{"id":22241,"date":"2016-06-04T15:32:47","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T22:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=22241"},"modified":"2016-06-04T15:32:47","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T22:32:47","slug":"open-thread-642016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/04\/open-thread-642016\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 6\/4\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It&#8217;s a hot day, and Julie was here.&#160; We ordered a new Service Animal Vest for Killer <em>Dawg<\/em>, shined and polished the Puddy Tat, did some housework, installed a new mouse and keyboard for the computer, and cooked and shared a big spaghetti dinner.&#160; The Portland Rose Festival is upon us, and tonight we have the Starlight Parade in high heat.&#160; The temperature may drop to 90\u00b0 by the time the parade begins a little after 8:00 PM.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 2:55 (average 4:24).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2016-06-04-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prwatch.org\/news\/2016\/05\/13111\/high-tech-gerrymandering-trial-wisconsin\" target=\"_blank\">PR Watch<\/a>: <\/font>A case that advocates hope could go up to the U.S. Supreme Court and set a new standard against partisan gerrymandering is being heard in federal court in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin this week.<\/p>\n<p>A group of Democratic Wisconsin voters are suing the State of Wisconsin, arguing that the legislative district maps drawn by GOP politicians in 2011 are so skewed and long-lasting that their voting rights were violated.<\/p>\n<p>University of Chicago Law School Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulous charged that Wisconsin\u2019s Republican party engaged in the &quot;worst gerrymander of modern American history&quot; in opening arguments today. Stephanopoulous asked the three judge federal panel to &quot;intervene to safeguard the <font color=\"#0000ff\"><font color=\"#000000\">democratic process.&quot;<\/font><font color=\"#000000\"><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The Fartfuhrer of Fitzwalkerstan and all his minions belong in cells.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2016\/6\/2\/1533764\/-The-PRESS-responds-to-Hillary-s-EPIC-speech-today-and-it-is-awesome\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>Hillary\u2019s take down today [<em>Thursday<\/em><u>]<\/u> of a befuddled Donald Trump was absolutely epic. <\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/g_wkSGLVpcE?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">As a public speaker, Hillary has never impressed me, but on this occasion, she outdid herself.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/06\/04\/opinion\/the-benghazi-committees-dead-end.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>After running a congressional oversight committee like a Republican opposition research shop for more than two years, Representative Trey Gowdy appears to be gearing up for the finale. Democrats on the Select Committee on Benghazi expect that a final report will drop soon, just as Hillary Clinton appears poised to clinch the Democratic nomination.<\/p>\n<p>If things had gone his way, Mr. Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, would have found a way to torpedo Mrs. Clinton\u2019s presidential ambitions. After all, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/politics\/first-draft\/2015\/10\/15\/another-republican-lawmaker-suggests-benghazi-inquiry-is-going-after-hillary-clinton\/?_r=0&amp;version=meter+at+1&amp;module=meter-Links&amp;pgtype=article&amp;contentId=&amp;mediaId=&amp;referrer=&amp;priority=true&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=meter-links-click\" target=\"_blank\">Republican lawmakers have admitted<\/a> that this is precisely what they set out to do.<\/p>\n<p>But things have not gone well for Mr. Gowdy, who has run the investigation with the dexterity and grace of a blindfolded toddler swinging at a pi\u00f1ata. Having pored over reams of documents, grilled Mrs. Clinton in an 11-hour session <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/05\/19\/us\/politics\/benghazi-panel-hillary-clinton-election.html?version=meter+at+1&amp;module=meter-Links&amp;pgtype=article&amp;contentId=&amp;mediaId=&amp;referrer=&amp;priority=true&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=meter-links-click\" target=\"_blank\">in October<\/a> and hauled in more than 100 people for interviews, the Republicans seem to have come up with nothing.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Could this spell the end of Benghazi Bullshit?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0604Cartoon\" 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=\"0604Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/0604Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"350\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a hot day, and Julie was here.&#160; We ordered a new Service Animal Vest for Killer Dawg, shined and polished the Puddy Tat, did some housework, installed a new mouse and keyboard for the computer, and cooked and shared a big spaghetti dinner.&#160; The Portland Rose Festival is upon us, and tonight we have <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/04\/open-thread-642016\/' 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-22241","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\/22241","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=22241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}