{"id":5733,"date":"2011-08-31T00:00:59","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T07:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5733"},"modified":"2011-08-31T00:00:59","modified_gmt":"2011-08-31T07:00:59","slug":"open-thread8312011-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/31\/open-thread8312011-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;8\/31\/2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Yesterday was another comfortable day with no AC needed.&#160; I went out to run a few errands, and upgraded the theme here, which requires specifying several&#160; custom features over again.&#160; I am current on replies.&#160; Tomorrow I\u2019m a volunteer working with a therapy group of former prisoners.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today it took me 3:53 (average 4:47).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2011-08-31-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=\"http:\/\/tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2011\/08\/heckuva-job-brownie-backs-gop-call-to-offset-disaster-aide-with-program-cuts.php\" target=\"_blank\">TPM<\/a>: <\/font>If you&#8217;re trying to institute a new paradigm in the field of federal disaster relief, you could use a better ally than former FEMA Director Michael Brown, better known to most of you as &quot;Heckuva Job&quot; Brownie.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s the former International Arabian Horse Association Commissioner and the guy many blame for bungling the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He&#8217;s also the first high-profile person in with experience in the field of disaster management to back the new GOP requirement that federal disaster aid be offset with federal spending cuts.<\/p>\n<p>On Fox News Tuesday, Brown gave the policy his seal of approval.<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"510\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eB-3jwmgkkQ?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Cantor is just as competent as Brownie.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2011\/08\/30\/us-usa-fed-idUSTRE77P37920110830\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a>: <\/font>Two top Federal Reserve officials diverged on Tuesday on the need for further action by the U.S. central bank to stimulate the flagging U.S. economic recovery, underscoring the dilemma faced by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.<\/p>\n<p>Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank and a noted policy dove, said he favored strong central bank accommodation &quot;for a substantial period of time,&quot; since the economy now looks to be moving &quot;sideways.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>But Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, speaking separately on Tuesday, stopped well short of signaling support for further easing, showing he remains firmly on the hawkish wing of the Fed&#8217;s policy-setting panel.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">In short, the Fed is clueless about what to do.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politicususa.com\/en\/1st-amendment-town-halls\" target=\"_blank\">Politicususa<\/a>: <\/font>According to a recent Federal Appeals court ruling, Republican members of Congress who confiscate citizens\u2019 cell phones or cameras and do not allow filming at town halls are violating their constituents First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n<p>One of the ways that unpopular House Republicans have been trying to dodge the wrath of their angry constituents during the August recess is to not allow filming at their town halls. Last week, Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio directed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politicususa.com\/en\/police-seize-citizen-camera\" target=\"_blank\">on duty police officers to confiscate the cameras<\/a> of citizens who tried to film his responses at a recent town hall. Chabot justified this behavior as necessary for the protection of his constituents, but a Federal Court ruling on Friday makes it clear that the Republicans who engaging in this behavior are violating the First Amendment rights of their constituents. <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I suspect the five Injustices of SCROTUS will overrule the four Justices of SCOTUS to overturn this excellent decision.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline\" title=\"31Cartoon\" alt=\"31Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/31Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"406\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was another comfortable day with no AC needed.&#160; I went out to run a few errands, and upgraded the theme here, which requires specifying several&#160; custom features over again.&#160; I am current on replies.&#160; Tomorrow I\u2019m a volunteer working with a therapy group of former prisoners. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today it took me 3:53 <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/31\/open-thread8312011-2\/' 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":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5733","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\/5733","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=5733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}