{"id":30628,"date":"2017-12-08T13:36:43","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T21:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=30628"},"modified":"2017-12-08T13:36:43","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T21:36:43","slug":"open-thread-12-8-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/08\/open-thread-12-8-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 12\/8\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The sun only hit the wall for an hour today, so it&#8217;s a chilly day.&#160; Portland is in an inversion, so the air is overly polluted, and it&#8217;s setting off my COPD.&#160; TGIF!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 2:55 (average 5:40).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2017-12-08-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?&#160; If I win, some other puddy tat may have that bird.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tR7sTciOVjI\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/karinmoveon\/videos?disable_polymer=true\" target=\"_blank\">MoveOn Channel<\/a>): <\/font><\/p>\n<p>Appalachian Grandma<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/tR7sTciOVjI?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" gesture=\"media\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Amen Granny! The false god of Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians, the opposite of real authentic Christians, has horns and a pitchfork. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/12\/07\/us\/michael-slager-sentence-walter-scott.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Michael T. Slager, the white police officer whose video-recorded <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/04\/08\/us\/south-carolina-officer-is-charged-with-murder-in-black-mans-death.html\" target=\"_blank\">killing of an unarmed black motorist<\/a> in North Charleston, S.C., starkly illustrated the turmoil over racial bias in American policing, was sentenced on Thursday to 20 years in prison, after the judge in the case said he viewed the shooting as a murder.<\/p>\n<p>The sentence, which was within the range of federal guidelines, was pronounced in Federal District Court in Charleston about seven months after Mr. Slager pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of Walter L. Scott when he shot and killed him in April 2015. The case against Mr. Slager is one of the few instances in which a police officer has been prosecuted for an on-duty shooting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have to get this type of justice, because being a police officer is one of the most powerful jobs in the country, and it should be respected,\u201d L. Chris Stewart, a lawyer for Mr. Scott\u2019s family, said after the hearing, which was punctuated by tears and grief. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re above the law. That doesn\u2019t mean you can do as you please.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">This is an all too rare win for justice against deadly abuses of power by the thin blue line. I hope that Slager takes advantage of prison programs to help him correct the criminal thinking that empowers his Republican authoritarianism and Republican Racism. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/news-amp-politics\/former-colorado-republican-party-chairman-found-guilty-voter-fraud-he-tried-blame\" target=\"_blank\">Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>Steve Curtis, the former chairman of the Colorado GOP, has been found guilty of voter fraud for forging his ex-wife\u2019s signature on a ballot.<\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2017\/12\/07\/steve-curtis-voter-fraud-conviction\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Denver Post<\/a> reports, Curtis may face up to three years in prison for forging his ex-wife\u2019s signature on a Colorado ballot in November 2016 after she\u2019d moved to South Carolina in 2015. He was arrested in February after handwriting analysis and DNA testing revealed he\u2019d committed the forgery.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Isn&#8217;t it ironic that, contrary to Republican claims, voter fraud virtually never happens, but when it does, the perpetrator are virtually always Republicans? <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/1208Cartoon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"1208Cartoon\" 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=\"1208Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/1208Cartoon_thumb.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The sun only hit the wall for an hour today, so it&#8217;s a chilly day.&#160; Portland is in an inversion, so the air is overly polluted, and it&#8217;s setting off my COPD.&#160; TGIF!! Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&#8217;s took me 2:55 (average 5:40).&#160; To do it, click here.&#160; How did you do?&#160; If I win, some <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/08\/open-thread-12-8-2017\/' 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-30628","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\/30628","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=30628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}