{"id":32007,"date":"2018-04-01T12:17:33","date_gmt":"2018-04-01T19:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=32007"},"modified":"2018-04-01T12:17:33","modified_gmt":"2018-04-01T19:17:33","slug":"open-thread-4-1-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/01\/open-thread-4-1-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 4\/1\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I&#8217;m hurrying, because WWWendy is due in under an hour.&#160; Exhausted.&#160; WWWendy thank you for your greetings.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:21 (average 4:30).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2018-04-01-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Tales<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OjurmdAX1Ek\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/CNN\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">CNN Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Lack of diversity in White House intern group<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/OjurmdAX1Ek?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The Trump group of interns is very diverse. He has Nazis, Homophobes, KKK, Misogynists, pseudo-Christians, Ammosexuals, and Grabables. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2018\/3\/30\/1753305\/-Former-Fox-Host-There-Is-Indeed-A-Witch-Hunt-and-It-s-Led-By-Fox-Against-Robert-Mueller\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer who was a Fox News commentator for a decade. Ten days ago he declined <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/fox-news-commentator-exits-with-a-searing-attack-on-fox-news\/2018\/03\/20\/fc876fc4-2c81-11e8-8ad6-fbc50284fce8_story.html?utm_term=.6637359d6584\" target=\"_blank\">to renew his contract<\/a> with Fox, not only closing that door but slamming it off the hinges with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/tomnamako\/ralph-peters?utm_term=.vpMYeEYYzJ#.xfVRJNRRBx\" target=\"_blank\">an impassioned internal memo<\/a> which was leaked, decrying the network as a propaganda machine and saying that Peters was ashamed to be there. He\u2019s not a rat leaving the ship, he made clear, rather, \u201cthe best sailors were driven overboard by the rodents.\u201d&#160; Peters elaborates on the Trump Russia probe in an illuminating op ed piece today at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/outlook\/why-i-left-fox-news\/2018\/03\/30\/d1224648-32bb-11e8-8bdd-cdb33a5eef83_story.html?utm_term=.a8b16631bead\" target=\"_blank\">the Washington Post:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I was the one person on the Fox payroll who, trained in Russian studies and the Russian language, had been face to face with Russian intelligence officers in the Kremlin and in far-flung provinces. I have traveled widely in and written extensively about the region. Yet I could only rarely and briefly comment on the paramount security question of our time: whether Putin and his security services ensnared the man who would become our president. Trump\u2019s behavior patterns and evident weaknesses (financial entanglements, lack of self-control and sense of sexual entitlement) would have made him an ideal blackmail target \u2014 and the Russian security apparatus plays a long game.<\/p>\n<p>As indictments piled up, though, I could not even discuss the mechanics of how the Russians work on either Fox News or Fox Business. [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>All Americans, whatever their politics, should want to know, with certainty, whether a hostile power has our president and those close to him in thrall. This isn\u2019t about party but about our security at the most profound level. Every so often, I could work in a comment on the air, but even the best-disposed hosts were wary of transgressing the party line.<\/p>\n<p>Fox never tried to put words in my mouth, nor was I told explicitly that I was taboo on Trump-Putin matters. I simply was no longer called on for topics central to my expertise. I was relegated to Groundhog Day analysis of North Korea and the Middle East, or to Russia-related news that didn\u2019t touch the administration. Listening to political hacks with no knowledge of things Russian tell the vast Fox audience that the special counsel\u2019s investigation was a \u201cwitch hunt,\u201d while I could not respond, became too much to bear. There is indeed a witch hunt, and it\u2019s led by Fox against Robert Mueller.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Rarely an honest conservative like Peters surfaces. I would disagree with him on many issues, but I respect his integrity.&#160; <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/31\/us\/california-pardon-immigrants.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font><font color=\"#000000\">Gov. Jerry Brown of California on Friday pardoned five ex-convicts facing possible deportation, drawing criticism from President Trump and heightening continued tensions between Washington and California.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I support this move, if and only if they qualified for pardons, because they are not a danger to the community. I commend Brown&#8217;s courage.&#160; <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoons<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: left; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/0401Cartoon.jpg\" align=\"left\" \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p>&#160;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p>&#160;<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: left; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/0401Cartoon.jpg\" align=\"left\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m hurrying, because WWWendy is due in under an hour.&#160; Exhausted.&#160; WWWendy thank you for your greetings. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&#8217;s took me 3:21 (average 4:30).&#160; To do it, click here.&#160; How did you do? Short Tales: From YouTube (CNN Channel): Lack of diversity in White House intern group &#160; The Trump group of interns <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/01\/open-thread-4-1-2018\/' 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-32007","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\/32007","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=32007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}