{"id":28704,"date":"2017-07-24T13:27:42","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T20:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=28704"},"modified":"2017-07-24T13:59:49","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T20:59:49","slug":"open-thread-7242017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/24\/open-thread-7242017\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread – 7\/24\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s another 90\u00b0 day with 50% humidity.  I never thought I’d say that I’m ready for winter, and I’m really not sure.  Before global Republication caused the climate to change, Oregon had blissfully moderate weather year round.  Now summer is too hot, winter is too cold, and spring and fall last less time than a fart smells.  OGIM!  (Oh God It’s Monday!)<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today’s took me 4:05 (average 5:14).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>All is not well in Republicanville. No matter how slavish the Fox News segments become, it ain’t working; it is slowly dawning on powerful Republicans that the president they are so dutifully protecting and sucking up to may, in fact, be an idiot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Trump\u2019s struggles go beyond health care. More than six months into Trump\u2019s presidency, Republicans have no legislative accomplishments other than the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, a confusing foreign policy, and a White House that is perpetually in damage-control mode. From lawmakers and governors to donors and foreign policy experts, a certain realization is sinking in within the party, based on more than a dozen interviews in recent days: Donald Trump has been a historically weak and ineffective president.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That it took six months to start wondering whether the man who talked about grabbing women, who discussed his penis size during a presidential debate, who sent his press secretary to baldly lie about the size of the crowds on his inauguration day, and who is currently engaged in a public defense of his campaign team openly seeking the assistance of the Russian government during a period of unprecedented assault on our election systems by that government, is perhaps not the brilliant world-shaping genius he made himself out to be.<\/p>\n

This is the problem with the Republican Party. They don’t catch on too quick.<\/p>\n

I disagree with this author. I think they knew he was an idiot from square one. They just don’t care, or even welcome the distraction his idiocy brings to voters, as long as they get to gut the safety net and steal billions from the poor and middle classes to fund welfare for billionaires. RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From CNN<\/a>: <\/font>Democrats will unveil an economic agenda Monday that leaders hope will bring together the progressive wing of their party and Democrats who voted for President Donald Trump, creating a united front and platform ahead of next year’s midterm elections.<\/p>\n

The plan — under the slogan "A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future" — is a three-pronged approach that focuses on improving wages, lowering costs of everyday expenses and boosting job-training opportunities.<\/p>\n

Top Democrats will release the agenda Monday at an event in Berryville, Virginia, located in the congressional district represented by Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock — a target seat that Democrats hope to flip in their favor next year.<\/p>\n

Following their party’s disastrous presidential loss in November, Democrats have been in a period of soul-searching as they seek a new message and cohesive identity in the Trump era.<\/p>\n

"The number one thing that we did wrong is we didn’t have — we didn’t tell people what we stood for," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday in an interview on ABC’s "This Week."<\/p>\n

In this rare instance, Schumer is right. Democratic leaders were too busy railing against what we stand against to present what we stand for effectively. I think it’s a good idea, but I’ll reserve judgment, until I actually see what’s in the plan. Regardless, it will be better than the Republican plan: right to life that ends at birth, hate for all but Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians, and welfare for billionaires. RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Media Matters<\/a>: <\/font>Pro-Trump internet trolls claimed that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was a "terrorist organization" and compared the group to Nazis after ADL identified some of the biggest online personalities of the \u201calt-right\u201d and \u201calt-lite\u201d movements and called them out for spreading hateful rhetoric.<\/p>\n

The ADL recently published<\/a> a list of \u201calt-right\u201d and \u201calt-lite\u201d figures, identifying key players in both the white supremacist \u201calt-right\u201d and the fringe right-wing media landscape of media trolls and smear merchants it inspired, which the ADL called the \u201calt-lite.\u201d It included internet troll and Infowars contributor Mike Cernovich<\/a>; smear merchant Jack Posobiec<\/a>, who once received a temporary White House press pass; disgraced Breitbart provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos<\/a>; The Gateway Pundit\u2019s Lucian Wintrich<\/a>; and Rebel Media\u2019s Gavin McInnes<\/a>, using the \u201calt-lite\u201d banner to describe their prior affiliation and promotion of \u201calt-right\u201d figures and ideologies. In a Periscope live stream, Cernovich responded to the list\u2019s publication by urging<\/a> his followers to spread the hashtag \u201c#ADLTerror\u201d [Republican terrorism delinked<\/em>] on Twitter. Cernovich also called ADL \u201ca terrorist organization\u201d that had \u201ctargeted\u201d him and his family for \u201cmurder and assassination\u201d by including his name in the list.<\/p>\n

While I’m not always a big fan of ADL, because they tend to turn a blind eye, when Israeli Republicans persecute innocent Palestinians in retribution for acts of guilty ones, they did a super service to humanity by helping expose these Republican Nazis. RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0724Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s another 90\u00b0 day with 50% humidity.  I never thought I’d say that I’m ready for winter, and I’m really not sure.  Before global Republication caused the climate to change, Oregon had blissfully moderate weather year round.  Now summer is too hot, winter is too cold, and spring and fall last less time than a […]<\/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-28704","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\/28704","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=28704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}