{"id":6461,"date":"2011-12-08T00:00:29","date_gmt":"2011-12-08T08:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/08\/open-thread1282011-2\/"},"modified":"2011-12-08T00:00:29","modified_gmt":"2011-12-08T08:00:29","slug":"open-thread1282011-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/08\/open-thread1282011-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–12\/8\/2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I felt quite poorly.  I slept late, did morning email, and went back to bed.  I\u2019m current with replies.  Today depends on how I feel.<\/font><\/p>\n

Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

Today it took me 3:52 (average 4:26).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

From The Guardian<\/a>: <\/font>Rod Blagojevich, the ousted Illinois governor whose three-year battle against criminal charges became a national spectacle, was sentenced to 14 years in prison Wednesday, one of the stiffest penalties imposed for corruption in a state with a history of crooked politics.<\/p>\n

Blagojevich’s 18 convictions included allegations of trying to leverage his power to appoint someone to President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat to raise campaign cash or land a high-paying job.<\/p>\n

The twice-elected Democrat is now the second former Illinois governor in a row to be sentenced to prison, and the fourth Illinois governor in the last four decades. His Republican predecessor, George Ryan, currently is serving a sentence of 6 1\/2 years, also for corruption.<\/p>\n

What is it about Illinois?<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Prosecutors in Philadelphia announced Wednesday that they had dropped their attempts to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal, the death row inmate convicted of killing a police officer 30 years ago and whose subsequent legal case based on claims of innocence had received international attention.<\/p>\n

Mr. Abu-Jamal will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, said Seth Williams, the district attorney for Philadelphia. <\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t investigated this in many years and have forgotten many of the details, but remember that, the last time I did, I thought the case against him was not clear cut and has the appearance of a frame up, especially since witnesses have recanted, and other witnesses have said they did not testify on his behalf, because police had threatened them.  In any event, I\u2019m glad he\u2019s off death row.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The White House<\/a>: Obama\u2019s complete Osawatomie speech.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

For those of you who missed it.<\/font><\/p>\n

Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\"8Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I felt quite poorly.  I slept late, did morning email, and went back to bed.  I\u2019m current with replies.  Today depends on how I feel. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today it took me 3:52 (average 4:26).  To do it, click here.  How did you do? Short Takes: From The Guardian: Rod Blagojevich, the ousted Illinois […]<\/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-6461","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\/6461","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=6461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}