{"id":17995,"date":"2015-12-22T12:04:54","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T20:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=17995"},"modified":"2015-12-22T12:04:54","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T20:04:54","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-21122015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/22\/squatchs-open-thread-21122015\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch\u2019s Open Thread 21\/12\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">Sorry I am late once again. &nbsp;I was almost finished when I did a face plant on my keyboard last night. &nbsp;Busy day yesterday with physio and teaching. &nbsp;Today I have my annual eye exam which is no big deal and then a very quick grocery shop. &nbsp;I was invited for Christmas dinner on Thursday night so I must prepare my yams and apple casserole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>Puzzle<\/strong> &mdash; Today&rsquo;s took me 3:11&nbsp;(average 5:12). To do it, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2015-12-21\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>click here<\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">. How did you do?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/politics\/2015\/12\/21\/3734185\/msnbc-hosts-expose-santorums-hypocrisy-on-muslims-what-are-you-doing-about-white-men-with-guns\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>Think Progress<\/strong><\/span><\/a> &#8212;&nbsp;This morning on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough asked Rick Santorum a simple question: What can we do to show the millions of peaceful Muslim Americans that they are valued and respected members of society?<\/p>\n<p>Santorum rejected the question and said that onus was on every Muslim American to confront &ldquo;the cancer within Islam.&rdquo; Santorum said that &ldquo;most Muslims&rdquo; in America were shirking their duties to confront radicalism.<\/p>\n<p>Co-host Mika Brzezinski had enough. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll turn the argument around on you. Why aren&rsquo;t you working on white men with guns?,&rdquo; she asked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WsYfJToUkVU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">Another Republican non answer! &nbsp;Santorum has no idea of what he tries to speak<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/politics\/first-draft\/2015\/12\/21\/lindsey-graham-ends-his-presidential-campaign\/?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>NY Times<\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"> &#8212;&nbsp;<\/span>Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina suspended his presidential campaign on Monday, saying he had concluded that &ldquo;this is not my time,&rdquo; while arguing that his mix of hawkishness on foreign policy and pragmatism on immigration and the economy had made a difference in the race.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">The withdrawal came on the last day that Mr. Graham could remove his name from the South Carolina primary ballot, sparing him possible embarrassment in his home state given his paltry standing in the polls.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">&ldquo;The centerpiece of my campaign has been securing our nation,&rdquo; Mr. Graham said in a YouTube video announcing his decision.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4k44NsbT-Zw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">IMO, there should be a lot more Republican presendentials following Graham out the door.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/politics\/2015\/12\/19\/3733630\/nra-nevada-race\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>Think Progress<\/strong><\/span><\/a> &#8212;&nbsp;&nbsp;Just a few hours after congressional candidate John Oceguera announced he was&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/politics\/2015\/12\/04\/3728239\/nra-nevada-quitting\/\">terminating his lifetime membership<\/a>&nbsp;with the National Rifle Association, the angry comments began flooding his inbox and Facebook page, calling him, among other slurs, a &ldquo;pussy traitor,&rdquo; &ldquo;kool aid-drinking zombie,&rdquo; and &ldquo;libtard.&rdquo; <span style=\"color:#000000;\"><strong>&nbsp;&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The NRA does a lot of good things, like with hunting safety, but they&rsquo;ve just become so stringent and won&rsquo;t compromise on any issue,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like you can&rsquo;t say anything about commonsense gun reform without people screaming, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re taking our guns!&rsquo; or &lsquo;You&rsquo;re an idiot&rsquo; or a lot worse than that. When I made this announcement, I became enemy number one. But do I really want to belong to an organization where I can&rsquo;t have an opinion that&rsquo;s just slightly different?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">Of the several stories I read about&nbsp;John Oceguera, this is the most comprehensive. &nbsp;He certainly makes clear that common sense gun laws are required but that the NRA is not about to support such that bar mentally ill people and those on watchlists. &nbsp;Personally, I hope that he is able to influence the national discussion on gun control.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/north\/tundra-tea-toss-photo-1.3376219?cmp=rss\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>CBC<\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"> &#8212;&nbsp;<\/span>The photo shows local resident Markus Siivola&nbsp;throwing hot tea into the air as he bends backwards. In the &ndash;40 C [-40 F]&nbsp;weather, the tea freezes as soon as it&#39;s tossed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Photographer Michael H. Davies took this photo on the tundra outside Pangnirtung, Nunavut, a community of about 1,400 just a few kilometres south of the Arctic circle. \" src=\"http:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.3376224.1450794847!\/fileImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/16x9_620\/tundra-tea-toss.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">Check out the story for more fabulous pictures of the Arctic. &nbsp;Having lived in an area of BC where the average winter temperature is -40 C, I can certainly relate and appreciate the beauty.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>My Universe<\/strong><\/span> &#8212;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"giphy (25) (1)\" src=\"http:\/\/fuzzfix.t2b.click\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/giphy-25-1.gif\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><span style=\"font-size:16px;\"><span style=\"font-family:comic sans ms,cursive;\">&quot;Hug me tighter human!&quot;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sorry I am late once again. &nbsp;I was almost finished when I did a face plant on my keyboard last night. &nbsp;Busy day yesterday with physio and teaching. &nbsp;Today I have my annual eye exam which is no big deal and then a very quick grocery shop. &nbsp;I was invited for Christmas dinner on Thursday <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/22\/squatchs-open-thread-21122015\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/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-17995","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\/17995","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=17995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}