{"id":32616,"date":"2018-06-02T12:48:45","date_gmt":"2018-06-02T19:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=32616"},"modified":"2018-06-02T12:48:45","modified_gmt":"2018-06-02T19:48:45","slug":"open-thread-6-2-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/02\/open-thread-6-2-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 6\/2\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">We&#8217;re having a one day heat wave, so the CatBox is buttoned up with A\/C blasting.&#160; Yesterday&#8217;s trip was interesting.&#160; The unit even had a private bath, although a small door and a pipe left too small an opening to get my chair into it.&#160; I could have put my hospital bed in the unit, but to do so, I would haveto give up computing, internet, tv, and eating.&#160; Anne (my program Manager) was very encouraging and understands my needs better than before.&#160; I hope the next is larger.&#160; Tomorrow is a WWWendy day, so I hope to get the poll switched and the Monthly Report done early next week.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I just exchanged texts with Nameless.&#160; His brother&#8217;s condition is still very bleak, but they aren&#8217;t giving up.&#160; Please keep the prayers coming.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:26 (average 5:47).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2018-06-02-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=NpJRkKicbO4\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/TheNewYorkTimes\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Watch: U.S. Allies Denounce President Trump\u2019s Tariffs Decision<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/NpJRkKicbO4?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">With friends like US Republicans, our allies have no need for enemies. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!! <strong>VOTE BLUE<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/06\/01\/us\/politics\/heidi-heitkamp-koch-brothers.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Senator Heidi Heitkamp, the centrist Democrat from North Dakota who is fighting a pitched battle to save her seat, has gotten a lift from an unlikely source: the conservative billionaire Koch brothers.<\/p>\n<p>Americans for Prosperity, the political advocacy group backed by Charles G. and David H. Koch, unveiled a digital ad campaign on Friday thanking Ms. Heitkamp for her support of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/05\/22\/business\/congress-passes-dodd-frank-rollback-for-smaller-banks.html\" target=\"_blank\">recently passed legislation<\/a> that loosened regulations on small and medium-size banks that were swept up in the 2010 Dodd-Frank law passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.<\/p>\n<p>The ad is the latest evidence that the brothers, often at odds with President Trump, may be moving away from strictly partisan work on behalf of Republicans in favor of initiatives that will advance their libertarian-leaning legislative priorities, including free trade, immigration legislation and access to medicines, regardless of party affiliation.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I would support even this horrid, Koch sucking DINO over a Republican, but we really need to challenge her in the primary. There is apparently nobody running and the primary is 6\/12. <strong>ARGH<\/strong>!! <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!! <strong>VOTE BLUE<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/here-are-5-founding-fathers-whose-skepticism-about-christianity-would-make-them-unelectable-today\" target=\"_blank\">Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>To hear the Religious Right tell it, men like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were 18th-century versions of Jerry Falwell in powdered wigs and stockings. Nothing could be further from the truth\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2026Here are five founding fathers whose views on religion would most likely doom them to defeat today:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. George Washington<\/strong>. The father of our country was nominally an Anglican but seemed more at home with Deism. The language of the Deists sounds odd to today\u2019s ears because it\u2019s a theological system of thought that has fallen out of favor. Deists believed in God but didn\u2019t necessarily see him as active in human affairs. The god of the Deists was a god of first cause. He set things in motion and then stepped back.<\/p>\n<p>Washington often employed Deistic terms. His god was a \u201csupreme architect\u201d of the universe. Washington saw religion as necessary for good moral behavior but didn\u2019t necessarily accept all Christian dogma. He seemed to have a special gripe against communion and would usually leave services before it was offered.<\/p>\n<p>Washington was widely tolerant of other beliefs. He is the author of one of the great classics of religious liberty \u2013 the letter to Touro Synagogue (1790). In this letter, Washington assured America\u2019s Jews that they would enjoy complete religious liberty in America; not mere toleration in an officially \u201cChristian\u201d nation. He outlines a vision of a multi-faith society where all are free.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation,\u201d wrote Washington. \u201cAll possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Stories of Washington\u2019s deep religiosity, such as tales of him praying in the snow at Valley Forge, can be ignored. They are pious legends invented after his death.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians, the exact opposite of real authentic Christians, would befoul their pants and accuse Washington of being a damn <em>librul<\/em>. I shared one of five. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/here-are-5-founding-fathers-whose-skepticism-about-christianity-would-make-them-unelectable-today\" target=\"_blank\">Click through<\/a> for the other four. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!! <strong>VOTE BLUE<\/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\/2017\/06\/0602Cartoon.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re having a one day heat wave, so the CatBox is buttoned up with A\/C blasting.&#160; Yesterday&#8217;s trip was interesting.&#160; The unit even had a private bath, although a small door and a pipe left too small an opening to get my chair into it.&#160; I could have put my hospital bed in the unit, <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/02\/open-thread-6-2-2018\/' 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":[35,3,5,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-religion","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","category-47-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32616","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=32616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}