{"id":28805,"date":"2017-07-31T07:26:31","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T14:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=28805"},"modified":"2017-07-31T07:26:31","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T14:26:31","slug":"open-thread-7312017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/31\/open-thread-7312017\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread – 7\/31\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eye torture day.  I’m in a big rush.  I’ll comment when I return, if I can.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today’s took me 3:18 (average 4:32).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>A little more than a year after the Russian effort to interfere in the American presidential election came to light, the diplomatic fallout \u2014 an unraveling of the relationship between Moscow and Washington on a scale not seen in decades \u2014 is taking its toll.<\/p>\n

President Vladimir V. Putin bet that Donald J. Trump, who had spoken fondly of Russia and its authoritarian leader for years, would treat his nation as Mr. Putin has longed to have it treated by the West. That is, as the superpower it once was, or at least a major force to be reckoned with, from Syria to Europe, and boasting a military revived after two decades of neglect.<\/p>\n

That bet has now backfired, spectacularly. If the sanctions overwhelmingly passed by Congress last week sent any message to Moscow, it was that Mr. Trump\u2019s hands are now tied in dealing with Moscow, probably for years to come.<\/p>\n

House and Senate Republicans got their quid<\/em>, when the Fuhrer took the White House. They don’t care if Putin [R-RU] gets his quo<\/em>. Trump [R-RU] signed the bill, only because he knew Congress would override a veto. Passing sanctions helps Republican legislators hide their seditious participation in covering-up Trump’s Treason. RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Washington Post<\/a>: <\/font>Even if they weren’t able to snuff out Obamacare, Republicans appear determined to ensure its marketplaces accelerate their meltdown.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, President Trump castigated the Senate for failing to pass multiple versions of legislation repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act, despite a marathon health-care debate that spanned four days last week. The president has few options left at this point, but he does have power over one crucial part of the ACA marketplaces: payments covering cost-sharing discounts (or CSRs) that insurers must offer to the lowest-income customers. These payments are estimated<\/a> to total $7 billion this year — making up about 15 percent of all federal subsidies on which marketplace plans are counting.<\/p>\n

At this moment, it’s up to the administration whether to make the monthly CSR payments to insurers. So far, it has delivered them around the 20th of each month. But the president tweeted on Saturday that he’s considering withholding the next batch (presumably in August), if Republicans don’t find a way to mov past their seemingly insurmountable gridlock on health care:<\/p>\n

Click Through. I would hope the insurers could sue the Reich. Howl, Protesters! Howl! RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0731Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eye torture day.  I’m in a big rush.  I’ll comment when I return, if I can. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today’s took me 3:18 (average 4:32).  To do it, click here.  How did you do? Short Takes: From NY Times: A little more than a year after the Russian effort to interfere in the American presidential […]<\/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-28805","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\/28805","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=28805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}