Politico hack: "If there’s a group who’d be more unhappy with him representing the Democratic Party than the left, it’s Republicans, who fear he’d tug his party toward the center.” Sloppy journalists and MAGA types have come to believe their fantasy that The Democratic Party is left-wing. What utter bilge. It is a solidly centrist party opposed by a fascist-adjacent party that was right-wing before trump and has become fully authoritarian, economically unhinged, fundamentalist Christian, and blood and soil nationalist.
I bristled at that also. There is no compromising with fascism, that idea needs to be rejected wholly, with extreme prejudice. Any compromise of that sort is abhorrent and repugnant and can only exist as a temporary foothold until fascism fully asserts itself.
(It is interesting to ask yourself why the DNC would authorize public release of this poll with these brutal polling results...)
And at the same time, Senate Democrats voted unanimously against legislation banning biological males from competing in women's sports. That's certainly going to help them in their reelection races next year in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada, right?
Liberal columnist Laura Washington had a commentary in yesterday's Chicago Tribune pleading for the Democratic Party to stop adhering to far left progressive policy positions that are very unpopular with most of America.
The question is whether the Democratic party is going to continue to be controlled by the far left progressive flank. As a conservative, that would make me happy in terms of winning many more elections. But as an American I believe our country will best benefit by a responsible center-left Democratic Party that offers policy alternatives with broad appeal for Americans to compete with Republican policies.
David, transgender women are not “biological males.” Gender identity in the brain, which is what makes transgender women women and transgender men men, is a result of biology, most likely epigenetics. See below. It would be nice if you Republicans would try to move beyond high school level biology. Of course, if you did that, you would not be able to be dismissive of trans people—you would not be able to feel superior or to be smug. You would realize that your efforts to marginalize us are not really different from the efforts of your political ancestors to marginalize black people.
Polls of people who fall for the MAGA propaganda machine are worth...? A left wing party would be, e.g., advocating for a universal health service among many other things. The MAGApublicans are so far to the right that they think President Biden (the centrist's centrist), President Obama, and the Clintons are socialists ansd Senator Sanders is a communist. The obsession with trans people is all on the right as are the right's obsession with sexual preference, etc. MAGA people keep on projecting their sexual obsessions on the Democrats while making wicked attacks on the most vulnerable people in society. You want to be associated with these people? OK, it's a free country ... oh,wait a minute?
PS. This man co-wrote the Texas anti-trans bill with Governor Abbott. From the Texas Tribune; "Robert Morris, the Dallas-area megachurch pastor who resigned last year amid sexual abuse allegations, has been indicted in Oklahoma for child sex crimes that date back to the 1980s. Morris is a former spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump, and Gateway — one of the nation’s largest megachurches — has been particularly active in politics. In 2020, Trump held a “Roundtable on Transition to Greatness” there that was attended by then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr and other prominent Republicans. Morris faces five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said in a Wednesday evening press release. The indictment comes less than a year after Morris resigned from Gateway Church in Southlake after an adult woman, Cindy Clemishire, said Morris repeatedly sexually assaulted her while she was a child in Oklahoma in the 1980s. Morris was at the time working as a traveling preacher."
Michael - My perception from your posts seems consistent to me that you are fairly far left. However, if you consider yourself a centrist, then I can understand why you would view the Democratic Party as centrist.
However, this is contrary to what the national polls reflect in the American people's reaction to the Democratic Party, as well as many democratic voices in the media such as Laura Washington, Van Jones, Bill Maher, James Carville and many others lamenting how far left the Democratic Party has gone. There is a reason why Trump won middle-class voters, and conversely Harris won wealthier people in the over $100,000 group. The clear perception on the street is that it is now Republicans looking out for working families.
Well, when one realizes that a large portion of the country only watches Faux News and listens to their bilge, that explains a lot of the 'poll' numbers. IF they knew the actual facts about the Democrats and their policies, they would not have the knee-jerk response to these questions. PERHAPS someone running these polls could put ACTUAL FACTUAL Democratic policies as the questions, we would get closer to the truth about how these policies are felt by Americans.
As in:
Do you feel that those who make more than a million dollars a year should pay higher taxes than those who make less than 30,000 a year?
This is not a radical left position. It is a policy that considers fairness an important principle in America.
I do not call myself a centrist. I am very left wing by MAGA standards (but so was Richard Nixon). I believe in leaving people alone, not punching down at people who are different from me; I believe that selfishness and greed are soul destroying. I also see the evidence that trump and his drug-addled henchman are causing more damage to poor working people and poor children--all in the name of inflating the wealth of a few. I think that women, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, and the poor have the same rights as men and the white wealthy. I suppose that makes me a liberal. How you vote is up to you and your conscience.
David — when you and the GOP start electing real conservatives again, this position will make sense. You have turned your party over to piratical chaos agents who believe in nothing but their own bottom line and staying in power no matter what.
Hi Steve - perhaps the core of conservativism is the belief in small government. Conservatives, as well as the majority of the country, are cheering on the Trump administration's serious efforts to reduce the size of government and government spending. I would agree that Trump is more populist than conservative, but the overwhelming majority of his policies thus far are very conservative.
BTW, did you happen to notice the Consumer Price Index report came out yesterday? In the past month the rate of inflation has slowed down more, gas prices are down the last 3 weeks in a row, and egg prices have even begun to come down after the loss of 20 million egg-bearing chickens due to bird flu in the last quarter of 2024. So Very good initial economic indicators.
Hi David - the GOP has been hoodwinked, bullied, and scared into making a conman their golden idol. Trump and his bad actors got you to buy in because “small government,” and massive tax benefits for corporate interests. I will not celebrate saving a few dollars on eggs if it means we’ve turned everything over to these self-serving wealthy tax cheats and thieves.
The stock market is tumbling and the inflationary effects of Trump's trade wars have yet to be priced in to these data. I'm interested in your rosy view of what conservatism means; what you think "small government" accomplishes and how you square that with the busybody moralism of the legislators in red states.
Eric - My conceptualization of small government is one which performs essential functions such as national defense, infrastructure, public safety, etc. small government is one in which taxes are maintained as low as possible to allow people to retain as much of their own money as possible.
I'm assuming that your reference to "busybody moralism" refers to any restriction on abortion. Has one who believes that human life begins at conception, restrictions on abortion serve the same purpose in my mind as our laws against murder and battery to protect people from harm. Please do not confuse conservativism with libertarianism. I believe the majority of conservatives fully support laws against street drugs, child pornography and other morality items.
In my view, and I believe the view of the majority of Americans come up our government has grown way too big and wasteful. Doge has uncovered a myriad of programs in which unelected bureaucrats have spent our tax dollars but that no elected representative ever voted specifically to fund. I've mentioned that my wife and I fostered an inner school girl during her junior year of high school. We were shocked by her worldview formed from life in a multi-generational welfare family. She truly believed that government was almost like a deity with an infinite source of money and whose role was to essentially support people with housing, food, transportation, etc. She had no means of understanding that government does not have a single dollar of its own except for what it collects from other people, primarily from their own labors.
There can and should be a debate about what spending to jettison and what spending to continue. I don't believe that most Americans are going to want to fund a transgender opera or gay comic book in foreign countries, but they may well support continued funding for clean water and food programs in needy areas. And they're absolutely needs to be a review for staffing which has seemingly gone without any accountability for decades. Every president for decades has talked about the need to cut government waste, and that's exactly what is now actually occurring.
What a bunch of nonsense! Even if true, so what? Does it mean Independents, of which I am one, approve of what Trump and Musk are doing? Word a poll the right way and one can get any result he or she wants. As I already said yesterday but must repeat because you keep posting the same nonsense, debating Democratic strategy does not assume support for Trump and Musk. Of course things can be improved. What about that has changed since 1789? That doesn't make what Trump and Musk are doing acceptable.
Hi Laurence - once again, I readily concede that polls can be skewed by the specific wording that is used. But, this isn't just a single poll, But a continuation of multiple poles reflecting that the Democratic Party has lost the middle class and is perceived has too far left by the great majority of Americans. This arises out of Democratic Party support for progressive policy positions as well as the performative actions on clear display on a daily basis. Even though this situation innures politically to conservatives, I am simply stating what appears to be a very strongly databased fact. My perception is that the mainstream Democrats are essentially held hostage by the far left who will viscerally respond to any attempt to moderate positions more toward the center. And it's hard not to ignore the cacophony of Democratic and liberal commentators all saying the same thing on CNN and the major broadcast networks.
I don't think you can or should deny that David -- and these polls -- raise a good question about where the Democratic Party is vis a vis voters. Some of this polling is tendentious, sure, but not all of it is.
I answered this the other day. Go back and read old posts. Long before the election I questioned Democratic strategy. Over the past few months, I have commented several times that the time was coming when conservatives were going to get tired of liberal advances in society and rebel. What conservatives want is nothing new. They never accepted gay marriage or gay rights in general. Objecting to Mexican immigration is not new. Smaller government and less taxes is nothing new. Helping historically disadvantaged minorities has never been a favorite of conservatives. There is nothing new in any of this. But if you took a poll of those in the forum, I’d bet most are tired of the two of us going at each other like a couple of alley cats with neither of us giving ground. Frankly, I’m surprised you let it go on this long. This forum isn’t here for David and I to go at like the Hatfields and McCoys. At the very least we should present some new ideas. But we keep going over the same ground. I get David’s point. I got it the first dozen times he said it. The Democrats are the cause of ruination in this country and screwing themselves strategy wise. What he refuses to accept is Trump’s solutions for fixing problems. The United States is a country of laws. It has a Constitution and everything. It is supposed to accept the views of all people no matter how much they are in opposition. Maybe the Democrats are not effective in their means of opposing what Trump is doing. That doesn’t take away from the culpability of Trump and the GOP and what they are doing. David talks about results. I can easily debate how positive they are. Regardless, how they were achieved is extremely questionable. If David wants to continue to opine that what Trump is doing is positive for the country, he is welcome to his views. But he’s going to need to debate them with someone else if there is any interest. If I were a separate person looking at David and I caterwauling at each other, I would say “Enough already!”
Hah, thank you Rick, I'll take that as a compliment. You and I and most of the people posting have very different perspectives and opinions, and that's precisely what makes our exchanges worthwhile and interesting. Have a nice weekend, and be safe in that ferocious storm coming through the area this evening!
michael, i'll start with a reminder that i've been a never-trumper since long before he first ran for POTUS. and you're right about the 'fascist-adjacent party,' etc.
but you're wrong about the democratic party - it's become way far left. biden was the most liberal/leftist president since FDR - and he wasn't 'left' enough for much of the party. from Gallup - 'Specifically, in 2004, 39 percent of Democrats described their views on social issues as "liberal/very liberal"; in 2024, 69 percent of Democrats describe themselves that way.'
don't kid yourself about the dems - they're dead in the water vs the party of the trump sycophants and invertebrates, unless the dem leadership tacks twd the center.
What offends me more about checked bag fees is the way these same airlines will tell you at the gate there isn’t enough room in the overhead bins and they will “gladly” check your bag for free. They should make the first bag you check beforehand free, $25 for a second checked bag (or for that checked bag at the gate) and $50 for the overhead bins.
An anecdote: At the end of February, I went on a cruise with some friends. One of these friends had a wheeled suitcase that she used as her carry-on bag. In this suitcase she had several large bottles of hair and skin product (shampoo, conditioner, lotion, sunscreen, etc.) that she left in the bag as it went through the security x-ray. Not only were these liquids not confiscated, the TSA didn't even bat an eye at it.
On the flight to Miami her bag went in the overhead bin, but she ended up checking it at the gate coming back - for free, of course.
So at this point I feel like a total sucker for paying to check my suitcase. I still had my own carry-on bag (a smaller bag with my meds and iPad), but most everyone else had a wheeled suitcase.
What started as a road-warrior trick to avoid the airline losing ones luggage (you know it's going to your destination if you hand-carry it onto the plane) and get out of the airport faster by skipping baggage claim has gotten way out of hand. Now it takes twice as long to board with everyone stopping to wrestle their suitcase into the overhead bin. It may be an unpopular opinion, but all it will take is one airline making this change and I think all of them will follow suit.
Yes - they absolutely should make the first checked bag free to spare us all the nightmare of cramming things into the overhead bins. Incentive to check a bag makes sense, incentive to not check a bag does not. Allow one "personal bag" (preferably that will fit under the seat) for free to take in the cabin and charge for anything more than that.
Interesting idea. The problem is that large numbers of fliers do not follow the simple rules set by the airlines. Many bring on oversized carry-on bags that are also overstuffed. Then they also have a personal item that does not fit underneath the seat. Many also don't understand 'wheels first' when putting things in the overhead, and 'don't stuff other stuff up there' until everyone has boarded. And of course, there are the people that put their carryon in an overhead that is not in their seating row. I have been on several airplanes with nicely expanded overhead bins, and these problems still occur.
I shouldn't have to pay extra because others cannot follow the rules, and the airlines are loath to enforce them. I guess I would pay a carryon fee for the bin if the airline enforced the under-seat rules. But my guess is that there would be a lot of 'personal' items up there.
I actually wouldn’t mind smaller personal items being in the overhead bin, such as a purse or coat, or even a small bag - items that can usually stack on top of each other. But that is less likely to happen now because those bins are stuffed full of suitcases that should be in the cargo hold.
And keep in mind, my plan wouldn’t cost you anything if you go ahead and check that suitcase to start with.
With all due respect to Laura Washington, the way to cut waste in government is to identify it before getting rid of it. You can't just say, do more with less. Some areas can, some can't. Middle managers should do the evaluating, not some whiz kid from tech nirvana who doesn't understand government. I worry about the effect on our economy from all these suddenly unemployed people.
P.S. Mary Schmich hits another one out of the park. She's my Poet Laureate!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) pointed out the ass-backward way a certain committee was looking for "waste" a couple of weeks ago, in that they started with a number ($880B) and then started looking for waste in Medicaid to account for that number. Of course the point is they need to identify a specific amount to cut to offset the billionaire tax breaks they plan to push through later.
Chainsaw Musk has doubled the number of DOGEbags on the government payroll from 100 to 200. So that they can become more efficient in immiserating the poor in as many ways as possible?
If the point was to find fraud and waste, the first move wouldn’t be to eliminate the inspectors general. That is their actual job, but those were the first ones Trump fired. My guess is they didn’t want people who actually know what they’re looking at contradicting Musk’s flunkies.
The Musk quote denouncing empathy as a weakness is telling on so many levels. There have been a few studies showing how sociopaths and narcissists tend to rise quicker to the top of the corporate world (an example here: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/minds-business/why-office-jerks-get-ahead.html ) Then Citizens United granted corporations unlimited influence on the political process, allowing them to promote policies that favor greed over equity and compassion, corporate interests over things like education, social safety net, the arts, and public infrastructure. So basically we have handed our country over to greedy power-hungry psychopaths, for whom money and power over others are the only ideals and compassion is a fatal flaw that needs to be eradicated.
"...but think of the schools, mental health clinics, and food programs that $120 million could fund. Think of the roads that could get fixed, the cops that could get hired, the jobs programs for kids that could get funded and the services for the homeless that could be enhanced with $120 million."
As if the above would actually benefit from this amount. Not likely.
The debt deal is NOTHING like the parking meter deal. Leave it to losers at the IPI to whip everyone up into a frenzy over it...
The debt deal will actually pay for infrastructure, not to cover a short term debt caused by a global recession. They are entirely different things. Daely got rid of a money maker for pennies. Not the same at all.
But hey, thats what Berg and the rest of the IPI clowns do. They lie, stretch the truth, and push a narrative of lower coats all for their oligarchic masters. Seriously! Look who funds them... all of Trumps biggest supporters.
Austin Berg presents himself as nice and reasonable. He us not. The worldview he is pushing is EXACTLYhow we got Trump, Musk, and all these other billionaire loons.
Plenty of responsible centrists and Democrats are aghast at the practice of fobbing off so much debt onto the future. But the floor is yours to explain where Berg has lied or stretched the truth in that post.
I, nor the article I posted, ever said centrists or democrats should not be for or against the debt deal. The problem is the framing of it, which I already pointed out. Comparing a debt deal to selling off public infrastructure is NOT the same and comparing them is disingenuous. The whole framing is BS.
The IPI operates like Fox News. Not every single thing they say is a lie or a half truth. They do post real news from time to time. The problem with them, again like Fox News, is how they cover everything and why they cover certain stories. They carry water for billionaires who want to cut services and lower their taxes, same as Fox News. They are not operating in good faith as an organization and engaging with them (and Austin) like they are is sad.
We know this on the nation level, we know Fox and OAN are spewing BS, it's time we learn that with IPI
i disagree. the deals are very similar - both generate significant short-term operating cash, one by selling a large asset, the other selling/incurring a large liability. both are structured to put off the reckoning until down the road, when the politicians who made [or want to make] the deals are long gone from public office.
both would screw the public, specifically the taxpayers.
both are [were] bad public policy - ill-conceived, poorly executed [as planned, for the debt deal], and financially innumerate.
I really recommend you listen to the podcast I shared and reflect on the IPI. I know you probably like Austin as a person, but he is doing the dirty work of the oligarchs. Do you think it's surprising the IPI got big right after Citizen's United? Do you think it's a coincidence that the biggest funders of the IPI (Uihlein family, Mercers, Koch brothers) started funneling money to the organization after Citizen's United?
This stuff is right there. As the Substack I posted points out, the framing from IPI is bogus. Please, please, please (not just you, Eric, but everyone reading this) learn how propaganda works. These ghouls wouldn't be giving so much money to an organization that isn't working for them
Republicans actually love when Democrats take a "centrist" position. They then claim that is the "far left extreme" as they push even harder to the right.
Or at least that was their modus operandi before Trump. Now they just gaslight everything - tariffs aren't a tax on consumers, the economy is tanking because of Biden, etc.
The only way I see us coming to our senses is for those who voted for Trump to finally see the damage that vote is causing, to themselves as well as to others. I don't know how to reconcile with someone who isn't capable of acknowledging the consequences they've wrought, and efforts to undo that damage can't begin as long as so many people continue to delude themselves.
Mary Schmich’s poems, when written in Ballad meter, as is today’s, are even better when you observe that they can be sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”. This is also true of many of Emily Dickinson’s poems. (I first learned this from Amy Dickinson on “Wait Wait Don't Tell Me”).
I find it annoying when two really funny quips are paired, one of which will be eliminated, and two really limp quips are paired, one of which will be retained.
The wheeled luggage quips were both winners of the weekly polls -- at this point it looks like neither one will advance to the round of 32 (I regret that the polling platform I use doesn't allow the results to be shown in real time to readers)
but i concluded over the course of choosing 32 times btwn the better of 2 - often btwn 2 very-funnies or 2 ho-hums - that humor is in the eye [or mind] of the beholder.
Eric, If police officers framed you for a murder you did not commit and violated your constitutional rights in the process, and you were locked up in a state prison for 15 years, what amount of money do you feel would be fair compensation for you? For the loss of seeing your kids grow older for 15 years? For not being able to be with your loved ones for the special occasions of life for 15 years? Not to mention what might happen to you in prison. We live only 77 years on the average so 15 years is about one fifth of your life. To say that we, as a society, could have put the money used to compensate John Fulton and Anthony Mitchell to better use seems to miss the whole point of the justice system.
In our justice system, the amount that a defendant can afford to pay is not considered in determining compensatory damages. Nor should it be. Compensatory damages are the amount of money the jury determines to be fair compensation for the injury caused by the defendant. Affordability comes into play when proceedings are brought to collect on the judgment. In those proceedings, of course, the defendant’s assets which are not exempt from execution can be ordered to be sold and the proceeds paid to the Plaintiff. Here, the Plaintiff could levy upon City Hall. Of course, a bankruptcy filing would cause the question of allocation of the defendant’s assets to be decided by the bankruptcy court.
It sort of sticks in my craw to hear defendants who injured the plaintiff say, “Well, we can’t afford to pay the damages.” As if that means that the damages are too high or that the law should be changed so that defendants can hurt people and not pay them fair compensation.
As to the time from arraignment to trial, my experience (most of which is in the municipal courthouses) is that it takes about a year and a half.
Municipalities are generally immune from awards of punitive damages. And, while punitive damages may be assessed against the employees of municipalities, the municipalities themselves do not indemnify their employees against punitive damages. 745 ILCS 10/9-102.
I guess one question might be how much money would you accept to voluntarily spend 15 years in prison. If anybody would take this up, my guess is the number would be more like a million bucks a year. I agree with your argument, but even considering that the incarceration was highly non-voluntary, I still think ~$8 million/year is excessive.
Settlements when someone actually DIES from police fuckups aren't that high. Which I suppose supports the idea that life in prison is worse than the death penalty. If this were just magic money that we conferred upon the victims of a justice system gone wrong, then these eye-popping amounts might be justified. But it's money that comes out of public coffers, that drains resources that would make life better for many people.
This wasn’t a settlement. It was a jury verdict. The jury decided that that amount was fair compensation for the injuries to the plaintiffs. I guess all money that comes out of public coffers to pay damages assessed by juries “drains resources that would make life better” for the public at large. The solution, I would suggest, is better screening of police officer applicants and better training of police.
There is no formula for damages for mental suffering or physical suffering. The jury hears testimony as to those elements of damages and makes a determination as to the amount of money which will fairly compensate the plaintiff for the injury. In this case, in addition to mental and physical suffering, I’m sure there was testimony as to lost income for the period while the plaintiffs were incarcerated. For that there is a formula.
I have heard that bariatric surgery often does not work. Ozempic appears to be very reliable. I am considering using it myself. The problem is you put weight back on when you go off of it. Also, I don't know if it could stop being effective after some time.
Conversations regarding possible presidential candidates in 2028 assume there will be an honest presidential election in 2028. At this point it doesn’t look like it.
So Chicago Public Media needs to close its $14 million annual deficit. CPM officials are people who have spent their entire professional lives watching newspapers cut staff and ruin their product. Newspapers (and news radio) admittedly lose readers & listeners anyway due to TV/cable/streaming and social media, but destroying the product is the surest way to drive away the readers/listeners who've stuck around. This is something we've all known and observed for decades. Yet, CPM thinks the way to save money at the Sun-Times is to get rid of its most experienced people, even its most recognizable and admired personalities like Rick Morrissey--and if Neil decides to go, him too. It's clearly not a winning business strategy. And it's especially ironic that if you don't subscribe to the Sun-Times, you'll eventually be asked to watch a short promotional video before reading an article. And it opens with Neil. They use him to personify the paper, but they offer paltry buy-outs to him and the other valuable staffers hoping to get rid of their public face. It doesn't motivate me to donate more.
No company can survive selling a product that customers are not willing to pay for. If readers only want the paper for less than the cost of production, then the producer will not survive. The CPM merger with the Sun Times was an admirable attempt to preserve and rebuild the radio and newspaper operations for the future but they have not yet found the formula for new media financial success. I hope that they do and agree that shedding the staff that produce the content is the path to extinction. But the problem is the lack of value placed on the product by the public.
It is clear that philanthropy is not sufficient to replace the historical revenue from advertising.
Conspiracy theories aimed at individuals, no matter how abhorrent those people might be, should be rejected. That is why I oppose the rumor that Musk has had a face transplant and urge people not to spread it.
I also oppose the rumor ("Everyone is talking about it") that Musk's penile enhancement surgery went wrong and that's why all his kids are conceived through in vitro fertilization
Politico hack: "If there’s a group who’d be more unhappy with him representing the Democratic Party than the left, it’s Republicans, who fear he’d tug his party toward the center.” Sloppy journalists and MAGA types have come to believe their fantasy that The Democratic Party is left-wing. What utter bilge. It is a solidly centrist party opposed by a fascist-adjacent party that was right-wing before trump and has become fully authoritarian, economically unhinged, fundamentalist Christian, and blood and soil nationalist.
I bristled at that also. There is no compromising with fascism, that idea needs to be rejected wholly, with extreme prejudice. Any compromise of that sort is abhorrent and repugnant and can only exist as a temporary foothold until fascism fully asserts itself.
Good morning Michael - "The Democratic Party is a centrist party"??
Or how about these brutal national polling results from the Democratic party's own pollster that were released yesterday.
Only 27% of Independent voters believe the Democratic Party is interested in helping them.
56% of all respondents do not leave the Democratic Party is looking out for them.
Only 39% believe Democrats value work.
69% said they felt the Democratic Party is too focused on being politically correct.
https://newrepublic.com/post/192589/democrat-poll-brutal-verdict-no-one-trusts-them
(It is interesting to ask yourself why the DNC would authorize public release of this poll with these brutal polling results...)
And at the same time, Senate Democrats voted unanimously against legislation banning biological males from competing in women's sports. That's certainly going to help them in their reelection races next year in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada, right?
Liberal columnist Laura Washington had a commentary in yesterday's Chicago Tribune pleading for the Democratic Party to stop adhering to far left progressive policy positions that are very unpopular with most of America.
http://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=55ca43c1-ca23-47fc-936f-42b2472d7372
The question is whether the Democratic party is going to continue to be controlled by the far left progressive flank. As a conservative, that would make me happy in terms of winning many more elections. But as an American I believe our country will best benefit by a responsible center-left Democratic Party that offers policy alternatives with broad appeal for Americans to compete with Republican policies.
David, transgender women are not “biological males.” Gender identity in the brain, which is what makes transgender women women and transgender men men, is a result of biology, most likely epigenetics. See below. It would be nice if you Republicans would try to move beyond high school level biology. Of course, if you did that, you would not be able to be dismissive of trans people—you would not be able to feel superior or to be smug. You would realize that your efforts to marginalize us are not really different from the efforts of your political ancestors to marginalize black people.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YdeChkf68eU&pp=ygUdS2FyaXNzYSBzYW5ib25tYXRzdSAxNSBzZWNvbnM%3D
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RgMiyp5bwrg&pp=ygUgVmVyb25pY2EgZHJhbnogdGhlIGdlbmRlciBiaW5hcnk%3D
Polls of people who fall for the MAGA propaganda machine are worth...? A left wing party would be, e.g., advocating for a universal health service among many other things. The MAGApublicans are so far to the right that they think President Biden (the centrist's centrist), President Obama, and the Clintons are socialists ansd Senator Sanders is a communist. The obsession with trans people is all on the right as are the right's obsession with sexual preference, etc. MAGA people keep on projecting their sexual obsessions on the Democrats while making wicked attacks on the most vulnerable people in society. You want to be associated with these people? OK, it's a free country ... oh,wait a minute?
PS. This man co-wrote the Texas anti-trans bill with Governor Abbott. From the Texas Tribune; "Robert Morris, the Dallas-area megachurch pastor who resigned last year amid sexual abuse allegations, has been indicted in Oklahoma for child sex crimes that date back to the 1980s. Morris is a former spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump, and Gateway — one of the nation’s largest megachurches — has been particularly active in politics. In 2020, Trump held a “Roundtable on Transition to Greatness” there that was attended by then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr and other prominent Republicans. Morris faces five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said in a Wednesday evening press release. The indictment comes less than a year after Morris resigned from Gateway Church in Southlake after an adult woman, Cindy Clemishire, said Morris repeatedly sexually assaulted her while she was a child in Oklahoma in the 1980s. Morris was at the time working as a traveling preacher."
Michael - My perception from your posts seems consistent to me that you are fairly far left. However, if you consider yourself a centrist, then I can understand why you would view the Democratic Party as centrist.
However, this is contrary to what the national polls reflect in the American people's reaction to the Democratic Party, as well as many democratic voices in the media such as Laura Washington, Van Jones, Bill Maher, James Carville and many others lamenting how far left the Democratic Party has gone. There is a reason why Trump won middle-class voters, and conversely Harris won wealthier people in the over $100,000 group. The clear perception on the street is that it is now Republicans looking out for working families.
Well, when one realizes that a large portion of the country only watches Faux News and listens to their bilge, that explains a lot of the 'poll' numbers. IF they knew the actual facts about the Democrats and their policies, they would not have the knee-jerk response to these questions. PERHAPS someone running these polls could put ACTUAL FACTUAL Democratic policies as the questions, we would get closer to the truth about how these policies are felt by Americans.
As in:
Do you feel that those who make more than a million dollars a year should pay higher taxes than those who make less than 30,000 a year?
This is not a radical left position. It is a policy that considers fairness an important principle in America.
I do not call myself a centrist. I am very left wing by MAGA standards (but so was Richard Nixon). I believe in leaving people alone, not punching down at people who are different from me; I believe that selfishness and greed are soul destroying. I also see the evidence that trump and his drug-addled henchman are causing more damage to poor working people and poor children--all in the name of inflating the wealth of a few. I think that women, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, and the poor have the same rights as men and the white wealthy. I suppose that makes me a liberal. How you vote is up to you and your conscience.
David — when you and the GOP start electing real conservatives again, this position will make sense. You have turned your party over to piratical chaos agents who believe in nothing but their own bottom line and staying in power no matter what.
Hi Steve - perhaps the core of conservativism is the belief in small government. Conservatives, as well as the majority of the country, are cheering on the Trump administration's serious efforts to reduce the size of government and government spending. I would agree that Trump is more populist than conservative, but the overwhelming majority of his policies thus far are very conservative.
BTW, did you happen to notice the Consumer Price Index report came out yesterday? In the past month the rate of inflation has slowed down more, gas prices are down the last 3 weeks in a row, and egg prices have even begun to come down after the loss of 20 million egg-bearing chickens due to bird flu in the last quarter of 2024. So Very good initial economic indicators.
Hi David - the GOP has been hoodwinked, bullied, and scared into making a conman their golden idol. Trump and his bad actors got you to buy in because “small government,” and massive tax benefits for corporate interests. I will not celebrate saving a few dollars on eggs if it means we’ve turned everything over to these self-serving wealthy tax cheats and thieves.
The stock market is tumbling and the inflationary effects of Trump's trade wars have yet to be priced in to these data. I'm interested in your rosy view of what conservatism means; what you think "small government" accomplishes and how you square that with the busybody moralism of the legislators in red states.
Eric - My conceptualization of small government is one which performs essential functions such as national defense, infrastructure, public safety, etc. small government is one in which taxes are maintained as low as possible to allow people to retain as much of their own money as possible.
I'm assuming that your reference to "busybody moralism" refers to any restriction on abortion. Has one who believes that human life begins at conception, restrictions on abortion serve the same purpose in my mind as our laws against murder and battery to protect people from harm. Please do not confuse conservativism with libertarianism. I believe the majority of conservatives fully support laws against street drugs, child pornography and other morality items.
In my view, and I believe the view of the majority of Americans come up our government has grown way too big and wasteful. Doge has uncovered a myriad of programs in which unelected bureaucrats have spent our tax dollars but that no elected representative ever voted specifically to fund. I've mentioned that my wife and I fostered an inner school girl during her junior year of high school. We were shocked by her worldview formed from life in a multi-generational welfare family. She truly believed that government was almost like a deity with an infinite source of money and whose role was to essentially support people with housing, food, transportation, etc. She had no means of understanding that government does not have a single dollar of its own except for what it collects from other people, primarily from their own labors.
There can and should be a debate about what spending to jettison and what spending to continue. I don't believe that most Americans are going to want to fund a transgender opera or gay comic book in foreign countries, but they may well support continued funding for clean water and food programs in needy areas. And they're absolutely needs to be a review for staffing which has seemingly gone without any accountability for decades. Every president for decades has talked about the need to cut government waste, and that's exactly what is now actually occurring.
A transgender opera! Heavenly days! Is that worse than a cis-gender opera, Davina?
What a bunch of nonsense! Even if true, so what? Does it mean Independents, of which I am one, approve of what Trump and Musk are doing? Word a poll the right way and one can get any result he or she wants. As I already said yesterday but must repeat because you keep posting the same nonsense, debating Democratic strategy does not assume support for Trump and Musk. Of course things can be improved. What about that has changed since 1789? That doesn't make what Trump and Musk are doing acceptable.
Hi Laurence - once again, I readily concede that polls can be skewed by the specific wording that is used. But, this isn't just a single poll, But a continuation of multiple poles reflecting that the Democratic Party has lost the middle class and is perceived has too far left by the great majority of Americans. This arises out of Democratic Party support for progressive policy positions as well as the performative actions on clear display on a daily basis. Even though this situation innures politically to conservatives, I am simply stating what appears to be a very strongly databased fact. My perception is that the mainstream Democrats are essentially held hostage by the far left who will viscerally respond to any attempt to moderate positions more toward the center. And it's hard not to ignore the cacophony of Democratic and liberal commentators all saying the same thing on CNN and the major broadcast networks.
We keep going around in circles. So I won't mount a reply to your nonsense.
I don't think you can or should deny that David -- and these polls -- raise a good question about where the Democratic Party is vis a vis voters. Some of this polling is tendentious, sure, but not all of it is.
I answered this the other day. Go back and read old posts. Long before the election I questioned Democratic strategy. Over the past few months, I have commented several times that the time was coming when conservatives were going to get tired of liberal advances in society and rebel. What conservatives want is nothing new. They never accepted gay marriage or gay rights in general. Objecting to Mexican immigration is not new. Smaller government and less taxes is nothing new. Helping historically disadvantaged minorities has never been a favorite of conservatives. There is nothing new in any of this. But if you took a poll of those in the forum, I’d bet most are tired of the two of us going at each other like a couple of alley cats with neither of us giving ground. Frankly, I’m surprised you let it go on this long. This forum isn’t here for David and I to go at like the Hatfields and McCoys. At the very least we should present some new ideas. But we keep going over the same ground. I get David’s point. I got it the first dozen times he said it. The Democrats are the cause of ruination in this country and screwing themselves strategy wise. What he refuses to accept is Trump’s solutions for fixing problems. The United States is a country of laws. It has a Constitution and everything. It is supposed to accept the views of all people no matter how much they are in opposition. Maybe the Democrats are not effective in their means of opposing what Trump is doing. That doesn’t take away from the culpability of Trump and the GOP and what they are doing. David talks about results. I can easily debate how positive they are. Regardless, how they were achieved is extremely questionable. If David wants to continue to opine that what Trump is doing is positive for the country, he is welcome to his views. But he’s going to need to debate them with someone else if there is any interest. If I were a separate person looking at David and I caterwauling at each other, I would say “Enough already!”
If we didn’t have David, what would we all have to write about?
Hah, thank you Rick, I'll take that as a compliment. You and I and most of the people posting have very different perspectives and opinions, and that's precisely what makes our exchanges worthwhile and interesting. Have a nice weekend, and be safe in that ferocious storm coming through the area this evening!
michael, i'll start with a reminder that i've been a never-trumper since long before he first ran for POTUS. and you're right about the 'fascist-adjacent party,' etc.
but you're wrong about the democratic party - it's become way far left. biden was the most liberal/leftist president since FDR - and he wasn't 'left' enough for much of the party. from Gallup - 'Specifically, in 2004, 39 percent of Democrats described their views on social issues as "liberal/very liberal"; in 2024, 69 percent of Democrats describe themselves that way.'
don't kid yourself about the dems - they're dead in the water vs the party of the trump sycophants and invertebrates, unless the dem leadership tacks twd the center.
What offends me more about checked bag fees is the way these same airlines will tell you at the gate there isn’t enough room in the overhead bins and they will “gladly” check your bag for free. They should make the first bag you check beforehand free, $25 for a second checked bag (or for that checked bag at the gate) and $50 for the overhead bins.
I'm sensing an "Unpopular opinion?" for next Tuesday!
An anecdote: At the end of February, I went on a cruise with some friends. One of these friends had a wheeled suitcase that she used as her carry-on bag. In this suitcase she had several large bottles of hair and skin product (shampoo, conditioner, lotion, sunscreen, etc.) that she left in the bag as it went through the security x-ray. Not only were these liquids not confiscated, the TSA didn't even bat an eye at it.
On the flight to Miami her bag went in the overhead bin, but she ended up checking it at the gate coming back - for free, of course.
So at this point I feel like a total sucker for paying to check my suitcase. I still had my own carry-on bag (a smaller bag with my meds and iPad), but most everyone else had a wheeled suitcase.
What started as a road-warrior trick to avoid the airline losing ones luggage (you know it's going to your destination if you hand-carry it onto the plane) and get out of the airport faster by skipping baggage claim has gotten way out of hand. Now it takes twice as long to board with everyone stopping to wrestle their suitcase into the overhead bin. It may be an unpopular opinion, but all it will take is one airline making this change and I think all of them will follow suit.
Yes - they absolutely should make the first checked bag free to spare us all the nightmare of cramming things into the overhead bins. Incentive to check a bag makes sense, incentive to not check a bag does not. Allow one "personal bag" (preferably that will fit under the seat) for free to take in the cabin and charge for anything more than that.
Interesting idea. The problem is that large numbers of fliers do not follow the simple rules set by the airlines. Many bring on oversized carry-on bags that are also overstuffed. Then they also have a personal item that does not fit underneath the seat. Many also don't understand 'wheels first' when putting things in the overhead, and 'don't stuff other stuff up there' until everyone has boarded. And of course, there are the people that put their carryon in an overhead that is not in their seating row. I have been on several airplanes with nicely expanded overhead bins, and these problems still occur.
I shouldn't have to pay extra because others cannot follow the rules, and the airlines are loath to enforce them. I guess I would pay a carryon fee for the bin if the airline enforced the under-seat rules. But my guess is that there would be a lot of 'personal' items up there.
I actually wouldn’t mind smaller personal items being in the overhead bin, such as a purse or coat, or even a small bag - items that can usually stack on top of each other. But that is less likely to happen now because those bins are stuffed full of suitcases that should be in the cargo hold.
And keep in mind, my plan wouldn’t cost you anything if you go ahead and check that suitcase to start with.
With all due respect to Laura Washington, the way to cut waste in government is to identify it before getting rid of it. You can't just say, do more with less. Some areas can, some can't. Middle managers should do the evaluating, not some whiz kid from tech nirvana who doesn't understand government. I worry about the effect on our economy from all these suddenly unemployed people.
P.S. Mary Schmich hits another one out of the park. She's my Poet Laureate!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) pointed out the ass-backward way a certain committee was looking for "waste" a couple of weeks ago, in that they started with a number ($880B) and then started looking for waste in Medicaid to account for that number. Of course the point is they need to identify a specific amount to cut to offset the billionaire tax breaks they plan to push through later.
Chainsaw Musk has doubled the number of DOGEbags on the government payroll from 100 to 200. So that they can become more efficient in immiserating the poor in as many ways as possible?
If he was actually looking for fraud, he would've brought in forensic accountants, not a bunch of teens who code!
But don't know COBOL, apparently . . .
If the point was to find fraud and waste, the first move wouldn’t be to eliminate the inspectors general. That is their actual job, but those were the first ones Trump fired. My guess is they didn’t want people who actually know what they’re looking at contradicting Musk’s flunkies.
The Musk quote denouncing empathy as a weakness is telling on so many levels. There have been a few studies showing how sociopaths and narcissists tend to rise quicker to the top of the corporate world (an example here: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/minds-business/why-office-jerks-get-ahead.html ) Then Citizens United granted corporations unlimited influence on the political process, allowing them to promote policies that favor greed over equity and compassion, corporate interests over things like education, social safety net, the arts, and public infrastructure. So basically we have handed our country over to greedy power-hungry psychopaths, for whom money and power over others are the only ideals and compassion is a fatal flaw that needs to be eradicated.
Elmo & the fat fascist traitor are both narcissistic sociopaths.
"...but think of the schools, mental health clinics, and food programs that $120 million could fund. Think of the roads that could get fixed, the cops that could get hired, the jobs programs for kids that could get funded and the services for the homeless that could be enhanced with $120 million."
As if the above would actually benefit from this amount. Not likely.
The debt deal is NOTHING like the parking meter deal. Leave it to losers at the IPI to whip everyone up into a frenzy over it...
The debt deal will actually pay for infrastructure, not to cover a short term debt caused by a global recession. They are entirely different things. Daely got rid of a money maker for pennies. Not the same at all.
But hey, thats what Berg and the rest of the IPI clowns do. They lie, stretch the truth, and push a narrative of lower coats all for their oligarchic masters. Seriously! Look who funds them... all of Trumps biggest supporters.
Austin Berg presents himself as nice and reasonable. He us not. The worldview he is pushing is EXACTLYhow we got Trump, Musk, and all these other billionaire loons.
Please stop posting these asshats
https://hs-newsletter-e91163.beehiiv.com/p/how-right-wing-media-keeps-baiting-chicago
https://www.levernews.com/masterplan/
Plenty of responsible centrists and Democrats are aghast at the practice of fobbing off so much debt onto the future. But the floor is yours to explain where Berg has lied or stretched the truth in that post.
I, nor the article I posted, ever said centrists or democrats should not be for or against the debt deal. The problem is the framing of it, which I already pointed out. Comparing a debt deal to selling off public infrastructure is NOT the same and comparing them is disingenuous. The whole framing is BS.
The IPI operates like Fox News. Not every single thing they say is a lie or a half truth. They do post real news from time to time. The problem with them, again like Fox News, is how they cover everything and why they cover certain stories. They carry water for billionaires who want to cut services and lower their taxes, same as Fox News. They are not operating in good faith as an organization and engaging with them (and Austin) like they are is sad.
We know this on the nation level, we know Fox and OAN are spewing BS, it's time we learn that with IPI
i disagree. the deals are very similar - both generate significant short-term operating cash, one by selling a large asset, the other selling/incurring a large liability. both are structured to put off the reckoning until down the road, when the politicians who made [or want to make] the deals are long gone from public office.
both would screw the public, specifically the taxpayers.
both are [were] bad public policy - ill-conceived, poorly executed [as planned, for the debt deal], and financially innumerate.
One of them sold public infrastructure for shirt term gain and long term pain, the other pays for infrastructure for long term pain.
They are not the same
I really recommend you listen to the podcast I shared and reflect on the IPI. I know you probably like Austin as a person, but he is doing the dirty work of the oligarchs. Do you think it's surprising the IPI got big right after Citizen's United? Do you think it's a coincidence that the biggest funders of the IPI (Uihlein family, Mercers, Koch brothers) started funneling money to the organization after Citizen's United?
This stuff is right there. As the Substack I posted points out, the framing from IPI is bogus. Please, please, please (not just you, Eric, but everyone reading this) learn how propaganda works. These ghouls wouldn't be giving so much money to an organization that isn't working for them
ProPublica figured this out years ago...
https://www.propublica.org/article/illinois-policy-institute-john-tillman-transactions
Republicans actually love when Democrats take a "centrist" position. They then claim that is the "far left extreme" as they push even harder to the right.
Or at least that was their modus operandi before Trump. Now they just gaslight everything - tariffs aren't a tax on consumers, the economy is tanking because of Biden, etc.
The only way I see us coming to our senses is for those who voted for Trump to finally see the damage that vote is causing, to themselves as well as to others. I don't know how to reconcile with someone who isn't capable of acknowledging the consequences they've wrought, and efforts to undo that damage can't begin as long as so many people continue to delude themselves.
Mary Schmich’s poems, when written in Ballad meter, as is today’s, are even better when you observe that they can be sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”. This is also true of many of Emily Dickinson’s poems. (I first learned this from Amy Dickinson on “Wait Wait Don't Tell Me”).
I find it annoying when two really funny quips are paired, one of which will be eliminated, and two really limp quips are paired, one of which will be retained.
Strongly agree. There were 2 Quips about wheeled luggage - the Moon landing one was much better. (IMHO)
The wheeled luggage quips were both winners of the weekly polls -- at this point it looks like neither one will advance to the round of 32 (I regret that the polling platform I use doesn't allow the results to be shown in real time to readers)
i agree in principle, rick.
but i concluded over the course of choosing 32 times btwn the better of 2 - often btwn 2 very-funnies or 2 ho-hums - that humor is in the eye [or mind] of the beholder.
Eric, If police officers framed you for a murder you did not commit and violated your constitutional rights in the process, and you were locked up in a state prison for 15 years, what amount of money do you feel would be fair compensation for you? For the loss of seeing your kids grow older for 15 years? For not being able to be with your loved ones for the special occasions of life for 15 years? Not to mention what might happen to you in prison. We live only 77 years on the average so 15 years is about one fifth of your life. To say that we, as a society, could have put the money used to compensate John Fulton and Anthony Mitchell to better use seems to miss the whole point of the justice system.
In our justice system, the amount that a defendant can afford to pay is not considered in determining compensatory damages. Nor should it be. Compensatory damages are the amount of money the jury determines to be fair compensation for the injury caused by the defendant. Affordability comes into play when proceedings are brought to collect on the judgment. In those proceedings, of course, the defendant’s assets which are not exempt from execution can be ordered to be sold and the proceeds paid to the Plaintiff. Here, the Plaintiff could levy upon City Hall. Of course, a bankruptcy filing would cause the question of allocation of the defendant’s assets to be decided by the bankruptcy court.
It sort of sticks in my craw to hear defendants who injured the plaintiff say, “Well, we can’t afford to pay the damages.” As if that means that the damages are too high or that the law should be changed so that defendants can hurt people and not pay them fair compensation.
As to the time from arraignment to trial, my experience (most of which is in the municipal courthouses) is that it takes about a year and a half.
Municipalities are generally immune from awards of punitive damages. And, while punitive damages may be assessed against the employees of municipalities, the municipalities themselves do not indemnify their employees against punitive damages. 745 ILCS 10/9-102.
I guess one question might be how much money would you accept to voluntarily spend 15 years in prison. If anybody would take this up, my guess is the number would be more like a million bucks a year. I agree with your argument, but even considering that the incarceration was highly non-voluntary, I still think ~$8 million/year is excessive.
There were two plaintiffs. So each got $4 million for each year they were imprisoned.
And would you really voluntarily go to prison for a year for $1 million?
I probably wouldn’t, but I bet there are some people who would. At least in a minimum-security pokey like the millionaires who got caught.
Settlements when someone actually DIES from police fuckups aren't that high. Which I suppose supports the idea that life in prison is worse than the death penalty. If this were just magic money that we conferred upon the victims of a justice system gone wrong, then these eye-popping amounts might be justified. But it's money that comes out of public coffers, that drains resources that would make life better for many people.
This wasn’t a settlement. It was a jury verdict. The jury decided that that amount was fair compensation for the injuries to the plaintiffs. I guess all money that comes out of public coffers to pay damages assessed by juries “drains resources that would make life better” for the public at large. The solution, I would suggest, is better screening of police officer applicants and better training of police.
joanie - i don't know what the right amt of compensation is or shd be in this case. wd $20 mill ea be fair? $10 mill ea? $5 mill ea?
it's awful that these 2 men were unfairly - illegally? - incarcerated. but what shd be the formula to compensate such victims?
There is no formula for damages for mental suffering or physical suffering. The jury hears testimony as to those elements of damages and makes a determination as to the amount of money which will fairly compensate the plaintiff for the injury. In this case, in addition to mental and physical suffering, I’m sure there was testimony as to lost income for the period while the plaintiffs were incarcerated. For that there is a formula.
Thanks to Ozempic, anyone can lose weight reliably. Pritzker could certainly access that if he wants to.
Dunno if Chris Christie would consider Ozempic, but bariatric surgery didn’t seem to have much effect.
I have heard that bariatric surgery often does not work. Ozempic appears to be very reliable. I am considering using it myself. The problem is you put weight back on when you go off of it. Also, I don't know if it could stop being effective after some time.
Milk Dude, maybe?
I meant what I typed
Conversations regarding possible presidential candidates in 2028 assume there will be an honest presidential election in 2028. At this point it doesn’t look like it.
So Chicago Public Media needs to close its $14 million annual deficit. CPM officials are people who have spent their entire professional lives watching newspapers cut staff and ruin their product. Newspapers (and news radio) admittedly lose readers & listeners anyway due to TV/cable/streaming and social media, but destroying the product is the surest way to drive away the readers/listeners who've stuck around. This is something we've all known and observed for decades. Yet, CPM thinks the way to save money at the Sun-Times is to get rid of its most experienced people, even its most recognizable and admired personalities like Rick Morrissey--and if Neil decides to go, him too. It's clearly not a winning business strategy. And it's especially ironic that if you don't subscribe to the Sun-Times, you'll eventually be asked to watch a short promotional video before reading an article. And it opens with Neil. They use him to personify the paper, but they offer paltry buy-outs to him and the other valuable staffers hoping to get rid of their public face. It doesn't motivate me to donate more.
Losing Rick Morrissey is huge. His story gets top billing on the back (sports) cover every time he writes.
The Sox stink but Daryl Van Schouwen is a great beat reporter and his presence will be missed, too.
I sometimes read other city's papers and they even use AP stories for their local teams, which I find wild. So impersonal.
I never have to watch the videos, I use 12 Foot Ladder to get around that!
It works on a lot of paywalled sites too.
No company can survive selling a product that customers are not willing to pay for. If readers only want the paper for less than the cost of production, then the producer will not survive. The CPM merger with the Sun Times was an admirable attempt to preserve and rebuild the radio and newspaper operations for the future but they have not yet found the formula for new media financial success. I hope that they do and agree that shedding the staff that produce the content is the path to extinction. But the problem is the lack of value placed on the product by the public.
It is clear that philanthropy is not sufficient to replace the historical revenue from advertising.
Our friend Neil posted this morning that he's staying.
Conspiracy theories aimed at individuals, no matter how abhorrent those people might be, should be rejected. That is why I oppose the rumor that Musk has had a face transplant and urge people not to spread it.
I also oppose the rumor ("Everyone is talking about it") that Musk's penile enhancement surgery went wrong and that's why all his kids are conceived through in vitro fertilization
I similarly oppose the claim that JD Vance had carnal relations with a piece of upholstered furniture and a claim like that shouldn't be repeated ;)
Democrat John Larson of Connecticut really rips into the Re Thug Licons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mFpn8BJLV4