{"id":17427,"date":"2015-11-19T13:01:05","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T21:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=17427"},"modified":"2015-11-19T13:01:05","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T21:01:05","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-19112015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/19\/squatchs-open-thread-19112015\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch’s Open Thread 19\/11\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well the wind finally stopped yesterday afternoon and the rain along with it . . . well at least for now.  More rain is on the way and Friday promises to be wet.  With colder temperatures and rain wherre I am, the mountains behind my house are guaranteed to be getting snow.  Some of the local ski hills are scheduling to open this weekend,  Some did not open at all or only for short periods last year because of the lack of snow.  May this year be better for them.  Today is a "lazy" day with 2 chores . . . the litterbox and some laundry, mostly linens.  Of course, I have tomorrow's articles and cat snuggling too!<\/span><\/p>\n

Puzzle — <\/strong>Today’s took me 2:48 (average 4:24). To do it, <\/span>click here<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. How did you do? <\/span><\/p>\n

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

Alternet<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — Twitter user @HistOpinion (Historical Opinion) tweeted out polls from 1939 and 1938 showing what Americans thought of political refugees, most of whom were Jewish, on the eve of World War II. On the question, "What’s your attitude towards allowing German, Austrian & other political refugees to come into the US?" the numbers are, in retrospect, devastating:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Indeed, a fear of "Jewish-Bolshevism" was very real as Juan Cole noted in Truth Dig<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Jews were also seen by some US Neanderthals as having socialist tendencies and so were kept out as radicals. There was talk of the Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. (Hatred of Jews was irrational, so that they were blamed for being bankers [they were less than 1 percent of bankers] at the same time they were excoriated for being Marxists.) There was also the Society for the Defense of Christianity, so fundamentalists did their part.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

An article in the <\/span>Huffington Post<\/strong><\/span><\/a> takes a more personal look at the issue of admitting refugees, postulating that we should be proclaiming "never again" when it comes to ethnic refugees desperately fleeing their foe. Anti-refugee attitudes of the late 1930s have returned with a new Islamic target.<\/span><\/p>\n

Déjà-vu?  I am inclined to think that the hysteria exhibited by many politicians, particularly Republicans, is reminiscent of the 1930s.  There are parallels that we should examine if the "never again" is to survive.  It is true that there have been genocides in the world since WWII, but none on the magnitude of the Holocaust.  We must ensure "never again" is very literally NEVER AGAIN<\/strong><\/em> and be compassionate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daily Kos<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — <\/span>How ISIS is funded<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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As ISIS fighters expand their control, it is in the border region, in villages like Besaslan, where the Islamic State group can make some of the money it needs to finance its wars. Oil-smuggling operations involving millions of barrels have recently been uncovered […]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Besides revenue from oil smuggling, the group receives money through donations from wealthy sympathizers in countries including Qatar and Kuwait.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There’s a reason the US is bombing<\/a> ISIS\/Daesh<\/a>’s oil infrastructure. <\/p>\n

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"We know the oil funds more than 50 percent of ISIL's operations," Warren said, using an acronym for Islamic State. "This is something we want to take away from them."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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

Iraqi soldiers guarding Baiji oil refinery after taking back from Daesh<\/span><\/p>\n

Click through for the rest of the article.  In an article from the Wall Street Journal: U.S. Airstrikes Target Islamic State Oil Assets <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The U.S. has stepped up its attacks on Islamic State’s industrial base, striking more than 100 tanker trucks used to transport oil that helps the militant group earn tens of millions of dollars each month, an American military spokesman said Monday.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I remember hearing a saying about defeating something: you must cut off the head of the snake so the body will die<\/strong>.  This seems appropriate for Daesh.  Remove the source of much of its funding and Daesh will be weakened, perhaps easier to defeat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Think Progress<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — Responding to the Paris attacks in an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, presidential candidate and former governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR) said that he could not think of any group targeting innocent civilians except for radical Muslims. Huckabee used this argument to justify the intensifying call<\/a> for discriminatory policies toward Muslims seeking refugee status.<\/p>\n

Click through for some statistics on terrorist attacks.  To quote Assistant Attorney General John Carlin,<\/span><\/p>\n

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“[O]ver the past few years, more people have died in this country in attacks by domestic extremists than in attacks associated with international terrorist groups<\/a>,”  “[I]t doesn’t get discussed as much as it should.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

My Universe<\/span> <\/strong>— One of these is different.  Can you tell which one it is?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Well the wind finally stopped yesterday afternoon and the rain along with it . . . well at least for now.  More rain is on the way and Friday promises to be wet.  With colder temperatures and rain wherre I am, the mountains behind my house are guaranteed to be getting snow.  Some of the […]<\/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-17427","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\/17427","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=17427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}