Thanks for the diversion of the visual and verbal jokes, but the monsters still haunt me. trump is on the phone with his buddy Vlad today to discuss the carve up and betrayal of Ukraine, Netanyahu is bombing the bejeezus out of Gaza, and the racist Afrikaner is wrecking the US government. No time to list the other monsters doing evil things.
If a Democrat was doing a fraction of the stuff Trump has done his first two months, the calls for impeachment would be near unanimous. I would call congressional Republicans feckless and complicit, but those words seem too tame for what is happening. Godwin’s Law is out the window on this one — the comparison to Germany in the early ‘30s is spot on at this point.
Hmm, and what about this, since you mention bombing Gaza? Hamas is STILL holding and torturing innocent hostages who were innocently dancing at a music festival, murdering and raping thousands on Oct. 7, including strangling a mother, her 4 year old and 9 month old baby in captivity . This is after Hamas broke a cease fire with Israel, who withdrew from Gaza in 2005, dismantling all of their Jewish settlements. Oh, yes, forgot or don't care about that, I guess (along with the rest of the world.) I am no longer accepting blanket comments about Israel, although I don't want to get into a fight about it. This is all fact, easily verifiable.
Please don't impute views to me that I do not hold. I am acutely aware of the terrible things that Hamas has done--including to innocent Palestinians. The sad thing is that, to some people, criticism of the acts of Israel's far-right government and Netanyahu is tantamount to hating Israel and to anti-semitism. 400 dead in the renewal of bombing in Gaza. How many of those were responsible for the heinous acts you write about and how does that advance peace?.
Michael - the old and very apt expression is that war is hell, and the death of non-combatants in war is particularly tragic, but universally unavoidable. There were almost 1 million German civilians killed as the US and our allies bombed and invaded Germany to defeat the nazis. And please spare me the propaganda that the Palestinian people do not strongly support Hamas. When my friend and her daughter abducted in the October 7th attacks, they were taken to the Hamas Command Center in a large hospital. As they were paraded inside, the entire staff gathered around and were cheering and trilling in celebration. They were then taken down into the tunnels from inside the hospital where Hamas cowardly hides their military behind civilian people and institutions. This is war, a war that started only when Hamas broke and existing truce to torture, murder and abduct civilian hostages. The war will end in a single minute when Hamas releases the hostages and lays down their arms, but it is their choice to continue to fight on and Israel has no choice but to continue to fight to defeat this vicious enemy and free the remaining hostages.
without in any way justifying hamas or its actions [or inaction, in the case of hostage release], the war will continue as long as netanyahu believes it will keep him from facing a court and be held accountable for his criminal pre-current war behavior.
Hi Bob - we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one my friend. I do not see that Israel has any alternative but to continue to finish the war that Hamas started to free the remaining hostages and ensure that Hamas will never again be a threat to Israel's security and the lives of its people. Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, has never renounced its Charter which calls for the genocide of Israel. All of the many attacks Hamas conducted on Israel were in violation of an existing truce. If Hamas is allowed to stay in power, it is only a matter of time until there would be another October 7th attack. Dangling an American / Israeli hostage as bait to secure advantageous terms is going to prove to be a major mistake and likely will result in many more of them being sent into the afterlife to learn, to their great dismay, that instead of 40 virgins they are going to burn in the fires of hell for their murderous conduct. Israel bombing Gaza and unintentionally killing civilians that Hamas cowardly hides among is absolutely not in any way morally different than the US and our allies bombing the hell out of Germany and Japan in World War II until they surrendered. So internal Israeli politics aside, I believe that Israel has no real choice and I am very happy that the US is now 100% supportive of their ongoing efforts.
Thank you Shelley. I find it nothing short of humorous when Hamas and their Allied supporters screech loudly about Israel committing war crimes and violating international norms when, I guess in their own rabid minds, Hamas does not see anything wrong with breaking the truce, abducting, torturing and murdering innocent civilians, and in a pre-planned strategy, continuing to use the few survivors and dead bodies as bargaining chips. If were up to me, I would not allow in a single loaf of bread or bottle of water until all of the hostages and bodies were returned. We certainly did not start shipping aid into Germany until after the Nazis had been thoroughly defeated and the war ended. So Israel must continue their military campaign against Hamas, and I am happy they now have the unqualified support of the US in doing so.
cnn headline this AM - Fury toward Netanyahu as Israelis protest renewed war in Gaza
without dismissing your claim of current facts about hamas, it's not a bunch of disgruntled, misguided, antisemitic americans who oppose netanyahu, his govt and the IDF in their prosecution of this war.
while i stipulate to the heinous and barbaric conduct of hamas on Oct 7, are you claiming that netanyahu et al are blameless, even righteous, in the prosecution of this war? that his response - incl'g the killing of tens of thousands of innocent women & children - is remotely measured and equivalent?
You're absolutely right, of course, but I would say an occasional diversion from the ongoing nightmare is an essential tool of resilience and resistance. Overwhelming and exhausting the sane opposition is their expressly stated strategy, it is simply not sustainable to be outraged and angry all the time, even though the outrage and anger are more than valid. Finding simple joy and a little humor in the little things is a nourishing bit of defiance.
My favorite diversion is the Onion, which I follow on Bluesky.
The failure of the press and mainstream media to address Trump's attacks on democracy and our constitutional rights has forced me to abandon many former sources I used to rely on for news. All they offer are his lies.
I know there is criticism of some of us for rejecting open mindedness and seeing both sides. But what’s the point? We don’t know in advance what we are going to see? I tried to stick with Fox News. But they raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels and have no relationship to objectivity. I get the Las Vegas paper electronically. Their editorial policy and columnists are no better than Fox News. But it’s a gift subscription for my 90-year-old Las Vegas stepmother who loves to do the puzzles. Otherwise I would dump it in a second. I can’t learn anything from news wise I can’t get in the Chicago papers. What do we need to learn from such sources? Democrats are the ruination of the country and Trump is a deity.
Michael - I want to congratulate you for once again having the first post on the PS! (Wonder how long your streak is now?) You must be an early riser, and I propose that Eric bestow upon you the unofficial title of Dean of PS Posters!
I was watching Pardon The Interruption last night and Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser were both lamenting the early start of the MLB season, for similar reasons you cited - stretching the season ever longer diminishes the significance of each game, dilutes interest, and grows excitement fatigue. They mentioned how the NFL season never seems to end, with free agency, the draft, minicamps, etc. always being in the news and how a real, quiet offseason for every sport, would be a welcome respite for the fans. The leagues however are only motivated by marketing considerations and just simple greed.
Mark - you are entirely correct that it is all money driven. And the NFL is particularly brilliant in the way they successfully capture our attention year-round beyond the regular season with free agency, the draft, mini camps and preseason.
Years ago one of the Reps(Raja?) suggested that police departments/officers purchase malpractice insurance just like doctors and nurses. This could eliminate some bad actors and put limits on massive liability pay outs. Actuaries are really good at risk assessment and could save tax payers huge amounts of money by pricing bad actors out of a job. I have no idea why this suggestion never got legs?
I'd prefer making all the individual cops buy the insurance. Most would pay little, but the worst would first pay more & then not be able to get it after a few payouts & then be fired as cops, because they're too crazy & violent to be cops!
Hi Garry - I'm going to disagree with you on this for two fundamental reasons.
First, you are creating an entirely new and unique standard for police officers. Malpractice insurance is typically obtained individually for people in specific professions requiring lengthy training and certifications such as doctors and architects. It strikes me as particularly unfair to single out police officers with a requirement of individual insurance while I completely agree extending that to teachers, bus drivers, office workers and every other individual working a job.
Second, liability insurance premiums are driven not by wrong doing, but by claims made against the insured. Cop haters and their supporters are well aware of this, and police officers could easily be subjected to a torrent of claims even when there is no basis to them. The insurance carrier would expend significant monies defending claims, and the individual insurance premiums would rise to the point that it would not be economically feasible for anyone to be a police officer.
I completely agree that our society would benefit from an elevated level of police professionalism. My suggestion to achieve this is to increase police pay and improve and lengthen training. This would then result in a very high caliber of people becoming police officers and who would receive excellent training. Unfortunately, there are forces that are rapidly anti-police as witnessed by the literal Warfare being conducted against construction of a new law enforcement training center outside of Atlanta. I believe we will get better policing when our society provides police with more support, better pay and more training.
David, Your claim that “police officers could easily be subjected to a torrent of claims even when there is no basis to them” reflects a lack of understanding of the economics of the practice of law. Lawyers don’t make money by advancing claims when there is no basis to them. Pursuing a civil rights claim against a police officer is labor intensive. If the complaint does not allege facts giving the claim plausibility, it can be thrown out on a motion to dismiss. If facts are alleged in the complaint without any evidentiary support, the lawyer who filed the complaint can be sanctioned under Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 and made to pay the defendant’s reasonable attorney’s fees. If the complaint gets past a motion to dismiss, out of pocket costs increase greatly, as depositions of witnesses are taken. And, if the deposition testimony shows that there is no evidence which could support a verdict against the defendant, the case will be thrown out on summary judgment. Lawyers have fixed costs: rent, wages/salaries of administrative personnel, malpractice insurance, telephone, advertising, licensing, office expense, etc. It just doesn’t pay to bring cases when there is no basis to them. The idea that claims without merit are routinely brought by trial lawyers is a right wing fever dream promoted by Fox News and other right wing propaganda outlets.
You fail to admit there are many individuals and organizations who will gladly pursue claims without true Merit as a means of advancing their agenda, in this case attempting to inhibit police in the performance of their duties. I believe you are also quite aware that motions for summary dismissal are granted only in cases where the claim itself is in some way defective under the law or the plaintiff does not have standing to bring the claim. In 99% of cases, motion for summary dismissal is defeated by a simple finding that there are matters of fact yet to be determined. You must also be aware that it is very rare that attorneys are sanctioned even when their case is thrown out or defeated unless defendant can demonstrate misrepresentation or malice with a very high standard to do so. Finally, from experience in the insurance industry I know very well that an insurance premiums can Skyrocket by multiple claims, even when there is ultimately no payment made on them as it is very expensive for insurance carriers to investigate and defend claims. To think that some of the police haters would not utilize claims as a means of waging war against policing is very unrealistic.
David, you write, “You fail to admit there are many individuals and organizations who will gladly pursue claims without true Merit as a means of advancing their agenda, in this case attempting to inhibit police in the performance of their duties.” As my Mom used to say to me when I told her that there were many kids who were allowed to do what she would not allow me to do, “There are many? Name one.” Name one individual or organization who will gladly pursue claims without true merit as a means of inhibiting police in the performance of their duties. Name one.
That there are matters of fact yet to be determined does not preclude summary judgment. In order to preclude summary judgment, they have to be issues of fact *that could affect the outcome of the case*.
Chicago tried to improve the quality of cops by requiring a four year university degree. That's gone now, due to complaints from various minorities who said it was discriminatory!
Utter insanity.
Swedish & Norwegian cops get at least two years of training, ours get a few months at most.
They don't have the problems we have with bad cops, that long training period wees them out!
It sounds good in theory, but I'm not sure it would be practicable. Who would compel municipalities to carry this kind of insurance? I would guess the insurance companies would either charge exorbitant premiums even for smaller municipalities or deny coverage completely (what would happen then?). I don't think police departments would be any more motivated to avoid these kinds of incidents since it would still be "someone else" that is paying the settlements. I think that kind of a system would work as well as health insurance does - it would still be basically a tax, but with an added layer of a middle man with an expensive bureaucracy - the insurance companies.
I like the idea, but it requires agreement from the police unions that it is unlikely to get. The union would negotiate pay increases sufficient to cover the cost of the insurance or would simply require the department to provide the insurance as a benefit. They would then resist any attempt to report individual behavior to the insurer, so the insurer would not be able to drop individuals.
The good part might be that the insurer would do a better job of fighting claims and limiting payouts for claims. This would also provide political cover for politicians, since they could distance themselves from individual decisions on payouts. But it is certain that lawyers will try to sue departments and cities directly after making an insurance recovery.
Thanks to the commentary, I understand that the cop malpractice insurance plan would be difficult to implement in practice.
A neighbor's grandson recently went through the police training program in this city. The training took a really long time and covered any possible situation an officer might encounter. Extensive classroom training was also required. I have every confidence that our officers are well qualified and do their best to serve and protect. I am grateful for our outstanding professional police force.
I am what one might call a baseball obsessionist. My mother claims Jack Brickhouse was my babysitter when I was 4 years old. Of course the base ball season is too long. How many really dispute that? There are two issues. I have read many baseball books and articles and have seen it claimed by many that baseball is the slowest sport of all to change tradition. It only took a century for them to decide that it wasn’t necessary for pitchers to come to the plate just to strike out. The other is that they trapped themselves due to- wait for it- MONEY. The number of games is not going down. Why do we think the playoffs were expanded so that playoffs and the World Series can be held in freezing temperatures in northern cities? Now things need to be done to keep broadcasting and streaming executives in line that are not as interested in broadcasting baseball as they used to be. There are more than a few players that will make more money this year than most team rosters 30 years ago. Studies have been done that show winning does not necessarily increase the value of a team, particularly in smaller markets. So we can debate it all we want. But I don’t foresee a decrease in games until the major media outlets decide that MLB is not worth showing as much. Even then, team ownership will need to determine how to continue to support outrageous player salaries, especially for mediocre players. I predict a major storm brewing between MLB and the player’s union.
There is something missing in the debate over which is more inane, Brandon’s debt load or Ritchie’s parking deal. Why must a comparison be made? Daley caught plenty of hell when the deal was made and has continued to catch he’ll since. That doesn’t excuse what Johnson did. They were both onerous deals. Johnson is a former union rep. He is not an economist. He is a progressive trying to please that part of his constituency. He is perfectly happy to play Robin Hood and take from the rich while kicking the can down the road. He is one of many reasons the population has dropped from over three million to to just over two and a half million and U-Haul is one of the more popular businesses.
The problem with commenting on Trump is that we all know what he is and are developing Trump fatigue. I hope I am wrong. I want him hammered for the next four years. But I just had to bring up this one. It was on 60 Minutes, so I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to see it. The Marine Corps had auditions for outstanding young band members. They were mostly from underserved populations. They were then supposed to perform with an elite marine Corps band. At the last moment, Burger Boy canceled it. Why? Those dreaded initials, DEI. So former military band members not only helped put together a performance for them but helped fund it. The Marine Commandant regretted it, but had to follow orders. I predict he will soon be replaced. I need Garry’s help here. Surely we can do better than fat fascist bastard for an avowed racist that would take this opportunity away from deserving young people. Were they not capable musicians? That’s why auditions were held. Did the program cost too much much money and fall victim to the whims of Muskrat? I feel anything I could say to properly describe Trump at this point would be totally objectionable in a civilized sense and totally inadequate to describe his character.
Thank you EZ. Ignoring resources based on who funds/supports them is a great way to be brainwashed. It also helped create the division we have today. Stretching the truth and pushing narratives can be said about the vast majority of resources. Take in a variety of perspectives and use your critical thinking skills. Government needs to be held accountable, especially in Illinois. IPI provides solid research, despite any underlying goals.
Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson came out with the book "Abundance" this week, to great fanfare. "The liberal answer to Elon Musk". "Sometimes government needs to get out of the way". "Too much regulation and zoning laws creates lack of affordable housing". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwjxVRfUV_4
EZ twisted my argument. My argument was not, and is not, pro debt deal. I, and the original link I posted, specifically said it is more than ok to be against the bond deal. The problem with the IPI is how they frame their whole world view:
I compared the IPI to Fox News. I don't think I have to explain to most readers here how Fox News paints a rather untrue picture of the United States. They sensationalize and choose which stories to cover in order to push their agenda. The IPI does the same thing.
IPI is rated as mostly factual by Media Bias, just like so many left-leaning sources. Both sides spin, and strategically choose which stories to cover. Check the rating of your favorite politicians on Politifact. While Trump is off the charts with lies, most democrats don't fair very well either.
One reason there's so much rinse & repeat on IPI is that not enough changes. Still making bad budget deals in Chicago. Still giving compounded COLA to tens of thousands of six figure pensioners (no state tax) on the backs of the poor. Still thousands more government bodies than any other state. Still overburdened with housing regulations.
As far as oligarchs gaining power, there's MAGA, and then there's the MAGA Minions on the left. Half the democratic party seems to have finally figured it out, while the other half is still in denial.
On Saturday nights, when I was kid around 12 years old, I would walk to the local drug store, get a hot fudge sundae (yes, the drug store had a fountain), and buy the Sunday Chicago Sun-Times, which I would take home and read. Now, a gazillion years later, I get the Sun-Times delivered every day and read it with breakfast.
I don’t have any problem with the length of the baseball season, which has been at roughly six months for as long as I’ve been around, but what’s the deal with playing official games when spring training hasn’t even ended yet? From what I understand, the Cubs are going to play two official games in Japan, and then return to Arizona to complete their exhibition schedule. What the fu*k? According to Paul Sullivan, this move was deemed necessary so that the players on the Cubs and Dodgers are allotted ample time to regroup and recover from jet lag. You have got to be kidding me! Are they being provided with warm milk and security blankets? Are they going to have polysomnagrams administered upon their return to make sure that their delicate circadian rhythms have been properly retuned and restored? This is ludicrous.
How about making the two games in Tokyo exhibition games? Do they honestly think that the games wouldn’t sell out just because they wouldn’t be official? This is like playing the first reel of a movie, halting it, going back to another twenty minutes of trailers and THEN resuming the flick. Or opening a concert or symphony with a couple of tunes and then dropping the curtain and rehearsing some more before starting the show back up again. Or playing the first two innings of a baseball game and then dragging the batting cage back onto the field and having another half hour of batting practice before resuming with inning three. Inane.
The season stretches into mid- to late-November these days. (Remember when Reggie Jackson was "Mr. October"?) I agree that the Japan games should also be Exhibition Games, as the Japanese fans will turn out if their own are the starters/main players in those games. By making those games Exhibitions, you do away with the Jet Lag issue - but it is a REAL issue. If you've traveled to Asia and back the trip really messes with your body clock - which can last for days/a week.
visual quips brackets were great! even tho i voted with the highest % on only 1 bracket - which i assert was the weakest bracket [not sharing which yet]
Harrison Butker, kicker for the KC Chiefs, infamously implied last year during a commencement speech that the women graduating that day had wasted their money since they should aspire to be homemakers instead.
Thanks. The show was unknown and unseen by me, but now that I’ve read Wikipedia’s synopsis of it, the conflation with Butker’s “controversial” commencement speech make for a brilliant exaggeration. Quite hilarious.
Re Little Bear's assessment of Austin Berg, his post calling Brandon Johnson's $830 million bond deal his parking meter deal, and the Illinois Policy Institute: First, I do think it's absolutely fair for Austin to compare the bond deal with the parking meters, though bonds are so amorphous in daily life that the bond deal is unlikely to live in infamy the way the parking meters do. On both bonds and parking meters, we lose gigantic amounts of money long-term for a short-term budget fix that benefits a mayor who probably won't pay for it at the ballot box. (Daley was leaving, Johnson is using a crazy debt structure that won't make payments until he's long out of office.) Make no mistake, Johnson's bonds are a short-term quick fix dressed up to sound legit by saying they're for "capital" projects. But these are mostly projects like street paving and "streetscapes" that should be paid with current revenue and will need redoing soon, not bridges that last 50 years. He stuck us with long term debt rather than responsibly trimming his budget or making government work better.
Re Austin and IPI: I see Little Bear's point, in the sense that we should always consider the potential biases of any information source and adjust accordingly with skepticism or more research. After that, I go by a great quote I saw once from some free speech group, by Maimonides: "Accept the truth from whatever source it comes." I'm not affiliated with any party, I'm almost more disgusted with Democrats right now than Republicans though I've always ended up feeling forced to vote Democrat. Still, if Donald Trump says the sky is blue I won't deny it simply because he said it. I'm cautious of IPI generally for all the reasons Little Bear listed from Pro Publica. That said, the questions in my mind remain the same with IPI or any other group or person--whether facts and figures are correct, whether I believe policy prescriptions will perform as claimed, and whether I think the claimed result would be a good one. I've yet to hear Austin quote incorrect facts. There are policies where we'd disagree or I'm not sure--I really can't make up my mind who's right about charter schools and vouchers--but I've never seen Austin give any indication of disingenuous motives. Bottom line, there are plenty of places for people across the political spectrum to agree, and we should look for those places rather than not talking to people according to their perceived place on the spectrum.
Well stated. I also think that it is necessary to know one's own implicit or explicit philosophies of human nature, economics, and politics. Many ad hominem attacks are based on conceptual fallacies. For example - all billionaires and corporations are part of a cabal intent on impoverishing the masses while enriching themselves. This cabal requires the stealthy imposition of a fascist totalitarian government to be completely successful. These forces are also obviously racist. There are right-wing and other populist corollaries. The media regularly ignores or even endorses left leaning fallacies while doing a better job of calling out right leaning fallacies.
I also feel I have to spend far too much mental effort filtering out extreme language in order to get to the core of many arguments. Every proposed policy change or administrative action is not an existential crisis, an attack, or a war.
Here is something I have never before seen discussed here. I know we have a number of Jewish people represented here. I have actually considered this before and would be interested in seeing the comments of others. Why do we Jews love the British? Or am I misinterpreting things? I am reading the book Exodus by Leon Uris. I have also seen the movie with Paul Newman. As a retired history teacher, I somewhat knew the story anyway. Aren’t the Brits the people who weren’t going to allow us to emigrate to Palestine after World War II because it was a part of their shrinking fiefdom and they didn’t want to toil the Arabs? Feel free to enlighten me. Have times changed and they like us better? Are they enough like us Americans that we forgive history? I’d be interested in viewpoints. Or do we have enough enemies already and with Trump taking on the world, we don’t need more? I can tell you what the Orthodox part of my family thinks and it’s not pretty.
I don't love "the British" any more than I do the Japanese or the Spanish. Seems a bit strange to even have a general opinion about an entire nationality. I would be kind of uncomfortable if someone said they love "the Jews".
Also remember, I am talking historically. Have we forgiven them? As to your question about hating Jews, yes there are people that hate all Jews. I knew some of them on the south side. Most didn’t even know why, making it obvious it was something they learned elsewhere, most likely from parents.
I grew up between two different Catholic parishes. The kids from one, St Ignatius, were hateful anti-Semites, the kids from the other, St. Jerome, were our friends! later I found out it was all due to one ancient priest at St Iggy's that hated Jews! That bastard lived until his late nineties & was in charge until his own end.
I said "love the Jews", not hate. My point being that generalizing even in a positive light is ill-advised. I still remember Reggie White really stepping in it when he made a speech how "Hispanics are good family men and the Japanese are great with electronics" or whatever he was trying to say. All stereotypes are harmful even the ones that look positive on the surface.
That's reasonable. I've said negative things in the past about stereotypes. But my original question is still the same. Hitler wanted to kill us. He gets all the attention in the history books. But the British wanted to de y us a place to live when there was nowhere to go. Why? Their empire was almost gone and they didn't want to risk losing Arab oil. People that lived through the .OSS of their families and were ,lived through concentration camps were being traded for oil. That doesn't thrill me with British conduct. I just wondered how others felt about it.
The British kicked out the Jews in the 13th Century. They slowly returned a few hundred years later.
When the Jews of Britain wanted full civil rights in the early 19th Century, Lord Wellington opposed it, probably due to the Rothschilds partial financing of the Napoleonic Wars & Walter Scott was in favor of it. There was also a real hatred for Benjamin Disraeli, even though he was only nominally Jewish, as his parents converted to the Church of England & raised him as that.
British academic however are virulently anti-Semitic, why, I don't know, such as the one who was the head of the Dead Seas Scrolls project maybe 20 years ago who was kicked out of the project when it was learned of his extreme rants against Jews were discovered. Most of today's anti-Semitism in Britain appears to start with the older professors in their universities & then is passed on to their impressionable students!
The baseball regular season is a good length. It’s the postseason that’s too long. They keep adding rounds, which lets more mediocre teams in. Every so often an 85-win team will go on a run and an 100-win team will lose early, and it will make the regular season feel like a waste of time.
I think one of the reasons that MLB and other sports have embraced sports betting is intended to increase the interest and excitement around games particularly early season games and games of poorly performing teams. They leverage and enhance the fan base by increasing interest in the games, in the scoring, and in the minutia of events and actions. And of course, generate more revenue.
The most recent John Oliver piece was on sports gambling and he used a clip of the NBA commissioner saying exactly that - he loves sports gambling because it really boosts fan engagement. He doesn't care about the negative impact on the fans of course.
Eric - I feel I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to give you props for your words in defense of Austin Berg and the Illinois Policy Institute. Information from a news outlet or in this case a policy Institute is not automatically false just because it and or it's supporters are on the other side of the political Spectrum from you. Similarly, someone espousing a differing opinion than yours does not make them disingenuous, unAmerican, a threat to democracy, a hater, etc.
That seems very fundamental, but all too often, people on both sides of the political spectrum fall into this intellectually lazy branding instead of employing reason and logic to support their position. I greatly enjoy my energetic exchanges with you and many of the other PS posters; however, when someone starts the name calling and branding I simply refuse to further engage.
With that said, I wish everyone a belated Happy St Patrick's Day (who was not Irish, by the way), and a great week!
What you mean is that when you demean transgender people (which you do frequently), and transgender people call you on it, and cite scientific posts to contradict you, you refuse to engage.
Sigh... this is the final time I will reply to you on this subject joni, as you have unfortunately immediately branded me as transphobic, a hater, a Maga person or other label simply because I hold a contrary view.
For the record, I believe that you and all people are deserving to be loved and respected as a creation of God as we all are. I respect your choice to live your life as you choose.
But I remain strongly opposed to biological males participating in girls and women's sports where they have an inherent advantage, disproportionately win competitions and in many cases take women's places on the sports teams. I remain strongly opposed to biological males being allowed into women's restrooms and locker rooms where girls and women can be unwillingly exposed to male genitalia. I further oppose biological males being housed in women's prisons where numerous pregnancies have resulted as a consequence.
If these views are sufficient in your mind to brand me as a hater, then I guess you are branding about 3/4 of our country as haters.
Sigh . . . Your views are tainted by a number of factors. One is your belief that transgender people “choose” to live as the opposite sex, and another is your ignorance concerning the process of transition. Transgender people don’t make a choice to live as the opposite sex. No one sits around their kitchen, thinking about the future, and says to themselves, “I know what I’ll do; I’ll live as the opposite sex so that I can be mocked and have my rights to fully participate in society limited. I choose to become a member of the group that the Republicans spent over $200 million dollars demonizing in political ads last year.” No one says that, David. Gender identity is biological, and it is in the brain. So a transgender woman, pre-transition, is not a male. She is a person with a gender discrepancy between her mind and her body. The way medical people have determined is best to treat that discrepancy is by transitioning the body, and that’s because therapy to try to change a person’s gender identity has been proven to be unsuccessful.
When the body is transitioned, in the case of a transgender woman, she no longer has a male body. Hormone therapy changes the body. In the case of a transgender woman, she develops breasts, loses muscle mass, her body fat goes to different locations in her body, her skin becomes less tough, she loses her body hair. She has essentially a female body. And, if she has bottom surgery, her body is basically indistinguishable from a female body.
And yet . . . you insist on calling transgender women “biological males.” Why? Why do you do that if you are not transphobic? In 2019 I was in the women’s locker room at the YMCA in Downers Grove. I have breasts and a vagina. Yet a cis-gender woman who knew I was transgender threw a fit, screaming at me. This cis-gender women exited the locker room, got the staff at the desk to come into the locker room and screamed at them at length about why I shouldn’t be in the women’s locker room. The people on the staff at the YMCA told the screaming cis-gender woman that I was in the correct locker room, and that she should leave me alone. You remind me of that cis-gender woman with your insistence that transgender women are biological males who should be restricted from participating in society like everybody else.
Thanks for the diversion of the visual and verbal jokes, but the monsters still haunt me. trump is on the phone with his buddy Vlad today to discuss the carve up and betrayal of Ukraine, Netanyahu is bombing the bejeezus out of Gaza, and the racist Afrikaner is wrecking the US government. No time to list the other monsters doing evil things.
If a Democrat was doing a fraction of the stuff Trump has done his first two months, the calls for impeachment would be near unanimous. I would call congressional Republicans feckless and complicit, but those words seem too tame for what is happening. Godwin’s Law is out the window on this one — the comparison to Germany in the early ‘30s is spot on at this point.
Hmm, and what about this, since you mention bombing Gaza? Hamas is STILL holding and torturing innocent hostages who were innocently dancing at a music festival, murdering and raping thousands on Oct. 7, including strangling a mother, her 4 year old and 9 month old baby in captivity . This is after Hamas broke a cease fire with Israel, who withdrew from Gaza in 2005, dismantling all of their Jewish settlements. Oh, yes, forgot or don't care about that, I guess (along with the rest of the world.) I am no longer accepting blanket comments about Israel, although I don't want to get into a fight about it. This is all fact, easily verifiable.
Please don't impute views to me that I do not hold. I am acutely aware of the terrible things that Hamas has done--including to innocent Palestinians. The sad thing is that, to some people, criticism of the acts of Israel's far-right government and Netanyahu is tantamount to hating Israel and to anti-semitism. 400 dead in the renewal of bombing in Gaza. How many of those were responsible for the heinous acts you write about and how does that advance peace?.
Michael - the old and very apt expression is that war is hell, and the death of non-combatants in war is particularly tragic, but universally unavoidable. There were almost 1 million German civilians killed as the US and our allies bombed and invaded Germany to defeat the nazis. And please spare me the propaganda that the Palestinian people do not strongly support Hamas. When my friend and her daughter abducted in the October 7th attacks, they were taken to the Hamas Command Center in a large hospital. As they were paraded inside, the entire staff gathered around and were cheering and trilling in celebration. They were then taken down into the tunnels from inside the hospital where Hamas cowardly hides their military behind civilian people and institutions. This is war, a war that started only when Hamas broke and existing truce to torture, murder and abduct civilian hostages. The war will end in a single minute when Hamas releases the hostages and lays down their arms, but it is their choice to continue to fight on and Israel has no choice but to continue to fight to defeat this vicious enemy and free the remaining hostages.
sorry, david, i believe you're mistaken.
without in any way justifying hamas or its actions [or inaction, in the case of hostage release], the war will continue as long as netanyahu believes it will keep him from facing a court and be held accountable for his criminal pre-current war behavior.
the continuance of this war is all on bibi.
Hi Bob - we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one my friend. I do not see that Israel has any alternative but to continue to finish the war that Hamas started to free the remaining hostages and ensure that Hamas will never again be a threat to Israel's security and the lives of its people. Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, has never renounced its Charter which calls for the genocide of Israel. All of the many attacks Hamas conducted on Israel were in violation of an existing truce. If Hamas is allowed to stay in power, it is only a matter of time until there would be another October 7th attack. Dangling an American / Israeli hostage as bait to secure advantageous terms is going to prove to be a major mistake and likely will result in many more of them being sent into the afterlife to learn, to their great dismay, that instead of 40 virgins they are going to burn in the fires of hell for their murderous conduct. Israel bombing Gaza and unintentionally killing civilians that Hamas cowardly hides among is absolutely not in any way morally different than the US and our allies bombing the hell out of Germany and Japan in World War II until they surrendered. So internal Israeli politics aside, I believe that Israel has no real choice and I am very happy that the US is now 100% supportive of their ongoing efforts.
Thank you Shelley. I find it nothing short of humorous when Hamas and their Allied supporters screech loudly about Israel committing war crimes and violating international norms when, I guess in their own rabid minds, Hamas does not see anything wrong with breaking the truce, abducting, torturing and murdering innocent civilians, and in a pre-planned strategy, continuing to use the few survivors and dead bodies as bargaining chips. If were up to me, I would not allow in a single loaf of bread or bottle of water until all of the hostages and bodies were returned. We certainly did not start shipping aid into Germany until after the Nazis had been thoroughly defeated and the war ended. So Israel must continue their military campaign against Hamas, and I am happy they now have the unqualified support of the US in doing so.
cnn headline this AM - Fury toward Netanyahu as Israelis protest renewed war in Gaza
without dismissing your claim of current facts about hamas, it's not a bunch of disgruntled, misguided, antisemitic americans who oppose netanyahu, his govt and the IDF in their prosecution of this war.
while i stipulate to the heinous and barbaric conduct of hamas on Oct 7, are you claiming that netanyahu et al are blameless, even righteous, in the prosecution of this war? that his response - incl'g the killing of tens of thousands of innocent women & children - is remotely measured and equivalent?
wake up.
You're absolutely right, of course, but I would say an occasional diversion from the ongoing nightmare is an essential tool of resilience and resistance. Overwhelming and exhausting the sane opposition is their expressly stated strategy, it is simply not sustainable to be outraged and angry all the time, even though the outrage and anger are more than valid. Finding simple joy and a little humor in the little things is a nourishing bit of defiance.
My favorite diversion is the Onion, which I follow on Bluesky.
The failure of the press and mainstream media to address Trump's attacks on democracy and our constitutional rights has forced me to abandon many former sources I used to rely on for news. All they offer are his lies.
I know there is criticism of some of us for rejecting open mindedness and seeing both sides. But what’s the point? We don’t know in advance what we are going to see? I tried to stick with Fox News. But they raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels and have no relationship to objectivity. I get the Las Vegas paper electronically. Their editorial policy and columnists are no better than Fox News. But it’s a gift subscription for my 90-year-old Las Vegas stepmother who loves to do the puzzles. Otherwise I would dump it in a second. I can’t learn anything from news wise I can’t get in the Chicago papers. What do we need to learn from such sources? Democrats are the ruination of the country and Trump is a deity.
They have trouble distinguishing to open mindedness and soft mindedness.
The new York Times is one of the worst at this. They've been sane washing him for years now & won't stop!
Michael - I want to congratulate you for once again having the first post on the PS! (Wonder how long your streak is now?) You must be an early riser, and I propose that Eric bestow upon you the unofficial title of Dean of PS Posters!
I was watching Pardon The Interruption last night and Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser were both lamenting the early start of the MLB season, for similar reasons you cited - stretching the season ever longer diminishes the significance of each game, dilutes interest, and grows excitement fatigue. They mentioned how the NFL season never seems to end, with free agency, the draft, minicamps, etc. always being in the news and how a real, quiet offseason for every sport, would be a welcome respite for the fans. The leagues however are only motivated by marketing considerations and just simple greed.
Mark - you are entirely correct that it is all money driven. And the NFL is particularly brilliant in the way they successfully capture our attention year-round beyond the regular season with free agency, the draft, mini camps and preseason.
while understanding that EZ's poll on the length of the MLB season is not 'scientific', i think it's another dark harbinger of the future of MLB.
a lot of americans just don't care about MLB anymore. from a google search -
Sport Favorite spectator sport TV viewing record (annual, since 2010)1
Football 37% 127.7 million
Basketball 11% 30.8 million
Baseball 9% 40.0 million
Soccer 7% 29.3 million
i've also heard that, while MLB interest is holding up among boomers, gen X & millennials, it's tanking seriously among gen Z.
the future of MLB is not bright, and the owners, MLB execs & MLBPA are doing a poor job of reviving it.
Years ago one of the Reps(Raja?) suggested that police departments/officers purchase malpractice insurance just like doctors and nurses. This could eliminate some bad actors and put limits on massive liability pay outs. Actuaries are really good at risk assessment and could save tax payers huge amounts of money by pricing bad actors out of a job. I have no idea why this suggestion never got legs?
I'd prefer making all the individual cops buy the insurance. Most would pay little, but the worst would first pay more & then not be able to get it after a few payouts & then be fired as cops, because they're too crazy & violent to be cops!
Hi Garry - I'm going to disagree with you on this for two fundamental reasons.
First, you are creating an entirely new and unique standard for police officers. Malpractice insurance is typically obtained individually for people in specific professions requiring lengthy training and certifications such as doctors and architects. It strikes me as particularly unfair to single out police officers with a requirement of individual insurance while I completely agree extending that to teachers, bus drivers, office workers and every other individual working a job.
Second, liability insurance premiums are driven not by wrong doing, but by claims made against the insured. Cop haters and their supporters are well aware of this, and police officers could easily be subjected to a torrent of claims even when there is no basis to them. The insurance carrier would expend significant monies defending claims, and the individual insurance premiums would rise to the point that it would not be economically feasible for anyone to be a police officer.
I completely agree that our society would benefit from an elevated level of police professionalism. My suggestion to achieve this is to increase police pay and improve and lengthen training. This would then result in a very high caliber of people becoming police officers and who would receive excellent training. Unfortunately, there are forces that are rapidly anti-police as witnessed by the literal Warfare being conducted against construction of a new law enforcement training center outside of Atlanta. I believe we will get better policing when our society provides police with more support, better pay and more training.
David, Your claim that “police officers could easily be subjected to a torrent of claims even when there is no basis to them” reflects a lack of understanding of the economics of the practice of law. Lawyers don’t make money by advancing claims when there is no basis to them. Pursuing a civil rights claim against a police officer is labor intensive. If the complaint does not allege facts giving the claim plausibility, it can be thrown out on a motion to dismiss. If facts are alleged in the complaint without any evidentiary support, the lawyer who filed the complaint can be sanctioned under Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 and made to pay the defendant’s reasonable attorney’s fees. If the complaint gets past a motion to dismiss, out of pocket costs increase greatly, as depositions of witnesses are taken. And, if the deposition testimony shows that there is no evidence which could support a verdict against the defendant, the case will be thrown out on summary judgment. Lawyers have fixed costs: rent, wages/salaries of administrative personnel, malpractice insurance, telephone, advertising, licensing, office expense, etc. It just doesn’t pay to bring cases when there is no basis to them. The idea that claims without merit are routinely brought by trial lawyers is a right wing fever dream promoted by Fox News and other right wing propaganda outlets.
You fail to admit there are many individuals and organizations who will gladly pursue claims without true Merit as a means of advancing their agenda, in this case attempting to inhibit police in the performance of their duties. I believe you are also quite aware that motions for summary dismissal are granted only in cases where the claim itself is in some way defective under the law or the plaintiff does not have standing to bring the claim. In 99% of cases, motion for summary dismissal is defeated by a simple finding that there are matters of fact yet to be determined. You must also be aware that it is very rare that attorneys are sanctioned even when their case is thrown out or defeated unless defendant can demonstrate misrepresentation or malice with a very high standard to do so. Finally, from experience in the insurance industry I know very well that an insurance premiums can Skyrocket by multiple claims, even when there is ultimately no payment made on them as it is very expensive for insurance carriers to investigate and defend claims. To think that some of the police haters would not utilize claims as a means of waging war against policing is very unrealistic.
David, you write, “You fail to admit there are many individuals and organizations who will gladly pursue claims without true Merit as a means of advancing their agenda, in this case attempting to inhibit police in the performance of their duties.” As my Mom used to say to me when I told her that there were many kids who were allowed to do what she would not allow me to do, “There are many? Name one.” Name one individual or organization who will gladly pursue claims without true merit as a means of inhibiting police in the performance of their duties. Name one.
That there are matters of fact yet to be determined does not preclude summary judgment. In order to preclude summary judgment, they have to be issues of fact *that could affect the outcome of the case*.
Chicago tried to improve the quality of cops by requiring a four year university degree. That's gone now, due to complaints from various minorities who said it was discriminatory!
Utter insanity.
Swedish & Norwegian cops get at least two years of training, ours get a few months at most.
They don't have the problems we have with bad cops, that long training period wees them out!
It sounds good in theory, but I'm not sure it would be practicable. Who would compel municipalities to carry this kind of insurance? I would guess the insurance companies would either charge exorbitant premiums even for smaller municipalities or deny coverage completely (what would happen then?). I don't think police departments would be any more motivated to avoid these kinds of incidents since it would still be "someone else" that is paying the settlements. I think that kind of a system would work as well as health insurance does - it would still be basically a tax, but with an added layer of a middle man with an expensive bureaucracy - the insurance companies.
I like the idea, but it requires agreement from the police unions that it is unlikely to get. The union would negotiate pay increases sufficient to cover the cost of the insurance or would simply require the department to provide the insurance as a benefit. They would then resist any attempt to report individual behavior to the insurer, so the insurer would not be able to drop individuals.
The good part might be that the insurer would do a better job of fighting claims and limiting payouts for claims. This would also provide political cover for politicians, since they could distance themselves from individual decisions on payouts. But it is certain that lawyers will try to sue departments and cities directly after making an insurance recovery.
Thanks to the commentary, I understand that the cop malpractice insurance plan would be difficult to implement in practice.
A neighbor's grandson recently went through the police training program in this city. The training took a really long time and covered any possible situation an officer might encounter. Extensive classroom training was also required. I have every confidence that our officers are well qualified and do their best to serve and protect. I am grateful for our outstanding professional police force.
I am what one might call a baseball obsessionist. My mother claims Jack Brickhouse was my babysitter when I was 4 years old. Of course the base ball season is too long. How many really dispute that? There are two issues. I have read many baseball books and articles and have seen it claimed by many that baseball is the slowest sport of all to change tradition. It only took a century for them to decide that it wasn’t necessary for pitchers to come to the plate just to strike out. The other is that they trapped themselves due to- wait for it- MONEY. The number of games is not going down. Why do we think the playoffs were expanded so that playoffs and the World Series can be held in freezing temperatures in northern cities? Now things need to be done to keep broadcasting and streaming executives in line that are not as interested in broadcasting baseball as they used to be. There are more than a few players that will make more money this year than most team rosters 30 years ago. Studies have been done that show winning does not necessarily increase the value of a team, particularly in smaller markets. So we can debate it all we want. But I don’t foresee a decrease in games until the major media outlets decide that MLB is not worth showing as much. Even then, team ownership will need to determine how to continue to support outrageous player salaries, especially for mediocre players. I predict a major storm brewing between MLB and the player’s union.
There is something missing in the debate over which is more inane, Brandon’s debt load or Ritchie’s parking deal. Why must a comparison be made? Daley caught plenty of hell when the deal was made and has continued to catch he’ll since. That doesn’t excuse what Johnson did. They were both onerous deals. Johnson is a former union rep. He is not an economist. He is a progressive trying to please that part of his constituency. He is perfectly happy to play Robin Hood and take from the rich while kicking the can down the road. He is one of many reasons the population has dropped from over three million to to just over two and a half million and U-Haul is one of the more popular businesses.
The problem with commenting on Trump is that we all know what he is and are developing Trump fatigue. I hope I am wrong. I want him hammered for the next four years. But I just had to bring up this one. It was on 60 Minutes, so I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to see it. The Marine Corps had auditions for outstanding young band members. They were mostly from underserved populations. They were then supposed to perform with an elite marine Corps band. At the last moment, Burger Boy canceled it. Why? Those dreaded initials, DEI. So former military band members not only helped put together a performance for them but helped fund it. The Marine Commandant regretted it, but had to follow orders. I predict he will soon be replaced. I need Garry’s help here. Surely we can do better than fat fascist bastard for an avowed racist that would take this opportunity away from deserving young people. Were they not capable musicians? That’s why auditions were held. Did the program cost too much much money and fall victim to the whims of Muskrat? I feel anything I could say to properly describe Trump at this point would be totally objectionable in a civilized sense and totally inadequate to describe his character.
I saw that piece, the young people were very talented musicians.
And the Marine Band vets were very happy to help those kids improve their musicianship.
Proving there are many many people of far better character than the fat fascist traitor & his disgusting minions.
Thank you EZ. Ignoring resources based on who funds/supports them is a great way to be brainwashed. It also helped create the division we have today. Stretching the truth and pushing narratives can be said about the vast majority of resources. Take in a variety of perspectives and use your critical thinking skills. Government needs to be held accountable, especially in Illinois. IPI provides solid research, despite any underlying goals.
Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson came out with the book "Abundance" this week, to great fanfare. "The liberal answer to Elon Musk". "Sometimes government needs to get out of the way". "Too much regulation and zoning laws creates lack of affordable housing". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwjxVRfUV_4
Conservative / Libertarian economist Thomas Sowell has been writing about this for decades. IPI has for many years as well https://www.illinoispolicy.org/the-policy-shop-how-government-costs-us-affordable-housing/
EZ twisted my argument. My argument was not, and is not, pro debt deal. I, and the original link I posted, specifically said it is more than ok to be against the bond deal. The problem with the IPI is how they frame their whole world view:
https://hs-newsletter-e91163.beehiiv.com/p/how-right-wing-media-keeps-baiting-chicago
I compared the IPI to Fox News. I don't think I have to explain to most readers here how Fox News paints a rather untrue picture of the United States. They sensationalize and choose which stories to cover in order to push their agenda. The IPI does the same thing.
I also shared a podcast that explains the plans billionaires and businesses have made for the United States: https://www.levernews.com/masterplan/
(Here's a 16 minute video if you don't have time for a 10 hour podcast: https://www.levernews.com/masterplan/)
The IPI's funding completely changed after (tripled!) after the 2010 Citizen's United case. The money came pouring in from those billionaires.
The IPI is an arm of a full court press to remake the country into an oligarchy. We are seeing the results right now with Trump.
IPI is rated as mostly factual by Media Bias, just like so many left-leaning sources. Both sides spin, and strategically choose which stories to cover. Check the rating of your favorite politicians on Politifact. While Trump is off the charts with lies, most democrats don't fair very well either.
One reason there's so much rinse & repeat on IPI is that not enough changes. Still making bad budget deals in Chicago. Still giving compounded COLA to tens of thousands of six figure pensioners (no state tax) on the backs of the poor. Still thousands more government bodies than any other state. Still overburdened with housing regulations.
As far as oligarchs gaining power, there's MAGA, and then there's the MAGA Minions on the left. Half the democratic party seems to have finally figured it out, while the other half is still in denial.
Thank you for posting the YouTube link to the Ezra Klein piece about high speed rail. It was thought provoking and enlightening.
agree, already have a hold on that book at the library!
On Saturday nights, when I was kid around 12 years old, I would walk to the local drug store, get a hot fudge sundae (yes, the drug store had a fountain), and buy the Sunday Chicago Sun-Times, which I would take home and read. Now, a gazillion years later, I get the Sun-Times delivered every day and read it with breakfast.
I don’t have any problem with the length of the baseball season, which has been at roughly six months for as long as I’ve been around, but what’s the deal with playing official games when spring training hasn’t even ended yet? From what I understand, the Cubs are going to play two official games in Japan, and then return to Arizona to complete their exhibition schedule. What the fu*k? According to Paul Sullivan, this move was deemed necessary so that the players on the Cubs and Dodgers are allotted ample time to regroup and recover from jet lag. You have got to be kidding me! Are they being provided with warm milk and security blankets? Are they going to have polysomnagrams administered upon their return to make sure that their delicate circadian rhythms have been properly retuned and restored? This is ludicrous.
How about making the two games in Tokyo exhibition games? Do they honestly think that the games wouldn’t sell out just because they wouldn’t be official? This is like playing the first reel of a movie, halting it, going back to another twenty minutes of trailers and THEN resuming the flick. Or opening a concert or symphony with a couple of tunes and then dropping the curtain and rehearsing some more before starting the show back up again. Or playing the first two innings of a baseball game and then dragging the batting cage back onto the field and having another half hour of batting practice before resuming with inning three. Inane.
The season stretches into mid- to late-November these days. (Remember when Reggie Jackson was "Mr. October"?) I agree that the Japan games should also be Exhibition Games, as the Japanese fans will turn out if their own are the starters/main players in those games. By making those games Exhibitions, you do away with the Jet Lag issue - but it is a REAL issue. If you've traveled to Asia and back the trip really messes with your body clock - which can last for days/a week.
visual quips brackets were great! even tho i voted with the highest % on only 1 bracket - which i assert was the weakest bracket [not sharing which yet]
Anyone want to help me out with the Harrison Butker cheerleader outfit gag?
Harrison Butker, kicker for the KC Chiefs, infamously implied last year during a commencement speech that the women graduating that day had wasted their money since they should aspire to be homemakers instead.
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/19/1252357764/harrison-butker-benedictine-college-commencement-nuns-denounce
And white bonnets/Elizabethan collars are a staple of contemporary homemaker fashion?
That image is from the Hulu adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale with the KC logo superimposed.
Thanks. The show was unknown and unseen by me, but now that I’ve read Wikipedia’s synopsis of it, the conflation with Butker’s “controversial” commencement speech make for a brilliant exaggeration. Quite hilarious.
Re Little Bear's assessment of Austin Berg, his post calling Brandon Johnson's $830 million bond deal his parking meter deal, and the Illinois Policy Institute: First, I do think it's absolutely fair for Austin to compare the bond deal with the parking meters, though bonds are so amorphous in daily life that the bond deal is unlikely to live in infamy the way the parking meters do. On both bonds and parking meters, we lose gigantic amounts of money long-term for a short-term budget fix that benefits a mayor who probably won't pay for it at the ballot box. (Daley was leaving, Johnson is using a crazy debt structure that won't make payments until he's long out of office.) Make no mistake, Johnson's bonds are a short-term quick fix dressed up to sound legit by saying they're for "capital" projects. But these are mostly projects like street paving and "streetscapes" that should be paid with current revenue and will need redoing soon, not bridges that last 50 years. He stuck us with long term debt rather than responsibly trimming his budget or making government work better.
Re Austin and IPI: I see Little Bear's point, in the sense that we should always consider the potential biases of any information source and adjust accordingly with skepticism or more research. After that, I go by a great quote I saw once from some free speech group, by Maimonides: "Accept the truth from whatever source it comes." I'm not affiliated with any party, I'm almost more disgusted with Democrats right now than Republicans though I've always ended up feeling forced to vote Democrat. Still, if Donald Trump says the sky is blue I won't deny it simply because he said it. I'm cautious of IPI generally for all the reasons Little Bear listed from Pro Publica. That said, the questions in my mind remain the same with IPI or any other group or person--whether facts and figures are correct, whether I believe policy prescriptions will perform as claimed, and whether I think the claimed result would be a good one. I've yet to hear Austin quote incorrect facts. There are policies where we'd disagree or I'm not sure--I really can't make up my mind who's right about charter schools and vouchers--but I've never seen Austin give any indication of disingenuous motives. Bottom line, there are plenty of places for people across the political spectrum to agree, and we should look for those places rather than not talking to people according to their perceived place on the spectrum.
Well stated. I also think that it is necessary to know one's own implicit or explicit philosophies of human nature, economics, and politics. Many ad hominem attacks are based on conceptual fallacies. For example - all billionaires and corporations are part of a cabal intent on impoverishing the masses while enriching themselves. This cabal requires the stealthy imposition of a fascist totalitarian government to be completely successful. These forces are also obviously racist. There are right-wing and other populist corollaries. The media regularly ignores or even endorses left leaning fallacies while doing a better job of calling out right leaning fallacies.
I also feel I have to spend far too much mental effort filtering out extreme language in order to get to the core of many arguments. Every proposed policy change or administrative action is not an existential crisis, an attack, or a war.
Here is something I have never before seen discussed here. I know we have a number of Jewish people represented here. I have actually considered this before and would be interested in seeing the comments of others. Why do we Jews love the British? Or am I misinterpreting things? I am reading the book Exodus by Leon Uris. I have also seen the movie with Paul Newman. As a retired history teacher, I somewhat knew the story anyway. Aren’t the Brits the people who weren’t going to allow us to emigrate to Palestine after World War II because it was a part of their shrinking fiefdom and they didn’t want to toil the Arabs? Feel free to enlighten me. Have times changed and they like us better? Are they enough like us Americans that we forgive history? I’d be interested in viewpoints. Or do we have enough enemies already and with Trump taking on the world, we don’t need more? I can tell you what the Orthodox part of my family thinks and it’s not pretty.
I don't love "the British" any more than I do the Japanese or the Spanish. Seems a bit strange to even have a general opinion about an entire nationality. I would be kind of uncomfortable if someone said they love "the Jews".
Perfectly understandable. Does a large part of the world hate all Americans right now? Or just our present leadership?
Also remember, I am talking historically. Have we forgiven them? As to your question about hating Jews, yes there are people that hate all Jews. I knew some of them on the south side. Most didn’t even know why, making it obvious it was something they learned elsewhere, most likely from parents.
I grew up between two different Catholic parishes. The kids from one, St Ignatius, were hateful anti-Semites, the kids from the other, St. Jerome, were our friends! later I found out it was all due to one ancient priest at St Iggy's that hated Jews! That bastard lived until his late nineties & was in charge until his own end.
I said "love the Jews", not hate. My point being that generalizing even in a positive light is ill-advised. I still remember Reggie White really stepping in it when he made a speech how "Hispanics are good family men and the Japanese are great with electronics" or whatever he was trying to say. All stereotypes are harmful even the ones that look positive on the surface.
That's reasonable. I've said negative things in the past about stereotypes. But my original question is still the same. Hitler wanted to kill us. He gets all the attention in the history books. But the British wanted to de y us a place to live when there was nowhere to go. Why? Their empire was almost gone and they didn't want to risk losing Arab oil. People that lived through the .OSS of their families and were ,lived through concentration camps were being traded for oil. That doesn't thrill me with British conduct. I just wondered how others felt about it.
The British kicked out the Jews in the 13th Century. They slowly returned a few hundred years later.
When the Jews of Britain wanted full civil rights in the early 19th Century, Lord Wellington opposed it, probably due to the Rothschilds partial financing of the Napoleonic Wars & Walter Scott was in favor of it. There was also a real hatred for Benjamin Disraeli, even though he was only nominally Jewish, as his parents converted to the Church of England & raised him as that.
British academic however are virulently anti-Semitic, why, I don't know, such as the one who was the head of the Dead Seas Scrolls project maybe 20 years ago who was kicked out of the project when it was learned of his extreme rants against Jews were discovered. Most of today's anti-Semitism in Britain appears to start with the older professors in their universities & then is passed on to their impressionable students!
The baseball regular season is a good length. It’s the postseason that’s too long. They keep adding rounds, which lets more mediocre teams in. Every so often an 85-win team will go on a run and an 100-win team will lose early, and it will make the regular season feel like a waste of time.
I think one of the reasons that MLB and other sports have embraced sports betting is intended to increase the interest and excitement around games particularly early season games and games of poorly performing teams. They leverage and enhance the fan base by increasing interest in the games, in the scoring, and in the minutia of events and actions. And of course, generate more revenue.
The most recent John Oliver piece was on sports gambling and he used a clip of the NBA commissioner saying exactly that - he loves sports gambling because it really boosts fan engagement. He doesn't care about the negative impact on the fans of course.
Eric - I feel I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to give you props for your words in defense of Austin Berg and the Illinois Policy Institute. Information from a news outlet or in this case a policy Institute is not automatically false just because it and or it's supporters are on the other side of the political Spectrum from you. Similarly, someone espousing a differing opinion than yours does not make them disingenuous, unAmerican, a threat to democracy, a hater, etc.
That seems very fundamental, but all too often, people on both sides of the political spectrum fall into this intellectually lazy branding instead of employing reason and logic to support their position. I greatly enjoy my energetic exchanges with you and many of the other PS posters; however, when someone starts the name calling and branding I simply refuse to further engage.
With that said, I wish everyone a belated Happy St Patrick's Day (who was not Irish, by the way), and a great week!
What you mean is that when you demean transgender people (which you do frequently), and transgender people call you on it, and cite scientific posts to contradict you, you refuse to engage.
Sigh... this is the final time I will reply to you on this subject joni, as you have unfortunately immediately branded me as transphobic, a hater, a Maga person or other label simply because I hold a contrary view.
For the record, I believe that you and all people are deserving to be loved and respected as a creation of God as we all are. I respect your choice to live your life as you choose.
But I remain strongly opposed to biological males participating in girls and women's sports where they have an inherent advantage, disproportionately win competitions and in many cases take women's places on the sports teams. I remain strongly opposed to biological males being allowed into women's restrooms and locker rooms where girls and women can be unwillingly exposed to male genitalia. I further oppose biological males being housed in women's prisons where numerous pregnancies have resulted as a consequence.
If these views are sufficient in your mind to brand me as a hater, then I guess you are branding about 3/4 of our country as haters.
Sigh . . . Your views are tainted by a number of factors. One is your belief that transgender people “choose” to live as the opposite sex, and another is your ignorance concerning the process of transition. Transgender people don’t make a choice to live as the opposite sex. No one sits around their kitchen, thinking about the future, and says to themselves, “I know what I’ll do; I’ll live as the opposite sex so that I can be mocked and have my rights to fully participate in society limited. I choose to become a member of the group that the Republicans spent over $200 million dollars demonizing in political ads last year.” No one says that, David. Gender identity is biological, and it is in the brain. So a transgender woman, pre-transition, is not a male. She is a person with a gender discrepancy between her mind and her body. The way medical people have determined is best to treat that discrepancy is by transitioning the body, and that’s because therapy to try to change a person’s gender identity has been proven to be unsuccessful.
When the body is transitioned, in the case of a transgender woman, she no longer has a male body. Hormone therapy changes the body. In the case of a transgender woman, she develops breasts, loses muscle mass, her body fat goes to different locations in her body, her skin becomes less tough, she loses her body hair. She has essentially a female body. And, if she has bottom surgery, her body is basically indistinguishable from a female body.
And yet . . . you insist on calling transgender women “biological males.” Why? Why do you do that if you are not transphobic? In 2019 I was in the women’s locker room at the YMCA in Downers Grove. I have breasts and a vagina. Yet a cis-gender woman who knew I was transgender threw a fit, screaming at me. This cis-gender women exited the locker room, got the staff at the desk to come into the locker room and screamed at them at length about why I shouldn’t be in the women’s locker room. The people on the staff at the YMCA told the screaming cis-gender woman that I was in the correct locker room, and that she should leave me alone. You remind me of that cis-gender woman with your insistence that transgender women are biological males who should be restricted from participating in society like everybody else.