{"id":21306,"date":"2016-04-16T12:57:54","date_gmt":"2016-04-16T19:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=21306"},"modified":"2016-04-16T12:57:54","modified_gmt":"2016-04-16T19:57:54","slug":"open-thread-4162016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/16\/open-thread-4162016\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–4\/16\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m waiting for Julie to come fore my first appointment with her.  My appointment yesterday went poorly.  In less than five tears my nevus has grown from nothing to 3.6mm and thick, so the Retinal Ophthalmologist thinks that I have a 75% chance that it\u2019s a choroidal melanoma, and is referring me to the two specialists at Casey Eye Institute that do nothing else.  You\u2019ll know more when I do.  tomorrow my articles may be late or missing, because I can\u2019t do anything else before my taxes are done.  Later:  Julie came.  She\u2019s fantastic.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 2:55 (average 4:51).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>The Senate Republicans’ most vulnerable member is running awfully hard away from his party, as he runs for reelection. Illinois’ Mark Kirk is running furiously from his party<\/a>, now that voters are actually paying attention in race against Democrat Tammy Duckworth.<\/p>\n

\n

Kirk is one of just two outliers in the Senate GOP Conference on whether the chamber should vote on Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court this year and has bent over backward to show he disagrees with his fellow Republicans. Aside from telling other Republicans to "man up" and vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee, Kirk has circulated memos to Republicans touting Garland and boasted about a personal note from Obama thanking Kirk for advocating for his nominee. <\/p>\n

Just this week, Kirk co-sponsored a criminal justice reform bill that would loosen some mandatory minimum sentences, despite complaints within the GOP that it would unwittingly release violent criminals early from prison. And he joined with five of the most liberal senators to urge the NBA to move<\/a> its 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte, North Carolina, in response to the state’s controversial new law that bans anti-discrimination protections for gay and transgender people. [\u2026]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He’s so full of Republican, that his eyes are brown. Before election season, Kirk was goose-stepping with the Reich, and if elected, he will be again. Yay Tammy Duckworth!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>It was the sort of question \u2014 Does Israel have a right to defend itself as it sees fit? \u2014 that had often caused candidates, especially those with designs on winning a primary in New York, to produce paeans to the strength of the Israeli-American relationship and a stream of pro-Israel orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

But Senator Bernie Sanders<\/a> dug in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere comes a time when if we pursue justice and peace, we are going to have to say that Netanyahu is not right all of the time,\u201d Mr. Sanders said, referring to the Israeli prime minister, amid cheers from the crowd at Thursday\u2019s Democratic debate<\/a> in Brooklyn. He added: \u201cAll that I am saying is we cannot continue to be one-sided. There are two sides to the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

I agree with Bernie 100%. Sadly, Most liberal US Jews, are ultra-conservative on maintaining an "Israel. Right or wrong" stance. J Street supporters, Jews who recognize Bibi as the butcher he is, are far too few and far between. Sadly, Bernie’s integrity will cost him dearly in NY, but I admire and commend him for it.<\/font><\/p>\n

From TPM<\/a>: <\/font>Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders enjoyed a visit with Pope Francis Saturday during his trip to the Vatican. <\/p>\n

According to NBC News,<\/a> Sanders met with the pope just outside the Vatican’s breakfast room at 6 a.m. The New York Times<\/a> reported the meeting lasted just five minutes.<\/p>\n

"In terms of economic justice, the need to combat climate change \u2014 nobody in the world has been more profound and articulate than the pope, and I’m delighted to go forward with him on those issues," Sanders told NBC News. <\/p>\n

So, is Francis feeling the BERN?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0416Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m waiting for Julie to come fore my first appointment with her.  My appointment yesterday went poorly.  In less than five tears my nevus has grown from nothing to 3.6mm and thick, so the Retinal Ophthalmologist thinks that I have a 75% chance that it\u2019s a choroidal melanoma, and is referring me to the two […]<\/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-21306","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\/21306","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=21306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}