{"id":28383,"date":"2017-07-04T12:31:26","date_gmt":"2017-07-04T19:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=28383"},"modified":"2017-07-04T15:47:58","modified_gmt":"2017-07-04T22:47:58","slug":"open-thread-742017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/04\/open-thread-742017\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread – 7\/4\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

The heat wave is back with highs forecast of 86\u00b0 today, 93\u00b0 tomorrow, and 91\u00b0 Thursday.\u00a0 A pipe broke in the only handicapped bathroom that is safe and easy for me to transfer, when I’m not wearing George.\u00a0 It’s now out of order.\u00a0 I hope they fix it before the weekend.\u00a0 It’s a\u00a0 major pain.\u00a0 I want to try to get some sleep this afternoon, as fireworks will keep me up tonight.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Today’s took me 6:14 (average 6:11).\u00a0 To do it, click here<\/a>.\u00a0 How did you do?<\/span><\/p>\n

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

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/span>Don’t Call It the Trump Administration\u2014This Is a Regime<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump has no desire or intention to govern. He wants to rule and make his word our command.<\/p>\n

I disagree. The Trump Administration is not a regime. It’s a Reich. RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/span>In Arizona\u2014where Confederate monuments continue to be on public display<\/a> despite pleas from residents to have them removed\u2014a trial over whether state Republicans intentionally discriminated against Latino students by ending a Mexican-American studies program in public schools started last week<\/a>. Commemorating history is fine so long as it\u2019s white history, apparently:<\/p>\n

The Arizona trial strikes at the issue of how to teach students about race and social injustice in public schools that often exemplify the country\u2019s inequality. After Arizona conservatives moved to eliminate the classes, Hispanic educators and activists have come to Tucson to champion the battle over ethnic studies as one of the country\u2019s most pressing and under-the-radar civil rights issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was an innovative program, your honor,\u201d Jim Quinn, a lawyer representing Tucson students, told Judge Tashmina. \u201cIt was snuffed out for all the wrong reasons.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The program\u2019s proponents have argued that the course was instrumental in boosting both grades and self-worth of Latino students, with research showing \u201cthe program\u2019s students graduated at higher rates and performed better on state tests.\u201d But Republican state legislators, seeking a safe space from brown people, were having none of that, in 2010 \u201cpassing a law prohibiting classes that encouraged the overthrow of the U.S. government; encouraged racial resentment; treated students as members of a group rather than individuals; or were aimed at a specific ethnicity.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can understand why Alaska does not offer Mexican-American studies, but around 30% of Arizona’s population is Latino. Banning it there is just an act of Republican Racism. RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n

From Politico<\/a>: <\/span>The American War of Independence was fought from April 19, 1775 (Lexington and Concord) to September 3, 1783 (the Peace of Paris), and although Massachusetts and some other states observe the first of those dates as Patriots\u2019 Day, neither has become a national holiday. It\u2019s July 4, of course, that reigns as our undisputed Independence Day\u2014the occasion for picnics and parades, festivities and fireworks, and star-spangled, red-white-and-blue kitsch. That was when the representatives at the Second Continental Congress, the 13 colonies\u2019 newly formed governing body, signed the Declaration of Independence, our nation\u2019s founding document, which is still often read aloud, 241 years later, at July 4 celebrations across the land.<\/p>\n

Since 1776, the Declaration of Independence has assumed a near-biblical status in America\u2019s national mythology\u2014its opening paragraphs memorized by schoolchildren, its formulation of liberal principles of equality and self-government venerated by citizens of all political stripes. It still provides a trump card for its chief author, Thomas Jefferson, who in recent years has been increasingly scorned for the libertarian elements of his thought and for his slaveholding.<\/p>\n

But in truth the Declaration wasn\u2019t quite the singular achievement we remember it to be. As it turns out, nearly 100 other \u201cdeclarations of independence\u201d had already been issued in the months leading up to July 4th, 1776, by states, towns, counties, and assorted other bodies. The Declaration of Independence endorsed at the Continental Congress that July wasn\u2019t a bolt out of the blue: It was more like a final draft in a loose, many-centered, wide-ranging process, authored not by one man but by a chorus of voices in a fledgling nation whose people had caught independence fever and were suddenly proclaiming it with contagious enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

I didn’t know that. I declare independence from Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten! RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\"0704Cartoon\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The heat wave is back with highs forecast of 86\u00b0 today, 93\u00b0 tomorrow, and 91\u00b0 Thursday.\u00a0 A pipe broke in the only handicapped bathroom that is safe and easy for me to transfer, when I’m not wearing George.\u00a0 It’s now out of order.\u00a0 I hope they fix it before the weekend.\u00a0 It’s a\u00a0 major pain.\u00a0 […]<\/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-28383","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\/28383","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=28383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}