{"id":6739,"date":"2012-01-13T00:03:31","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T08:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=6739"},"modified":"2012-01-13T00:16:42","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T08:16:42","slug":"open-thread6132012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/open-thread6132012\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–1\/13\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I slept late.\u00a0 I ducked my email to finally attack that huge pile of paperwork and got it done in a few hours.\u00a0 I napped in the late afternoon.\u00a0 I\u2019m current with replies.\u00a0 Tomorrow I have housework to do.\u00a0 What dominated the news today was Republicans attacking Republicans over attacking another Republican for acting like a Republican.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Today it took me 3:44 (average 4:25).\u00a0 To do it click here<\/a>.\u00a0 How did you do?<\/span><\/p>\n

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

From USA Today<\/a>: <\/span>The Justice Department is defending the legality of President Obama’s recent recess appointment of a national consumer watchdog and other officials from criticism by Republicans.<\/p>\n

The department released a 23-page legal opinion Thursday summarizing the advice it gave the White House before the Jan. 4 appointments. Assistant Attorney General Virginia Seitz wrote that the president has authority to make such appointments during a congressional recess of the current length. Seitz argued the Senate’s periodic pro forma sessions in which no business is conducted have not enabled the chamber to advise and consent to regular nominations, as it is empowered to do under the Constitution.<\/p>\n

That makes sense to me.\u00a0 The sham pro-forma sessions left the Senate out of session for purposes of fulfilling their duty to advise and consent.<\/span><\/p>\n

From Crooks and Liars<\/a>: <\/span>Less than two days after the NYCLU demanded that Brookfield Properties remove the barricades<\/a> preventing the public from accessing Zuccotti Park, the property management company has done just that. Tuesday evening, the barricades were removed and stacked off to the sides, permitting visitors to enter the park.<\/p>\n

With freedom comes responsibility; according to one occupier, “Brookfield Security said unless we do something stupid the park will remain open!”<\/p>\n

Good for them.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad they got the park back.<\/span><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/span>It\u2019s almost as if Republicans are actively striving to get a reputation for being mean to poor, hungry people. On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the administration of Gov. Tom Corbett plans to start restricting eligibility<\/a> to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as the food stamp program). Specifically, the state is imposing an \u201casset test\u201d \u2014 anyone under 60 years old with savings of more than $2,000 is no longer eligible for assistance.<\/p>\n

Here Republicans are making certain that, before a needy family can get food, that have to be unable to buy medicine and pay medical expenses.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\"13Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I slept late.\u00a0 I ducked my email to finally attack that huge pile of paperwork and got it done in a few hours.\u00a0 I napped in the late afternoon.\u00a0 I\u2019m current with replies.\u00a0 Tomorrow I have housework to do.\u00a0 What dominated the news today was Republicans attacking Republicans over attacking another Republican for acting […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6739","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=6739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}