{"id":32413,"date":"2018-05-11T12:52:48","date_gmt":"2018-05-11T19:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=32413"},"modified":"2018-05-11T12:52:48","modified_gmt":"2018-05-11T19:52:48","slug":"open-thread-5-11-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/11\/open-thread-5-11-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 5\/11\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It the last cool day here at the CatBox.&#160; I slept twelve hours of the last 24, and I&#8217;m ready for more.&#160; But then, living in a Republican Reich, one cannot help but feel perpetually punch drunk.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 2:45 (average 4:51).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2018-05-11-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=J3jFJ3f9XX8\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCuDv5p8E-evaRSh542hDV5g\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">Inequality Media Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Three Things You Didn&#8217;t Know About Money in Politics<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/J3jFJ3f9XX8?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I knew all three. Did you? How many people do you know that don&#8217;t know? Change that! <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/05\/10\/world\/asia\/kim-jong-un-north-korea-south-usb-economy.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>South Korea \u2014 For years, Kim Jong-un, North Korea\u2019s leader, has been cracking down on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/01\/25\/world\/north-koreas-forbidden-love-smuggled-illegal-soap-operas.html\" target=\"_blank\">USB flash drives that activists smuggle into his isolated country<\/a> to poison his people\u2019s minds with outside influences, like South Korean K-pop music.<\/p>\n<p>But last month, when he met with the South\u2019s president, Moon Jae-in, Mr. Moon handed him a USB drive that contained quite a different message.<\/p>\n<p>In charts and video clips, Mr. Moon\u2019s memory stick laid out a \u201cnew economic map for the Korean Peninsula,\u201d including new railways and power plants for the impoverished North, should Mr. Kim abandon his nuclear weapons, according to South Korean officials.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Moon based his sales pitch on the belief that Mr. Kim wants to become the North Korean equivalent of Deng Xiaoping, who oversaw the economic liberalization of China. In this view, Mr. Kim may be willing to transform his pariah state by trading in his nuclear arsenal for diplomatic and economic incentives he needs to achieve prosperity.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">If Kim and Trump reach make a deal, it will be Moon&#8217;s deal. Trump MUST NOT BE ALLOWED to steal the credit for it. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/guess-who-wants-make-torture-great-again\" target=\"_blank\">Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>Vice President Dick Cheney threw his full support behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2018\/05\/09\/in-confrontational-hearing-gina-haspel-wont-say-if-torture-was-immoral\/\" target=\"_blank\">Gina Haspel<\/a>, President Donald Trump&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2018\/05\/09\/in-confrontational-hearing-gina-haspel-wont-say-if-torture-was-immoral\/\" target=\"_blank\">embattled<\/a> nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, claiming the veteran spy would &quot;be a great director&quot; while also calling for a continuation of the torture programs she once oversaw.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;If it were my call, I would not discontinue those programs,&quot; Cheney said of the George W. Bush administration&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2008\/11\/16\/brennan\/\" target=\"_blank\">controversial<\/a> use of so-called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2008\/11\/16\/brennan\/\" target=\"_blank\">enhanced interrogation techniques<\/a> in the aftermath of the 9\/11 attacks during an appearance on the Fox Business network on Thursday. &quot;I would have them active \u2013 and ready to go.&quot;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">If ChickenHawk Cheney, aka Dead-eye Dick, supports Haspel, could there be a better reason to oppose her? <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/0511Cartoon.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It the last cool day here at the CatBox.&#160; I slept twelve hours of the last 24, and I&#8217;m ready for more.&#160; But then, living in a Republican Reich, one cannot help but feel perpetually punch drunk. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&#8217;s took me 2:45 (average 4:51).&#160; To do it, click here.&#160; How did you do? <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/11\/open-thread-5-11-2018\/' 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-32413","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\/32413","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=32413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}