{"id":32600,"date":"2018-05-31T13:08:11","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T20:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=32600"},"modified":"2018-05-31T13:17:40","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T20:17:40","slug":"open-thread-5-31-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/31\/open-thread-5-31-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 5\/31\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">It&#8217;s been a hectic day here at the CatBox.\u00a0 CCC may have found me a new CatBox.\u00a0 Tomorrow, please expect no more than a Personal Update.\u00a0 I&#8217;m wheeling to the Golden West Building about sixteen blocks away with a CCC Manager to check it out and see if it can accommodate my needs.\u00a0 That will also interfere with my EOM routine here, so the new poll and monthly report will probably be late.\u00a0 My second article was Samantha Bee, but her videos from yesterday&#8217;s show have been removed from YouTube.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Today&#8217;s took me 2:28 (average 4:19).\u00a0 To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2018-05-31-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click here<\/a>.\u00a0 How did you do?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yRnywGceNnw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/msnbcleanforward\/videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MSNBC Channel<\/a>): <\/span>Uncovered Secret Memo Could Shed More Light On President Trump Firing Comey<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/yRnywGceNnw?rel=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Drip\u2026 Drip\u2026 Drip\u2026 <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!! <strong>VOTE BLUE<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/election-03918\/feds-indict-brothers-scam-pacs-bilked-over-50-million-gullible-republican-donors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alternet<\/a>: <\/span>Federal prosecutors have charged two brothers with bilking Republicans across the country of \u201cmore than $50 million\u201d in a giant scam where they posed as conservative political action committees (PACs) dedicated to furthering right-wing causes like supporting law enforcement and opposing reproductive rights.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese nine PACS\u2014which collectively raised more than $23 million between 2014 and 2017, and more than $50 million the last 10 years\u2014were scams, operated to enrich the defendants and their co-conspirators,\u201d the federal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-sdny\/press-release\/file\/1063966\/download\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">indictment said<\/a>. \u201cThe PACs targeted victims across the country, including in the Southern District of New York, raising funds on the fraudulent basis that donations would support education regarding, and the political campaigns of those who supported, \u2018autism awareness,\u2019 \u2018law enforcement appreciation,\u2019 and pro-life causes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn truth and fact, virtually all of the money raised was paid to the scheme participants or else used to perpetuate the fraud through additional telemarketing and fundraising expenditures,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-sdny\/press-release\/file\/1063966\/download\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">indictment<\/a> continued. \u201cLess than 1 percent of all donor money to the PACs was spent on political contributions during the relevant time period.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">The brothers had the audacity to compete with the party&#8217;s own sheeple fleecing.\u00a0 Either way, SCAMS are all Republicans have to offer. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!! <strong>VOTE BLUE<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2018\/5\/30\/1768212\/-Now-there-s-proof-Republican-judges-are-more-racist-A-lot-more-racist\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/span>The study was sui generis: Two Harvard Law professors, Alma Cohen and Crystal S. Yang, set out to analyze 1,400 federal judges\u2019 sentencing practices over a 15-year period affecting more than 500,000 defendants. The results were predictable but disheartening.<\/p>\n<p>They unearthed a stunning number of influences on sentencing, from years of experience and level of racism in a state to the party of appointment. Its major finding: Republican-appointed judges <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/05\/28\/us\/politics\/black-defendants-women-prison-terms-study.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">give black defendants harsher sentences<\/a> than their white counterparts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRepublican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks. \u2026 These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Three months\u2019 discrepancy accounts for 65 percent of the baseline racial sentence gap, meaning the average sentence disparity between similarly situated white and black defendants. The convictions driving the gap: serious drug and violent offenses.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Racism is a plank in the Republican platform. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!! <strong>VOTE BLUE<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/0531Cartoon.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a hectic day here at the CatBox.\u00a0 CCC may have found me a new CatBox.\u00a0 Tomorrow, please expect no more than a Personal Update.\u00a0 I&#8217;m wheeling to the Golden West Building about sixteen blocks away with a CCC Manager to check it out and see if it can accommodate my needs.\u00a0 That will <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/31\/open-thread-5-31-2018\/' 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-32600","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\/32600","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=32600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}