{"id":19681,"date":"2016-02-05T11:55:52","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T19:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=19681"},"modified":"2016-02-05T11:56:33","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T19:56:33","slug":"open-thread252016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/05\/open-thread252016\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;2\/5\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">TGIF!!&nbsp; I did not get the sleep I needed yesterday, because my helper friend came a day late.&nbsp; We washed my hospital bed sheets and made the bed.&nbsp; I need her help, because there is one corner where I cannot place the fritted sheet.&nbsp; There is no room to get close enough in my chair.&nbsp; That took up most of my afternoon nap time.&nbsp; Then I watched the debate, and I won&rsquo;t take today off, because it may be the last time Bernie and Hillary debate head to head. so I have to report on it.&nbsp; Jeannie (Shower-Aide) has come and gone.&nbsp; Arvilla (PT) was due in fifteen minutes&nbsp; (now gone), and Tracey (OT) comes right after Arvilla!&nbsp; When I finish blogging, I&rsquo;m going to hide!&nbsp; TGIF!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&rsquo;s took me 3:29 (average 5:54).&nbsp; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2016-02-05-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>. 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.youtube.com\/user\/SenatorJeffMerkley\" target=\"_blank\">The Jeff Merkley Channel<\/a>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=d-tNZRvoU4g\" target=\"_blank\">Merkley: Stop the wave of dark money in politics<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/d-tNZRvoU4g?rel=0\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Amen Jeff!!&nbsp; He&rsquo;s one of the reasons that Oregon leads the way!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/humor\/borowitz-report\/shkreli-miraculously-makes-nation-side-with-congress\" target=\"_blank\">The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>In a feat that some observers called nothing short of miraculous, the embattled pharmaceuticals C.E.O. Martin Shkreli single-handedly made the American people side with Congress on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<p>According to polls taken after his appearance before the despised legislative body, Shkreli&rsquo;s smug, smirking, and utterly douchey performance had the effect of temporarily transforming members of Congress into marginally sympathetic figures.<\/p>\n<p>The University of Minnesota&rsquo;s Opinion Research Institute, which tracks the American people&rsquo;s attitudes toward the legislative branch, said that after Shkreli&rsquo;s appearance Congress&rsquo;s approval rating surged from eleven per cent to fourteen per cent.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Well the guy is an asshole (<em>syn, Republican<\/em>), but frankly, I think Andy has been smokin&#39; that Wacky tobbacky. The only thing that could make Congress more popular is a Democratic majority!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/home\/washington-posts-food-columnist-goes-to-bat-for-monsanto-again\/\" target=\"_blank\">FAIR.org<\/a>: <\/font>A few months ago, I raised concerns about <strong>Washington Post<\/strong> food columnist Tamar Haspel (<strong>FAIR.org,<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/home\/buckraking-on-the-food-beat-when-is-it-a-conflict-of-interest\/\">10\/28\/15<\/a>) after she admitted taking money from agribusiness interest groups that she covers.<\/p>\n<p>I pointed out that her columns are biased in favor of those industry groups, particularly on the topic of GMOs, even though her column is presented to readers as an unbiased effort to find middle ground in debates about our food system.<\/p>\n<p>My article was met with crickets of silence from Haspel, her Post editor Joe Yonan and the band of biotech promoters who prolifically praise Haspel on Twitter. I figured that, soon enough, Haspel might write another column that would warrant raising the concerns another notch up the pole. She didn&rsquo;t disappoint.<\/p>\n<p>In her January column (<strong>Washington Post<\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/food\/the-surprising-truth-about-the-food-movement\/2016\/01\/25\/42bed508-bfcf-11e5-9443-7074c3645405_story.html\">1\/26\/16<\/a>), Haspel offered an investigation (&ldquo;the surprising truth&rdquo;) about the food movement&mdash;without speaking to anyone in the food movement&mdash;concluding that there isn&rsquo;t much of a food movement after all, and most people don&rsquo;t really care about labeling genetically engineered foods (GMOs).<\/p>\n<p>Her sources? A two-year-old survey, another survey conducted by a food-industry front group, and consumer research by the agrichemical industry&rsquo;s public relations firm.&nbsp; [<em>emphasis original<\/em>]<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Busted!! GMOs must be contained where grown and labeled for consumers. Click though for the rest of this extensive expos&eacute;.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"0205Cartoon\" border=\"0\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/0205Cartoon.jpg\" 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\" title=\"0205Cartoon\" width=\"650\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TGIF!!&nbsp; I did not get the sleep I needed yesterday, because my helper friend came a day late.&nbsp; We washed my hospital bed sheets and made the bed.&nbsp; I need her help, because there is one corner where I cannot place the fritted sheet.&nbsp; There is no room to get close enough in my chair.&nbsp; <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/05\/open-thread252016\/' 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":[35,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19681","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\/19681","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=19681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}