{"id":18704,"date":"2016-01-01T08:36:38","date_gmt":"2016-01-01T16:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=18704"},"modified":"2016-01-01T08:36:38","modified_gmt":"2016-01-01T16:36:38","slug":"open-thread112016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/01\/open-thread112016\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–1\/1\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new year begins with the promise for me that 2016 virtually has to be a better year than last.  May it be so for us all.<\/font><\/p>\n

Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s took me 5:14 (average 7:27).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a> (July): <\/font>In one simple quote, Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B. sums up the hypocrisy of many in the ‘pro-life’ movement:<\/p>\n

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"I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While I disagree with her opposition to women’s right to make their own medical decisions, I respectfully disagree, because, unlike the Republican Party,  she is consistent.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Media Matters<\/a>: <\/font>Fleeing from terror and indiscriminate violence in parts of the Middle East, millions of people have packed up and left their homes to start safer lives for themselves and their families elsewhere. But if you tuned into Fox News anytime in the last year, you’d think the refugees themselves — many of them Muslim — were responsible for the violence. In fact, painting Muslims as terrorists, radicals, and tacit supporters of ISIS, baseless demonization of Islam was the channel’s modus operandi in 2015. And it wasn’t just right-wing media. CNN also joined the smears, asking a Muslim human rights lawyer if he supports ISIS<\/a>, questioning a Michigan mayor if she’s afraid<\/a> of her majority Muslim-American city council, and forcing responsibility<\/a> for the recent attacks in Paris onto an innocent French Muslim.<\/p>\n