{"id":28309,"date":"2017-06-29T13:07:47","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T20:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=28309"},"modified":"2017-06-29T13:07:47","modified_gmt":"2017-06-29T20:07:47","slug":"open-thread-6292017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/29\/open-thread-6292017\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 6\/29\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I&#8217;m sorry to say that the heat is returning.&#160; Although today&#8217;s forecast is only 82\u00b0, the sun hit the outside wall at 6:00 AM, and by 8:00, I had to close the windows, lower the blinds, and turn on the AC.&#160; It&#8217;s another muggy day.&#160; Speaking of muggy, I put in the mug order last night.&#160; Lona&#8217;s is the first I&#8217;ve customized, since my eye cancer surgery.&#160; I hope I lined everything up right.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:17 (average 4:55).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2017-06-29-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=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\" target=\"_blank\">The Rachel Maddow Show<\/a>: <\/font><strong>Scientist says EPA asked her to change testimony to Congress<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Deborah Swackhamer, chair of the E.P.A.\u2019s Board of Scientific Counselors, talks with Rachel Maddow about the pressure she received from an EPA official to change her congressional testimony and how the EPA&#8217;s outside scientific review board has been &quot;decimated.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"500\" src=\"http:\/\/player.theplatform.com\/p\/7wvmTC\/MSNBCEmbeddedOffSite?guid=n_maddow_eswackhamer_170628\" width=\"635\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Kudos to Deborah Swackhamer. She ought to take that hammer and swack Scott Pruitt upside the head. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2017\/6\/27\/1675731\/-Pentagon-may-thank-foreign-born-recruits-for-their-service-by-deporting-theme\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>Foreign-born recruits who signed up for the military with the promise of U.S. citizenship in exchange for their service are finally getting their thanks in the form of deportation. MAGA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/checkpoint\/wp\/2017\/06\/26\/the-pentagon-promised-citizenship-to-immigrants-who-served-now-it-might-help-deport-them\/?tid=sm_tw&amp;utm_term=.139f71b63503\" target=\"_blank\">According to a new report<\/a>, the Pentagon is considering ending the contracts of a large number of foreign-born recruits in the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest program\u2014which puts service members with foreign-language and other speciality [sic] skills on an expedited path to citizenship\u2014due to an \u201covertasked vetting process and heightened security risk.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>But according to one former official, this can be something as innocuous as having a foreign relative, which would be expected of a foreign-born applicant in the first place. And due to the fact that the federal government already has so much of their personal information on file, many of these recruits would be \u201cprime targets\u201d for immediate deportation.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, \u201cThank you for your service. Now get out\u201d<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">These people served our country honorably and in good faith.&#160; It&#8217;s disgusting that Republican racists don&#8217;t consider promises made to folks they call mud-people binding. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/06\/28\/us\/politics\/trump-nominee-steven-bradbury-bush-era-torture-memos.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>President Trump\u2019s nominee for general counsel of the Transportation Department, Steven G. Bradbury [Pig delinked], is coming under fire by Democrats and human rights advocates for his role in providing legal blessing for waterboarding and other torture techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency on terrorism suspects during the administration of George W. Bush.<\/p>\n<p>Amid interruptions by anti-torture protesters at his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commerce.senate.gov\/public\/index.cfm\/hearings?ID=8D133D9B-8968-496B-AB08-D6943D7B2D4C\" target=\"_blank\">confirmation hearing<\/a> on Wednesday before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Democrats grilled Mr. Bradbury about interrogation memos he wrote as head of the Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel during Mr. Bush\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou lacked the judgment to stand up and say what is morally right when pressured by the president of the United States, and I\u2019m afraid you would do so again,\u201d said Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, who wagged her finger at Mr. Bradbury and accused him of having a dangerous \u201crubber stamp\u201d mentality. \u201cI cannot oppose this nomination strongly enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Like Tammy, I cannot oppose the appointment of a Republican War Criminal strongly enough, <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0629Cartoon\" 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=\"0629Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/0629Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"420\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m sorry to say that the heat is returning.&#160; Although today&#8217;s forecast is only 82\u00b0, the sun hit the outside wall at 6:00 AM, and by 8:00, I had to close the windows, lower the blinds, and turn on the AC.&#160; It&#8217;s another muggy day.&#160; Speaking of muggy, I put in the mug order last <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/29\/open-thread-6292017\/' 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-28309","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\/28309","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=28309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}