{"id":32301,"date":"2018-05-02T12:47:55","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T19:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=32301"},"modified":"2018-05-02T12:47:55","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T19:47:55","slug":"open-thread-5-2-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/02\/open-thread-5-2-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 5\/2\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s high will be only 75\u00b0 to 80\u00b0, but since the sun just hit the brickwork, I&#8217;ll have to button up with the AC in an hour or two.&#160; It&#8217;s also very busy day here at the CatBox.&#160; Store to Door is delivering a big load of groceries for me to put away.&#160; It&#8217;s Monthly Report Day, and WWW Wendy will get here late this afternoon to destink the TomCat.&#160; I hope you all have a cooler, less stinky day.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:29 (average 4:39).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2018-05-02-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=WBaqDjPCH8k\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/voxdotcom\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">Vox Channel<\/a>): <\/font>This anti-sex trafficking law could end internet freedom<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/WBaqDjPCH8k?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">No decent people want to support sex-trafficking, but Republican pseudo-Christians, the opposite of Christians, have used sex trafficking as smokescreen to attack legitimate sex workers. Democrats went along on the correct belief that, if they didn&#8217;t, they would be painted in the media as supporting underage sex slavery. This law is wrong. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=C7Si2GGjH6o\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/oregoniannews\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">Oregonian Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Portland Burgerville workers approve federally recognized union<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/C7Si2GGjH6o?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Kudos to the unionizing workers! Oregon leads the way! <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/05\/01\/us\/pruitt-epa-trips-lobbyists.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, allowed a lobbyist friend to play an unusually influential role in setting his agenda during a visit in December to Morocco, according to internal communications related to the scheduling of meetings reviewed by The New York Times.<\/p>\n<p>Just months after helping to organize the trip, the lobbyist, Richard Smotkin, was hired by the government of Morocco as a $40,000-a-month foreign agent, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/4450484-SMOTKIN-FOREIGN-LOBBYING-FILING.html\" target=\"_blank\">according to filings<\/a> with the Department of Justice. Mr. Smotkin participated in several meetings with Mr. Pruitt in Morocco, including with representatives from some industries, according to participants on the trip\u2026.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026Members of Congress had questioned whether there was a legitimate government reason for Mr. Pruitt to travel to Morocco and also questioned the cost of the trip. Moreover, the swiftness with which Mr. Smotkin then received the Morocco contract raises questions about whether the trip helped Mr. Smotkin secure the deal.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">This is corruption as usual, when Republicans are in power. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0502Cartoon\" 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=\"0502Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/0502Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">He already knows who&#8217;s naughty and nice!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s high will be only 75\u00b0 to 80\u00b0, but since the sun just hit the brickwork, I&#8217;ll have to button up with the AC in an hour or two.&#160; It&#8217;s also very busy day here at the CatBox.&#160; Store to Door is delivering a big load of groceries for me to put away.&#160; It&#8217;s Monthly <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/02\/open-thread-5-2-2018\/' 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-32301","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\/32301","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=32301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}