{"id":30916,"date":"2017-12-30T13:13:02","date_gmt":"2017-12-30T21:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=30916"},"modified":"2017-12-30T13:13:02","modified_gmt":"2017-12-30T21:13:02","slug":"open-thread-12-30-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/30\/open-thread-12-30-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 12\/30\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s the last day of the current humidity wave.&#160; I hate feeling chilly and sweating at the same time.&#160; Tomorrow is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.&#160; My Broncos play the Chiefs, who are sitting their starters, so my guys have an outside chance.&#160; I&#8217;ll hurry along, as this weather has me big-time pooped.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 4:19 (average 6:39).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2017-12-30-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=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=B6eMnWfqDts\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCuDv5p8E-evaRSh542hDV5g\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">Inequality Media Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Robert Reich Googles Himself<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/B6eMnWfqDts?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" gesture=\"media\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Normally I don&#8217;t put up fundraising vids, but this one had so much interesting info about the Reich on the left that is right that I made an exception. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2017\/12\/28\/1728185\/-Collins-is-still-lying-to-the-people-of-Maine-about-her-tax-bill-vote\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>Hats off to the people of Maine for their unrelenting pressure on Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) for putting partisanship over people with her vote to give the Republican donor class upward of $2 trillion in tax cuts, while also eliminating health insurance for some 13 million people. Her efforts at self-defense have been at best <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2017\/12\/11\/1723308\/-Susan-Collins-Dupe-or-liar-after-her-tax-bill-vote\" target=\"_blank\">naive<\/a>, at worst duplicitous, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2017\/12\/20\/1726256\/-Susan-Collins-tries-to-MeToo-her-way-out-of-her-tax-bill-debacle\" target=\"_blank\">downright shameless<\/a> to boot. Now that the vote is over and her constituents are rightly enraged at her, she&#8217;s taking another stab at it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/2017\/12\/27\/sen-susan-collins-new-tax-law-will-benefit-hardworking-mainers-not-washington-elites\/\" target=\"_blank\">penning an op-ed<\/a> in the Press Herald in which she decides to fall back on lying.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I supported this legislation because it will help lower-income and middle-income families keep more of their hard-earned money, boost the economy and encourage businesses, both small and large, to grow and create jobs here in Maine and around the country.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Look, the people of Maine just aren&#8217;t that dumb.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">They aren&#8217;t? Explain Paul LePage! <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/12\/29\/us\/politics\/fact-check-trump-interview.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>President Trump, in an impromptu <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/12\/28\/us\/politics\/trump-interview-excerpts.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0\">interview on Thursday with The New York Times<\/a>, rattled off at least 10 false or misleading claims about the Russia investigation, wars abroad, health care, immigration and trade. Here\u2019s an assessment.<\/p>\n<h6>He inaccurately said the claims against Paul Manafort occurred \u201cmany years ago before I ever heard of him.\u201d<\/h6>\n<p>The two men reportedly met in 2011. Paul Manafort <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/politics\/first-draft\/2016\/03\/28\/donald-trump-hires-paul-manafort-to-lead-delegate-effort\/\" target=\"_blank\">joined the Trump campaign<\/a> in March 2016, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/05\/20\/us\/politics\/paul-manafort-trump.html\" target=\"_blank\">was promoted<\/a> to campaign chairman and chief strategist that May and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/08\/20\/us\/politics\/paul-manafort-resigns-donald-trump.html\" target=\"_blank\">was ousted<\/a> that August.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Manafort <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/10\/30\/us\/politics\/special-counsel-indictments.html\">is accused<\/a> of serving as an unregistered agent of Ukraine from at least 2006 to 2015, laundering payments from 2006 to 2016 and making false statements to investigators from Nov. 23, 2016, to Feb. 10, 2017.<\/p>\n<h6>He misrepresented what a senator has said about the Russia investigation.<\/h6>\n<p>According to Mr. Trump, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, appeared \u201con television saying there is no collusion\u201d between his campaign and Russia in the 2016 election. Ms. Feinstein has said she <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/videos\/politics\/2017\/11\/05\/dianne-feinstein-trump-emails-russia-no-evidence-sotu.cnn\">has not yet<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/video\/2017\/05\/19\/feinstein_no_evidence_of_russian_collusion_with_trump_campaign_but_there_are_rumors.html\" target=\"_blank\">seen evidence<\/a> of collusion, not that the evidence shows no collusion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an open question because there\u2019s no proof yet that it\u2019s happened, and I think that proof will likely come with Mr. Mueller\u2019s investigation,\u201d she said in an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/transcript-sen-dianne-feinstein-on-face-the-nation-oct-8-2017\/\">interview<\/a> in October with CBS, referring to the special counsel overseeing the inquiry.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I shared two. Click through for the other eight Trump lies listed for that interview. <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\/1230Cartoon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"1230Cartoon\" 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=\"1230Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/1230Cartoon_thumb.jpg\" width=\"654\" height=\"354\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s the last day of the current humidity wave.&#160; I hate feeling chilly and sweating at the same time.&#160; Tomorrow is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.&#160; My Broncos play the Chiefs, who are sitting their starters, so my guys have an outside chance.&#160; I&#8217;ll hurry along, as this weather has <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/30\/open-thread-12-30-2017\/' 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-30916","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\/30916","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=30916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}