{"id":8565,"date":"2012-08-09T08:20:27","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T15:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=8565"},"modified":"2012-08-09T08:20:28","modified_gmt":"2012-08-09T15:20:28","slug":"open-thread892012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/09\/open-thread892012\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;8\/9\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today I have this article and one other to post before leaving for my Cardiologist appointment, but I will have no time to distribute the links.&#160; I will catch up on on replies to comments, if I can, but it\u2019s doubtful today.&#160; Tomorrow is up in the air, because the heat returns today,<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 4:08 (average 5:34).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2012-08-09-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:\/\/front.moveon.org\/whats-the-difference-between-liberal-and-conservative\/?rc=daily.share\" target=\"_blank\">MoveOn<\/a>: <\/font>What&#8217;s The Difference Between &#8216;Liberal&#8217; And &#8216;Conservative&#8217;?<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zTFp7WG9J-E?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Put another way, unlike today&#8217;s conservatives, liberals strive to conserve America.&#160; Ironic, isn\u2019t it?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/blog\/169266\/its-still-party-time-national-conventions?rel=headlineNation\" target=\"_blank\">The Nation<\/a>: <\/font>Grand, lobbyist-funded bashes used to be a staple of the political convention scene\u2014in 2004, for example, Senator John Breaux <a href=\"http:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2004\/07\/party-favors\" target=\"_blank\">threw<\/a> a huge Mardi Gras\u2013themed party at the New England aquarium during the Democratic National Convention in Boston, complete with performances by Ziggy Marley and Buckwheat Zydeco and a half-million-dollar price tag.<\/p>\n<p>But in 2007, as the Jack Abramoff scandal enveloped Washington, Congress <a href=\"http:\/\/www.citizen.org\/documents\/Making-LDA-Work.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">passed<\/a> reforms that banned, among other things, lobbyist-funded parties at the national conventions to \u201chonor\u201d lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p>So in Tampa Bay and Charlotte this year, the party\u2019s off right? Not so fast.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, ethics committees in the House and Senate have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.citizen.org\/pressroom\/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=3685\" target=\"_blank\">interpreted<\/a> the law differently. While the Senate views it strictly, the House has determined that the law does not apply to parties that honor a group of members, a committee, or a caucus\u2014only individual members. So under the House interpretation, bank lobbyists could throw lavish parties in Tampa Bay for Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee, for example, and it wouldn\u2019t violate the guidelines.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">That shows Senate Democrats are more ethical than House Republicans.&#160; No doubt, the bogus House interpretation will be a real boon to Tampa Bay hookers, entertaining family values Republicans on lobbyists&#8217; tabs.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wggb.com\/2012\/08\/09\/brown-blasts-massachusetts-leaders-over-welfare-initiative\/\" target=\"_blank\">WGGB<\/a>: <\/font>Republican Senator Scott Brown is criticizing state leaders for sending out voter registration letters to nearly half a million welfare recipients.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Of course he objects. If he had his way, no poor people at all would be allowed to vote.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline\" title=\"9Cartoon\" alt=\"9Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/9Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Who will stand against today\u2019s tyrants?<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I have this article and one other to post before leaving for my Cardiologist appointment, but I will have no time to distribute the links.&#160; I will catch up on on replies to comments, if I can, but it\u2019s doubtful today.&#160; Tomorrow is up in the air, because the heat returns today, Jig Zone <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/09\/open-thread892012\/' 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-8565","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\/8565","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=8565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}