The instigator of an enquiry into President Biden's "cognitive failings" just told a story about his uncle "Uncle Dr John Trump" who had a degree in, inter alia, "nuclear," teaching the Unabomber at MIT. He recounted a conversation in which Uncle Dr John Trump told him that the Unabomber was a genius. Mr Kaczynski did not attend MIT and Uncle Dr John Trump died before anyone knew that Kazcynski was the Unabomber. Now exactly who is a a beef patty short of a hamberder?
He also, apparently, does not remember that it was he who appointed Jerome Powell to chair the Federal Reserve, a rather major lapse, I would say, and one that ranks with Biden’s September ‘22 White House speech in which he mindlessly cried out the name of a Congresswoman who was unable to reply because she was….deceased.
Although outrage and vitriol at Trump’s malfeasance and mental decay are in tall order, we must never cease to be awed at how the Democrats managed to pull off the truly monumental and jaw dropping achievement of losing to this guy.
But Biden’s and Harris’s weren’t? C’mon. The only real factor in the election was that the Democrats chose to field an unelectable candidate, and this traces back to their refusal to primary Biden out of the race when it became clear that he wasn’t going to step down. Dean Phillips tried, but he was duly shunned by the party and ignored by most of the media, most of whom, despicably, complied with the party demands to not “platform” him by giving him any airtime (kind of their job, isn’t it?) and thus stifling his urgent message.
Although I don’t think that those traits benefited her, I also don’t think that they presented insurmountable obstacles. Her true albatross was the fact that she was a wildly unpopular vice president in a wildly unpopular incumbent administration whose approval ratings had been underwater for quite some time, and who the vast majority of the public (rightly or wrongly) felt were badly bungling the economy and the border crisis, and wanted a change from.
And let’s not forget, as I have pointed out in these pages several times before, Harris had made a bid for the presidential nomination just four years earlier and showed so poorly that she dropped out of the race two months before the Iowa caucuses. This is why I say that she was unelectable, and why I think that the Democratic Party committed catastrophic, and possibly irreversible malpractice when they shoehorned her into the nomination in the eleventh hour.
Hard to say. There are MAGA that wouldn’t vote for her for those reasons. But they wouldn’t have voted for her anyway. Did it affect the Palestinian protesters and independents that promised not to vote? Don’t forget that many Muslims are stlll male-centered and would have a hard time voting for a woman. But what number are we talking about? I personally don’t believe they were great factors. But I won’t say that with certainty. Trust me- there are still many males that would never vote for a woman, much less a black woman. I personally know more than a few. But they were going to vote for the stain, anyway.
Fred, anyone reading this forum knows that I hate Trump as much as anyone. But let's be real. Anyone in the White House or running for the job gets all the publicity he or she wants. As I have said on many occasions, the orange stain tapped into a wellspring of dissatisfaction of Americans that was very much populist and very racist. Trump unabashedly took advantage of emotions that many conservatives had held for years. Don't help the poor and needy with my taxes- let them do it on their own like I did. Who cares if minorities have been historically held back and still don't have the same opportunities as whites? The Constitution says we're all equal, so that's that. Latinos from south of the border are dirty and unwashed who are only coming here to have American babies and join the welfare system. Trump is an evil man. But he was elected- twice. What does that say about us as people. I agree that the Democrats totally mismanaged the election. But I wonder if it really mattered who they ran.
Excellent point! For all the moaning about the orange stain, perhaps Dem leadership should explain how they managed to lose to him. It might also help explain why so many younger Democrats are abandoning leadership and looking for something new. Unfortunately this also benefits the GOP. How long will it take for Democrats to find “something new” and the flag bearers to lead it?
I wonder about the cognitive failings of his supporters. I am sure most of the maga base will never hear this story because they only watch Fox News and I will bet on Fox not leading with this story or even putting it anywhere on their website. The ones that do will summarily dismiss it with a "what about Biden" or just simply just ignore it because Trump is doing "great" things and "fixing" this country. It says something about a group of people who call us snowflakes where they can't even begin to consider evidence that conflicts with their worldview.
Well, anyone who heard him tell the sinking electric boat vs sharks story can't possibly believe that the Orange Menace has all his marbles. He not only is a beef patty short of a hamburger, he is stuck in his own driveway unable to remember how to get to a McDonalds.
"Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Indiana" schools may have increased their test scores but that's not hard to do when you start at the bottom - there's no where to go but up! When I lived in South Carolina the unofficial school motto was "Thank God for Mississippi" because it kept SC from having the worst schools in the country. Mississippi has clearly improved because I understand South Carolina has now taken the bottom spot for US education.
MS has adopted phonics - the scientifically proven method for teaching reading - statewide for its public schools. so it's not surpising that their scores have improved. how is reading taught in CPS? phonics? consistently?
admittedly just but one data point - but explain to us your point again - in particular, why Chgo has fallen behind MS.
I’m also part of the problem for Colbert’s Late Show as I tend to watch the segments the next morning on YouTube.
But the claims of it being unprofitable seem overblown, at best. According to the video linked below, Paramount’s loss-leader from their financials is Direct-to-Consumer, aka streaming platforms like Paramount+. In the first quarter of 2025, that division lost $100M. Filmed Entertainment (movies, ads, etc) eked out just $20M. TV Media accounted for over $900M of the company’s net revenue for the quarter, far and away it’s most profitable division.
Add to that Paramount’s own reporting that The Late Show leads the “Broadcast Late Night” category.
All of this is circumstantial evidence, of course. We don’t know the actual numbers for TLS specifically, and maybe Paramount’s decision is financially sound.
But it is rather suspicious that it came just days after Colbert called their payoff to Trump a bribe, especially with David Ellison (owner of Skydance Media) being the son of Larry Ellison, a big Trump supporter.
And now I feel especially old, right smack around Colbert's demographic's age and so conventional that I time my nightly tooth-brushing to finish in time for me to be in bed to watch Colbert's monologue and first guest introduction while it's broadcast. That routine very much brightens Monday - Thursday nights, at least when he doesn't show reruns.
"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" still delivers some of the same pleasure as when my mom would let me stay up past bedtime to see Johnny Carson interview a favorite actor on "The Tonight Show." Colbert seems more like Carson than other late-night hosts do, which has cemented my loyalty. Yup, old. Good company, at least.
I can believe that the show was failing financially. I've wondered for many years how three big budget talk show could all survive in the time slot. And it has been well publicized that the key money spenders, young people that shell out like there is no tomorrow, have other interests. This kills ad revenue. But if anyone believes Paramount didn't cave to the orange stain, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell them. Paramount is in the midst of a big merger that needs to be approved by the FCC. Guess who controls the FCC.
The video John Houck called attention to above plausibly calls into question that Colbert's show was "failing financially."
If it's true that younger folk prefer to get their entertainment via other media anyway, what is the point of dumping geezer-friendly TV shows just to appeal to the young? Why the obsessive competition to win everything instead of appreciating the niche successes you achieve? I'm still haven't forgiven NBC for dumping "Harry's Law," which was highly rated, but only among people in older demographics, which NBC didn't care about although seniors do have and spend plenty of money.
Media companies seem to have bought into the fiction that Old Folks Are Too Set In Their Ways to be swayed by ads, etc. While they ignore the fact that we have a lot more money than most young folks, who are struggling with student debt, high housing prices, and poor job prospects.
If they just relabeled late night talk shows as "Boutique Shows" and treated the loyal fans well, they might make even more money.
Follow the money. As I am a geezer, I don’t spend the way I used to except on prescriptions and the credit cards are mostly gathering dust. The media mostly doesn’t care what I watch or what I listen to on the radio. It’s the main reason I have Sirius as most of what I listened to disappeared from AM-FM.
Of course, if you have Sirius then that in and of itself sort of mitigates any claim to irrevocable geezerhood. I don’t know what your musical tastes are, but I get by with AM-FM by listening to WDCB (mostly jazz with smatterings of folk, big band, Irish music and golden age old time radio, and gloriously commercial free!), WFMT, and, depending on the featured year, the Saturday Morning Flashback program on WXRT. Beyond that, my medium of choice for music listening is CDs, which gives you an idea of how much more ensconced in geezerhood I am (at age 54) than you are. My car is approaching 200,000 miles, and the only reason that I didn’t replace it years ago is that it has a CD player, and newer cars don’t have them. I’ve heard that you can buy dashboard CD players and get them installed at Best Buy, so I’m thinking of getting a new car and just doing that.
I’m 70. My oldies and soft rock has pretty much disappeared and my Toyota doesn’t have a CD player. I wouldn’t know how how to use MP3 or any of the other modern conveyances even if my car had them.
Nate Silver had some good points about Colbert. He goes back and forth and all around as he does, but I thought this was a reasonable bottom line: While it certainly seems true that late night TV is generally fading and that the show had become unprofitable, the politics might have represented a push:
"Earning $70 million in ad revenues per year is still substantial, especially for a flagship brand that might have a halo effect on the rest of the network. [He goes on here to talk about why cutting the show's costs to better align with that still-substantial ad revenue would have been difficult/unlikely.] ... To Paramount Global, The Late Show is still just a rounding error: Paramount recorded $29 billion in revenues last year. Here’s where politics could have been a factor, though. The extent to which corporate suits will tolerate a loss from a high-prestige but money-losing division of the company may well depend on both the external and internal political environment. ... If a new division head steps in who wants to rectify the excesses of the previous administration, or a new corporate parent takes over that wants to demonstrate to investors that it can trim costs, you might be a sitting duck so long as the P&L is in the red. ... And if you’re also a political pain-in-the-ass, that might be a decisive tiebreaker. ... You might be able to survive losing money, and you might be able to survive being a political headache for the suits, but probably not both at once."
It's sad to see the number of companies capitulating to the whims of the orange stain. Coca Cola announced it was switching from high fructose corn syrup to cane sugar in drinks because of the orange stain. It makes me wonder what interest the orange stain has in the sugar industry. Actually, I don't care. Too much of either one is not particularly healthy for you. I am speaking as a diabetic. I'm just wonderng what business it is of Trump if both are legal. He's a trained dietician now?
It's another distraction, trying to get people to stop talking about Epstein. But for all we know his motivation could be to get stores to stop selling Mexican Coke...
That seems highly likely. The fact that high fructose corn syrup is on RFK Jr's radar as unhealthy is a bonus. I personally prefer real sugar on the rare occasions when I wish something sweet. But my 3 Cokes a year are not going to sway the markets.
One of his biggest financial supporters is Pepe Fanjul, who owns the biggest sugar cane fields in Florida. That's why he pushed the idiots at Coke to do it. of course it will also cost double what regular Coke costs!
Shari Redstone MUST have this merger for Paramount Global and Skydance Media.They will then be a $28 billion company. She wants to get this merger done and is getting Trump to help in any way possible - pressure, lawsuits, etc. She and her family have majority voting power in Paramount Global and all it subsidiaries: CBS, Comedy Central, BET, Showtime Networks, Nickelodeon, MTV, and the film studio Paramount Pictures. We have laws about not letting any one company get too big - read your history books about Standard Oil. But that is history, and every big businessman/woman is desperately trying to be the best and richest. The "boys and their toys" idea - but Shari fits the bill, too. Disgusting. When is it enough money? I guess that answer is NEVER.
There’s another factor. It doesn’t much matter what the rules are. You think there are any Trump departments such as the SEC, FDA, or anyone else that are going to go after anyone?
I'm increasingly skeptical that protests have any effect at all. The massive "No Kings" protests were just over a month ago and are already a distant memory, winning no changes. Maybe sustaining them at that scale over a long period of time, like every weekend for a year, could have a chance to force the issue enough to be in the media more consistently and have a chance at forcing some change.
I think the BLM protests in 2020 were somewhat successful because they were sustained over a long period of time, getting accountability for the murder of George Floyd, getting many confederate statues taken down and at least to my impression reducing the number of Black people killed by police. I can't think of another example since maybe the 80's that had at least that much success.
Sporadic, poorly attended protests might only be a comfort for those involved, but they seem completely ineffectual, even open to derision and ridicule.
Protests are successful to the extent that they get new people involved in the political process and from them we can get our future leaders. But for changing opinions of other people? Nope.
That's a good point, they do have value as recruitment devices, but that could also be a double-edged sword - if a young person attends a protest for the first time and sees a lackluster turnout and low energy, their enthusiasm may be dampened.
I have to admit that when I was younger I was active in a Home Owners Association because we were fighting the US Post Office which gave us cluster mailboxes; we wanted individual mailboxes. We won that battle, but I lost interest soon after because the types of issues that came up were people complaining about their neighbors. It takes a special type of person to go into politics when it is so much about other people’s problems.
Very true Phillip. I served a 3-year term on our HOA board and was horrified to quickly learn that somehow being in an HOA makes a sizable percentage of otherwise seemingly intelligent and rational people revert back to acting like children in cliques on a middle school playground.
I'm pretty down on protests as well. I was pleased that the No Kings rallies were both well-attended and on-message. Demonstrations of fading enthusiasm, however, are worse than useless.
I kind of liked James Carville's recent take, suggesting "Repeal!" (the big ugly bill) as the Democrats' new unifying rallying cry for the midterms (and better-attended protests too perhaps), delaying the "civil war" for the identity of the party until afterward, when, one hopes, a compelling a leader will emerge to take on Trump's successor in 2028.
One question I have, though: How should we refer to the thing we want to "repeal"? I asked ChatGPT, and it came up with "Trump's Billionaires-First Tax Scam." What would we suggest?
It wouldn’t be a slogan, per se, but how about a takeoff on the Velvet Underground “electric banana” album cover, only this time with an orange, and an invitation to “REPEAL SLOWLY AND SEE”.
The protests of the 60s and 70s helped bring an war to an end and bring the concept of Earth Day to many more people. ANY activity/protest/demonstration has value, no matter how small.
I think we live in very different era than the 60's and 70's were. Politicians paid attention to the public and could still be shamed. People lived in a shared reality and could agree on basic facts. There was respect for institutions, like an independent Justice Department and a fair Supreme Court beholden to the Constitution. Much of that is gone. The news cycle moves at lightning speed. Facts favoring one view are simply dismissed by everyone favoring the opposite. Shame is an extinct concept when an adjudicated rapist and a convicted felon easily wins the Presidency.
I do agree that protests have value, but only as a support mechanism and comfort and encouragement for the like-minded, their power to bring about change like they did in the 60's and 70's is mostly gone.
I think we tend to overestimate the effectiveness of protests of the '60s and '70s in our collective memory. The most effective protest movement from that era, after all, was not quite of that era -- the civil rights movement as represented by MLK and friends. It overlapped certainly, but it really got going in the '50s. (Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus in '55.) Not coincidentally, perhaps, it was, as the kids would say now, a "normie" movement. It was anxious *not* to appear radical. It was designed to appeal to shared values rather than to challenge or "disrupt" them. In this, it was much like that other spectacularly successful movement to enlarge the circle of rights, the gay rights movement of the '90s and early 2000s culminating in Supreme Court-mandated marriage equality in 2015.
While the peace movement certainly had a worthy cause, and there were certainly many good people doing many fine things in connection with it, the protest sentiment of the later '60s and '70s tended to be more radical, more undisciplined, more self-destructive, more scattershot in their opposition to all things establishment, and generally more weird and off-putting to the "silent majority." The same could be said of the more radical approach to Black rights taken up by Malcolm X and the Black Power movement.
This is the period of a sharp culture clash, a culture war you might say -- complete with riots and political violence -- and while you can certainly make a strong argument that the kids more or less won in the long run -- conservatives certainly think they did, at least culturally, in terms of social mores, and it's hard to imagine another draft to fight a Vietnam-like war -- it produced a tremendous *political* backlash then, rending the liberal postwar consensus and ushering in the movement conservatism that has haunted us ever since.
The sad truth (or maybe not sad, depending on your view) is that the most effective political movement to emerge from the turmoil of this era was the conservative movement, the movement of Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, Jr., and, finally, Reagan, who successfully hitched Milton Friedman-style free market fundamentalism and Cold War hawkishness and Federalist Society "original meaning" constitutionalism to white working-class grievance and Christian right cultural grievance.
1968 is a key year. In the history books and the documentaries, we are taught of a "police riot" at the DNC, an old-school machine pol embarrassed, heroic journalists, and so on. We forget that when the "whole world [was] watching," the American voter portion of that world tended to see the chaos on TV and take the side of Daley, the police, and law and order.
Scoreboard: Nixon wins, and wins again, the Vietnam War goes on for another seven years, and, after the brief, crisis-plagued Carter interlude, Republicans win the White House in three elections straight. Obama's famous speech about "blue states" and "red states" would have made no sense then. Reagan's formula was so dominant -- at least at the level of national presidential politics -- that there were hardly any blue states.
Professional historians tend to shy away from announcing the lessons of history. Their deep, expert investigations of particular phenomena lead them to see clearly all the many ways this time was different from that time. If you think history is a science, you're neither a real scientist nor a real historian. But since we're not professional historians, let's speculate about a lesson or two: Backlash is real and to be avoided. The point of protests, movements, whatever is persuasion, and, when they work, a rare occurrence, they keep that objective front of mind.
We're seeing the costs of failing to learn that lesson. The trans rights movement has in my view managed to set its own worthy cause back and has even threatened the spectacular gains of its more effective gay-rights predecessor. Similarly, affirmative action has now fallen in part because of the deeply misguided and ineffective DEI and BLM movements. These are movements that took prior progress for granted (to the point of nonsensically denying it) and got way out ahead of majority sentiment, typically stridently so.
Vietnam was universally unpopular. There were many conservatives that supported it only because they believed in supporting the elected government. This is a different era. Trump doesn’t have enough against him to make protests truly effective. I would never suggest that protesters stay silent. This country started because of protests against King George. I just don’t know how many people they are convincing at the moment.
Good point. Protests are more for undecideds that those that have already made up their minds. Think any MAGAs changed their minds over the BLM, Floyd, or any other protests?
Biden may not have been at the top of his game but he was able to delegate tasks to the mostly responsible folks he selected for his cabinet and administration. Presidents delegate - there's too much to do to handle every detail yourself. One of the failures of Jimmy Carter was failure to delegate - he wanted to be involved in every detail and that becomes overwhelming. You have to trust that you've chosen wisely in the people to whom you delegate responsibilities. That's why many administration officials have to be approved by the Senate - so we know to whom a President is delegating certain responsibilities. Biden's situation was certainly no Woodrow/Edith Wilson scenario.
It is hard for presidents to trust people enough to give them power. It’s like the kings of long ago, who would be more likely to kill or imprison someone who had power than to cede power to someone.
I agree, but I’m afraid that this warm and fuzzy attitude about Biden was the main reason that (most of) the Democrats buried their heads in the sand and chose to ignore all of the glaring signs indicating what a liability he was. Instead of going about the whole matter in terms of “Well, you know, Joe’s such a good guy, he has such a big heart, and has been an honorable servant, so let’s let him have another go at it if he thinks he’s up to it”, they should have looked at all of the indicators and simply said, “You have served well Mr. President, but we’re taking the car keys. Sorry, but the stakes are too high”.
I love your point! Too many people forget what the office is. The person in charge is not an expert in every field imaginable. Think what that would involve. Politics, economics, foreign affairs, the military, manufacturing, business- the list is endless. That also includes that is a nation of over 300 million people either a ton of different religious, and cultural beliefs- all perfectly legal. This would be too much for Einstein. That’s why White House representatives have so many working for them. The orange stain thinks he knows it all. That’s why he keeps screwing up and saying idiotic things. Unfortunately rather than hiring qualified people, he hired kids ass syncophants that only know how to bow and say yes sir. So whatever MAGAs think about who was running things under Biden- mostly unproven- it definitely hasn’t improved under the orange stain.
In regard to State Farm, I hope those thieving bastards go into bankruptcy!
I had them insuring my house for over 30 years, but when they sent the new bill last February, it was over a $400 raise, even though I've never filed a claim. That's at least $25,000 I've given them over the decades! Maybe even more!
So I just didn't pay & found a far better policy at Allstate for less than I was paying, for more than two & a half times the coverage, because I had shorted the coverage for years to drop the cost.
So a few weeks later, they sent me a letter saying the policy was canceled.
Was that the end, of course not?
Now those rotten Downstate bastards keep sending me a bill for $68.61, claiming I owe them for some sort of discount that I know nothing about.
I will never pay, I even sent a copy of that bullshit back to the head of State Farm, with a note filled with every four letter word & it's variations I could think of.
So I then got yet another bill for the $68.61 again!
Let them turn it over to a collection agency for all I care, I tell off those criminals exactly the same way.
If I ever came across Jake from State Farm, I'd beat the shit out of that asshole!
in the early 90s, as a college student, I had a part time job with a collection agency. They were a bit fly-by-night but the business model was to get 30% of what they collected from scofflaws who didn't pay their parking tickets. The agency's clients were suburban municipalities.
Long story short, for $70 no collection agency is gonna come after you hard, even if the payout is 50%. State Farm might try the gym model method of invoking late fees but are BS as well.
No, I've known of collection agencies going after even smaller amounts, as they paid less than a dollar for that "privilege", hoping to score something for their buck!
Agreed. I had a collection agency come after me for $30 owed on a medical bill after I moved and never got the bill. That collection agency tracked me down and wanted that money!
Allstate may not be better. A friend of mine was a 35 year employee of Allstate as a claims adjuster. He kept Allstate for his homeowners and auto coverage after he retired. About 10 years on, he had two claims in two years (lightning hit a tree in his yard that damaged the house, then when he remodeled the garage a contractor miswired something and they had a electrical fire contained to the garage). Allstate canceled his policy. No prior notice, just a letter in the mail saying we are canceling your policy effect X date due to excessive claims history. Two claims in nearly 50 years was "excessive."
I hope you read Skeptic's and David O's comments. They are a balanced point to begin discussion about and understanding of changes in insurance rates, and whether those changes are fair or not.
Yeah, but I'm very much in agreement with Zorn's take on the overall issue. Insurance is a competitive industry, and so I expect that premium hikes -- particularly big ones that move people to shop around, as in your case -- have something to do with the company's actual costs. I likewise agree that state regulators should have access to the underlying information that would justify such hikes. But the populist rhetoric adopted by Pritzker -- which struck me as a touch strident, as though they're all just a bunch of evil crooks -- is not that of a governor interested in retaining marquis companies in the state.
State Farm doesn’t give a damn about political rhetoric. They want their raises in rates and know damn well that the state can’t do much about it. Even if the could, State Farm would simply do what they did in California and quit writing policies. Think about it for a moment. No one cancels business in the most populated state in the country unless they think they’re not making enough money.Or if they think they won’t get their way in the future.
Crowd size matters. Low numbers at any event, even Trump rallies, often result in disdain or ridicule. Likewise with boycotts. If you can't get significant participation, they're almost useless.
Worse than useless, I would argue that they are detrimental. A sparsely attended rally is a far worse optic than if there was no rally at all. The paltry attendance at Trump’s birthday parade made him look like a much bigger fool than if there hadn’t been one at all.
As a long time customer of State Farm (30 years homeowner's, 6 years renter's, and nearly 40 years auto insurance), I'm extremely upset about State Farm's massive homeowner's rate hike. In 30 years of owning a home and insuring with State Farm, I've made exactly ZERO claims, so why am I paying for their poor experience with others? Especially when that poor experience has not been focused on Illinois. Other companies have raised rates due to recent fire/flood claims in California, but State Farm stopped writing new policies in California in 2023. They may be a bit disingenuous about their losses there. We've stuck with State Farm across several states because it was relatively inexpensive between longevity discounts and bundling, but we will be seeking new quotes for sure this year.
Only hitch we might have in switching is that we have a 20 year old driver. Our rates to insure that driver are very reasonable with State Farm, probably because we've been customers so long.
You probably have a renewal discount that applies to the entire auto policy, but not a specific discount for your 20 year old. It pays to shop your insurance every few years . But quality matters and it very hard to find ratings on that. I will post a source I like later today or this evening. I can tell you that Amica has a good, but not the best reputation... Better than state farm or Allstate
That's what I mean - with our auto/homeowner's bundling and renewal discounts, covering our 20 year old driver isn't so horrible as many others report when they add a teen/young adult driver. We got the good grades discount and initially got a discount because our teen attended school out of state without taking a car. Went up when the kid took the car to school in Michigan but not awful. Our State Farm agent has really worked with us to keep the costs down for our priciest driver. I'll feel bad if we have to leave our agent but if we can get the same coverage for everything (home, autos, motorcycle) elsewhere, we may not have a choice. Only time we've used anyone other than State Farm was when we owned rental property in another state - State Farm won't insure rental property when the owner lives out of state, We even had a property manager (my dad) half an hour away from the house.
Don’t forget that insurance companies have been accused of collusion on more than one occasion. I have shopped around several times over the years on my auto policy. No one underbids State Farm unless it’s for lesser coverage.
I had called my agent to complain about my rate increase even before it made the news. Crickets. I need to have a discussion with the Allstate guy down the block. Jake’s days of being my guy are numbered.
Melinda, I don’t know how old you are. When I was a kid we did most of our shopping at small mom-and-pop stores. Or even if it was a larger store, chances were that it was individually owned. I remember we bought most of our groceries from the locally owned supermarket, not the Jewel a few blocks farther. Clothes were purchased from Gately People’s store on South Michigan Avenue, not Sears or JC Penney. Times have changed. Good luck finding a store not corporate owned where the main concern is shareholders, not customers. You might some type of service from a small business type. But your stuff comes from a megastore, unless you live somewhere in the city nowhere near such an animal. And that stuff in the few mom-and-pops cost a lot more because they can’t buy in bulk. I admit to doing a lot of shopping at Walmart because stuff is lot cheaper than the grocery where I live. It’s the times. Corporate stores make a lot of noise about caring for each and every customer. But I doubt that they are seriously concerned about losing a few. Insurance companies in Illinois are shutting down left and right. There are more than a few counties in Illinois that only have a few choices of either homeowner, medical, or auto insurance. And State Farm knows this.
I grew up in West Michigan so we had Meijer "super" stores even in the 70s (throwback - they were called "Meijer Thrifty Acres" then) but while we got a lot of groceries there we also shopped at locally owned stores (meat only came from "Wilt's," shoes from the local "bootery," etc). While I do shop at corporate stores for a lot of things, I try to choose ones that I feel comfortable supporting and avoid ones I don't. I avoid Wal-Mart and Sam's, Target since they stopped DEI programming for employees (my sister used to be an employee), Home Depot (CEO a big Trumper). I frequent locally-owned LGP Ace Hardware and Village True Value Hardware in Western Springs, both stores where I personally know the owner. I go to my local butcher/deli shop for better quality meat (though Costco meat is quite good if you have the freezer space to store large quantities). I am very early Gen X, raised by Silent Generation parents (not Boomers). Those of us raised by Silent Gens are very different Gen X than those raised by Boomers. Just a different style of living and parenting. My parents were born in the Depression, raised in very small (population in the hundreds) towns, and very shaped by their families' experiences at that time.
I actually partly attribute Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump in 2016 to the fact that Jon Stewart resigned from the Daily Show in 2015. Had he been there, night after night during the year, creating clips for mainstream shows to show the next day, it might easily have turned the tide.
Part of the problem was that when they attack him night after night it loses some of the impact after a while. It’s why I stopped listening to Limbaugh years ago. Every day is the same so it gets boring.
Reminds me of the old joke: (scribbled on a wall) "Things I hate: 1) vandalism 2) lists 3) irony 4) lists 5) repetition" (there are different versions of this joke)
For those who might have missed it (I posted it yesterday in a comment to Thursday's PS) and are interested to know, there is a website tracking the progress of Project 2025, the policy manifesto the Republicans all disavowed during last year's election cycle. In just six months, they've managed to fulfill 46% of the objectives from a plan they feigned ignorance about.
Thank you for sharing b/c I am glad to know that it's being tracked. But I just can't click on it because it's too depressing to start my day with that.
State Farm and property casualty insurance companies in general have far more open books than businesses in general and are subject to rate regulations by states. They publish quarterly financial statements that can be obtained by anyone. In the 10 years ending in 2024 for Illinois homeowners insurance, State farm has paid 79 cents for every dollar of premium taken in. If you add expenses to that they have lost money. It is not even close.Also, companies mustake rate filings for specific state and products showing loss history of those products. Materials and labor costs for repairing houses has increased sharply in the past 5 years. A lot of companies have been raising rates. I can assure you that Illinois has a very competitive market for homeowners insurance. There are plenty of options for most people . If anyone is really interested then get their rate filings from the Illinois Department of Insurance which will have detailed actuarial justification for their rate increase
And unlike Allstate, Progressive, etc, State Farm is a mutual insurance company (owned by its policyholders). They may be paying their people too much, spending too much on advertising or building their capital too high, but aren’t lining the pockets of any greedy shareholders…
The biggest issue for me with the ICE policies is the cruelty that has accompanied them. It’s shocking to me how many Americans happily and even vigorously support such cruelty.
The cruelty is horrendous, and the level of support is appalling. But what enables the cruelty is the lawlessness - this agency is accountable to no one except Trump, they completely disregard any semblance of due process, which makes everyone vulnerable - legal immigrants and citizens included.
Again, the cognitive dissonance of maga has me perplexed. The supposedly law and order crowd cheers loudly and supports this crap. I guess because it's directed at "those" people. They can't possibly comprehend that it may one day be directed at themselves or their children who might not have the same love and support to Trump as their parents which in Trump's view would make them the enemy.
And now they are as well funded as most of the armies in the world. There is going to be massive hiring by ICE. Every person who couldn't make it in law enforcement will try to sign up and few will be turned away.
Agent Orange's polling figures on the way he and his Brownshirts are handling deportations, etc., are falling. Now well below 50% and they will, I predict, be at the level of his core knuckleheads, racists, and sadists (about 35%) before long.
The instigator of an enquiry into President Biden's "cognitive failings" just told a story about his uncle "Uncle Dr John Trump" who had a degree in, inter alia, "nuclear," teaching the Unabomber at MIT. He recounted a conversation in which Uncle Dr John Trump told him that the Unabomber was a genius. Mr Kaczynski did not attend MIT and Uncle Dr John Trump died before anyone knew that Kazcynski was the Unabomber. Now exactly who is a a beef patty short of a hamberder?
He also, apparently, does not remember that it was he who appointed Jerome Powell to chair the Federal Reserve, a rather major lapse, I would say, and one that ranks with Biden’s September ‘22 White House speech in which he mindlessly cried out the name of a Congresswoman who was unable to reply because she was….deceased.
Although outrage and vitriol at Trump’s malfeasance and mental decay are in tall order, we must never cease to be awed at how the Democrats managed to pull off the truly monumental and jaw dropping achievement of losing to this guy.
One of the key factors in the election was that Trump’s words and image were everywhere (and continue to be). The power of advertising.
But Biden’s and Harris’s weren’t? C’mon. The only real factor in the election was that the Democrats chose to field an unelectable candidate, and this traces back to their refusal to primary Biden out of the race when it became clear that he wasn’t going to step down. Dean Phillips tried, but he was duly shunned by the party and ignored by most of the media, most of whom, despicably, complied with the party demands to not “platform” him by giving him any airtime (kind of their job, isn’t it?) and thus stifling his urgent message.
I wish I could believe that Harris wasn't "unelectable" because she was female and of color.
Although I don’t think that those traits benefited her, I also don’t think that they presented insurmountable obstacles. Her true albatross was the fact that she was a wildly unpopular vice president in a wildly unpopular incumbent administration whose approval ratings had been underwater for quite some time, and who the vast majority of the public (rightly or wrongly) felt were badly bungling the economy and the border crisis, and wanted a change from.
And let’s not forget, as I have pointed out in these pages several times before, Harris had made a bid for the presidential nomination just four years earlier and showed so poorly that she dropped out of the race two months before the Iowa caucuses. This is why I say that she was unelectable, and why I think that the Democratic Party committed catastrophic, and possibly irreversible malpractice when they shoehorned her into the nomination in the eleventh hour.
Hard to say. There are MAGA that wouldn’t vote for her for those reasons. But they wouldn’t have voted for her anyway. Did it affect the Palestinian protesters and independents that promised not to vote? Don’t forget that many Muslims are stlll male-centered and would have a hard time voting for a woman. But what number are we talking about? I personally don’t believe they were great factors. But I won’t say that with certainty. Trust me- there are still many males that would never vote for a woman, much less a black woman. I personally know more than a few. But they were going to vote for the stain, anyway.
Fred, anyone reading this forum knows that I hate Trump as much as anyone. But let's be real. Anyone in the White House or running for the job gets all the publicity he or she wants. As I have said on many occasions, the orange stain tapped into a wellspring of dissatisfaction of Americans that was very much populist and very racist. Trump unabashedly took advantage of emotions that many conservatives had held for years. Don't help the poor and needy with my taxes- let them do it on their own like I did. Who cares if minorities have been historically held back and still don't have the same opportunities as whites? The Constitution says we're all equal, so that's that. Latinos from south of the border are dirty and unwashed who are only coming here to have American babies and join the welfare system. Trump is an evil man. But he was elected- twice. What does that say about us as people. I agree that the Democrats totally mismanaged the election. But I wonder if it really mattered who they ran.
Excellent point! For all the moaning about the orange stain, perhaps Dem leadership should explain how they managed to lose to him. It might also help explain why so many younger Democrats are abandoning leadership and looking for something new. Unfortunately this also benefits the GOP. How long will it take for Democrats to find “something new” and the flag bearers to lead it?
I wonder about the cognitive failings of his supporters. I am sure most of the maga base will never hear this story because they only watch Fox News and I will bet on Fox not leading with this story or even putting it anywhere on their website. The ones that do will summarily dismiss it with a "what about Biden" or just simply just ignore it because Trump is doing "great" things and "fixing" this country. It says something about a group of people who call us snowflakes where they can't even begin to consider evidence that conflicts with their worldview.
Well, anyone who heard him tell the sinking electric boat vs sharks story can't possibly believe that the Orange Menace has all his marbles. He not only is a beef patty short of a hamburger, he is stuck in his own driveway unable to remember how to get to a McDonalds.
"Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Indiana" schools may have increased their test scores but that's not hard to do when you start at the bottom - there's no where to go but up! When I lived in South Carolina the unofficial school motto was "Thank God for Mississippi" because it kept SC from having the worst schools in the country. Mississippi has clearly improved because I understand South Carolina has now taken the bottom spot for US education.
Amen to that!
NAEP 4th grade reading scores, 2024: Mississippi 219, Chicago 203, nat'l avg 214 https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/
MS has adopted phonics - the scientifically proven method for teaching reading - statewide for its public schools. so it's not surpising that their scores have improved. how is reading taught in CPS? phonics? consistently?
admittedly just but one data point - but explain to us your point again - in particular, why Chgo has fallen behind MS.
Joanie's statement re recognizing others as ourselves reminded me of one of my favorite "modern" hymns:
This Is My Song by Lloyd Stone and Georgia Harkness (Tune: Finlandia)
This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine;
this is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine:
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine:
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.
May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song.
I’m also part of the problem for Colbert’s Late Show as I tend to watch the segments the next morning on YouTube.
But the claims of it being unprofitable seem overblown, at best. According to the video linked below, Paramount’s loss-leader from their financials is Direct-to-Consumer, aka streaming platforms like Paramount+. In the first quarter of 2025, that division lost $100M. Filmed Entertainment (movies, ads, etc) eked out just $20M. TV Media accounted for over $900M of the company’s net revenue for the quarter, far and away it’s most profitable division.
Add to that Paramount’s own reporting that The Late Show leads the “Broadcast Late Night” category.
All of this is circumstantial evidence, of course. We don’t know the actual numbers for TLS specifically, and maybe Paramount’s decision is financially sound.
But it is rather suspicious that it came just days after Colbert called their payoff to Trump a bribe, especially with David Ellison (owner of Skydance Media) being the son of Larry Ellison, a big Trump supporter.
https://youtu.be/aK5k__dvZwQ
It’s like when I hear that a local restaurant is closing and I think that I won’t be able to go my one time a year.
Excellent and enlightening video.
And now I feel especially old, right smack around Colbert's demographic's age and so conventional that I time my nightly tooth-brushing to finish in time for me to be in bed to watch Colbert's monologue and first guest introduction while it's broadcast. That routine very much brightens Monday - Thursday nights, at least when he doesn't show reruns.
"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" still delivers some of the same pleasure as when my mom would let me stay up past bedtime to see Johnny Carson interview a favorite actor on "The Tonight Show." Colbert seems more like Carson than other late-night hosts do, which has cemented my loyalty. Yup, old. Good company, at least.
I can believe that the show was failing financially. I've wondered for many years how three big budget talk show could all survive in the time slot. And it has been well publicized that the key money spenders, young people that shell out like there is no tomorrow, have other interests. This kills ad revenue. But if anyone believes Paramount didn't cave to the orange stain, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell them. Paramount is in the midst of a big merger that needs to be approved by the FCC. Guess who controls the FCC.
The video John Houck called attention to above plausibly calls into question that Colbert's show was "failing financially."
If it's true that younger folk prefer to get their entertainment via other media anyway, what is the point of dumping geezer-friendly TV shows just to appeal to the young? Why the obsessive competition to win everything instead of appreciating the niche successes you achieve? I'm still haven't forgiven NBC for dumping "Harry's Law," which was highly rated, but only among people in older demographics, which NBC didn't care about although seniors do have and spend plenty of money.
Media companies seem to have bought into the fiction that Old Folks Are Too Set In Their Ways to be swayed by ads, etc. While they ignore the fact that we have a lot more money than most young folks, who are struggling with student debt, high housing prices, and poor job prospects.
If they just relabeled late night talk shows as "Boutique Shows" and treated the loyal fans well, they might make even more money.
Follow the money. As I am a geezer, I don’t spend the way I used to except on prescriptions and the credit cards are mostly gathering dust. The media mostly doesn’t care what I watch or what I listen to on the radio. It’s the main reason I have Sirius as most of what I listened to disappeared from AM-FM.
Of course, if you have Sirius then that in and of itself sort of mitigates any claim to irrevocable geezerhood. I don’t know what your musical tastes are, but I get by with AM-FM by listening to WDCB (mostly jazz with smatterings of folk, big band, Irish music and golden age old time radio, and gloriously commercial free!), WFMT, and, depending on the featured year, the Saturday Morning Flashback program on WXRT. Beyond that, my medium of choice for music listening is CDs, which gives you an idea of how much more ensconced in geezerhood I am (at age 54) than you are. My car is approaching 200,000 miles, and the only reason that I didn’t replace it years ago is that it has a CD player, and newer cars don’t have them. I’ve heard that you can buy dashboard CD players and get them installed at Best Buy, so I’m thinking of getting a new car and just doing that.
I’m 70. My oldies and soft rock has pretty much disappeared and my Toyota doesn’t have a CD player. I wouldn’t know how how to use MP3 or any of the other modern conveyances even if my car had them.
Nate Silver had some good points about Colbert. He goes back and forth and all around as he does, but I thought this was a reasonable bottom line: While it certainly seems true that late night TV is generally fading and that the show had become unprofitable, the politics might have represented a push:
"Earning $70 million in ad revenues per year is still substantial, especially for a flagship brand that might have a halo effect on the rest of the network. [He goes on here to talk about why cutting the show's costs to better align with that still-substantial ad revenue would have been difficult/unlikely.] ... To Paramount Global, The Late Show is still just a rounding error: Paramount recorded $29 billion in revenues last year. Here’s where politics could have been a factor, though. The extent to which corporate suits will tolerate a loss from a high-prestige but money-losing division of the company may well depend on both the external and internal political environment. ... If a new division head steps in who wants to rectify the excesses of the previous administration, or a new corporate parent takes over that wants to demonstrate to investors that it can trim costs, you might be a sitting duck so long as the P&L is in the red. ... And if you’re also a political pain-in-the-ass, that might be a decisive tiebreaker. ... You might be able to survive losing money, and you might be able to survive being a political headache for the suits, but probably not both at once."
https://www.natesilver.net/p/why-colbert-got-canceled
It's sad to see the number of companies capitulating to the whims of the orange stain. Coca Cola announced it was switching from high fructose corn syrup to cane sugar in drinks because of the orange stain. It makes me wonder what interest the orange stain has in the sugar industry. Actually, I don't care. Too much of either one is not particularly healthy for you. I am speaking as a diabetic. I'm just wonderng what business it is of Trump if both are legal. He's a trained dietician now?
It's another distraction, trying to get people to stop talking about Epstein. But for all we know his motivation could be to get stores to stop selling Mexican Coke...
That seems highly likely. The fact that high fructose corn syrup is on RFK Jr's radar as unhealthy is a bonus. I personally prefer real sugar on the rare occasions when I wish something sweet. But my 3 Cokes a year are not going to sway the markets.
One of his biggest financial supporters is Pepe Fanjul, who owns the biggest sugar cane fields in Florida. That's why he pushed the idiots at Coke to do it. of course it will also cost double what regular Coke costs!
Thank you for confirming what I suspected. On the Channel 5 news tonight, they said Pepsi will be doing the same thing.
Shari Redstone MUST have this merger for Paramount Global and Skydance Media.They will then be a $28 billion company. She wants to get this merger done and is getting Trump to help in any way possible - pressure, lawsuits, etc. She and her family have majority voting power in Paramount Global and all it subsidiaries: CBS, Comedy Central, BET, Showtime Networks, Nickelodeon, MTV, and the film studio Paramount Pictures. We have laws about not letting any one company get too big - read your history books about Standard Oil. But that is history, and every big businessman/woman is desperately trying to be the best and richest. The "boys and their toys" idea - but Shari fits the bill, too. Disgusting. When is it enough money? I guess that answer is NEVER.
There’s another factor. It doesn’t much matter what the rules are. You think there are any Trump departments such as the SEC, FDA, or anyone else that are going to go after anyone?
I'm increasingly skeptical that protests have any effect at all. The massive "No Kings" protests were just over a month ago and are already a distant memory, winning no changes. Maybe sustaining them at that scale over a long period of time, like every weekend for a year, could have a chance to force the issue enough to be in the media more consistently and have a chance at forcing some change.
I think the BLM protests in 2020 were somewhat successful because they were sustained over a long period of time, getting accountability for the murder of George Floyd, getting many confederate statues taken down and at least to my impression reducing the number of Black people killed by police. I can't think of another example since maybe the 80's that had at least that much success.
Sporadic, poorly attended protests might only be a comfort for those involved, but they seem completely ineffectual, even open to derision and ridicule.
Protests are successful to the extent that they get new people involved in the political process and from them we can get our future leaders. But for changing opinions of other people? Nope.
That's a good point, they do have value as recruitment devices, but that could also be a double-edged sword - if a young person attends a protest for the first time and sees a lackluster turnout and low energy, their enthusiasm may be dampened.
I have to admit that when I was younger I was active in a Home Owners Association because we were fighting the US Post Office which gave us cluster mailboxes; we wanted individual mailboxes. We won that battle, but I lost interest soon after because the types of issues that came up were people complaining about their neighbors. It takes a special type of person to go into politics when it is so much about other people’s problems.
Very true Phillip. I served a 3-year term on our HOA board and was horrified to quickly learn that somehow being in an HOA makes a sizable percentage of otherwise seemingly intelligent and rational people revert back to acting like children in cliques on a middle school playground.
Not to mention all the cool free stuff they got!👍😉
I'm pretty down on protests as well. I was pleased that the No Kings rallies were both well-attended and on-message. Demonstrations of fading enthusiasm, however, are worse than useless.
I kind of liked James Carville's recent take, suggesting "Repeal!" (the big ugly bill) as the Democrats' new unifying rallying cry for the midterms (and better-attended protests too perhaps), delaying the "civil war" for the identity of the party until afterward, when, one hopes, a compelling a leader will emerge to take on Trump's successor in 2028.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/opinion/carville-democrats-midterms-mamdani.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YU8.KYTn._ZIIhw5HMg1G&smid=url-share
One question I have, though: How should we refer to the thing we want to "repeal"? I asked ChatGPT, and it came up with "Trump's Billionaires-First Tax Scam." What would we suggest?
It wouldn’t be a slogan, per se, but how about a takeoff on the Velvet Underground “electric banana” album cover, only this time with an orange, and an invitation to “REPEAL SLOWLY AND SEE”.
The protests of the 60s and 70s helped bring an war to an end and bring the concept of Earth Day to many more people. ANY activity/protest/demonstration has value, no matter how small.
I think we live in very different era than the 60's and 70's were. Politicians paid attention to the public and could still be shamed. People lived in a shared reality and could agree on basic facts. There was respect for institutions, like an independent Justice Department and a fair Supreme Court beholden to the Constitution. Much of that is gone. The news cycle moves at lightning speed. Facts favoring one view are simply dismissed by everyone favoring the opposite. Shame is an extinct concept when an adjudicated rapist and a convicted felon easily wins the Presidency.
I do agree that protests have value, but only as a support mechanism and comfort and encouragement for the like-minded, their power to bring about change like they did in the 60's and 70's is mostly gone.
I think we tend to overestimate the effectiveness of protests of the '60s and '70s in our collective memory. The most effective protest movement from that era, after all, was not quite of that era -- the civil rights movement as represented by MLK and friends. It overlapped certainly, but it really got going in the '50s. (Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus in '55.) Not coincidentally, perhaps, it was, as the kids would say now, a "normie" movement. It was anxious *not* to appear radical. It was designed to appeal to shared values rather than to challenge or "disrupt" them. In this, it was much like that other spectacularly successful movement to enlarge the circle of rights, the gay rights movement of the '90s and early 2000s culminating in Supreme Court-mandated marriage equality in 2015.
While the peace movement certainly had a worthy cause, and there were certainly many good people doing many fine things in connection with it, the protest sentiment of the later '60s and '70s tended to be more radical, more undisciplined, more self-destructive, more scattershot in their opposition to all things establishment, and generally more weird and off-putting to the "silent majority." The same could be said of the more radical approach to Black rights taken up by Malcolm X and the Black Power movement.
This is the period of a sharp culture clash, a culture war you might say -- complete with riots and political violence -- and while you can certainly make a strong argument that the kids more or less won in the long run -- conservatives certainly think they did, at least culturally, in terms of social mores, and it's hard to imagine another draft to fight a Vietnam-like war -- it produced a tremendous *political* backlash then, rending the liberal postwar consensus and ushering in the movement conservatism that has haunted us ever since.
The sad truth (or maybe not sad, depending on your view) is that the most effective political movement to emerge from the turmoil of this era was the conservative movement, the movement of Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, Jr., and, finally, Reagan, who successfully hitched Milton Friedman-style free market fundamentalism and Cold War hawkishness and Federalist Society "original meaning" constitutionalism to white working-class grievance and Christian right cultural grievance.
1968 is a key year. In the history books and the documentaries, we are taught of a "police riot" at the DNC, an old-school machine pol embarrassed, heroic journalists, and so on. We forget that when the "whole world [was] watching," the American voter portion of that world tended to see the chaos on TV and take the side of Daley, the police, and law and order.
Scoreboard: Nixon wins, and wins again, the Vietnam War goes on for another seven years, and, after the brief, crisis-plagued Carter interlude, Republicans win the White House in three elections straight. Obama's famous speech about "blue states" and "red states" would have made no sense then. Reagan's formula was so dominant -- at least at the level of national presidential politics -- that there were hardly any blue states.
Professional historians tend to shy away from announcing the lessons of history. Their deep, expert investigations of particular phenomena lead them to see clearly all the many ways this time was different from that time. If you think history is a science, you're neither a real scientist nor a real historian. But since we're not professional historians, let's speculate about a lesson or two: Backlash is real and to be avoided. The point of protests, movements, whatever is persuasion, and, when they work, a rare occurrence, they keep that objective front of mind.
We're seeing the costs of failing to learn that lesson. The trans rights movement has in my view managed to set its own worthy cause back and has even threatened the spectacular gains of its more effective gay-rights predecessor. Similarly, affirmative action has now fallen in part because of the deeply misguided and ineffective DEI and BLM movements. These are movements that took prior progress for granted (to the point of nonsensically denying it) and got way out ahead of majority sentiment, typically stridently so.
Further well-taken point on this issue here:
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-left-is-misremembering-civil?r=nn2bm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Thanks, this is good context and you make some compelling points
Vietnam was universally unpopular. There were many conservatives that supported it only because they believed in supporting the elected government. This is a different era. Trump doesn’t have enough against him to make protests truly effective. I would never suggest that protesters stay silent. This country started because of protests against King George. I just don’t know how many people they are convincing at the moment.
Good point. Protests are more for undecideds that those that have already made up their minds. Think any MAGAs changed their minds over the BLM, Floyd, or any other protests?
Biden may not have been at the top of his game but he was able to delegate tasks to the mostly responsible folks he selected for his cabinet and administration. Presidents delegate - there's too much to do to handle every detail yourself. One of the failures of Jimmy Carter was failure to delegate - he wanted to be involved in every detail and that becomes overwhelming. You have to trust that you've chosen wisely in the people to whom you delegate responsibilities. That's why many administration officials have to be approved by the Senate - so we know to whom a President is delegating certain responsibilities. Biden's situation was certainly no Woodrow/Edith Wilson scenario.
It is hard for presidents to trust people enough to give them power. It’s like the kings of long ago, who would be more likely to kill or imprison someone who had power than to cede power to someone.
That's what was supposed to be different about a representative democracy
Right on! Whatever we can say about Biden’s confusion at times, he did a decent job as president, and he cared about both sides of the aisle.
I agree, but I’m afraid that this warm and fuzzy attitude about Biden was the main reason that (most of) the Democrats buried their heads in the sand and chose to ignore all of the glaring signs indicating what a liability he was. Instead of going about the whole matter in terms of “Well, you know, Joe’s such a good guy, he has such a big heart, and has been an honorable servant, so let’s let him have another go at it if he thinks he’s up to it”, they should have looked at all of the indicators and simply said, “You have served well Mr. President, but we’re taking the car keys. Sorry, but the stakes are too high”.
I love your point! Too many people forget what the office is. The person in charge is not an expert in every field imaginable. Think what that would involve. Politics, economics, foreign affairs, the military, manufacturing, business- the list is endless. That also includes that is a nation of over 300 million people either a ton of different religious, and cultural beliefs- all perfectly legal. This would be too much for Einstein. That’s why White House representatives have so many working for them. The orange stain thinks he knows it all. That’s why he keeps screwing up and saying idiotic things. Unfortunately rather than hiring qualified people, he hired kids ass syncophants that only know how to bow and say yes sir. So whatever MAGAs think about who was running things under Biden- mostly unproven- it definitely hasn’t improved under the orange stain.
In regard to State Farm, I hope those thieving bastards go into bankruptcy!
I had them insuring my house for over 30 years, but when they sent the new bill last February, it was over a $400 raise, even though I've never filed a claim. That's at least $25,000 I've given them over the decades! Maybe even more!
So I just didn't pay & found a far better policy at Allstate for less than I was paying, for more than two & a half times the coverage, because I had shorted the coverage for years to drop the cost.
So a few weeks later, they sent me a letter saying the policy was canceled.
Was that the end, of course not?
Now those rotten Downstate bastards keep sending me a bill for $68.61, claiming I owe them for some sort of discount that I know nothing about.
I will never pay, I even sent a copy of that bullshit back to the head of State Farm, with a note filled with every four letter word & it's variations I could think of.
So I then got yet another bill for the $68.61 again!
Let them turn it over to a collection agency for all I care, I tell off those criminals exactly the same way.
If I ever came across Jake from State Farm, I'd beat the shit out of that asshole!
in the early 90s, as a college student, I had a part time job with a collection agency. They were a bit fly-by-night but the business model was to get 30% of what they collected from scofflaws who didn't pay their parking tickets. The agency's clients were suburban municipalities.
Long story short, for $70 no collection agency is gonna come after you hard, even if the payout is 50%. State Farm might try the gym model method of invoking late fees but are BS as well.
No, I've known of collection agencies going after even smaller amounts, as they paid less than a dollar for that "privilege", hoping to score something for their buck!
Agreed. I had a collection agency come after me for $30 owed on a medical bill after I moved and never got the bill. That collection agency tracked me down and wanted that money!
Allstate may not be better. A friend of mine was a 35 year employee of Allstate as a claims adjuster. He kept Allstate for his homeowners and auto coverage after he retired. About 10 years on, he had two claims in two years (lightning hit a tree in his yard that damaged the house, then when he remodeled the garage a contractor miswired something and they had a electrical fire contained to the garage). Allstate canceled his policy. No prior notice, just a letter in the mail saying we are canceling your policy effect X date due to excessive claims history. Two claims in nearly 50 years was "excessive."
I hope you read Skeptic's and David O's comments. They are a balanced point to begin discussion about and understanding of changes in insurance rates, and whether those changes are fair or not.
Yeah, but I'm very much in agreement with Zorn's take on the overall issue. Insurance is a competitive industry, and so I expect that premium hikes -- particularly big ones that move people to shop around, as in your case -- have something to do with the company's actual costs. I likewise agree that state regulators should have access to the underlying information that would justify such hikes. But the populist rhetoric adopted by Pritzker -- which struck me as a touch strident, as though they're all just a bunch of evil crooks -- is not that of a governor interested in retaining marquis companies in the state.
State Farm doesn’t give a damn about political rhetoric. They want their raises in rates and know damn well that the state can’t do much about it. Even if the could, State Farm would simply do what they did in California and quit writing policies. Think about it for a moment. No one cancels business in the most populated state in the country unless they think they’re not making enough money.Or if they think they won’t get their way in the future.
Crowd size matters. Low numbers at any event, even Trump rallies, often result in disdain or ridicule. Likewise with boycotts. If you can't get significant participation, they're almost useless.
Worse than useless, I would argue that they are detrimental. A sparsely attended rally is a far worse optic than if there was no rally at all. The paltry attendance at Trump’s birthday parade made him look like a much bigger fool than if there hadn’t been one at all.
As a long time customer of State Farm (30 years homeowner's, 6 years renter's, and nearly 40 years auto insurance), I'm extremely upset about State Farm's massive homeowner's rate hike. In 30 years of owning a home and insuring with State Farm, I've made exactly ZERO claims, so why am I paying for their poor experience with others? Especially when that poor experience has not been focused on Illinois. Other companies have raised rates due to recent fire/flood claims in California, but State Farm stopped writing new policies in California in 2023. They may be a bit disingenuous about their losses there. We've stuck with State Farm across several states because it was relatively inexpensive between longevity discounts and bundling, but we will be seeking new quotes for sure this year.
I never trusted State Farm, and that was long before they continued paying Aaron Rodgers after he outed himself as an anti-vaxxer...
Only hitch we might have in switching is that we have a 20 year old driver. Our rates to insure that driver are very reasonable with State Farm, probably because we've been customers so long.
You probably have a renewal discount that applies to the entire auto policy, but not a specific discount for your 20 year old. It pays to shop your insurance every few years . But quality matters and it very hard to find ratings on that. I will post a source I like later today or this evening. I can tell you that Amica has a good, but not the best reputation... Better than state farm or Allstate
This video has links to ratings. I like the crash network one and have a link to that here
https://youtu.be/5p8wti4_z8Y?si=K-ceNDz6WYqMFqcP
https://www.crashnetwork.com/irc/
That's what I mean - with our auto/homeowner's bundling and renewal discounts, covering our 20 year old driver isn't so horrible as many others report when they add a teen/young adult driver. We got the good grades discount and initially got a discount because our teen attended school out of state without taking a car. Went up when the kid took the car to school in Michigan but not awful. Our State Farm agent has really worked with us to keep the costs down for our priciest driver. I'll feel bad if we have to leave our agent but if we can get the same coverage for everything (home, autos, motorcycle) elsewhere, we may not have a choice. Only time we've used anyone other than State Farm was when we owned rental property in another state - State Farm won't insure rental property when the owner lives out of state, We even had a property manager (my dad) half an hour away from the house.
Don’t forget that insurance companies have been accused of collusion on more than one occasion. I have shopped around several times over the years on my auto policy. No one underbids State Farm unless it’s for lesser coverage.
I had called my agent to complain about my rate increase even before it made the news. Crickets. I need to have a discussion with the Allstate guy down the block. Jake’s days of being my guy are numbered.
Melinda, I don’t know how old you are. When I was a kid we did most of our shopping at small mom-and-pop stores. Or even if it was a larger store, chances were that it was individually owned. I remember we bought most of our groceries from the locally owned supermarket, not the Jewel a few blocks farther. Clothes were purchased from Gately People’s store on South Michigan Avenue, not Sears or JC Penney. Times have changed. Good luck finding a store not corporate owned where the main concern is shareholders, not customers. You might some type of service from a small business type. But your stuff comes from a megastore, unless you live somewhere in the city nowhere near such an animal. And that stuff in the few mom-and-pops cost a lot more because they can’t buy in bulk. I admit to doing a lot of shopping at Walmart because stuff is lot cheaper than the grocery where I live. It’s the times. Corporate stores make a lot of noise about caring for each and every customer. But I doubt that they are seriously concerned about losing a few. Insurance companies in Illinois are shutting down left and right. There are more than a few counties in Illinois that only have a few choices of either homeowner, medical, or auto insurance. And State Farm knows this.
I grew up in West Michigan so we had Meijer "super" stores even in the 70s (throwback - they were called "Meijer Thrifty Acres" then) but while we got a lot of groceries there we also shopped at locally owned stores (meat only came from "Wilt's," shoes from the local "bootery," etc). While I do shop at corporate stores for a lot of things, I try to choose ones that I feel comfortable supporting and avoid ones I don't. I avoid Wal-Mart and Sam's, Target since they stopped DEI programming for employees (my sister used to be an employee), Home Depot (CEO a big Trumper). I frequent locally-owned LGP Ace Hardware and Village True Value Hardware in Western Springs, both stores where I personally know the owner. I go to my local butcher/deli shop for better quality meat (though Costco meat is quite good if you have the freezer space to store large quantities). I am very early Gen X, raised by Silent Generation parents (not Boomers). Those of us raised by Silent Gens are very different Gen X than those raised by Boomers. Just a different style of living and parenting. My parents were born in the Depression, raised in very small (population in the hundreds) towns, and very shaped by their families' experiences at that time.
I actually partly attribute Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump in 2016 to the fact that Jon Stewart resigned from the Daily Show in 2015. Had he been there, night after night during the year, creating clips for mainstream shows to show the next day, it might easily have turned the tide.
Part of the problem was that when they attack him night after night it loses some of the impact after a while. It’s why I stopped listening to Limbaugh years ago. Every day is the same so it gets boring.
Regarding Ann H's comment that she no longer responds to click polls, I suggest a poll here to see how your subscribers feel about polls.
With one of the options, “I never vote in click polls”
🤔
Reminds me of the old joke: (scribbled on a wall) "Things I hate: 1) vandalism 2) lists 3) irony 4) lists 5) repetition" (there are different versions of this joke)
For those who might have missed it (I posted it yesterday in a comment to Thursday's PS) and are interested to know, there is a website tracking the progress of Project 2025, the policy manifesto the Republicans all disavowed during last year's election cycle. In just six months, they've managed to fulfill 46% of the objectives from a plan they feigned ignorance about.
https://www.project2025.observer/
Thank you for sharing b/c I am glad to know that it's being tracked. But I just can't click on it because it's too depressing to start my day with that.
State Farm and property casualty insurance companies in general have far more open books than businesses in general and are subject to rate regulations by states. They publish quarterly financial statements that can be obtained by anyone. In the 10 years ending in 2024 for Illinois homeowners insurance, State farm has paid 79 cents for every dollar of premium taken in. If you add expenses to that they have lost money. It is not even close.Also, companies mustake rate filings for specific state and products showing loss history of those products. Materials and labor costs for repairing houses has increased sharply in the past 5 years. A lot of companies have been raising rates. I can assure you that Illinois has a very competitive market for homeowners insurance. There are plenty of options for most people . If anyone is really interested then get their rate filings from the Illinois Department of Insurance which will have detailed actuarial justification for their rate increase
And unlike Allstate, Progressive, etc, State Farm is a mutual insurance company (owned by its policyholders). They may be paying their people too much, spending too much on advertising or building their capital too high, but aren’t lining the pockets of any greedy shareholders…
State Farm's expenses are higher than they should be, IMO. But not even the most efficient operators can make money at a 79 loss ratio.
Btw the expense problem is not due to executive pay or marketing budget. The issue is allowing some departments to get on in bloated, again IMO .
The biggest issue for me with the ICE policies is the cruelty that has accompanied them. It’s shocking to me how many Americans happily and even vigorously support such cruelty.
The cruelty is horrendous, and the level of support is appalling. But what enables the cruelty is the lawlessness - this agency is accountable to no one except Trump, they completely disregard any semblance of due process, which makes everyone vulnerable - legal immigrants and citizens included.
Good point.
Again, the cognitive dissonance of maga has me perplexed. The supposedly law and order crowd cheers loudly and supports this crap. I guess because it's directed at "those" people. They can't possibly comprehend that it may one day be directed at themselves or their children who might not have the same love and support to Trump as their parents which in Trump's view would make them the enemy.
And now they are as well funded as most of the armies in the world. There is going to be massive hiring by ICE. Every person who couldn't make it in law enforcement will try to sign up and few will be turned away.
Agent Orange's polling figures on the way he and his Brownshirts are handling deportations, etc., are falling. Now well below 50% and they will, I predict, be at the level of his core knuckleheads, racists, and sadists (about 35%) before long.
Anybody else think that fingerprint pendant looks like a silver toilet seat (the kind Trump used before he made some real money)?
Can we please stop calling Chicago Public Schools underfunded when we’re spending more per student than practically anywhere else in the country.