{"id":18365,"date":"2015-12-16T09:47:42","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T17:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=18365"},"modified":"2015-12-16T17:20:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T01:20:18","slug":"open-thread1162015-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/16\/open-thread1162015-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–12\/16\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday the Home Health Nurse came, and starting next week, I’ll be getting PT, OT, and a Bathing Aide at home.  Then Terry and Sandi visited.  I was doing prison volunteer work with them.  Then JL A (aka Judi) visited.  She was passing through Portland on the way to visit relatives for Christmas, so I ordered in Chinese, and we had a very present meal.  She is one of the warmest people I have met.<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>The stupid, it burns . . . . The worst of the lot? A former SCIENCE teacher that said she was afraid it would hurt nearby plants making them unable to photosynthesize . . . Woodland’s Planning Commission banned the solar farm on a 3-1 vote.  That’s right, 75% of the planning commission was either too afraid to tell their stupid residents the actual scientific truth, or they’re just as stupid as their residents<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As detailed in this Roanoke Chowan News Herald story<\/a>\u200b<\/p>\n

Will I ever wake up from the stupidity of Republicans?<\/p>\n

Bobby Mann said he watched communities dry up when I-95 came along and warned that would happen to Woodland because of the solar farms. [emphasis original<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Dang!! Thou shalt NOT commit TEAbuggery!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>Authorities were urging people to remain calm on Tuesday night after the broadcast of a chilling video that terrified millions.<\/p>\n

The video, which was broadcast nationally on CNN, appeared to show nine extremists glaring into the camera and making a series of escalating threats.<\/p>\n

The radicals’ increasingly violent rhetoric and palpable hatred rattled viewers across the nation, sources said.<\/p>\n

Experts who viewed the video acknowledged that the words and images contained in it were alarming, but advised the public to remain calm until the extremists’ threats could be authenticated.<\/p>\n

“At this point, there is no reason to believe that any of these individuals are credible,” one expert said.<\/p>\n

Dang!! The previous item sounds more like Andy than Andy! I didn't even know there was a Clown Car Destruction Derby last night.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>Another GOP debate, another steaming pile of half-truths, lies and pseudo-facts. The Republican Party seems to be almost entirely post-truth at this point, and if you call them out, you're the liberal media! It's a brilliant racket and one that led us to the current state of affairs where facts aren't just dispensable, but a political liability. Without further ado, here are the top lies and distortions from tonight's debate.<\/p>\n

1. Ben Carson and Ted Cruz: "We cannot vet refugees."<\/strong><\/p>\n

A popular refrain in the wake of the Paris and San Bernadino attacks is that the U.S. government (or more specifically President Obama) cannot properly vet Syrian refugees. This has been repeatedly debunked as hysterical posturing, yet remains a popular trope among the far right. In addition to a rather thorough takedown<\/a> by John Oliver two weeks ago, PoliticoFact rated this claim, "Mostly False" in its detailed analysis<\/a> this evening.<\/p>\n

2. Marco Rubio claims Assad created ISIS.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is an old canard, and one that even nominally lefty outlets like Vox like to push, but it has little to do with reality. In an effort to shore up his neocon credentials, Rubio has doubled down on regime change in Syria while other GOP candidates like Paul and Cruz – as well as Bernie Sanders – have run away from this position. To do this Rubio has pushed the conspiracy theory that the reason ISIS grew in Syria is because the U.S. didn't back the rebels opposed to Assad when in fact the CIA, according to documents revealed by Edward Snowden, spent $1 billion a year<\/a> arming, funding and assisting the opposition.<\/p>\n

3. Donald Trump cites bogus poll that 25% of Muslims condone acts of violence.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A popular trope among the nativist wing of the Republican Party (aka the Republican Party), the bogus stat that 25% of Muslins support violence is thrown around quite often. But it originates from noted Islamophobic "think tank" Center for Security Policy. As the New York Times notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Mr. Trump vouched for the group at a rally on Monday night. But the poll — conducted by the Polling Company [pig poll delinked<\/em>], a Republican firm — is in no way truly representative of all Muslim Americans because of its methodology. The poll was not based on a random sample, but included only people who chose to participate, and therefore is not representative of the population being studied. In addition, some of the questions were leading and biased.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I shared only the first three of the top ten Republican lies at the Clown Car Destruction Derby. Click through for the other seven.<\/font><\/p>\n

Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

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Yesterday the Home Health Nurse came, and starting next week, I’ll be getting PT, OT, and a Bathing Aide at home.  Then Terry and Sandi visited.  I was doing prison volunteer work with them.  Then JL A (aka Judi) visited.  She was passing through Portland on the way to visit relatives for Christmas, so I […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-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\/18365","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}