{"id":44809,"date":"2021-08-17T07:13:53","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T14:13:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=44809"},"modified":"2021-08-16T16:59:16","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T23:59:16","slug":"open-thread-for-august-17-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2021\/08\/17\/open-thread-for-august-17-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread for August 17, 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I received my approval to visit Virgil and emailed the prison for a reservation. Because of the circumstances, I specified a weekend and gave a day preference, but left the exact date open, so I won&#8217;t be certain what day until I hear back. In the meantime, I&#8217;ll need to make a point of driving somewhere to keep the battery up. Once I can start visiting regularly, that will be all the driving I eed to do. I also received three packages &#8211; one was expected yesterday, one was expected today, and the other one had not been close enough to set a date prior to yesterday so that was definitrely a surprise. The USPS can work very well indeed if it is allowed to.\u00a0 Oh, and I also heard from WWWendy (about some paperwork I had asked her about.)\u00a0 She greets everyone and apologizes for not being here more.\u00a0 Such a sweetie. Finally, I read that British Columbia is on fire &#8211; again.\u00a0 Prayers and thoughts for Lynn, please.<\/p>\n<p>Cartoon &#8211;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10883\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/17Cartoon.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/17Cartoon.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/17Cartoon-300x230.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Short Takes &#8211;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/crooksandliars.com\/2021\/08\/ben-rhodes-capehart-afghanistan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Crooks and Liars &#8211; Former Nat. Sec. Adviser Whacks Trump&#8217;s Botched Negotiation With Taliban<\/a><br \/>\nQuote &#8211; You don&#8217;t negotiate your own exit with the adversary of the government that you are supporting. And that&#8217;s what the Trump administration did. They cut a deal with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government, effectively again demoralizing them and making them feel like we were simply leaving them holding the bag entirely.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/crooksandliars.com\/2021\/08\/ben-rhodes-capehart-afghanistan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click through for the story<\/a>. There is also a video.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lawandcrime.com\/u-s-capitol-siege\/capitol-siege-defendant-accused-of-chanting-fight-for-trump-tells-judge-hes-a-registered-democrat-and-not-a-trump-supporter-while-seeking-lighter-sentence\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Law &amp; Crime &#8211; Capitol Siege Defendant Accused of Chanting \u2018Fight for Trump!\u2019 Tells Judge He\u2019s a \u2018Registered Democrat\u2019 and \u2018Not a Trump Supporter\u2019 While Seeking Lighter Sentence<\/a><br \/>\nQuote &#8211; As the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, \u201cYou are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.\u201d &#8230; Nevertheless, the Defendant continues to maintain that he simply had no idea he wasn\u2019t allowed to enter the Capitol. It is unclear what additional sign the Defendant needed to indicate he was not welcome other than the barricades, tear gas, pepper balls, alarms, and law enforcement officers.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/lawandcrime.com\/u-s-capitol-siege\/capitol-siege-defendant-accused-of-chanting-fight-for-trump-tells-judge-hes-a-registered-democrat-and-not-a-trump-supporter-while-seeking-lighter-sentence\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click through for both sides&#8217; arguments.<\/a> One thing is certain &#8211; the defense arguments have royally pissed off the prosecution, and rightly so. Lying is one thing. Insulting prosecutors&#8217; intelligence with blatant fantasies is another.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/health-coronavirus-pandemic-9832ab299bd1a5953f305ec1ae2b8ea9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AP News &#8211; USDA to permanently boost food stamp benefits by 25 percent<\/a><br \/>\nQuote &#8211; The increase is part of a multi-pronged Biden administration effort to strengthen the country\u2019s social safety net. Poverty and food security activists maintain that longstanding inadequacies in that safety net were laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting an opportunity to make generational improvements that reach beyond the current public health crisis.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/health-coronavirus-pandemic-9832ab299bd1a5953f305ec1ae2b8ea9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click through for names and numbers.<\/a> May as well appreciate good news if we can.<\/p>\n<p>Food for Thought &#8211;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/dPPL5Pl.png\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-43898\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Steal.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"558\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Steal.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Steal-300x209.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Steal-150x105.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Steal-768x536.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I received my approval to visit Virgil and emailed the prison for a reservation. Because of the circumstances, I specified a weekend and gave a day preference, but left the exact date open, so I won&#8217;t be certain what day until I hear back. In the meantime, I&#8217;ll need to make a point of <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2021\/08\/17\/open-thread-for-august-17-2021\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[4383,3704,3913,3712,3760,4115,4524,3831],"class_list":["post-44809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","tag-capitol-insurrection","tag-cartoon","tag-covid-19","tag-donald-trump","tag-joe-biden","tag-justice","tag-social-safety-net","tag-world","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\/44809","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}