{"id":27609,"date":"2017-05-19T11:47:19","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T18:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=27609"},"modified":"2017-05-19T11:47:19","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T18:47:19","slug":"open-thread-5192017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/19\/open-thread-5192017\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread – 5\/19\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had almost no sleep last night.  The building overheated yesterday, and I had to turn on the AC.  The noise bothered me.  In addition, Stumpy had a severe bout of phantom nerve pain, so please accept my apology in advance for typos and brain farts.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today’s took me 3:42 (average 5:13).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>House Speaker Paul Ryan has set a Google News alert to notify him of the instant that Donald Trump becomes unpopular enough to turn against, Ryan revealed on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The news alert, which Ryan said was set to the phrase \u201cTrump approval rating falls below fifty per cent among Republican voters,\u201d will inform the House Speaker of the precise moment \u201cthat I can bail on President Trump at no political cost to me,\u201d Ryan explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this sense out there in the media that Washington is consumed by drama and nothing is getting done,\u201d Ryan told reporters. \u201cI think it\u2019s important for people to know that important things are, in fact, getting done, and setting this Google News alert is one of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked by a reporter when he anticipated turning on Trump, Ryan dismissed that as a hypothetical question, adding, \u201cThere is no timetable for my inevitable betrayal of him. Once I receive that Google News alert, it will most likely happen a split second after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dang Andy! That sounds like you know Lyin’ Ryan personally! RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>President Trump called the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, weeks after he took office and asked him when federal authorities were going to put out word that Mr. Trump was not personally under investigation, according to two people briefed on the call.<\/p>\n

Mr. Comey told the president that if he wanted to know details about the bureau\u2019s investigations, he should not contact him directly but instead follow the proper procedures and have the White House counsel send any inquiries to the Justice Department, according to those people.<\/p>\n

After explaining to Mr. Trump how communications with the F.B.I. should work, Mr. Comey believed he had effectively drawn the line after a series of encounters he had with the president and other White House officials that he felt jeopardized the F.B.I.\u2019s independence. At the time, Mr. Comey was overseeing the investigation into links between Mr. Trump\u2019s associates and Russia.<\/p>\n

Those interactions included a dinner<\/a> in which associates of Mr. Comey say Mr. Trump asked him to pledge his loyalty and a meeting in the Oval Office at which Mr. Trump told him<\/a> he hoped Mr. Comey would shut down an investigation into Mr. Trump\u2019s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. Mr. Trump has denied making the request.<\/p>\n

The day after the Flynn conversation, Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, asked Mr. Comey to help push back on reports in the news media that Mr. Trump\u2019s associates had been in contact with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign.<\/p>\n

More kudos to Mike Schmidt!  Drip\u2026 Drip\u2026 Drip\u2026 RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From CNN<\/a>: <\/font>There are people in Washington who would be happy to see Joe Lieberman return to public life. They just don’t happen to be members of the party that once nominated him for the second highest office in the land.<\/p>\n

That’s what happens when you commit partisan treason.Lieberman, a longtime Democratic senator, became a pariah in his own party in 2008 when he not only endorsed the presidential bid of his GOP buddy, John McCain, but lambasted his own party’s nominee, Barack Obama, during a speech at the Republican Convention.<\/p>\n

Now, it’s Republicans, rather than Democrats, who are welcoming the news that President Donald Trump might nominate Lieberman to head the FBI. And it is Republican senators, and possibly a smattering of Democrats, who would most likely vote to confirm him.<\/p>\n

OMFG!! LIEberscum?!!? AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0519Cartoon\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had almost no sleep last night.  The building overheated yesterday, and I had to turn on the AC.  The noise bothered me.  In addition, Stumpy had a severe bout of phantom nerve pain, so please accept my apology in advance for typos and brain farts. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today’s took me 3:42 (average 5:13).  […]<\/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-27609","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\/27609","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=27609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}