{"id":20714,"date":"2016-03-19T14:44:35","date_gmt":"2016-03-19T21:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=20714"},"modified":"2016-03-19T14:44:35","modified_gmt":"2016-03-19T21:44:35","slug":"open-thread3192016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/19\/open-thread3192016\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–3\/19\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I cleaned my apartment.  I dusted, swept, mopped, and disinfected.  I finished right before Lu came to de-stink me, so I\u2019m a pleasant-smelling puddy tat, once again.  Then I did m,y daily research, took a brief (< 1 hr.) nap, and made a pastrami on rye with horseradish for lunch.  It\u2019s now 62\u00b0, with 65\u00b0 forecast, so I have the windows and door open to air out the place.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:26 (average 4:59).  (Somebody beat me please!  I don\u2019t want to eat something smarter than a Republican!!)  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>Contradicting their professed interest in creating jobs, Senate Republicans resolutely refused to put even one American to work this week.<\/p>\n

The Republicans, in fact, went to extreme lengths to prevent a single job from being filled, thus risking being called job-killers during an election year.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a job opening and a highly qualified applicant, but you\u2019re blocking the applicant from taking the job?\u201d Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t sound like you\u2019re very interested in creating jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

While voters across the country questioned why Republicans would refuse to let even one American find employment, Washington insiders speculated that G.O.P. senators did not want to do anything to contribute to the improving jobs picture while Barack Obama is still President.<\/p>\n

Andy, perhaps the Republicans might agree to create that job, if Merrick Garland agrees to work for a migrant farm worker’s pay, less than minimum wage.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>The Supreme Court may be about to strike down Republican-drawn maps that use a right-wing gerrymandering tactic known as "bleaching" where Republicans purposely pack minority voters into as few districts as possible in order to eliminate their voices in the rest of the state. <\/p>\n

A ruling like that would strike a crushing blow against racially discriminatory gerrymandering across the country. <\/p>\n

Join the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and Daily Kos in demanding an end to right-wing racial gerrymandering<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Paid for by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC). <\/p>\n

Click through to sign, please.  I did.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Raw Story<\/a>: <\/font>The first month of taxable commercial sales of recreational marijuana in Oregon generated nearly $3.5 million in tax revenues, far exceeding projections, the state Department of Revenue has reported.<\/p>\n

Oregon\u2019s marijuana tax receipts from January also surpassed the first-month tallies from recreational cannabis sales in Colorado and Washington state, the first two states to legalize general commercial distribution of pot for adults.<\/p>\n

Colorado collected $2.9 million in taxes when recreational sales launched there in January 2014, a sum that included revenue from both recreational and medical cannabis purchases.<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s recreational industry, which started slow with just 18 stores licensed to sell pot, yielded $1 million in tax revenue when it debuted in August 2014.<\/p>\n

By comparison, Oregon\u2019s 300 licensed cannabis retailers sold $13.9 million worth of marijuana in January, generating $3.48 million in taxes, according to a revenue report issued on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Personally, I gave it up 30 years ago, but when it comes to high society, Oregon leads the way. \"Smile<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0319Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I cleaned my apartment.  I dusted, swept, mopped, and disinfected.  I finished right before Lu came to de-stink me, so I\u2019m a pleasant-smelling puddy tat, once again.  Then I did m,y daily research, took a brief (< 1 hr.) nap, and made a pastrami on rye with horseradish for lunch.  It\u2019s now 62\u00b0, […]<\/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-20714","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\/20714","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=20714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}