{"id":16026,"date":"2015-09-16T22:34:22","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T05:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=16026"},"modified":"2015-09-16T22:34:22","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T05:34:22","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-16092015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/16\/squatchs-open-thread-16092015\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch’s Open Thread 16\/09\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

For me it has been a good day . . . no malfunctioning elevators, no idiot drivers . . . almost peaceful.  That is until now!  My cat Primo is digging his claws into my hip as to say "I want my dinner"!  So I will go and feed my three kids their kibble and peace will return.<\/span><\/p>\n

Puzzle<\/span><\/strong> — Today’s took me 3:39 (average 5:33).  To do it, <\/span>click here<\/span><\/a>.  How did you do?<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Alternet<\/strong><\/span> — Last week, as the nation observed the anniversary of 9\/11, one could not help but look back at that time and contemplate the reaction by our fellow citizens and foreign nations. Rick Perlstein wrote a very poignant piece<\/a> a couple of years back about the solidarity that horrible day inspired among all Americans and people around the world — and how it was lost.<\/p>\n

Perlstein describes how bills such as the vote to authorize war and the Patriot Act passed nearly unanimously and without debate, which he says happened because in that moment of oneness,”it seemed unimaginable that this extraordinary grant of executive power could possibly be abused.” The man who should have been president, Al Gore, famously said, “George W. Bush is my commander in chief.”<\/p>\n

Lefties from Ellen Willis to Barbra Streisand immediately fell into line and supported the president unequivocally. Bush memorably put this new sense of trust and good will into words when he addressed Congress and the nation on September 20, 2001, and asked the American people to pull together for the sake of the nation as a whole. He also admonished them to be decent to the people of Middle Eastern descent who lived among us.<\/p>\n

Alternet<\/a><\/p>\n

Coming together in a time of crisis is good, is patriotic, because it gives strength to the immediate needs.  But there is a risk that the immediate needs will never really be met, that people will go on auto pilot instead of thinking and re-evaluating the situation.  That makes for "boogeyman" times of paranoia and the ability of groups, like Republicans, to milk that paranoia.  So sad because patriotism is not a boogeyman but an opportunity to grow as a nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Nation<\/strong><\/span> — This week, The Wall Street Journal<\/em> dropped a terrifyingly large number<\/a> on Senator Bernie Sanders’s upstart campaign, warning that his proposals would carry a “price tag” of $18 trillion over a 10-year period. It’s a number designed to shock and awe and discourage voters from giving the social democrat’s ideas a close look.<\/p>\n

But according to the very data cited by The Journal<\/em>’s Laura Meckler, Sanders’s highly progressive proposals wouldn’t cost the United States a single penny, on net, over that 10-year window. In fact, they’d cost less, overall, than what we’d spend without them.<\/p>\n

It’s not hard to understand why. The lion’s share of the “cost”—$15 trillion—would pay for opening up Medicare to Americans of all ages. (Meckler notes that Sanders hasn’t released a detailed proposal, so she relies on an analysis of HR 676, Representative John Conyers’s Medicare-for-all bill.)<\/p>\n

The Nation<\/a><\/p>\n

Bernie has been very open with the costs of his proposals well before he decided to run.  That is, in my mind, one thing he does well.  So in my opinion, The Wall Street Journal's number bomb is an attempted distraction from the truth.  The Bern has your back!<\/span><\/p>\n

Raw Story<\/strong><\/span> — Christian columnist Chris Queen argued this week that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ anti-poverty proposals went against biblical teachings because the “God of the Bible is not a socialist.”<\/p>\n

In speech to Liberty University<\/a> on Monday, Sanders urged the Christian conservative students to apply the golden rule — “Do unto others, what you would have them do to you” — to public policy.<\/p>\n

“We are living in a time — and I warn all of you if you would, put this in the context of the Bible, not me, in the context of the Bible — we are living in a time where a handful of people have wealth beyond comprehension,” Sanders said. “Do you think it’s moral when 20 percent of the children in this country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, are living in poverty? Do you think it is acceptable that 40 percent of African American children are living in poverty?”<\/p>\n

“[A]nd the Bible speaks to this issue, in a nation and in a world which worships not love of brothers and sisters, not love of the poor and the sick, but worships the acquisition of money and great wealth.”<\/p>\n

Raw Story<\/a><\/p>\n

Where are the Biblical lions when you need them?<\/span><\/p>\n

My Universe<\/strong><\/span> <\/strong>— <\/strong>Nothing more need be said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

For me it has been a good day . . . no malfunctioning elevators, no idiot drivers . . . almost peaceful.  That is until now!  My cat Primo is digging his claws into my hip as to say "I want my dinner"!  So I will go and feed my three kids their kibble and peace […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-politics","category-35-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\/16026","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}