{"id":33112,"date":"2018-07-16T12:30:55","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T19:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=33112"},"modified":"2018-07-17T11:01:23","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T18:01:23","slug":"open-thread-7-16-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/open-thread-7-16-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 7\/16 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">The heat wave continues here in Portland with an excessive heat warning still in place.\u00a0 Here in the CatBox, my AC is barely holding its own.\u00a0 I am exerting myself as little as possible, but listening to the Fuhrer commit treason makes it hard for me to keep from screaming.<\/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 4:01 (average 4:42).\u00a0 To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2018-07-16-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=iLS7aalY_7A\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/TheNewYorkTimes\/videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NY Times Channel<\/a>): <\/span>President Trump: Don\u2019t Be Putin\u2019s Puppet<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/iLS7aalY_7A?rel=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Amen! But Trump has been Putin&#8217;s Puppet at least since inauguration day, if not before. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!! <strong>VOTE BLUE<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-us-canada-44842723\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC<\/a>: <\/span><strong>The US has rejected pleas from the EU to grant exemptions to European firms from the sanctions on Iran that will start to be reinstated next month.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wrote in a letter that they wanted to exert &#8220;unprecedented&#8221; pressure on Tehran.<\/p>\n<p>Waivers will only be given on national security or humanitarian grounds.<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump ordered that the sanctions be re-imposed in May after abandoning a nuclear deal with Iran.<\/p>\n<p>The UK, France and Germany &#8211; which were also parties to the 2015 accord, along with Russia and China &#8211; pledged to continue abiding by their commitments.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">How absurd! The Republican Reich is punishing Europeans for abiding by an international agreement that Republicans violated. I bet Russia gets exemptions! <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!! <strong>VOTE BLUE<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/trump-believes-finland-is-in-nato-abc1f9d4454d\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Think Progress<\/a>: <\/span>President Donald Trump met with Finnish president Sauli Niinist\u00f6 Monday, ahead of his scheduled summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.<\/p>\n<p>According to reporters, Trump thanked the Finnish president for his support and said the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) has never been stronger.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI enjoyed being with you a couple of days ago. NATO has, I think, never been stronger. It was a little bit tough at the beginning, but it turned out to be love. I appreciated your support,\u201d Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/juliehdavis\/status\/1018763905282334720\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> in his opening remarks.<\/p>\n<p>Finland, however, is not in NATO.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Unfortunately for Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten and the Republican Reich, the world is watching his perfect example of Republican competence. <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\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/0716Cartoon.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The heat wave continues here in Portland with an excessive heat warning still in place.\u00a0 Here in the CatBox, my AC is barely holding its own.\u00a0 I am exerting myself as little as possible, but listening to the Fuhrer commit treason makes it hard for me to keep from screaming. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&#8217;s took <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/open-thread-7-16-2018\/' 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-33112","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\/33112","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=33112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}