{"id":35344,"date":"2019-01-14T12:01:04","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T20:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=35344"},"modified":"2019-01-14T12:01:04","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T20:01:04","slug":"open-thread-1-14-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/14\/open-thread-1-14-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 1\/14\/2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It&#8217;s another busy day here in the CatBox.&#160; I finally got ahold of the computer tech.&#160; He thought our appointment was on the 18th, and did not get my messages, because he was out of town.&#160; He&#8217;s giving me a free hour, and he will be here tomorrow morning.&#160; As a result, I will only be preparing a Personal Update or an Open Thread.&#160; I won&#8217;t be sending links messages on Care2.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><sub><\/sub><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 4:48 (average 5:28),&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2019-01-14-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=5D9F00IGQUI\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/NBCNews\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">NBC Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Full Panel: \u2018What is the story with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin?\u2019 | Meet The Press<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/5D9F00IGQUI\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Even Cardenas was afraid to goose-step with his Fuhrer. Putin&#8217;s Pervert is in major trouble. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/2019\/01\/20-weirdest-religious-beliefs\/\" target=\"_blank\">Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>We find it easy to dismiss the fantastical beliefs of people in other times and places, but those that we\u2019ve been exposed to since childhood seem not so far out. Virgin birth? Water turning into wine? A fig tree shriveling on the spot? Dead people getting up out of their graves and walking around?<\/p>\n<p>All of the following beliefs are found in respected religions today. They have been long taught by religions that either are considered part of the American mainstream or are home grown, made in the U.S.A., produced here and exported. Some of these beliefs are ensconced in sacred texts. Others are simply traditional. All, at one time or another, have had the sanction of the highest church authorities, and many still do.<\/p>\n<p>How many of them can you match up with a familiar religious tradition? (The answers are at the bottom.)<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Click trough to take the quiz. I scored 19 of 20, missing #19. How did you do? <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/post\/religious-right-circles-like-vultures-over-supreme-court-hope-to-replace-ginsburg-with-anointed-amy-coney-barrett\/\" target=\"_blank\">RWW<\/a>: <\/font>With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg missing oral arguments this week as she recovers from surgery to remove cancerous tumors from her lungs, Religious Right activists are circling the Supreme Court like vultures, gleeful at what they see as an imminent opportunity to seal a solid far-right majority on the Supreme Court and fulfill their goals to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/post\/mat-staver-literally-we-are-a-few-months-away-from-ensuring-end-of-roe-obergefell\/\" target=\"_blank\">overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminate legal equality for LGBTQ people<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/post\/religious-right-counting-on-heaven-sent-gorsuch-to-undermine-church-state-separation\/\" target=\"_blank\">undermine separation of church and state<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/post\/a-trumped-up-judiciary-threatens-social-security-medicare-and-the-rest-of-the-20th-century-social-safety-net\/\">roll back<\/a> decades of court rulings and federal programs protecting worker safety, public health, and the environment. Trump boosters have been praying since his election that God would \u201cremove\u201d Supreme Court justices, who enjoy lifetime appointments, so that Trump would be able to fill the vacancies.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, Jerry Falwell Jr. re-tweeted right-wing activist Charlie Kirk\u2019s tweet [<em>anti-Christian de-linked<\/em>]mentioning Ginsburg and Justice Stephen Breyer and calling it \u201cBad news for Democrats\u201d that the \u201ctwo oldest judges on the bench are radical liberals.\u201d Gary Bauer noted Ginsburg\u2019s absence at oral arguments and linked to a Daily Caller <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2019\/01\/07\/white-house-preparations-ginsburg\/\" target=\"_blank\">story<\/a> about the White House making \u201cquiet preparations\u201d to fill a vacancy, which Bauer said \u201cwould be an incredible opportunity for a first-term president.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Anti-gay activist Matt Barber tweeted [<em>anti-Christian de-linked<\/em>] last night that he was praying for Ginsburg \u201cin her twilight time\u201d that she would \u201caccept Christ as her Lord &amp; Savior &amp; beg His forgiveness for the millions of innocent babies she\u2019s helped to slaughter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barber followed up by tweeting [<em>anti-Christian de-linked<\/em>]\u2014with the caption \u201cWarming up in the bullpen\u201d\u2014a photo of Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump-nominated federal appeals court judge who has been on his Supreme Court short list, and who has been declared God\u2019s choice for the Supreme Court by dominionist \u201cprophets\u201d and Religious Right leaders.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The author calls these Republican pseudo-Christians &#8216;vultures&#8217;, as they pray for RBG to die so their Fuhrer can appoint Amy Coney Barrett. As an Injustice on SCROTUS (Republican Unconstitutional VD), she would be worse than Kava-Nazi. That\u2019s unfair to the vultures. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><strong><font color=\"#0000ff\">Cartoon<\/font><\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/0114Cartoon.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s another busy day here in the CatBox.&#160; I finally got ahold of the computer tech.&#160; He thought our appointment was on the 18th, and did not get my messages, because he was out of town.&#160; He&#8217;s giving me a free hour, and he will be here tomorrow morning.&#160; As a result, I will only <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/14\/open-thread-1-14-2019\/' 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-35344","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\/35344","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=35344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}