{"id":3894,"date":"2011-01-20T10:11:48","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T18:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3894"},"modified":"2011-01-20T10:11:48","modified_gmt":"2011-01-20T18:11:48","slug":"open-thread1202011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/01\/20\/open-thread1202011\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;1\/20\/2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I know I won\u2019t get any visiting done today, because I have to go out to run errands, and when I return, I have to do my online grocery shopping for the month.&#160; But I am up to date with comments.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today it took me 3:48 (average 5:31).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2011-01-20-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=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/house\/138975-republicans-to-hold-spending-vote\" target=\"_blank\">The Hill<\/a>: <\/font>House Republicans will force Democrats to go \u201con the record\u201d about government spending in a symbolic vote next week timed to coincide with President Obama\u2019s State of the Union address. <\/p>\n<p>The House Rules Committee on Wednesday approved by a party-line vote of 8-4 a resolution calling on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to limit non-security discretionary spending in the second half of 2011 to 2008 levels \u201cor less.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">This is more political theatre.&#160; The Republican-dominated House has still done nothing of note.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/technology\/how_the_world_works\/2011\/01\/19\/rush_limbaugh_and_hu_jintao\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Salon<\/a>: This is how Rush Limbaugh honored Hu Jingtao on a State visit to the US.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><object width='320' height='260'><param name=\"movie\" target=\"_blank\" value=\"http:\/\/cloudfront.mediamatters.org\/static\/flash\/player.swf\"><\/param><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"config=http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/embed\/cfg2?id=201101190024\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><param name=\"allownetworking\" value=\"all\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/cloudfront.mediamatters.org\/static\/flash\/player.swf\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" flashvars=\"config=http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/embed\/cfg2?id=201101190024\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"320\" height=\"260\"><\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Ironically, he has never sounded more intelligent!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2011\/01\/20\/blogger-giffords-resign\/\" target=\"_blank\">Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>In an article published on theloop21.com, John Wilson, a \u201cregular contributor to Hip Hop Republican,\u201d mused that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) should resign her seat as she recuperates from her gunshot wounds. Citing media reports about Gifford\u2019s medical condition, Wilson compared Giffords to the late Rep. Gladys Spellman (D-MD), who went into a coma while in office. He then asked, \u201cShould constituents allow members to hold onto their seats like political Brett Favres with no concept of when it is time to go?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Other Republicans have taken up this despicable meme.&#160; It may well be that Giffords will have to resign, but could we at least wait until we know the extent of her disability, the degree of recovery possible, and the time required to do so?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><a title=\"Nick Anderson\" href=\"http:\/\/comics.com\/nick_anderson\/2011-01-20\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Nick Anderson\" src=\"http:\/\/c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com\/dyn\/str_strip\/352330.full.gif\" \/><\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Let\u2019s make today Republican toilet paper day.&#160; Wipe well.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know I won\u2019t get any visiting done today, because I have to go out to run errands, and when I return, I have to do my online grocery shopping for the month.&#160; But I am up to date with comments. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today it took me 3:48 (average 5:31).&#160; To do it, click <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/01\/20\/open-thread1202011\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-35-id","category-3-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894","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=3894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}