{"id":58736,"date":"2026-02-09T06:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=58736"},"modified":"2026-02-08T23:47:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:47:27","slug":"open-thread-february-9-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2026\/02\/09\/open-thread-february-9-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread February 9 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, the drive to Pueblo was pretty easy &#8211; sunshine, some cloud cover when needed most, no snow or water on the roads. We played cribbage of course, and had a wild variety of hands. I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever seen more three-of-a-kinds in a single session, and Virgil had a hand with four fives (but not, alas, a Jack.) Going home was a different story. I couldn&#8217;t get the car started despite help from several guards, and ended up having to go back into the lobby to call my roadside assistance insurance company. I did get a tow truck and driver who was able to both take me home and tow the car to the garage I&#8217;ve trusted literally for decades. but it was quite dark when I came home (exhausted). I won&#8217;t have an estimate until today, and am pretty sure I&#8217;ll have to postpone my appointment tomorrow for lab work. I didn&#8217;t do that last night because I didn&#8217;t have a clue for how long I&#8217;d better postpone it.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sharing both Joyce Vance&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/joycevance.substack.com\/p\/the-sunday-morning-wrap-up-892\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;Sunday Morning Wrap-Up&#8221;<\/a> and her <a href=\"https:\/\/joycevance.substack.com\/p\/the-week-ahead-864\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;The Week Ahead,&#8221;<\/a> both of which I received Sunday It&#8217;s a lot of information, but it&#8217;s coherent and graspable.<\/p>\n<p>This is the third opinion piece I have referenced on the topic of possible presidential election interference. This one is by <a href=\"https:\/\/robertreich.substack.com\/p\/could-trump-really-take-over-the\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Robert Reich<\/a> &#8211; it&#8217;s hard to argue with Robert Reich. I do think there might be states, or even just countire, in which he could get away with his violent plans. But thereare also a lot of states protected by Democratic Secretaries of State, most if not all of whom are members of DASS and are already planning for his potential assaults.<\/p>\n<p>Belle VZ oil<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MGo_IqooS2I?si=ITlSgpzYrw7_GyPd\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Dog<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0TjI93wOaxk?si=xkXvJKRQo815VR0h\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-58740\" src=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/names.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"580\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/names.png 750w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/names-300x232.png 300w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/names-150x116.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, the drive to Pueblo was pretty easy &#8211; sunshine, some cloud cover when needed most, no snow or water on the roads. We played cribbage of course, and had a wild variety of hands. I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever seen more three-of-a-kinds in a single session, and Virgil had a hand with four fives <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2026\/02\/09\/open-thread-february-9-2026\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":58319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[4355,4531,3781,6359,7119,7120,3811,6220,6957],"class_list":["post-58736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","tag-animals","tag-dogs","tag-elections","tag-last-week","tag-names","tag-oil","tag-personal","tag-this-week","tag-venezuela","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\/58736","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=58736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}