{"id":17419,"date":"2015-11-23T04:05:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T12:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=17419"},"modified":"2015-11-23T04:10:04","modified_gmt":"2015-11-23T12:10:04","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-23112015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/23\/squatchs-open-thread-23112015\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch’s Open Thread 23\/11\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

It feels like it has been a long day.  I visited with my mother and we had our little fashion show.  Her care aid this evening, Fatiha, helped me with the clothing.  Mum smiled when I held them up.  She always likes what I choose. Temperatures are heading down to the -5 to -10 C range for the rest of the week.  We may even see some snow flurries Monday night.  If it gets any colder, I'll have to put longjohns on my computer!<\/span><\/p>\n

Puzzle — <\/strong>Today’s took me 2:27 (average 4:38). To do it, <\/span>click here<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. How did you do? <\/span><\/p>\n

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

Daily Beast<\/span><\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>— <\/strong><\/span>In the week-plus since the ISIS-commissioned terrorist attacks on Paris claimed the lives of 130 people and sent the world into a state of panic, Republican politicians—and that maladjusted person from your high school you’ve lost touch with—have been stoking the fears of Americans by espousing virulent anti-refugee rhetoric<\/a>. Leading GOP presidential candidates Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio have said we shouldn’t allow in any<\/i> Syrian refugees<\/a>, while 31 governors across the country have pledged not to allow these war-torn survivors into their states—this despite the fact that they have zero authority<\/i> to do so.<\/p>\n

And Trump, who by the way is married to an immigrant<\/a> from then war-torn Slovenia (see: the Ten-Day War), has even argued that all mosques in the U.S. should be surveilled, and under a Trump presidency, that all U.S. Muslims could be forced to enter themselves into a database to monitor them. If this sounds like fascism, that’s because it is.<\/p>\n

This past week, the House of Representatives passed a bill (that will surely be vetoed by President Obama) calling for tougher screening procedures for Syrian refugees, including that the FBI director must sign off on each and every one of the 10,000 refugees Obama’s pledged to accept over the next year.<\/p>\n