{"id":35186,"date":"2018-12-29T13:08:15","date_gmt":"2018-12-29T21:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=35186"},"modified":"2018-12-29T13:43:44","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T21:43:44","slug":"open-thread-12-29-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/29\/open-thread-12-29-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 12\/29\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">It&#8217;s another busy day here in the CatBox.\u00a0 Safeway.com delivered groceries, and I unpacked and put them away.\u00a0 I worked on my year end paperwork.\u00a0 I took out the garbage a day early. (My can runneth over).\u00a0 I also overslept, so I&#8217;m running late.\u00a0 Tomorrow is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.\u00a0 My Broncos play the Chargers.\u00a0 I won&#8217;t even bother to beseech the Orb for its blessing.\u00a0 At this point, I&#8217;ll just grit my teeth and grab my ankles.\u00a0 Tomorrow is also a WWWendy day.\u00a0 We have so many chores, that I will probably have no more than a Personal Update or an Open Thread, with no links messages on Care2.<\/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 2:59 (average 4:53).\u00a0 To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2018-12-29-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=oiwDU6s8l3k\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/msnbcleanforward\/videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MSNBC Channel<\/a>): <\/span>Michael Moore On How 2019 Could Be Even Crazier Than 2018<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/oiwDU6s8l3k\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Triple the number of women running for office. Amen. Do not allow Trump to set the agenda of what we discuss. Difficult, but Amen. Fight for the people. Amen. Pass bills in the House that put Senate Republicans on the hot seat. Amen. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wWFZGZgdeGU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/mediamatters4america\/videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Media Matters Channel<\/a>): <\/span>CNN and Fox News repeatedly gave climate deniers a platform in 2018<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/wWFZGZgdeGU\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Coverage like that could kill us. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/12\/28\/us\/politics\/north-carolina-house-race-fraud.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/span>A disputed congressional seat in North Carolina could remain vacant for months after incoming Democratic House leaders in Washington on Friday declared they would not seat the apparent Republican winner because of unresolved allegations of election fraud in that race.<\/p>\n<p>Even before Democrats made that fresh vow on Friday afternoon, the chaotic fight for the Ninth District\u2019s House seat had already plunged into deeper turmoil: North Carolina\u2019s state elections board dissolved at noon on Friday under a court order, two weeks before it was to hold a public hearing to consider evidence of the fraud allegations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have entered no man\u2019s land,\u201d said J. Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C.<\/p>\n<p>Friday\u2019s political drama came more than seven weeks after Mark Harris, the Republican nominee for Congress in the Ninth District, seemed to defeat Dan McCready, the Democratic candidate, by 905 votes in November. But Mr. Harris\u2019s apparent victory was soon overshadowed by allegations that a contractor for his campaign engaged in illegal activity to compromise the election. According to witnesses and affidavits, the contractor, L. McCrae Dowless Jr., and people working for him collected absentee ballots in violation of state law.<\/p>\n<p>The accusations led the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement to refuse to certify Mr. Harris as the winner and to open an investigation that has so far involved more than 100 interviews and at least 182,000 pages of records. It also gave Democrats a powerful argument to keep Mr. Harris out of office, at least for now \u2014 a pledge they made unequivocally on Friday \u2014 under the House\u2019s constitutional authority to be \u201cthe judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members.\u201d Democrats had been signaling such a plan for weeks.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">That&#8217;s exactly what they should do. When NC&#8217;s own state board of ethics refuses to certify, the Republican criminal has not been elected. Why is it that, whenever we actually see a one of the very rare cases of election fraud, the culprit is a Republican? <strong>RESIST<\/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\/2016\/12\/1229Cartoon.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s another busy day here in the CatBox.\u00a0 Safeway.com delivered groceries, and I unpacked and put them away.\u00a0 I worked on my year end paperwork.\u00a0 I took out the garbage a day early. (My can runneth over).\u00a0 I also overslept, so I&#8217;m running late.\u00a0 Tomorrow is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/29\/open-thread-12-29-2018\/' 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-35186","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\/35186","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=35186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}