{"id":35506,"date":"2019-01-31T09:57:13","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T17:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=35506"},"modified":"2019-01-31T09:57:13","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T17:57:13","slug":"open-thread-1-31-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/31\/open-thread-1-31-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 1\/31\/2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It&#8217;s another busy day here in the CatBox, as I prepare for monthly transition both at home and on the blog.&#160; I slept well last night, but was so wiped out that I&#8217;ll need a day or too to catch up.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 4:26 (average 5:54).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2019-01-31-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=d7Wo5gb7FtI\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/msnbcleanforward\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">MSNBC Channel<\/a>): <\/font>In Opposing Voting Access, Mitch McConnell Shows His Hand<\/p>\n<p><strong><font color=\"#ff0000\">Bought Bitch Barf Bag Alert!!<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/d7Wo5gb7FtI\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The last thing the Republican Reich wants to see is increasing access to the ballot box for poor and middle class Americans. Is Bought Bitch Mitch the Republican soul, or just another Republican ass-soul? <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/humor\/borowitz-report\/trump-comes-out-strongly-against-intelligence\" target=\"_blank\">The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>Using some of his harshest rhetoric in recent memory, President Donald J. Trump came out strongly against intelligence on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve listened to these people with so-called intelligence go on and on, and, quite frankly, it\u2019s a waste of time,\u201d he said. \u201cI know a lot more than people with intelligence do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump added that he has stopped receiving intelligence briefings at the White House, arguing, \u201cI can do my job without any intelligence whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Dang, Andy! He&#8217;s right! He has no intelligence whatsoever!! <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/2019\/01\/here-are-5-of-trumps-craziest-comments-from-his-latest-right-wing-oval-office-interview\/\" target=\"_blank\">Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>On Wednesday, the right-wing Daily Caller sat down with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office for yet another interview packed with leading questions and incoherent answers.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of the highlights of that interview:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>He said he would \u201cthink about\u201d reviewing FBI policies surrounding arrest of his former campaign adviser.<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>For the past few days, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/roger-stones-predawn-fbi-arrest-operation-sparks-controversy\" target=\"_blank\">right-wing media<\/a> and Trump\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/senate\/427728-graham-requests-fbi-briefing-on-roger-stone-arrest\" target=\"_blank\">allies in Congress<\/a> have tried to paint the FBI\u2019s arrest of former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone on obstruction, false statements, and witness tampering as a case of excessive force. In reality, the agents summoned to Stone\u2019s home in Florida used a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/why-the-armed-fbi-raid-on-roger-stones-home-was-justified-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-collusion\" target=\"_blank\">typical amount of force<\/a> for a suspect deemed a flight risk.<\/p>\n<p>But prompted by the Daily Caller\u2019s questions, Trump said he would \u201cthink about\u201d looking into the matter and that he was \u201cspeaking for a lot of people that were very disappointed to see that go down that way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo see it happen where it was on camera, on top of it,\u201d Trump added. \u201cThat was a very, very disappointing scene.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The proper amount of force for Roger Stone is the amount needed for rectal insertion of a Saguaro cactus. I shared the first of five. Click through for the other four. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/0131Cartoon.jpg\" \/><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s another busy day here in the CatBox, as I prepare for monthly transition both at home and on the blog.&#160; I slept well last night, but was so wiped out that I&#8217;ll need a day or too to catch up. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&#8217;s took me 4:26 (average 5:54).&#160; To do it, click here.&#160; <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/31\/open-thread-1-31-2019\/' 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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35506","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\/35506","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=35506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}