{"id":16125,"date":"2015-09-22T09:04:45","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T16:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=16125"},"modified":"2015-09-22T09:04:45","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T16:04:45","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-22092015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/22\/squatchs-open-thread-22092015\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch\u2019s Open Thread 22\/09\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today turned out not to be as busy as I thought.  My ESL student is sick so cancelled our class.  That gave me a chance for a short Lona cat nap after physio before finishing this post.  The nap didn't last long as there were fire trucks and ambulances  in the street below my window.  I am blessed with the local hospital across the street to the east, and the main fire hall across the street to the west.  No matter their proximity, the truck engines and sirens were wailing away keeping me from a nap.  At least I managed a good sleep last night.<\/span><\/p>\n

Puzzle<\/strong> — Today’s took me 3:28 (average 6:17).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?  For those that don't know, we always do the 48 piece classic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daily Kos<\/span><\/a><\/strong> — … Stewart also offered a "warning" to the first responders as they prepared to trek the halls of Congress. "Today, on [Capitol] Hill, you will be exposed to possibly toxic levels of bulls**t and arrogance," …<\/p>\n

Now isn't that the truth!  As Jon said (paraphrase) to a gathered group of first responders, when the need was there, you jumped in right away to do what you were trained to do.  Why should you have to push to get the benefits needed as a result of your heroism?  Jon is so spot on, and we know where the problem lies . . . with Republicans!<\/span><\/p>\n

CBC<\/span><\/a><\/strong> — <\/span>"Today, I believe that I am being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive conservative message can rise to the top of the field. With that in mind, I will suspend my campaign immediately," Walker said at a press conference in Madison, Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

\"scott<\/a><\/p>\n

"I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same so the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive conservative alternative to the current front-runner," Walker continued. "This is fundamentally important to the future of the party and more importantly to the future of our country."<\/p>\n

Read the rest of the story through the link.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, the darling of the Koch set has pulled the plug on his 2016 presidential aspirations.  I wonder how the Kochs are taking it?  A while back, I distinctly had the impression that the relationship between Walker, the Fartfuhrer of Fitzwalkerstan, and the Kochs had significantly cooled.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here from the <\/span>Huffington Post<\/span><\/a> <\/span><\/strong>is a series of tweets from Liz Mair, a former aide to the Fartfuhrer describing why he couldn't win the White House in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alternet <\/strong><\/span><\/a>— … The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager. Turing immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars. … Shkreli claims that the higher cost for the drug is necessary for his new company to develop better treatments for toxoplasmosis, a claim which doctors quoted in the Times article call hollow as the side effects for Daraprim are manageable and there is no "clamoring" for a substitute. Interestingly, Shkreli's is the same type of claim pharmaceutical companies made in response<\/a> to efforts to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.<\/p>\n

Read the rest.  I find it inexcusable for such price increases.  Ultimately, it hurts everyone and will lead to greater loss of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

My Universe<\/strong> — h\/t JL — Ah, the humble toilet paper roll that every cat parent understands!  My little Annie has shredded one or two, but her favourite is the famous paper towel roll.  She renders them useless . . . totally useless!<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Today turned out not to be as busy as I thought.  My ESL student is sick so cancelled our class.  That gave me a chance for a short Lona cat nap after physio before finishing this post.  The nap didn't last long as there were fire trucks and ambulances  in the street below my window. […]<\/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-16125","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\/16125","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=16125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}