{"id":20083,"date":"2016-02-23T00:37:03","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T08:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=20083"},"modified":"2016-02-29T20:30:47","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T04:30:47","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-22022016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/23\/squatchs-open-thread-22022016\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch’s Open Thread 22\/02\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have bearly had any sleep for the past 2 nights so I am extraordinarily tired.  Today I had physio and am told I fell asleep on the recumbent bicycle as I pedalled away.  I prefer to think that I was in deep meditation as my legs kept going for 45 minutes.  Then I was on the traction bed for about 30 minutes and I did fall asleep.  After doing a few quick errands, I availed myself of one of Lona's catnaps.  Thanks Lona!  I plan to have a really good sleep tonight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Think Progress<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — Despite a complete lack of evidence<\/a> that Planned Parenthood is breaking any laws, Republican lawmakers are pressing ahead with their relentless crusade against the national women’s health organization.<\/p>\n

A series of heavily edited videos accusing Planned Parenthood of selling aborted baby parts continues to influence the national debate, even though it’s become clear those claims aren’t based in fact<\/a>. Last month, a Houston grand jury concluded<\/a> that Planned Parenthood hasn’t done anything wrong. Every state-level investigation into the group has come up empty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But that’s made no difference<\/a> to the GOP politicians who are insistent on using this discredited information to attack Planned Parenthood. It’s working. In several states this week, Republican leaders successfully advanced their efforts to undermine the organization’s work.<\/p>\n

As noted by <\/span>NBC News<\/span><\/a><\/strong>, Gov John Kasich of Ohio signed a bill that effectively strips $1.3 million in funding from PP.  The legislation targets "<\/span>"any entity that performs or promotes nontherapeutic abortions"" and means no funds to "support screenings for breast cancer, STD testing, programs working to prevent violence against women, and more.".  If this is what Kasich calls 'support for women's health', he needs a good dictionary!  And Republicans say there is no war on women and no war on the poor?  I say PROVE IT!<\/span><\/p>\n

CBC<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration [FAA] issued a notice Dec.14 last year warning private pilots that all foreign private planes now had to obtain diplomatic clearance from the secretary of state before entering U.S. airspace.<\/p>\n

The situation persisted for a month and cost thousands of dollars in increased fuel as planes had to be diverted.<\/p>\n

Bernard Gervais president of the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association [COPA] worries the situation could reoccur.<\/p>\n

"I don't want this to happen again," Gervais told CBC News. "It's a big issue for us. We need overfly there. There's no wall between our countries. It's always been that way."<\/p>\n

Well the situation has been rectified for now, but my guess, this is in retaliation for sending Ted Cruz stateside and agreeing to his renunciation of his Canadian citizenship.  LOL!!!<\/span><\/p>\n

The New Yorker<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — Antonin Scalia, who died this month, after nearly three decades on the Supreme Court, devoted his professional life to making the United States a less fair, less tolerant, and less admirable democracy. Fortunately, he mostly failed. …<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But it was in his jurisprudence that Scalia most self-consciously looked to the past. He pioneered “originalism,” a theory holding that the Constitution should be interpreted in line with the beliefs of the white men, many of them slave owners, who ratified it in the late eighteenth century. <\/p>\n

To be a constitution originalist, one must surely believe that the earth is flat and there is no such thing as change.  I believe neither, but Scalia must certainly believe it.  As we gain knowledge and develop wisdom, our perceptions change.  With that, the constitution takes on nuances of interpretation that did not previously exist.  The framers could not know what lay 227 years in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

Huffington Post<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, finished sixth<\/a> in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary … But Carson offered some interesting spin to explain the result:<\/p>\n

\n

Carson statement for the ages!<\/p>\n

he "received as many delegates in South Carolina as all other candidates but the winner"<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think it is past time that Carson pulled the plug on his campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

My Universe<\/strong> — <\/span><\/p>\n

\"cat<\/p>\n

\"cat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have bearly had any sleep for the past 2 nights so I am extraordinarily tired.  Today I had physio and am told I fell asleep on the recumbent bicycle as I pedalled away.  I prefer to think that I was in deep meditation as my legs kept going for 45 minutes.  Then I was on […]<\/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-20083","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\/20083","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=20083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}