{"id":9846,"date":"2013-01-14T04:23:35","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T12:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=9846"},"modified":"2013-01-14T04:23:35","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T12:23:35","slug":"open-thread1142012-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/14\/open-thread1142012-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;1\/14\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today I go to the doctor.&#160; It is a hardship, because I will have to leave before 8:00 AM to make it to a 10:00 AM appointment.&#160; In addition, On the way home I\u2019ll have to stand for up to 40 minutes in 33\u00b0 weather at a bus stop with no shelter.&#160; I hate going since she moved, but she\u2019s been my doctor for so many years, that I have her trained in how my body works.&#160; Training a new one could take years, so I\u2019ll keep her.&#160; I\u2019m current with replies.&#160; Tomorrow I\u2019m likely to be tired.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 3:57 (average 5:05).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2013-01-14-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Public Service<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">We can thank Nameless for alerting us yesterday that Java has a serious security flaw, sufficient to warrant disabling it.&#160; Oracle has now released a patched version that fixes the defect.&#160; I used Revo Uninstaller (free) to remove all traces of the old Java from my computer before installing the new Java, and recommend that you do likewise.&#160; You can <a href=\"http:\/\/java.com\/en\/download\/index.jsp\" target=\"_blank\">download the new version of Java here<\/a>.<\/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\/well-played-this-red-lobster-spoof-begs-you-to-ask-yourself-an-important-question\/\" target=\"_blank\">MoveOn<\/a>: <\/font>WELL PLAYED: This Red Lobster Spoof Begs You To Ask Yourself An Important Question<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bmthGvmeCtk?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">That any American workers are forced to endure such conditions is shameful. That this is the Republican goal for the majority of Americans is criminal.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/roomfordebate\/2013\/01\/13\/proposing-the-unprecedented-to-avoid-default\/separation-of-powers-gives-the-president-power-on-debt\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>The 14th Amendment states that \u201cthe validity of the public debt of the United States\u2026 shall not be questioned.\u2019\u2019 If the debt ceiling were to prevent the president from borrowing enough to cover legally required spending, the resulting default might prevent payments on the debt from being made as required, clearly bringing the validity of the debt into question. Even so, the White House has said the president will not override the debt ceiling by relying on that provision\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;Republicans believe, and the President seems to agree, that his only choice would be to cut spending, rather than raising taxes or issuing debt. That is simply wrong. Consider what cutting spending means. Different members of Congress have voted to approve a balance of spending, setting priorities for medical spending, military spending, infrastructure spending, anti-poverty measures, and so on. If the president were to cut spending, he would be doing what the Constitution (and the Supreme Court) says that only Congress can do: decide how much money to spend (no more and no less), and for what.<\/p>\n<p>We know that the president cannot simply enact across-the-board cuts. He will be forced to fully fund \u201cemergency operations\u201d of the federal government. To protect the government\u2019s credit rating from further damage, he would almost certainly pay principal and interest in full on all bonds. The spending cuts, therefore, would have to come elsewhere. Nothing in the law gives the president guidance on how to make those decisions, because Congress expressed its priorities in the spending bills that it passed (but now will not finance).<\/p>\n<p>Issuing more debt, on the other hand, is both modest and easily reversible. The president would not be upsetting Congress\u2019s spending and taxing priorities, but would instruct Treasury to sell securities, as it always does. If, in its next budget, Congress wants to reduce the debt, it can do so. Until then, the president must do the least damage, and that is by issuing enough debt to tax and spend as Congress ordered him to do.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">This is the most powerful argument I have seen to date in support of the Constitutional option, which I have favored since before the news was talking about it.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032608\/vp\/50448320\/#50448320\" target=\"_blank\">MSNBC<\/a>: A Reasonable Republican View<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><object width=\"592\" height=\"346\" id=\"msnbcfe818\" classid=\"clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000\" target=\"_blank\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=10,0,0,0\"><param name=\"movie\" target=\"_blank\" value=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/32545640\" \/><param name=\"FlashVars\" value=\"launch=50448320^0^214515&amp;width=592&amp;height=346\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\" \/><embed name=\"msnbcfe818\" src=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/32545640\" width=\"592\" height=\"346\" FlashVars=\"launch=50448320^0^214515&amp;width=592&amp;height=346\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" wmode=\"transparent\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" pluginspage=\"http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/shockwave\/download\/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash\"><\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; margin-top: 5px; width: 592px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; background: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; color: #999; font-size: 11px\">Visit NBCNews.com for <a style=\"border-bottom: #999 1px dotted; height: 13px; color: #5799db !important; font-weight: normal !important; text-decoration: none !important\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\" target=\"_blank\">breaking news<\/a>, <a style=\"border-bottom: #999 1px dotted; height: 13px; color: #5799db !important; font-weight: normal !important; text-decoration: none !important\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032507\" target=\"_blank\">world news<\/a>, and <a style=\"border-bottom: #999 1px dotted; height: 13px; color: #5799db !important; font-weight: normal !important; text-decoration: none !important\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032072\" target=\"_blank\">news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I agree with almost everything Colin Powell said. However, I do not share his hope that the Republican Party can recover. In my opinion, they have reached the point of no return, and only a complete reorganization, following virtual elimination can save them in name only.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/14Cartoon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline\" title=\"14Cartoon\" alt=\"14Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/14Cartoon_thumb.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I go to the doctor.&#160; It is a hardship, because I will have to leave before 8:00 AM to make it to a 10:00 AM appointment.&#160; In addition, On the way home I\u2019ll have to stand for up to 40 minutes in 33\u00b0 weather at a bus stop with no shelter.&#160; I hate going <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/14\/open-thread1142012-3\/' 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":[35,3,141,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-plus","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-141-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\/9846","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=9846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}