{"id":35781,"date":"2019-02-25T11:29:57","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T19:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=35781"},"modified":"2019-02-25T11:29:57","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T19:29:57","slug":"open-thread-2-25-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/25\/open-thread-2-25-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 2\/25\/2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It&#8217;s a cold, busy day here at the CatBox.&nbsp; The snow is forecast to end in about three hours.&nbsp; Oh God it&#8217;s Monday!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:38 (average 4:55). To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2019-02-25-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">click here<\/a>.&nbsp; 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=kAtsHi55sSU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/CNN\/videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CNN Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Elizabeth Warren&#8217;s new promise: No fundraisers, phone calls with wealthy donors<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/kAtsHi55sSU\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Kudos to Liz for following the trail Bernie blazed in 2015. The rest of the candidates should follow suit. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2019\/02\/25\/697622930\/judge-rules-male-only-draft-violates-constitution\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR<\/a>: <\/font>Requiring only men to register for the draft is unconstitutional, a federal judge has ruled.<\/p>\n<p>The Military Selective Service Act, or MSSA, states that males in the U.S. aged 18 through 25 must register in case the country needs a military draft. Women face no such requirement. On Friday, a federal judge in Texas ruled that a males-only draft violates the equal protection provisions in the U.S. Constitution.  <\/p>\n<p>While historical restrictions on women in the military may have justified past discrimination, they don&#8217;t anymore, wrote Senior Judge Gray Miller of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. &#8220;If there ever was a time to discuss &#8216;the place of women in the Armed Services,&#8217; that time has passed,&#8221; he wrote, citing an earlier Supreme Court decision.  <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I have always opposed the draft, because of the ease with which children of the rich and powerful can get deferments to evade service, for example, with dissolving bone spurs.&nbsp; I especially opposed the draft for women, because I did not realize my chivalry was a mask for residual sexism. Now I would support a draft, if and only if the progeny of the rich and powerful were first to be called and automatically designated for combat.&nbsp; There would ne far fewer wars. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font>  <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/2019\/02\/former-acting-solicitor-general-if-mueller-probe-is-a-witch-hunt-the-special-counsel-has-found-a-coven\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>President Donald Trump\u2019s supporters in the right-wing media have often described Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s Russia probe as a reckless \u201cwitch hunt\u201d that lacks merit. Trump himself has used the phrase \u201cwitch hunt\u201d countless times to describe the investigation. But Neal Katyal, former acting solicitor general in the Obama Administration, has a very different view. And when the attorney appeared on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d on Sunday, he told host Chuck Todd, \u201cIf this is a witch hunt, Mueller has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2019\/2\/25\/1837500\/-Former-Obama-DOJ-Official-Mueller-s-Found-A-Coven?utm_campaign=trending\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">found a coven<\/a> at this point.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble. Trump has made the bullshit double! <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font>  <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font>  <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/0225Cartoon.jpg\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Billionaires have been deprived of their rights under this amendment.&nbsp; Increase their rights to 90%!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a cold, busy day here at the CatBox.&nbsp; The snow is forecast to end in about three hours.&nbsp; Oh God it&#8217;s Monday! Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&#8217;s took me 3:38 (average 4:55). To do it, click here.&nbsp; How did you do? Short Takes: From YouTube (CNN Channel): Elizabeth Warren&#8217;s new promise: No fundraisers, phone calls <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/25\/open-thread-2-25-2019\/' 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-35781","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\/35781","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=35781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}