{"id":32624,"date":"2018-06-03T13:22:32","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T20:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=32624"},"modified":"2018-06-03T13:22:32","modified_gmt":"2018-06-03T20:22:32","slug":"open-thread-6-3-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/03\/open-thread-6-3-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 6\/3\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Dang!&#160; I was made a dishonerary Republican. <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wlEmoticon wlEmoticon-surprisedsmile\" style=\"border-top-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-right-style: none\" alt=\"Surprised smile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/wlEmoticon-surprisedsmile.png\" \/>&#160; I got a parade!&#160; I had completely forgotten that the Portland Rose Festival Starlight parade, which passes under my window, was last night.&#160; I had just fallen asleep when the bands started playing.&#160; It was almost midnight when the street cleaners finished up, so I&#8217;m pretty pooped today.&#160; Here&#8217;s a pic:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0603Parade\" 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=\"0603Parade\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/0603Parade.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"395\" \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">WWWendy will be here in about 40 minutes, and I hope to finish writing by the time she arrives.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">She just left, and I am WAY pooped.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:36 (average 5:17).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2018-06-03-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=Jpzh50lVyf0\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/TheNewYorkTimes\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Palestinian Medic Killed by Israeli Soldiers at Gaza Protest<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/Jpzh50lVyf0?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">What a tragic loss this courageous young woman was when the state of Israel murdered her with the full support of the US Republican Party. I have a reason for calling the war criminal that executed her Butcher Bibi.&#160; It&#8217;s time to reinstate Nuremburg.&#160; <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!! <strong>VOTE BLUE<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/the-trump-teams-chilling-message-to-mueller\/2018\/06\/02\/2d72fb3e-66b2-11e8-99d2-0d678ec08c2f_story.html\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post<\/a>: <\/font>L\u2019etat, c\u2019est Trump.<\/p>\n<p>For months we\u2019ve heard President Trump\u2019s TV lawyers, as he calls them, bandy about the argument that he \u2014 or any president, for that matter \u2014 couldn\u2019t have obstructed justice because justice is what he says it is.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, that because, they claim, a president possesses absolute power to cut short a criminal investigation, he cannot by definition be guilty of obstructing it. Or, in the famous Nixonian formulation, as Richard M. Nixon <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/archive\/politics\/1977\/06\/05\/president-isnt-above-the-law-nixon-insists\/71923838-492f-49d7-921f-0add6743501e\/?utm_term=.57ae299fd5f6\" target=\"_blank\">told<\/a> David Frost, \u201cWell, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But as much as the president\u2019s legal team foreshadowed this contention, it was nonetheless breathtaking to see it spelled out, in uncaveated black and white, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2018\/06\/02\/us\/politics\/trump-legal-documents.html\" target=\"_blank\">a letter<\/a> from Trump\u2019s legal team to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA President can also order the termination of an investigation by the Justice Department or FBI at any time and for any reason,\u201d the lawyers, John Dowd and Jay Sekulow, wrote in the January letter, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/06\/02\/us\/politics\/trump-lawyers-memo-mueller-subpoena.html\" target=\"_blank\">obtained by<\/a> the New York Times. \u201cSuch an action obviously has an impact on the investigation, but that is simply an effect of the President\u2019s lawful exercise of his constitutional power and cannot constitute obstruction of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Republicans have pushed this absurd Nazi claim for a long time. The last time we saw it was from Fuhrer GW Bush of the Fourth Reich. He claimed to be the unitary executive. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!! <strong>VOTE BLUE<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/humor\/borowitz-report\/trump-makes-pence-watch-him-issue-pardons-to-see-how-its-done\" target=\"_blank\">The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>President Donald J. Trump made Vice-President Mike Pence watch him issue pardons for several hours to see how it is done, a White House source confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>According to the source, Trump pardoned a number of disgraced political figures and former reality-show cronies for the sole purpose of training Pence in the art of issuing pardons.<\/p>\n<p>After signing pardon after pardon while Pence looked on intently, Trump commanded the Vice-President to sign a \u201cpractice pardon\u201d to prove that he \u201cwouldn\u2019t mess anything up,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n<p>Before trying his hand at issuing a pardon, Pence heaped praise on Trump for the pardoning demonstration he had just given.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Andy is reporting straight news again. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!! <strong>VOTE BLUE<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/0603Cartoon2011.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0603Cartoon2011\" 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=\"0603Cartoon2011\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/0603Cartoon2011_thumb.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"456\" \/><\/a><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">A flashback from 2011.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dang!&#160; I was made a dishonerary Republican. &#160; I got a parade!&#160; I had completely forgotten that the Portland Rose Festival Starlight parade, which passes under my window, was last night.&#160; I had just fallen asleep when the bands started playing.&#160; It was almost midnight when the street cleaners finished up, so I&#8217;m pretty pooped <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/03\/open-thread-6-3-2018\/' 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-32624","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\/32624","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=32624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}