{"id":31820,"date":"2018-03-19T12:55:59","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T19:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=31820"},"modified":"2018-03-19T12:55:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T19:55:59","slug":"open-thread-3-19-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/19\/open-thread-3-19-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 3\/19\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It&#8217;s another busy day, here at the CatBox.&#160; Yesterday, WWWendy and I fixed the power chair.&#160; It went smoothly for the most part, but these things are always more of a struggle than what is shown in the instructional video.&#160; We could not find my lock-tight, so we&#8217;ll need do redo some of the work.&#160; Tomorrow, I will have a annual reevaluation visit from my case worker for Oregon assistance for disabled seniors.&#160; The state subsidizes about 15% of what I pay WWWendy.&#160; Every little bit helps.&#160; It should not interfere my writing.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzles<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:13 (average 4:59).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2018-03-19-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=D5UPmAcGf3k\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/CNN\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">CNN Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Putin wins 6 more years in power, exit polls show<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/D5UPmAcGf3k?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Americans should know more about the true head of the Republican Reich! This is the first election Putin (R-RU) has won since 11\/8\/2016. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/elections\/democrats-hold-double-digit-lead-2018-midterm-elections-n857466\" target=\"_blank\">NBC News<\/a>: <\/font>Democrats enjoy a 10-point advantage over Republicans in congressional preference for the 2018 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/first-read\/republicans-are-selling-wrong-messages-pennsylvania-n856871\" target=\"_blank\">midterm elections<\/a>, even as President Donald Trump&#8217;s job approval rating has ticked up, the latest national NBC News\/Wall Street Journal poll finds.<\/p>\n<p>Fifty percent of registered voters say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, while 40 percent want a GOP-controlled one.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">That isn&#8217;t good enough. We need to raise that to 60 &#8211; 30. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/robertreich.org\/post\/171972207570\" target=\"_blank\">Robert Reich<\/a>: <\/font>Trump is moving into a new and more dangerous phase.<\/p>\n<p>Before, he was constrained by a few \u201cadults\u201d \u2013 Rex Tillerson, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly \u2013 whom he appointed because he thought they had some expertise he lacked.<\/p>\n<p>Now he\u2019s either fired or is in the process of removing the adults. He\u2019s replacing them with a Star Wars cantina of toadies and sycophants who will reflect back at him his own glorious view of himself, and help sell it on TV.<\/p>\n<p>Narcissists are dangerous because they think only about themselves. Megalomaniacs are dangerous because they think only about their power and invincibility. A narcissistic megalomaniac who\u2019s unconstrained \u2013 and who\u2019s also president of the United States \u2013 is about as dangerous as they come.<\/p>\n<p>The man who once said he could shoot someone dead on Fifth Avenue and still be elected president now openly boasts of lying to the Canadian Prime Minister, deciding on his own to negotiate mano a mano with North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un, unilaterally slapping tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, and demanding the death penalty for drug dealers.<\/p>\n<p>For weeks, Trump has been pulling big policy pronouncements out of his derriere and then leaving it up to the White House to improvise explanations and implementation plans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrump is increasingly flying solo,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.umblr.com\/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fpolitics%2Fin-the-tough-times-trump-goes-it-alone%2F2018%2F03%2F10%2Fab4f1404-2425-11e8-946c-9420060cb7bd_story.html%3Futm_term%3D.c7c193504377&amp;t=NTVmYWQzZTBlZGZmNDU3OTcxZDgxYzNhNjA5MWFlYWNmYTI1ZDAxYSxHNUUzemlGdg%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AhQ9Ds4P3Iv6D7mgEr8WMqg&amp;p=http%3A%2F%2Frobertreich.org%2Fpost%2F171972207570&amp;m=1\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a> the Associated Press\u2019 Catherine Lucey and Jonathan Lemire. \u201cTrump has told confidants recently that he wants to be less reliant on his staff, believing they often give bad advice, and that he plans to follow his own instincts, which he credits with his stunning election.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump has always had faith in his instincts. \u201cI\u2019m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I\u2019ve said a lot of things,\u201d he <a href=\"https:\/\/t.umblr.com\/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com%2Fblogs%2F2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results%2F2016%2F03%2Ftrump-foreign-policy-adviser-220853&amp;t=NzIzZDBjOTZkYTE3NDdkYzk3NWIwOTJkZGFjYWM0MTJhOGEyM2VlYyxHNUUzemlGdg%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AhQ9Ds4P3Iv6D7mgEr8WMqg&amp;p=http%3A%2F%2Frobertreich.org%2Fpost%2F171972207570&amp;m=1\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> on the campaign trail. &quot;I\u2019m a very instinctual person, but my instinct turns out to be right,\u201c <a href=\"https:\/\/t.umblr.com\/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F4710456%2Fdonald-trump-time-interview-truth-falsehood%2F&amp;t=ZjRmYzljZjZlOGRkMTg0MTU3Y2QyZjY1ZTVhYjdmMjgwODJjMDMwNCxHNUUzemlGdg%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AhQ9Ds4P3Iv6D7mgEr8WMqg&amp;p=http%3A%2F%2Frobertreich.org%2Fpost%2F171972207570&amp;m=1\" target=\"_blank\">he told<\/a> Time Magazine last year.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The Reich on the left is right. Click through to read the rest. <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\/03\/0319Cartoon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0319Cartoon\" 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=\"0319Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/0319Cartoon_thumb.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s another busy day, here at the CatBox.&#160; Yesterday, WWWendy and I fixed the power chair.&#160; It went smoothly for the most part, but these things are always more of a struggle than what is shown in the instructional video.&#160; We could not find my lock-tight, so we&#8217;ll need do redo some of the work.&#160; <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/19\/open-thread-3-19-2018\/' 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-31820","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\/31820","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=31820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}