{"id":30925,"date":"2017-12-31T07:38:35","date_gmt":"2017-12-31T15:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=30925"},"modified":"2017-12-31T07:38:35","modified_gmt":"2017-12-31T15:38:35","slug":"open-thread-12-31-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/31\/open-thread-12-31-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 12\/31\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Wendy will be here in about 90 minutes to de-stink the sticky TomCat, help with chores, and celebrate New Years Eve with steak and taters&#160; Later, Wendy is going out for an evening of ribald debauchery, and I&#8217;m splitting my time between Ellipsoid Orb meditations and ZZZZZzzzzz.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 4:04 (average 5:59).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2017-12-31-CE2504A965A9\">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=JT9Fw-9ndMA\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/msnbcleanforward\/videos\">MSNBC Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Lawrence O\u2019Donnell on Donald Trump&#8217;s Very Bad Year<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/JT9Fw-9ndMA?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" gesture=\"media\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">We are proud to wish a Crappy New Year to Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten and every Republican in the Reich! <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/bizarre-news-stories-2017_us_5a469876e4b06d1621b89c36\">Huffington Post<\/a>: <\/font>2017 was a huge year in news: The United States got a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/trump-inaugural-speech_us_588273b3e4b096b4a231a7ad\">new president<\/a>. North Korea made <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/north-korea-missile-launch_us_5a1ddc4fe4b0dc52b029ea97\">major advances<\/a> in its nuclear program. Women <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/weinstein-effect-global_us_5a01d0e0e4b066c2c03a563b\">around the world<\/a> toppled their sexual abusers with the #MeToo movement. And everyone is suddenly talking about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/topic\/bitcoin\">bitcoin<\/a> again.<\/p>\n<p>It was also a bizarre time \u2015 a lot of weird stuff went down in the U.S. and beyond. Here are six of the strangest news stories from the past year.<\/p>\n<h6>Comey In The Curtains<\/h6>\n<p>*sigh* Where to begin with this one?<\/p>\n<p>James Comey was the director of the FBI until May, when President Donald Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/HuffPost\/videos\/455402061470613\/\" target=\"_blank\">fired him<\/a> in a stunning and highly controversial move. Under Comey, the bureau had launched an investigation into possible collusion between the Kremlin and Trump\u2019s campaign. Comey later testified that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/06\/07\/us\/politics\/james-comey-statement-testimony.html?mtrref=www.google.ca\" target=\"_blank\">the president pressured him<\/a> not to investigate certain members of his team, which Trump denies. <\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, it turns out they didn\u2019t have the greatest relationship during their few months together. <\/p>\n<p>According to a later New York Times interview with Benjamin Wittes, a friend of Comey\u2019s and the editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog, the FBI director went to notable lengths to avoid interactions with his boss. Comey, who is 6 feet 8 inches tall, reportedly told Wittes that in January 2017 he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/05\/18\/us\/politics\/james-comey-memo-fbi-trump.html?mtrref=thehill.com\" target=\"_blank\">attempted to blend into the curtains<\/a> at a White House gathering so that Trump wouldn\u2019t notice him. Apparently his dark blue suit matched the fabric.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe thought he had gotten through and not been noticed or singled out and that he was going to get away without an individual interaction,\u201d Wittes told the Times.<\/p>\n<p>But Trump not only spotted him; the president gave him a pat on the back.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I shared one of the six. Click through for the other five. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/12\/30\/us\/politics\/republicans-congress-bipartisan-senate-house.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font><strong>Republicans\u2019 2018 Resolution: Bipartisanship. Will It Last?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Senator Mitch McConnell sounded downright magnanimous in anticipation of 2018, eager to work closely with Democrats even though he had cut them out of virtually every big-ticket deliberation during 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re going to be looking for areas of bipartisan agreement because that\u2019s the way the Senate is,\u201d Mr. McConnell, the majority leader, said this month as Congress fled town for the holidays.<\/p>\n<p>The truth, as Mr. McConnell well knows, is that he has little choice. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/12\/28\/us\/politics\/roy-moore-block-election.html\" target=\"_blank\">certification of Doug Jones\u2019s victory<\/a> as the new Democratic senator from Alabama and his imminent arrival in Washington mean Mr. McConnell will be presiding over a Senate split 51 to 49 between Republicans and Democrats, a margin providing him scant room to maneuver. It will be almost impossible for congressional Republicans to do anything meaningful without at least modest support from the Democratic side.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/bipartisan_b2284.gif\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Need I say more? <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\/1231Cartoon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"1231Cartoon\" 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=\"1231Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/1231Cartoon_thumb.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wendy will be here in about 90 minutes to de-stink the sticky TomCat, help with chores, and celebrate New Years Eve with steak and taters&#160; Later, Wendy is going out for an evening of ribald debauchery, and I&#8217;m splitting my time between Ellipsoid Orb meditations and ZZZZZzzzzz. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&#8217;s took me 4:04 (average <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/31\/open-thread-12-31-2017\/' 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-30925","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\/30925","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=30925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}