{"id":19553,"date":"2016-02-01T13:09:31","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T21:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=19553"},"modified":"2016-02-01T13:09:31","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T21:09:31","slug":"open-thread212016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/01\/open-thread212016\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;2\/1\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">On a scale of one to ten, today is a brutally busy day.&#160; I have a heavy load of&#160; personal tasks, like preparing my grocery order, editing a letter to the Governor for the President of our volunteer organization, arranging my lift ride for next Monday\u2019s Podiatry appointment, and routine cooking and cleaning.&#160; In addition, I had to compose a new poll, collect all the data and make all the graphics for tomorrow&#8217;s Monthly Report, and am writing today\u2019s articles.&#160; On top of that, I\u2019m trying to keep track of the Iowa Caucuses.&#160; The winners I predict in Iowa are Bernie and Hateful Hairball.,<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 4:04 (average 5:54).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2016-02-01-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2015\/05\/22\/1387025\/-Bernie-Sanders-blows-Wolf-Blitzer-s-mind-with-a-simple-idea-guess-it-doesn-t-take-much\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>On a May 19 CNN broadcast with Blitzer, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders unveiled a plan to eliminate college tuition by taxing Wall Street speculation.<\/p>\n<p>Sounds pretty simple and straight forward doesn&#8217;t it?&#160; Yet, Blitzer just couldn&#8217;t wrap his mind around it&#8230;..&#160; watch&#8230;&#8230;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/...\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/3IxEl8L__OA?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">That&#8217;s why Bernie is the one!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/01\/us\/politics\/iowa-caucus-2016-election.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: \u2026<\/font>Voters on the ideological edges, who dominate both parties in Iowa, have made Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, and Donald J. Trump and Mr. Cruz, whose views are anathema to Republican leadership, the standard-bearers of the left and the right.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Iowa&#8217;s left can be as right as Iowa&#8217;s right is wrong. We&#8217;ll see tonight.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/justice\/2016\/02\/01\/3744734\/michigan-gubernatorial-elections-presidential-years\/\" target=\"_blank\">Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>An important but little-discussed aspect of American elections is the <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/justice\/2014\/11\/05\/3589262\/midterm-gov-elections-unfair\/\" target=\"_blank\">built-in advantage<\/a> that Republicans have in the nation\u2019s gubernatorial races.<\/p>\n<p>The reason why is simple. Turnout is far higher in years when there\u2019s a presidential election, and that boost in turnout is predominantly reflected in minorities and young people, constituencies that tend to vote Democratic. Conversely, turnout is typically over <a href=\"http:\/\/www.electproject.org\/2014g\" target=\"_blank\">20 points lower<\/a> during midterm elections, with far fewer minorities and young people going to the polls. But just nine states have gubernatorial elections that exclusively coincide with presidential votes, whereas 34 states vote for governor during midterm elections. (Five states vote in odd-numbered years and the remaining two elect their governor every two years.)<\/p>\n<p>This bias towards midterm elections is a contributing reason why swing states that twice voted for President Obama, such as Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio, also elected Republicans during the last two gubernatorial races.<\/p>\n<p>But one of those purple states could soon shift its gubernatorial elections to presidential years: Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freep.com\/story\/opinion\/columnists\/brian-dickerson\/2016\/01\/30\/michigan-election-shift\/79516080\/\" target=\"_blank\">Detroit Free Press<\/a>, an unidentified group of Democrats and independents are considering a ballot initiative to move gubernatorial races by two years so as to line up with presidential elections. Other statewide races, such as those for attorney general and secretary of state, would also be moved. If the initiative comes together and is passed by voters this year, the elections could shift as soon as 2020.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">This may be the end of Sturmbannf\u00fchrer Snyder, if he isn&#8217;t in a prison cell first.&#160; However, we need to get this on ballot measures all over the country.,<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0201Cartoon\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"0201Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/0201Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"350\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a scale of one to ten, today is a brutally busy day.&#160; I have a heavy load of&#160; personal tasks, like preparing my grocery order, editing a letter to the Governor for the President of our volunteer organization, arranging my lift ride for next Monday\u2019s Podiatry appointment, and routine cooking and cleaning.&#160; In addition, <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/01\/open-thread212016\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/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-19553","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\/19553","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=19553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}