they\u2019re going to Hell…<\/p>\n

…He argued that the U.S. Supreme Court lacked the authority<\/a> to overturn Kentucky laws that were approved by a majority of voters \u2014 and he said he was willing to become a martyr over this \u201ctravesty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur law says \u2018one man and one woman\u2019 and that is what I held my hand up and took an oath to and that is what I expected,\u201d Davis said. \u201cIf it takes it, I will go to jail over \u2014 if it takes my life, I will die<\/strong> for because I believe I owe that to the people that fought so I can have the freedom that I have. I owe that to them today, and you do, we all do. They fought and died so we could have this freedom and I\u2019m going to fight and die for my kids and your kids can keep it.\u201d  [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n

If this Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian is willing to die for his assumed right to harass LGBT couples, he certainly has my permission to do so. \"Smile<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0827Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because tasks here have given me a very late start, and because the news seems dominated by only two stories, I\u2019m going to take an easy day and make this the todays only article, so I will not be sending links today on Care2.  After today we have several day\u2019s of cool weather and forecast, […]<\/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-15932","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\/15932","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=15932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}