{"id":15991,"date":"2015-09-12T19:02:04","date_gmt":"2015-09-13T02:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15991"},"modified":"2015-09-12T19:02:15","modified_gmt":"2015-09-13T02:02:15","slug":"surrogate-open-thread-12092015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/12\/surrogate-open-thread-12092015\/","title":{"rendered":"Surrogate – Open Thread 12\/09\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been a long week for everybody, and the weekend is here. We can't do much more to check on the Puddy Tat until Monday, so I thought a "similar to TC's Open Thread" would keep us busy. I'd also like to thank all of you for your patience, but I would especially like to thank Nameless, JL and JD for all the behind the scenes work They have done and are doing. And lastly, but never lastly, please continue to hold Tom in your thoughts and\/or prayers.<\/span><\/p>\n

BTW, I can't seem to get the hot links to work so unfortunately, you'll have to copy\/paste the links into your browser.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Fantasy Football<\/span><\/strong> — Don't forget to check your rosters. The games have started! . . . and you can bet that Tom's Teabag Trashers want to take the trophy home again this year.<\/p>\n

Puzzles<\/span><\/strong> —
\n\tCandy Fruits http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2015-09-10 my time 3:47 average 5:17
\n\tYacht Ropes http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2015-09-11 my time 3:35 average 5:07
\n\tKey Blanks http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2015-09-12 my time 3:51 average 6:31
\n\tHow did you do?<\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Raw Story<\/span><\/strong> — An Oklahoma County judge on Friday gave the state a month to remove a 6-foot-tall (1.80-meter) granite monument containing the Ten Commandments from Capitol grounds after the state’s top court said it had been erected illegally.
\n\tDistrict Judge Thomas Prince denied a motion from Attorney General Scott Pruitt to keep in place the monument that had been on Capitol grounds since 2012 and garnered strong support from Oklahoma’s Republican leadership.
\n\tIn June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled the monument must be removed because the Oklahoma Constitution bans the use of state property for the benefit of a religion.
\n\tThe decision prompted Republican lawmakers to say they will look at impeachment for the justices who made the decision and legal briefs from the attorney general’s office to keep the monument in the shadow of the Statehouse.
\n\thttp:\/\/www.rawstory.com\/2015\/09\/judge-gives-oklahoma-a-month-to-remove-ten-commandments-from-capitol\/<\/p>\n

Republicans like to think it is their way or the highway!<\/span><\/p>\n

The New Yorker<\/span><\/strong> — Republicans, who mercilessly mocked Barack Obama’s lack of government experience before he became President, now favor Presidential candidates with no experience whatsoever, the head of the Republican National Committee has confirmed.
\n\tThe R.N.C. chief, Reince Priebus, said that he sees “no contradiction at all” between Republicans’ contempt for Obama’s pre-White House résumé, which included eleven years spent in public office, and their rabid enthusiasm for G.O.P. rising stars Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina, whose combined years in public office total zero.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/humor\/borowitz-report\/party-that-mocked-presidents-lack-of-experience-favors-one-with-no-experience-whatsoever<\/p>\n

Is Andy reporting straight news again? The anachronistic Republican bubble machine is at it again!<\/span><\/p>\n

NY Times<\/span><\/strong> — Visitors to Japan are often surprised by how prosperous it seems. It doesn’t look like a deeply depressed economy. And that’s because it isn’t.
\n\tUnemployment is low; overall economic growth has been slow for decades, but that’s largely because it’s an aging country with ever fewer people in their prime working years. Measured relative to the number of working-age adults, Japanese growth over the past quarter century has been almost as fast as America’s, and better than Western Europe’s.
\n\tYet Japan is still caught in an economic trap. Persistent deflation has created a society in which people hoard cash, making it hard for policy to respond when bad things happen, which is why the businesspeople I’ve been talking to here are terrified about the possible spill over from China’s troubles.
\n\tDeflation has also created worrisome “debt dynamics”: Japan, unlike, say, the United States after World War II, can’t count on growing incomes to make past borrowing irrelevant.<\/p>\n