{"id":25235,"date":"2016-12-06T10:13:18","date_gmt":"2016-12-06T18:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=25235"},"modified":"2016-12-06T10:13:18","modified_gmt":"2016-12-06T18:13:18","slug":"open-thread-1262016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/06\/open-thread-1262016\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 12\/6\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It&#8217;s 36\u00b0 in chilly Portland with a low of 25\u00b0 forecast tonight.&#160; Fortunately the heat is working properly.&#160; I hope you survived Monday with a minimum of suffering.&#160; Today is grocery order day, but because of a Fred Meyer event, Store to Door can&#8217;t shop and deliver until Friday.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:31 (average 4:48).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2016-12-06-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Fantasy Football Report<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Here&#8217;s the latest from our own fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Scores:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"13Scores\" 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=\"13Scores\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/13Scores.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Once again, there must be a tear in the space-time continuum, because I actually won!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Standings:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"13Standings\" 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=\"13Standings\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/13Standings.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"500\" \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Congrats to Rob for leading the league.&#160; I&#8217;m still in the cellar.&#160; This coming week is the last of our regular season.&#160; After that, the top eight teams enter three weeks of playoffs.&#160; I actually have a long-shot chance of sliding into eighth place.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/?p=3289443\" target=\"_blank\">The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>In his first public statement since Donald Trump chose him to be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson said on Monday that the Bible \u201cmakes absolutely no mention of housing or urban development.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Carson said that, when Trump initially asked him to accept the post, \u201cthe first thing I did was check the Bible to see if there was anything about housing or urban development in there, and much to my dismay there was not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs you can well imagine, I did not want to be in charge of something that the Bible does not condone,\u201d he said. \u201cBut then I realized that perhaps the Lord wants me to take this job so that I can banish housing and urban development from the earth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Andy, that&#8217;s not too far from the truth. He has said that forbidding racial discrimination in housing is &quot;Communist&quot; and must be stopped.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BfpkhXTdVwI\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/GQVideos\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">GQ Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Trump is Steering Us Toward International Disaster | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/BfpkhXTdVwI?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Amen Keith! God help us!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/12\/05\/business\/media\/comet-ping-pong-pizza-shooting-fake-news-consequences.html?emc=edit_th_20161206&amp;nl=todaysheadlines&amp;nlid=31876173\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font><\/p>\n<p>Edgar M. Welch, a 28-year-old father of two from Salisbury, N.C., recently read online that Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant in northwest Washington, was harboring young children as sex slaves as part of a child-abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n<p>The articles making those allegations were widespread across the web, appearing on sites including Facebook and Twitter. Apparently concerned, Mr. Welch drove about six hours on Sunday from his home to Comet Ping Pong to see the situation for himself, according to court documents. Not long after arriving at the pizzeria, the police said, he fired from an assault-like AR-15 rifle. <a href=\"http:\/\/mpdc.dc.gov\/release\/arrest-made-assault-dangerous-weapon-gun-5000-block-connecticut-avenue-northwest\" target=\"_blank\">The police arrested him<\/a>. They found a rifle and a handgun in the restaurant. No one was hurt.<\/p>\n<p>In an arraignment on Monday, a heavily tattooed Mr. Welch, wearing a white jumpsuit and shackles, was ordered held. According to the criminal complaint, he told the authorities that he was armed to help rescue children but that he surrendered peacefully after finding no evidence that \u201cchildren were being harbored in the restaurant.\u201d He was charged with four counts, including felony assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a gun without a license outside a home or business.<\/p>\n<p>Unbeknown to Mr. Welch, what he had been reading online were fake news articles about Comet Ping Pong, which have swollen in number over time. The false articles against the pizzeria began appearing on social networks and websites in late October, not long before the presidential election, with the restaurant identified as being the headquarters for a child-trafficking ring.<\/p>\n<p>The articles were soon exposed as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/11\/21\/technology\/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">false by publications including The New York Times<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/pizzagate-shows-how-fake-news-hurts-real-people\/2016\/11\/25\/d9ee0590-b0f9-11e6-840f-e3ebab6bcdd3_story.html?utm_term=.16f3d5f644b7\" target=\"_blank\">The Washington Post<\/a> and the fact-checking website <a href=\"http:\/\/www.snopes.com\/pizzagate-conspiracy\/\">Snopes<\/a>. But the debunking did not squash the conspiracy theories about Comet Ping Pong \u2014 instead, it led to the opposite.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">For the record, Comet Ping Pong is owned by a gay man and has been used as a venue for Democratic functions. That&#8217;s why Trump&#8217;s deplorables and Alt-Right Nazis at 4chan targeted it for violence.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/1206Cartoon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"1206Cartoon\" 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=\"1206Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/1206Cartoon_thumb.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Republicans are working hard for de facto repeal.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s 36\u00b0 in chilly Portland with a low of 25\u00b0 forecast tonight.&#160; Fortunately the heat is working properly.&#160; I hope you survived Monday with a minimum of suffering.&#160; Today is grocery order day, but because of a Fred Meyer event, Store to Door can&#8217;t shop and deliver until Friday. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&#8217;s took me <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/06\/open-thread-1262016\/' 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-25235","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\/25235","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=25235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}