{"id":17423,"date":"2015-11-21T15:50:41","date_gmt":"2015-11-21T23:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=17423"},"modified":"2015-11-21T15:50:41","modified_gmt":"2015-11-21T23:50:41","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-21112015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/21\/squatchs-open-thread-21112015\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch’s Open Thread 21\/11\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems that this cough\/cold is resurging again, but mostly the cough.  It certainly is making the rounds here.  If it does not abate this week, it is off to the doctor's again by week's end.  I hope everyone is having good weather for the weekend.  While it was cold last night at about -5 C, it is currently 5 C and sunny with a bit of cloud.  At least it is dry, but that is like to change tomorrow.  We may even see our first snowfall tomorrow at these lower levels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Puzzle — <\/strong>Today’s took me 2:48 (average 4:58). To do it, <\/span>click here<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. How did you do? <\/span><\/p>\n

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

CBC<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — Normally, few people outside France would pay much attention, but thanks to the attacks in Paris, as well as Marine Le Pen, the upcoming elections have become a litmus test for the big questions seizing the world.<\/p>\n

Le Pen is the leader of the National Front, the one-time fringe party created by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a Holocaust-trivializing xenophobe who was such an embarrassment to the party that his daughter eventually gave him the boot.<\/span><\/p>\n

The younger Le Pen has modernized the National Front and made it relevant in mainstream politics. <\/p>\n

But it is still her father's party in one important sense: it is still the party of fear. <\/p>\n

Click through for the rest of the article.  The politics of fear certainly is raising its head in France right now and their next presidential elections are scheduled for March\/April 2017, and regional elections in 2016.  The politics of fear is rampant in the Republican Party which dominates the Congress.  And the politics of fear was heavy in Harper's Conservative government in Canada, thankfully defeated by the Trudeau Liberals. Should we be more afraid of Daesh or our own fears?  Personally, I think François Hollande has it right. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It is what Hollande meant when he told France that to stay "true to our values," <\/strong><\/span>the country must press ahead with its promise to refugees and not abandon them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Alternet<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — The soi-disant<\/em> Land of the Free and Home of the Brave has a long and iniquitous history of overthrowing democratically elected leftist governments and propping up right-wing dictators in their place.<\/p>\n

U.S. politicians rarely acknowledge this odious past — let alone acknowledge that such policies continue well into the present day.  …<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

“Regime change” is not a phrase you hear discussed honestly much in Washington, yet it is a common practice in and defining feature of U.S. foreign policy for well over a century. For many decades, leaders from both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, have pursued a bipartisan strategy of violently overthrowing democratically elected foreign governments that do not kowtow to U.S. orders.<\/p>\n

Click through for the rest.  With the exception of Guatemala, I studied these other situations either in school or through the media as a matter of interest.  One that is not mentioned is Cuba.  Although Cuban revolutionaries took control of Cuba, ousting Batista, the US put in place an embargo that only started to soften in 2014.  This from <\/span>Wikipedia<\/span><\/a><\/strong> :<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Back in power, Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike<\/a>. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations<\/a>, and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans.[5]<\/a><\/sup> Batista's increasingly corrupt and repressive government then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with the American mafia<\/a>, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana<\/a>, and with large US-based multinationals who were awarded lucrative contracts.[5]<\/a><\/sup>[6]<\/a><\/sup> To quell the growing discontent amongst the populace—which was subsequently displayed through frequent student riots<\/a> and demonstrations—Batista established tighter censorship of the media, while also utilizing his Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities<\/a> to carry out wide-scale violence, torture<\/a> and public executions<\/a>; ultimately killing anywhere from 1,000 to 20,000 people.[7]<\/a><\/sup>[8]<\/a><\/sup>[9]<\/a><\/sup> For several years until 1959, the Batista government received financial, military, and logistical support from the United States.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As Bernie Sanders said<\/span> "… these toppling of governments, regime changes have unintended consequences."<\/p>\n

Mother Jones<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — Kansas Republicans believe they have created a law that their own high court cannot review.<\/p>\n

In the latest twist of the topsy-turvy constitutional showdown between the GOP-controlled state legislature and the state Supreme Court, the Kansas attorney general has asked the entire Kansas Supreme Court to recuse itself from hearing a key case.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The power struggle between Kansas Republicans and the state's highest court goes back to a years-long battle over education funding<\/a>. The state Supreme Court has repeatedly ordered the legislature to spend more money on public education, a request that conflicts with Republicans' desire to cut taxes. In 2014, the legislature passed a bill stripping the Supreme Court of the administrative authority to appoint chief judges in Kansas' 31 judicial districts, a move Democrats saw as a power play by the legislature to intimidate the top court during the ongoing fight over school spending. Chief District Court Judge Larry Solomon challenged the constitutionality of the judicial administration law, arguing that it violates the state's separation of powers.<\/p>\n

Click through for the rest.  Republicans are making a mockery out of the separation of powers in Kansas, all to engineer their own Reich.  But it could also set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the country.  What's the expression . . . "by hook or by crook".<\/span><\/p>\n

My Universe<\/span> <\/strong>— <\/p>\n

\"2012-09-19-12_41_06\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ah!!!  The weekend!!!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems that this cough\/cold is resurging again, but mostly the cough.  It certainly is making the rounds here.  If it does not abate this week, it is off to the doctor's again by week's end.  I hope everyone is having good weather for the weekend.  While it was cold last night at about -5 […]<\/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-17423","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\/17423","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=17423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}