{"id":26199,"date":"2017-02-07T10:00:26","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T18:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=26199"},"modified":"2017-02-07T10:00:26","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T18:00:26","slug":"open-thread-272017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/07\/open-thread-272017\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 2\/7\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">These last few days sure have been busy, and I hope that I can finally get the data collection&#160; and graphics for January&#8217;s report done later in the day.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:00 (average 4:53).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2017-02-07-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4bwj_CGFaEU\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/GQVideos\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">GQ Channel<\/a>): <\/font>The 50 Craziest Things Trump Has Done As President | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/4bwj_CGFaEU?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">If Keith could go longer without breathing, he could have made it 500. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/the-gop-has-turned-against-democracy-and-neil-gorsuch-is-their-champion-81045b50f5eb#.33syouu85\" target=\"_blank\">Think Progress<\/a>: \\<\/font>Authoritarianism\u201d is one of the most misunderstood words in America today.<\/p>\n<p>As Cornell government professor Thomas Pepinsky writes, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/the-big-idea\/2017\/1\/9\/14207302\/authoritarian-states-boring-tolerable-fascism-trump\" target=\"_blank\">authoritarian nations rarely resemble Nazi Germany<\/a>. People don\u2019t necessarily live in fear of a secret police, or even fear that there will be consequences for dissent. Rather, the dividing line between democracy and authoritarianism comes down to something much more basic: \u201cyou know that you are no longer living in a democracy because the elections in which you are participating no longer can yield political change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By this definition, there is a thick cord of authoritarianism winding its way around the Republican Party.<\/p>\n<p>Think of the <a href=\"https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/how-republicans-plan-to-rig-the-next-presidential-election-in-six-pictures-ad7bf62177eb#.ddhuoysaw\">gerrymanders<\/a>. The <a href=\"https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/north-carolina-didnt-tell-the-supreme-court-the-truth-about-its-voter-suppression-law-787d337d32a8#.p9xmqexnr\" target=\"_blank\">voter suppression laws<\/a>. The <a href=\"https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/appeals-court-rick-scotts-voter-purge-was-illegal-b053031d9c32#.oeki5ld6z\" target=\"_blank\">voter purges<\/a>. The lawsuits <a href=\"https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/dont-take-that-lawsuit-donald-trump-just-filed-seriously-18d4fc1f03df#.j2jhvvqa7\" target=\"_blank\">asking courts to toss out ballots<\/a>. None of these cancel elections outright, or even prevent most Democrats from participating in elections. But they make it much less likely that voters who are dissatisfied with Republican governance can bring about political change.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Those of you that have known me for years know that, as long as you have known me I have said that what Republicans do can always be explained by one of their two defining goals. One is the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the super-rich. The other is the establishment of a permanent totalitarian Republican Reich, a fascist plutocracy in which elections exist for show only, because Republicans control who votes and how the votes are counted. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/02\/07\/watch-stephen-colbert-admits-that-he-is-a-bowling-green-massacre-truther\/\" target=\"_blank\">Salon.com<\/a>: <\/font>\u201cThe Late Show\u201d host Stephen Colbert agrees with President Trump: Just because the Bowling Green massacre never happened, doesn\u2019t mean the media should be ignoring it.<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/imKdxHCaCds?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Where were you, when you didn&#8217;t hear nothing happened? <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/0207Cartoon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0207Cartoon\" 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=\"0207Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/0207Cartoon_thumb.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These last few days sure have been busy, and I hope that I can finally get the data collection&#160; and graphics for January&#8217;s report done later in the day. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&#8217;s took me 3:00 (average 4:53).&#160; To do it, click here.&#160; How did you do? Short Takes: From YouTube (GQ Channel): The 50 <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/07\/open-thread-272017\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26199","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\/26199","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=26199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}