{"id":23054,"date":"2016-07-15T12:25:54","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T19:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=23054"},"modified":"2016-07-15T12:25:54","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T19:25:54","slug":"open-thread-7152016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/15\/open-thread-7152016\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread – 7\/15\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Needless to say, most of my medical mayhem free Friday was consumed with medical mayhem.  On Monday I have my long awaited initial appointment with an arthritis specialist.  I received a packet of paperwork to fill out n advance, so I spent the morning trying to read and fill out six pages of very fine print that was clearly not designed with the slightest consideration for the visually impaired.  Then I paid medical bills and household bills.  So my plans for a morning nap have evaporated into thin air.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today’s took me 3:47 (average 4:59).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a>: Over the last week, as the Republican platform committee added planks to their <\/font>ever growing platform<\/font><\/a> a pattern established itself. Again and again, libertarian forces in the party raised objections to the parts of the platform that drove Republicans ever deeper into social extremism. Again and again, the libertarians lost.<\/font><\/font> <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, every time extremists on the right put forward a new idea, whether it was Bundy-esque demands on federal land or gratuitous attacks on President Obama, the plank was accepted. The result is a document that\u2019s far to the right of the 2012 platform, decades out of sync with social reality,<\/font> and<\/font> enormously intolerant.<\/font><\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

If makes pseudo-Christian dogma a legislative guide, calls for teaching the Bible in public schools, calls for appointing judges who will elevate pseudo-Christian dogma above the Constitution, bars transgender people from public rest rooms, re-legalizes the use of forced conversion therapy for gay teens, builds the Rump Dump wall, pledges no limit on magazine sizes for assault weapons, plans to sell off National Parks and National Forests for fracking and coal mining, calls for overturning Roe v, Wade, and calls coal a source of clean energy. What a conglomeration of Caca!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: On "The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert Thursday, Bill Maher, host of "Real Time With Bill Maher" did not mince words when asked about the tragedies of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and the Dallas Police officers last week. <\/font><\/p>\n

Bill Maher began the discussion with Colbert by admitting he’s a \u201cbit of a cynic\u201d who believes \u201ccivilization is a mile wide and an inch deep,\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

Bill said something I have said often, and that is that the thin blue line mentality is a major problem in police culture. The people police have failed to police is their fellow officers. Unless that happens, there will be more Dallas tragedies.  They won’t be justified or justifiable, but as long as the injustice of good cops covering up for racist cops persists, the tragedies will happen.<\/font><\/p>\n

From CNN: Donald Trump said Friday Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is his choice to be his running mate. <\/font><\/p>\n

"I am pleased to announce that I have chosen Governor Mike Pence as my Vice Presidential running mate. News conference tomorrow at 11:00 A.M.," the presumptive Republican nominee tweeted.<\/font> <\/p>\n

I expected this. Pence is a lackey of the Theocon faction of the Republican Party and should serve to help shore up the Presumptive Rectum’s support among Talibangicals who hate gays, Muslims and Women’s rights. He also has a penchant for TEAbuggery and sucking Koch.  I guess that makes him the Presumptive Vice Rectum of the Republican Reich.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

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Needless to say, most of my medical mayhem free Friday was consumed with medical mayhem.  On Monday I have my long awaited initial appointment with an arthritis specialist.  I received a packet of paperwork to fill out n advance, so I spent the morning trying to read and fill out six pages of very fine […]<\/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-23054","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\/23054","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=23054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}