{"id":31380,"date":"2018-02-09T13:06:48","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T21:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=31380"},"modified":"2018-02-09T13:06:48","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T21:06:48","slug":"open-thread-2-9-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/02\/09\/open-thread-2-9-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 2\/9\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Hopefully, last night was the last muggy night for a while, and I can catch up on some sleep.&#160; It&#8217;s a strange weekend.&#160; WWWendy has student report day at the school, where she works, until late Wednesday evening, so we need to move my shower night to Tuesday next week.&#160; To keep my showers from being two and five days apart, we&#8217;re also moving shower day to Saturday this and next weekends.&#160; So I get destunk early, with no destinking on slow Sunday.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:51 (average 5:55).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2018-02-09-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; Hoe 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=PbxqGYBnOpk\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/TheNewYorkTimes\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times Channel<\/a>): <\/font>President Trump&#8217;s Best People<\/p>\n<p><strong><font color=\"#ff0000\">Barf Bag Alert!!<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/PbxqGYBnOpk?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">All Trump&#8217;s sycophants are either criminals, or, if any are actually are any non-criminals, incompetent. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4EVxx2OSd7Y\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>: <\/font>Lawmakers&#8217; late-night showdown ends with bipartisan budget deal<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/4EVxx2OSd7Y?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The Fuhrer has signed it, so it&#8217;s a done deal.&#160; The problem with having no power, is that we need to do as much good as we can for the most people that we can, whenever we get a rare opportunity to do so, and millions will benefit from the Republican concessions.&#160; DREAMers&#8217; status is on hold, because of a court ruling.&#160; I hope we can do some good for them.&#160; As for all the military spending that we don&#8217;t like, we need to take power to change it.&#160; <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/02\/08\/opinion\/rob-porter-trump-administration-abuse.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>On Wednesday, we learned that during a 2017 background check for the former White House staff secretary Rob Porter, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2018\/02\/07\/rob-porter-wives-abuse-trump-aide\/\" target=\"_blank\">his two ex-wives both told the F.B.I.<\/a> that he had abused them. His first wife, Colbie Holderness, gave the F.B.I. a photo of her with a black eye, a result, she said, of Porter punching her in the face during a vacation in 2005. Porter\u2019s second wife, Jennifer Willoughby, <a href=\"http:\/\/apps.washingtonpost.com\/g\/documents\/politics\/read-the-emergency-protective-order-against-rob-porter\/2753\/\" target=\"_blank\">shared a 2010 emergency protective order<\/a> she\u2019d received after he punched in the glass on her door while they were separated.<\/p>\n<p>The White House chief of staff John Kelly reportedly knew about these allegations, which are said to be the reason the F.B.I. never gave Porter a full security clearance, ordinarily a prerequisite for his job. Nevertheless, Porter\u2019s past was apparently not considered a problem inside the White House until it became public. This tells us quite a bit about how seriously this administration takes violence against women.<\/p>\n<p>Even after <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-5359731\/Ex-wife-Rob-Porter-Trumps-secretary-tells-marriage.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Daily Mail broke the story<\/a>, Kelly reportedly urged Porter not to resign, though he did anyway. In the White House briefing room Wednesday, President Trump\u2019s press secretary Sarah Sanders read a statement from Porter calling his ex-wives\u2019 accounts \u201csimply false\u201d and part of a \u201ccoordinated smear campaign.\u201d In what was perhaps a rare outbreak of candor by omission, she didn\u2019t bother with a pro forma statement that the White House condemns domestic violence.<\/p>\n<p>Even if you put aside questions of morality \u2014 which most people working for Donald Trump have already done \u2014 a staff secretary who can\u2019t qualify for a security clearance because of his personal life is a serious security risk. Among other things, such a person could be subject to blackmail.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">What people fail to realize is that, in the Republican Reich, a background like Porter&#8217;s is not a liability. It&#8217;s a prerequisite. <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\/2018\/02\/0209Cartoon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0209Cartoon\" 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=\"0209Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/0209Cartoon_thumb.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It&#8217;s time for more Olympic Gay Gloves.&#160; Vice Fuhrer Pence has already trashed gay US skater Adam Rippon.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hopefully, last night was the last muggy night for a while, and I can catch up on some sleep.&#160; It&#8217;s a strange weekend.&#160; WWWendy has student report day at the school, where she works, until late Wednesday evening, so we need to move my shower night to Tuesday next week.&#160; To keep my showers from <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/02\/09\/open-thread-2-9-2018\/' 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-31380","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\/31380","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=31380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}