What we could’ve had…
If you can’t bear to watch the whole thing, I’d at least watch (or read the transcript at the YouTube site) starting at approximately the 23min mark:
“… Stephen, what I did not predict was the capitulation. I didn’t… People would roll over for this president. I didn’t see that coming… I — and perhaps it’s naive of me someone who has seen a lot that most people haven’t seen but I believed that on some level, you know, there are many — there should be many who consider themselves to be guardians of our system and our democracy who just capitulated… “
dc
I can’t watch the whole thing yet, but on the nose, Madame Vice President. But we the people have not, so keep fighting, each according to their abilities.
Baud
I am weak, and would not be able to tolerate seeing what we could have had. I was the same way in 2017 and this time is worse.
Harrison Wesley
Guardians who just capitulated? Surely – surely she couldn’t be thinking of that high-minded, impartial interpreter of our laws, the United States Supreme Court?
MoCaAce
@Harrison Wesley:
And every Republican member of the House and Senate
And too many Dems, who if not capitulating, hid under their desks.
Splitting Image
When the time comes to assign the blame for all of the capitulation, I think that the lion’s share of it ought to go to the people who were obeying in advance of the election.
A lot of people were shocked by how quickly the Afghanistan government collapsed and the Taliban took over after the U.S. pulled out. They really shouldn’t have been, because the accord that the U.S. signed in March of 2020 was with the Taliban, not the Afghan government of the time. That signaled to everyone who was going to be in charge when the withdrawal finally happened, so when the time came, capitulation was complete and immediate.
Similarly, a lot of organizations were making it clear that they wanted a Trump restoration throughout the 2024 campaign, and they got what they wanted.
Yep, them.
prostratedragon
@Baud: Kamala herself said that for months she just watched a lot of cooking shows. I’ve certainly expanded my repertoire, and continue to do so.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
I watched. It hurt. And, like you, it hurt worse than 2017.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Can’t watch.
MobiusKlein
I somehow knew that capitulation was going to be the theme of T2, when I went to the office that Wed morning in November, and there was an eerie absence of anything overtly political around it. Folks aiming to keep their heads down, weather the storm.
Quite a contrast to the T1 experience.
Tom Q
Couldn’t bring myself to watch. For months I stayed away from news and the comedy shows. Even now, mostly get my news from a scroll of Bluesky — which I often have to stop as it takes me too far down the doom-hole.
Just dipped my toe into Daily Show/Colbert in the past few weeks — a combination of supporting Colbert, and interest in Josh Johnson. But sitting and watching this woman — who so clearly should have been president, if we lived in a worthy or even just sane country — struck me would be sadder than anything I could tolerate, even all these months later.
Another Scott
@Harrison Wesley: She addresses that in the interview, basically saying that we knew where the SCOTUS stood when they gave the President (whoever it is) immunity.
(I think she’s right, but I think that she could have mentioned that their presumption of immunity is conditional. It’s conditional on what the RWNJ SCOTUS says is immunity-worthy, thus a President Harris obviously would not be given the same deference as 47 because, as we know, Icky Democrats are Icky. But she, rightfully, decided to stay on-message instead.)
Grr…
It’s well worth watching the whole thing, IMHO.
Best wishes,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@Harrison Wesley:
Gotta also be thinking of Ivies like Harvard, and ‘public Ivies’ like U-Va. If institutions like those are afraid or otherwise unwilling to stand up to Trump, what orgs have the means and will to take him on?
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
My sister in fragility.
And we haven’t capitulated, either before or after the election.
Baud
Another good time to remember that neither Biden nor Harris were Ivy people.
Old School
@lowtechcyclist:
And media companies (ABC, CBS)
Steve LaBonne
I can’t watch it either. I would throw my tablet across the room and I don’t want to spend the money to replace it. But the fact that so many of our “guardians” are paper tigers is painfully acquired knowledge that we must take into account when the time comes to rebuild. The upper echelons of our socioeconomic structure are even more rotten than we knew, and they will need a thorough purge.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Nope.
I just feel as if my hair was on fire BEFORE the election, when a lot of other people were either complacent or only interested in attacking our side (like now).
Now it’s, “Oh, fight for us,” when they couldn’t get off their asses to vote.
dm
Well, those of you not watching are missing out.
She’s the best medicine for melancholy.
I’m so glad to hear that she’s not leaving the fight, and her emphasis on the fact that it’s on all of us, not this or that “leader”. It sounds like she’s hoping to facilitate a populist democratic movement (and that running for office might actually interfere with that).
Baud
@dm:
I’m confident she’s excellent but there’s no reason for a guilt trip. Not everyone reacts the same way to things.
I’ve never needed to be inspired to do the obviously morally right thing.
rikyrah
ZeeeMediaOfficial (@zeee_media) posted at 7:52 PM on Thu, Jul 31, 2025:
So let me get this straight… Texans need to cut back on showering because Microsoft’s Stargate AI data center in Abilene needs the water?
Did Americans vote for showering less so they can get an AI technocracy in return?
Article in comments. t.co/dh8RUPtnVb
(https://x.com/zeee_media/status/1951083694355272122?t=15DHb6f-xdd1nUpt_Y7B3A&s=03)
dm
@Baud: Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound like a “guilt trip”.
It’s a good conversation, and, I don’t know. Seems a bit like a light in the darkness, but maybe that’s just me.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I haven’t seen Biden’s speech when he withdrew either. I could see this future. Not because KH, she was a great candidate but because of what the media and the electorate and even our party is.
dm
@rikyrah: … and this is before the shovels on “Stargate” hit the ground. These are the data centers already in Texas (probably taking advantage of plentiful electricity from wind).
This is a global phenomenon — I’m reading Karen Hao’s The Empire of AI, which covers data centers like this throughout the colonized world.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: And playing the blame game of excoriating Ds for the mayhem Rs are causing.
Melancholy Jaques
@dm:
I feel like I’m incurable.
Spanky
@Baud:
100%, except that I watched. And now I have to mourn all over again. We could have had so much.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Melancholy Jaques: you’d have to change your nym.
bluefoot
@dm: IMO the environmental costs of AI are not worth it except in some very specific use cases.
i know this is is Texas so I don’t know: Does there need to be an environmental impact analysis before the site gets approved?
Soprano2
@Old School: And big law firms.
Spanky
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Maybe he could be bemused.
Eunicecycle
@bluefoot: it’s Texas, so imagine someone goes to the site, looks around for a few seconds, and says, “It looks fine.”
Scamp Dog
@Soprano2: It’s worth noting the some big law firms rolled over, and others stood their ground. Some of the firms that rolled over lost attorneys and will (I hope, eventually) lose clients. Why hire a firm that’s demonstrated it won’t put up a fight?
They Call Me Noni
I have this recorded and watched part of it live. Some evening I’ll fix a really potent G&T and watch the rest. My news is in small doses since November because it just makes my blood boil and I wind up cursing profusely and crying. I hate the unfairness of it all and mostly the unfairness that as a result of one horrible man who was not held to account under the laws of this country is now burning it down. And doing so with a shit eating grin on his face. God I hate him with burning heat of a thousand suns. Prior to the actual election I just could not fathom him being in the Oval again. I sorely underestimated the ignorance and hate of Republicans and a fair amount of so called undecideds.
tobie
I haven’t watched yet. The past two weeks have been hell for me for personal reasons but I will try to get around to watching the interview. The unfair burden that both Hillary and Kamala have had to bear is a lot to take.
zhena gogolia
@They Call Me Noni: We are on the same page. I hate him so much.
Belafon
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will shut down September 30th:
cpb.org/pressroom/Corporation-Public-Broadcasting-Addresses-Operations-Following-Loss-Federal-Fundin…
Mark Field
@Soprano2: Including the one where her fucking husband continues to work.
Belafon
Trump fired the Commissioner of Labor statistics by tweet because today’s job numbers made him look bad.
Peale
@Belafon: yep. Once he gets his mitts on the Fed, we might as well be China when it comes to statistics.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mark Field: Remind me how that is her fault.
chemiclord
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announces they are winding down operations, both-siding to the bitter end.
Harrison Wesley
@Belafon: Wow, that’s a relief! Now we’ll have nothing but the best, bigliest, beautiful job numbers for the next three and a half years.
JiveTurkin
Bloomberg reported on Friday that President Donald Trump’s name and others were redacted from Epstein documents, citing multiple people familiar with the matter.
I take that as an admission of guilt. At this point Trump would have to prove that he is not a pedophile
And Mike Johnson appears to be protecting a pedophile. When I see this on SVU, often the person protecting a pedophile is themself a pedophile.
WaterGirl
@Belafon: That’s a big loss.
I wonder if C-SPAN is related to that, or if it’s next.
Jeffro
great job, MAGA voters! we are well on our way to becoming North Korea West
Baud
Betty
@Baud: I was impressed by how powerful her honesty was. It brought tears, but they felt cathartic.
Jeffro
For the Harris thing: I think it’s more important than ever that – to the extent any/all of us can power through the negative feelings – Dems FLEX HARD right there along with her and remind the country that absolutely none of this insanity had to happen.
95% of the MAGAts won’t care, but 5% will…as will about 100% of everyone else. Something for the country to mull over as we enjoy our stagflation and the Mad King ruling by tweet whenever reality asserts itself.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@prostratedragon: animal and nature videos are especially soothing. Obviously, the real deal is even better.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Lies. They can’t be more than 6,000 years old.
Betty
@rikyrah: Does Donny know? Showers are a very important policy matter to him.
Rose Judson
I didn’t think this would upset me, but I started crying within about 90 seconds. Well.
Miss Bianca
@Belafon: Ugh. This just hurts me so much for so many reasons.
Belafon
@chemiclord: my personal opinion is people needed to step up and pay for it if they can, but too few did. I understand not every person could, but there are a lot of people that could have supported it right now that didn’t.
Fighting fascism isnt going to be cheap.
Betty Cracker
Funny incident this afternoon: I got a bird feeder with a solar-powered, motion-activated camera (thanks for the heads-up on the sale, NotMax!) and was hanging it on the porch. I turned the camera on and off to test it with the app before installing it.
Then I installed it, which went about as well as these things usually go when I do them, by which I mean I fucked up several times and had to undo and redo things, cursing all the while. Well, the camera was ON the whole time, so there is video of me swearing and frowning and puzzling over incomprehensible instructions. I wouldn’t share it for all the tea in China!
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
+1
Too much of life these days is interactions with rent seekers who are in the way of us doing our jobs, enjoying our recreation opportunities (such as they are), trying to plan of our futures. It’s horrible.
And the AI monsters are trying their best to make everything worse:
We all can see the days approaching where everyone will need an annual “AI” subscription to do any sort of computer-related job, and that about 50% of our time will be spent fighting with it to try to do what needs to be done correctly.
We’ll have to pay for the privilege of fighting with Super Clippy. (Melinda has a lot to answer for…)
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
Belafon
@Belafon: ssomehow my brain drifted a bit. I was trying to point out that there are many consumers of it that haven’t donated, and needed to.
They Call Me Noni
@zhena gogolia: I have despised that SOB since 2015. He is exactly who his parents raised him to be and there is no punishment severe enough to fit his crimes.
Belafon
@Another Scott: we have an internal copy of ChatGPT at work and, come to find out, they’re tracking individual usage.
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott:
Amen to that. The enshittification of life itself!
chemiclord
@Belafon:
My feeling was it needed to die, and the smoldering remains used by journalists of the future to not normalize fascists.
CPB got exactly what it asked for, and what it deserves. Good riddance.
oldgold
Is there any end to this corrupt madness?
Ghislaine Maxwell transferred from a prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.
Another Scott
@Belafon: They’re doing more than that, probably.
ChatGPT users shocked to learn their chats were in Google search results – OpenAI scrambles to remove personal ChatGPT conversations from Google results.
There’s that “shocked” word again. [ Insert Inigo Montoya .gif ]
Good luck, and be careful!! ;-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
chemiclord
@oldgold:
Oh, plenty of ways. The American people simply have no appetite to do any of them.
oldgold
Family of Virginia Giuffre re: Ghislaine Maxwell prison transfer “It’s w/ horror & outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker G. Maxwell has received.. Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children.. she should never be shown any leniency”
rikyrah
There is a TikTok video referencing a GOP Rep, in front of a bunch of Seniors, telling them that they’re going to have to go back to work in order to get their Medicare benefits. I never actually see the video. Anyone heard anything about this?
Belafon
@chemiclord:
1. It won’t, because that would require public funding.
2. It also kills off every PBS station.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
can we get some videos in the future of the birds. would love to see it.
Omnes Omnibus
@chemiclord: ????
chemiclord
@Belafon: Meh. Collateral damage, I guess.
I gave them a multitude of chances. They begged me for money in e-mails and even personal calls.
I said the terms of my support every single time. “Call a spade a fucking spade.”
They refused. Even to the end, they refused to even name the party that weilded the knife that killed them.
So I refused to support them.
Good riddance. Their both-siderism did far more harm to the public than any good PBS did.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: For sure! I am waiting excitedly now for my seed eaters to discover the new feeder! It also has a hummingbird feeder port attachment that I’ll add next time I make nectar for the other feeders.
Sure Lurkalot
I think we’re already there. If you like podcasts, this short series by Cory Doctorow (who termed it “enshittification”) is excellent:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/understood-who-broke-the-internet/id1673817105
At Whole Foods the other day where the self checkout screen said the Amazon Prime discount QR code on their app was no longer in use. The attendant walked me over to a manned checkout line where a courtesy discount had to be entered in manually because they enshittified their own app.
Belafon
@chemiclord: So kids with less access to programs that teach them gets a meh from you.
Republicans have been trying to cut their funding since at least Gingrich. What’s really odd is that any drift they might have had – and I can tell you that as recently as this year NPR in Oklahoma was still talking about the impact of abortion bans on women – has been no worse than the drift of the country.
So many people are going to lose access to things they will not be able to find somewhere else.
chemiclord
@Belafon:
I’m not going to try and stop a corporation from trying to commit suicide, no.
They asked for this. They got it, good and hard. You said it yourself, they were no better than any self-serving corporate outlet. Why WOULD I pay money for that?
Belafon
@chemiclord: Part of me understands that it was too late for them anyway. People on the left tend to think that the solution to correcting behavior is withholding support, you know, like not showing up for elections, rather than demanding that they do better with their money/vote. It’s why we keep losing.
Baud
VA proposing to get rid of abortion coverage, which Biden had added.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Thanks for sharing the virtual image of that anyway.
I laughed out loud.
Belafon
@chemiclord: also, no I didn’t say that had drifted, I said there was a lower bound. I didn’t listen to it all the time, but I didn’t really hear that much. There might have been a few commentators that were further right than some might have liked, but it was never going to be fox or CNN or CBS. And their non-news segment programs were still pretty good.
At best, this is like people like Krugman and Rubin leaving major newspapers and reporting from a site most of the country will never see. Yay for them, boo for us.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Betty Cracker: I wish I had recordings of all the things I attempted to put together over the years. I’d name my YouTube channel, How to rage build everything backwards.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@lowtechcyclist: has Harvard capitulated? I just keep reading that Harvard plans to do so
Melancholy Jaques
@chemiclord:
I kinda feel the same about NPR.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Steve LaBonne: liberty has to win first
Betty Cracker
@Belafon: That sucks. NPR covered the abortion ban fallout better than the legacy broadcast media, IMO.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@bluefoot: ha ha
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Soprano2: with some stellar notable exceptions !!
HopefullyNotcassandra
@JiveTurkin: add this to that list
muellershewrote.com/p/exclusive-someone-waived-ghislaine
Ghislaine Maxwell, adjudged by a jury of her peers to be a multiple child rapist and procurer, just had her sex offender status waived by somebody shilling for this president.
Melancholy Jaques
@Belafon:
Then those people are going to have to figure out a way to get access. I do not like the lefties “heighten the contradictions” argument, but it might be a good idea for people to realize that Republicans are evil, stupid, and racist. They are not kidding and they are not just saying shit to get attention.
The many people that are going to miss whatever from CPB or NPR, did every single one vote for Kamala Harris and every Democrat? If not, then they need to be told they voted to kill CPB and NPR.
tam1MI
100% this.
tam1MI
@Belafon: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will shut down September 30th
I wish I could say that I will miss it. ☹️
Repatriated
@Melancholy Jaques:
They won’t get access.
Eventually, they and others won’t even know it’s there to access.
That’s the entire point.
And game, set, and match.
Omnes Omnibus
@chemiclord: The CPB invented Sesame Street ffs.
Miss Bianca
@chemiclord: Gosh, I’ll be sure to tell that to all my newsie friends whose stations received CPB funds which helped fund local news coverage. They’ll be so glad to hear they got what they deserved. It will make losing their jobs feel so much better.
Baud
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@chemiclord:
I call them Totebagger Radio for a reason and like you, they burned bridges with people like me who had the wherewithal to support them generously.
Our opinion on this will be a distinct minority one in here…I’m used to that. ;)
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I never listened to them much, but I understand that NPR has done some good reporting at the state level. I’ve read some good print articles generated by their news outlets that bear that out..
prostratedragon
An exterior rendering.
Omnes Omnibus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Fuck the kids, right? They know what they did.
Omnes Omnibus
Fred Rogers’s testimony about public TV.
The Thin Black Duke
It’s fucked up seeing people get angrier at CPB than Republicans.
Professor Bigfoot
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, same here.
Fact is, I didn’t know I could hate so much… like, “angry,” sure, but one gets over angry.
Hate is bad for one’s soul; but it is not good for one’s soul to not hate pure evil when you see it.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: I get the anger about NPR’s news shows, but I wish people would realize that public media is much, much, much more than Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Washington Week (does anyone watch that anymore??).
Lots of us (rightfully, IMHO) get crabby about citizens who are too pure to “vote for the duopoly”, or too disinterested to vote at all, or in the “they’re all the same” camp, or whatever. It’s bad.
Letting public media die because we don’t like some of their news reporting is bad as well.
Purity kills.
“I don’t support you, now do what I want” never works.
[/Lt Obvious]
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Miki
@dm: “She’s the best medicine for melancholy.”
Yep.
And fwiw, imo, not watching is its own form of capitulation.
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: Needed saying. Thanks!
trollhattan
@Another Scott:
This will result in paving more paradise.
Something worth fighting for tooth-and-claw are those hundreds of radio and television broadcast licenses. Once gone (to Sinclair et al) they are never, ever coming back. And that’s a parking packed full of F-250 diesels.
Professor Bigfoot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: “Nice Polite Republicans.”
Used to listen to them regularly in the car but I’ve avoided them for years, now.
mayim
@They Call Me Noni:
I’m someone directly impacted by the unfairness ~ laid off because of the crap DOGE did. I may never recover from the financial impact of this, going from a seemingly secure dream job to unemployed because a small federal agency got DOGEd.
My news these days is here and scrolling Bluesky, plus the occasional post at DKos [mostly kitties there, though]. I may watch Harris with Colbert at some point, but I’m needing to focus on my own sanity and survival right now ~ and the contrast to where my life would be if she’d won is just too much for me right now.
Miki
@Betty Cracker: It’s a theme I totally identify with – “So Glad You Weren’t Here.”
Betty Cracker
@Miki:
Gotta call bullshit on that.
@Miki: Right?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Yep. Lame litmus test.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The same defenses of Totebagger Radio are the same we see by a few people who continue to subscribe to FTFNYT and yet, we never see any vociferous defense of any attempt to cut that organization off at the financial knees if we could only figure out how.
Would I have worked to defund the CPB, no. The pittance they get is pocket change in terms of gubmint spending and I’d rather they have gotten that pittance then, for example, us purchasing ‘X’ number more F-35 fighters. Or building another “littoral warfare” warship.
But as the few have noted above, I’m not losing sleep over it just like I don’t lose sleep over anything crappy that might happen to other corporate media outlets like the aforementioned FTFNYT or the Wa(com)Po.
There are a lot of independent community radio stations readily available on the web that carry news from Pacifica and other non-centrist sources, and any of them would gladly accept your ears and your donations. My current favorite is KGNU in Boulder, but there are many more out there.
burritoboy
“Part of me understands that it was too late for them anyway. People on the left tend to think that the solution to correcting behavior is withholding support, you know, like not showing up for elections, rather than demanding that they do better with their money/vote. It’s why we keep losing.”
Again, that’s a huge part of the reason liberals / Democrats / lefties are always institutionally much weaker (and systematically so.) Conservatives know they MUST engage with and improve upon institutions as individuals. They will start new institutions (and/or buy/take over old ones) if they don’t get what they want.
Part of that is having much easier access to wealthy donors to be sure. But it’s hardly the entirety – there’s massive amounts of intentionally learned helplessness among the liberals. I basically cannot count the number of occasions in my personal experience when a liberal – not unusually with graduate degrees – either could not figure out how to use Robert’s Rules of Order or cannot behave themselves on a non-profit board. Equally numerous is a liberal who will ghost everyone immediately if the organization does not immediately do things precisely the way they think it should be (and quite often, we were apparently supposed to read the person’s mind.) You consider yourself lucky when they just disappear, because it’s not unusual that they’ll intentionally go and make significant trouble for you on social media. That’s especially frequent with younger liberals – there was an incredibly important organization that I know personally that was entirely torpedoed by a part-time intern who didn’t like that she didn’t get a desk. A whole ecosystem of other organizations is still struggling to deal with the problems caused by that one person, who still is yammering away on social media on how she was right years later.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah: Fuck that. Microsoft’s Stargate can overheat in the Texas summer.
Omnes Omnibus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Since the CPB is the one winding down, I don’t really understand why everyone is complaining about NPR. But then I am probably some form of NIMBY gentrifier.
Another Scott
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: My J was a big fan of the DC Pacifica station years ago. Really liked their programming.
Financially supported them annually, and looked forward to getting the premium that they promised.
And frequently the premium never came.
She’d write them and ask what’s up and would get excuses and the run around. She finally got sick of it and dropped them.
Maybe they’re different now – dunno.
(They were too Lefty McLeftish for my taste (I remember one of their top of the hour news reports talking about the “Resident” with an audible smirk, as if they were in high school).)
YMMV.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Melancholy Jaques
@Repatriated:
Are you sure? Where is your faith in the American people?
Miki
@Omnes Omnibus: Just watched the Hannah Arendt documentary on PBS, which lead me to purchasing Origins of Totalitarianism to read – again. Lots to “upset” me between the two.
Watching the Colbert interview with Kamala Harris did not “upset” me. As with Arendt, it informs me.
prostratedragon
@Another Scott:
PBS is the best source of those soothing — and informative! — cooking and nature shows. Kicking back right now with This Old House, working on a net zero Jamestown, RI project.
artem1s
No, the Children’s Television Workshop created Sesame Street. CPB contracts with companies like CTW who’ve developed content they want to broadcast. They didn’t ‘create’ it.
Melancholy Jaques
@Omnes Omnibus:
CPB provides funding to both PBS and NPR. The total amounts are not that large as percentage of their budgets – though those vary from one station to another. But according to emails I’ve been receiving the last couple weeks, they cannot continue without the federal support.
Baud
I enjoy some PBS content on YouTube. But you gotta burn it all down to get real progress, I guess.
Omnes Omnibus
@artem1s: Fair enough. People are fucking with Sesame Street, so I may have let my emotions get ahead of my facts.
Omnes Omnibus
@Melancholy Jaques: So people are willing to let PBS burn to punish NPR. Got it.
trollhattan
Day ending in Y.
Your intermittent reminder the governor earned his reputation physically attacking a reporter.
Baud
The Car Talk people deserve this.
They know what they did.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: My guess is that sentiment isn’t prevalent among liberals and lefter-leaning independents. I believe it’s a loss, and possibly there will be blowback. We’ll see.
JWR
@prostratedragon:
Hey, where else is he gonna keep all of HIS newly stolen classified docs?
Baud
chemiclord
@Another Scott:
I want it to die when it actively contributed to the environment that is trying to kill it. Yes!
Even now, NPR’s headline is, “Trump believes the job numbers are faked; critics disagree.”
If you are going to continue to normalize and apologize for your murderer even as you are bleeding out from the seventeen stab wounds you’ve received, WHAT GOOD IS IT TRYING TO REVIVE YOU?
Baud
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker: NPR and other CPB-associated endeavors covered a lot of things better than the MSM. Now there will be that much less truth reported, especially in red states and rural areas in every state, even if that reporting is not to the standards many of us wanted.
prostratedragon
@JWR:
Goddam thing hulking over the original like a bully.
Steve LaBonne
I personally don’t consume any of NPR’s or PBS’s output, so while I recognize their value I don’t really have a dog in this hunt. But I will say that people who do rely on them absolutely can make up the loss of Federal funding and then some if even a fairly modest number among the large proportion of listeners / viewers who currently don’t financially support them will step up. I hope that happens.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Steve LaBonne:
“Viewers Like You”
Melancholy Jaques
@Omnes Omnibus:
It is Republicans, not me, who are getting rid of PBS & NPR. I just don’t mourn their passing as much as you and many others.
If things have value to people, they generally figure out how to keep them around.
Sesame Street is a Netflix show now.
Miss Bianca
Well, on the positive side…while CPB may be shutting down for lack of funds, at least the right-wing rag man in my community is also calling it quits. Soon, from what I understand, to be shuffling off this mortal coil for good. To which I say, “Good.”
As Clarence Darrow is supposed to have remarked, “I’ve never killed anyone. However, there are some obituary notices I have read with great satisfaction.”
I have a bottle of Gruet chilling in the fridge. Will pop the cork this evening with some salmon in celebration. The amount of damage this man did to my community in the time he was publishing can scarce be calculated.
Corey Hutchins has been following the story of the feud between my paper’s publisher and the Rag Man for some time now. He recaps it in this article.
NotMax
@Steve LaBonne
The tariff on totebags gonna bite, also too.
Miki
@Steve LaBonne: Ya know, dontcha, that you could do a $5/month subscription to help that happen, right? If you can’t afford that, it’s fine – I totally get it. But to the extent you value the service for others, it’s easy to contribute something.
Omnes Omnibus
I don’t know why, but something about this thread brings this to mind.
Steve LaBonne
@Miki: I think the people who watch and listen without paying need to go first. I already support a number of other independent news outlets that I do use.
Omnes Omnibus
@Melancholy Jaques: I don’t know, I just think that there some things that should be public goods. Healthcare, education, the arts, scientific research, and so on. I mourn the disappearance of each. YMMV.
schrodingers_cat
So PBS SnoozeHour crapping on the Biden economy for 4 straight years didn’t save PBS?
I will miss their programming, I am a sustainer, but their news division sucked.
rekoob
@Another Scott: For what it’s worth, my parents were big supporters of public television and radio in central Virginia, starting with WRFK in Richmond, then affiliated with the Union Theological Seminary (now the Union Presbyterian Seminary). Now Virginia Public Media (VPM), it was one of the largest recipients of their legacies during and after their lives.
One of my father’s favorite programs was “Washington Week”, which for years was moderated by Paul Duke, a contemporary and friend of his. I’ve been a faithful watcher for the last 10 years in memory of my father’s appreciation for the program.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: I am with you there. NPR’s bill for cowardice also comes due.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I’m now learning how hard it is, at least for me, to find out what CPR spends in a year.
This chart’s handy:
cpb.org/aboutcpb/financials/budget
But it makes it seem like 100% of their budget (so I assume that to be close to income but wtf do I know?) is from the Feds and everybody knows that’s not the case.
This piece from the Hollywood Reporter confirms that:
Money from the CPB has provided partial funding to PBS TV stations and National Public Radio outlets, though the majority of most stations’ budgets come from donations and corporate grants. hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-shutting-down-12363…
But again, with the loss of $535m in yearly funding for the next two years, how does that translate? I saw one rurl NPR station indicate it’s 19% of their funding.
Interestingly, if you look at the CPR pie chart above, about $120m of it’s Federal monies goes to public radio stations which as been noted, are the particular ire of some of us here.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m there with you. And I am getting sickened by what sounds like gloating from some of our “valued commenters” here. I guess none of them has a paycheck that depends on CPB funding, or knows anyone whose paycheck depends on CPB funding. Or knows ir cares anything at all, apparently, about how much CPB covers besides the public radio or TV content they apparently despise.
How nice for them. I sure as shit am not saying “Whoopee” over it.
ETA: Nothing makes me question the value of facile judgements and opinions that I have made or held than hearing some version of them come back from the mouths of others and appreciating how truly callous and mean-spirited they sound.
mrmoshpotato
@schrodingers_cat:
Don’t forget that Biden was OOOOOLLLLLDDDDD too! These motherfuckers were probably betting the horserace.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: You had “DIke” in your nym instead of “Duke”, so it went into spam. :-)
Released now, but you’ll want to fix it before commenting again, unless you have already fixed it!
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
Wait till you see what people think about Democrats.
Miss Bianca
@The Thin Black Duke: Right?? JFC.
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: I hear you, Miss B, and truly feel for you and your fellow actual journalists and programmers.
But I tired long ago of NPR’s appeasement strategy, and their letting Republicans spout a long list of lies (misstatements, excuse me) and then putting on a Democrat in the second hour.
If people do not know what end is up, professional media has a lot to answer for there.
sab
@tam1MI: My classical radio station, not a part of npr or cpb, relies on them to negotiate licensing fees so that they can afford to play classical recordings.
A single station cannot afford the legal work involved. I don’t know what will happen now but it won’t be good.
Elizabelle
Ann Telnaes had a cartoon a few days ago about CBS ending Colbert’s show. It was a little jester, having been hung, still in the noose.
Made me so sad. It is awful to be living through this, and you cannot stop the monsters, or even call them monsters, lest you be “rude” or “shrill.”
All this ugliness, including defunding Big Bird, is going to get a response.
sab
When my former brother in law moved here from China in the 1980s he knew maybe ten words of English. He learned English by watching Sesame Street and listening to classical music ( which he loved) on NPR. He has been fluent in English and an American citizen for 40 years, and PBS and NPR were a big part of that.
Elizabelle
@The Thin Black Duke: It is because we had higher expectations of CPB.
With regard to Republicans, we are just relieved they are not flashing their wieners at us in public. Yet, I guess. Anything they can get away with. No expectations of them at all.
Another Scott
@chemiclord: Counterpoint:
WBUR’s Here and Now – Weak July jobs report may be a warning for the economy
Again, NPR’s news reporting isn’t all of public media.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
chemiclord
Let’s not forget that PBS was quite happy to sell out to for profit media as well. There a REASON Sesame Street was on HBO Max, and it wasn’t to help poor children.
When corporations self-owned in the past or “went fash, lose cash” we all cheered and laughed at them. Not sure why the Corporation for Public Broadcasting should be any different.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: Once again, for the cheap seats –
CPR DID MORE THAN FUND NPR AND PBS FOR FUCKING FUCKS’ SAKE, THEY FUNDED LOCAL STATIONS PRODUCING LOCAL NEWS AND OTHER PROGRAMMING, AND *THAT* IS WHAT IS GOING TO GET HIT THE HARDEST. And with local news deserts rivaling food deserts, that’s a big, big problem.
Stop with this “oh, well, I hate NPR so blah blah blah, so sad too bad CPR deserves to die” BS. I don’t need or want to fucking hear it. Part of the reason NPR got so bland and both-sidesy is because CPR cuts over DECADES of Republican hard-on hatred for public funding of *anything* fucking forced them to seek funding elsewhere. And a lot of time, that meant corporate sponsorship, and big donors, and yeah, that is definitely going to affect how you cover the news. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.
And no, NO ONE I know who works in public TV or radio loves having to depend on corporate sponsors or big donors, except maybe the Development Directors.
Geminid
@The Thin Black Duke: It’s the spirit of vindictiveness. That and cynicism poison our politics.
sab
@Chief Oshkosh: Now the red state rural areas will only have Sinclair stations broadcasting hate radio. That will certainly be helpful.//
Chief Oshkosh
@Melancholy Jaques:
You know who made the same point some years ago? George fucking Will.
Very poor households, the exact target of Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, similar shows, don’t have Netflix. They might’ve had free OTA.
Matt McIrvin
@chemiclord: The CPB doesn’t produce PBS programming, it just partially funds it. The shows are produced by individual PBS stations or outsourced by them. *Most* funding, by my understanding, comes from those “viewers like you”. My guess is that PBS is going to try to soldier on, but money will be tighter.
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: the enshittification of everything. We hear you.
Another Scott
@Steve LaBonne: No link but, a week or few ago I heard an interview (maybe on 1A?) with someone at a public radio station in (IIRC) West Virginia who said that it varies but they get 60-65% of their funding from CPB. Given their rural service area, it’s impossible for them to make up that difference from their listeners or the community.
Impossible.
CPB lists 1551 radio and TV stations that receive Community Service Grants.
CPB shutting down is a very big deal for a huge part of the country.
:-(
Best wishes,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@chemiclord: You’re confusing the organizations producing the content with the CPB, which was supposed to provide them with an independent source of funding, but got gradually squeezed into oblivion.
Chief Oshkosh
In the spirit of BJ unity, I present you with the list of Senators who voted today to allow Trump to keep the Qatari 747 after he leaves office, even though it will COST taxpayers over a BILLION dollars to refurb. Gee, what could we do with a spare BILLION dollars? Anyway, the shitbirds are:
Collins, Susan M. (ME), Chairman
McConnell, Mitch (KY)
Murkowski, Lisa (AK)
Graham, Lindsey (SC)
Moran, Jerry (KS)
Hoeven, John (ND)
Boozman, John (AR)
Capito, Shelley Moore (WV)
Kennedy, John (LA)
Hyde-Smith, Cindy (MS)
Hagerty, Bill (TN)
Britt, Katie Boyd (AL)
Mullin, Markwayne (OK)
Fischer, Deb (NE)
Rounds, Mike (SD
ETA: Chris Murphy (D, CT) proposed a bill to disallow this. All of the Republicans voted against that bill. All of the Democrats voted for it. They are:
Shaheen, Jeanne (NH), Ranking Member
Merkley, Jeff (OR)
Baldwin, Tammy (WI)
Heinrich, Martin (NM)
Peters, Gary C. (MI)
Gillibrand, Kirsten E. (NY)
Ossoff, Jon (GA)
Murray, Patty (WA), Ex Officio
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: I have been them a nominal monthly amount for years now. I give to my local western MA station.
Snooze Hour can fund it self.
Another Scott
@rekoob: :-)
I remember those days. I think Gwen Ifill generally did a good job with it as well. I haven’t watched regular TV news shows, of any sort, in a long time.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Chief Oshkosh: I am not railing against Democrats for being imperfect when the other party wants to kill me. YMMV.
Chief Oshkosh
@schrodingers_cat: The first list is all Republican. All of the Democrats voted to prevent Trump from flying off with OUR billion dollar jet. All the Republicans voted to allow him to keep it.
Miki
@Geminid: True. Stupidly true.
Elizabelle
@Chief Oshkosh: Proud of our Democratic Senators. Thank you for informing us.
Shame on Murkowski and Collins.(Of those GOP Senators, they seem capable of shame. Hope they feel horrible over their votes, whatever either spills in public.)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Elizabelle:
All too typical of those two “moderate republicans”. /s
mrmoshpotato
Columbo has questions for the orange rapist.
mrmoshpotato
@Miss Bianca:
ALL OF THIS! IT’S THE KREMLIN-HUMPING ORANGE PEDO MANBABY WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SHIT!
Scout211
The family of Virginia Guiffre and some of Epstein’s victims had a strong message after Maxwell was moved to the cushy minimum security prison camp in Texas:
Chief Oshkosh
@Chief Oshkosh: Dang it! I pasted the wrong list of Democrats on the Appropriations Committee. All of the Democrats voted to disallow Trump keeping the Qatari 747. If one of your Senators is on that list, you might want to send them an email telling them that you appreciate their efforts.
Murray, Patty (WA), Ranking Member
Durbin, Richard J. (IL)
Reed, Jack (RI)
Shaheen, Jeanne (NH)
Merkley, Jeff (OR)
Coons, Christopher A. (DE)
Schatz, Brian (HI)
Baldwin, Tammy (WI)
Murphy, Christopher (CT)
Van Hollen, Chris (MD)
Heinrich, Martin (NM)
Peters, Gary C. (MI)
Gillibrand, Kirsten E. (NY)
Ossoff, Jon (GA)
And these are the Republicans that think it’s A-OK for Trump to take the billion dollar plane with him after he leaves the Whitehouse. If one of them is your Senator, maybe you could email them and ask why they think that this is OK.
Collins, Susan M. (ME), Chairman
McConnell, Mitch (KY)
Murkowski, Lisa (AK)
Graham, Lindsey (SC)
Moran, Jerry (KS)
Hoeven, John (ND)
Boozman, John (AR)
Capito, Shelley Moore (WV)
Kennedy, John (LA)
Hyde-Smith, Cindy (MS)
Hagerty, Bill (TN)
Britt, Katie Boyd (AL)
Mullin, Markwayne (OK)
Fischer, Deb (NE)
Rounds, Mike (SD)
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Here’s an example of the reporting on the West Virginia public radio stations that get up to 65% of their funding from CPB.
Best wishes,
Scott.
chemiclord
@Scout211:
“The Trump Administration says Maxwell Doesn’t Deserve the Punishment she Received, Critics Disagree” – NPR News headline tomorrow
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: And you know why the PTB at *my* community radio station won’t allow us to even post a *link* to other reporting on the CPB funding cut, let alone report anything about it ourselves? Because – get this – it might upset some of our donors.
I can’t laugh for cryin’.
Ohio Mom
@Elizabelle: I’ve come to believe it’s a weird form of sexism to expect better from Collins and Murkowski. Just because they are women, people assume somehow they are gentler, smarter and more ethical than their male counterparts. Nope, they are typical Republicans, that is the beginning and end of it.
ruckus
As someone who served in our military during a war, to me this time in our lives is worse. We are in some ways loosing the concept of this being a democracy and looking to become something indescribable. The closest I can come is to say it is beginning to look like a dictatorship.
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: RIGHT with you on all those.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
I don’t know. They’ve portrayed themselves as moderate and centrist.
mrmoshpotato
Hot dog spill!
Go Nats!
rekoob
@Another Scott: Gwen Ifill was a force of nature, gone too soon. Robert Costa and Yamiche Alcindor kept things chugging along. The current collaboration with The Atlantic, with Jeff Goldberg as Moderator, is okay, but there are whiffs of both-siderism in the participants. Of course, it was great when he was at the center of the Signalgate controversy, but we can’t count on that.
Sister Golden Bear
@Betty Cracker:
Maybe you could show it as a pay-per-view BJ fundraiser. /s
sab
I first heard Mayor Pete on a morning radio NPR affiliated (Ideastream: funding from NPR but a separate local public radio station) in Cleveland right after he announced his candidacy. I was very impressed. Without that kind of local exposure he never would have made it to competent Transportation Secretary.
People who sneer at NPR affiliates haven’t listened to their local news at all.
The commute time shows (Morning Edition and All Things Consider) often suck, but the rest of the day is often excellent.
I haven’t watched Snooze Hour much for years because husband wants to watch sports, but I really can’t see where we have fault with them.
Every commenter who decries them also says “I haven’t watched or listened in years.”
And then they wonder why we don’t have the media the right wing has.
Eduardo
@sab: sweet story, thanks for sharing it.
I always had NPR while I was driving and sometimes even at home from 2001 until the about 2015-6. An English teacher recommended it to us as a tool to learn the language and I fell in love with its content. I basically liked all of it.
Then they became … I am struggling to come up with the terms .. obsolete for the times we were living, and frankly, disingenuous. You know how you can be cruel as a derivative of being stupid? They became disingenuous by trying too hard to be “impartial” and play by the rules of a game that didn’t exist anymore. I would get angry or bored. I never listen today because YouTube and Bluetooth. Maybe I changed too and wasn’t anymore a new immigrant getting drunk on such a good product of the new culture. I am feeling so sad for these United States. If NPR got stale something better should be replacing it. But there ain’t anything better in FM and if stations start to close it would be a great loss for those communities. Has anybody try to listen to FM/AM driving thru FL to ATL outside the big metros?
Lobo
@Miss Bianca: When things end people are hurt. I have had my issues with certain parts of NPR, e.g., All Things Considered, and I wanted it to be better but not eliminated. Public Broadcasting in general found it hard to serve two masters. It could not go as hard on issues because of the tension between public funds(Republicans hated this) and corporate donations(Democrats hated this). But today is a sadder today because of the announcement. I do not rejoice but grieve.
Sure Lurkalot
@Miss Bianca:
I think this is really the sad part. Reagan shat on the idea of public good that everyone chips in for, user or not, leaving the entire playing field wide open for capture by predatory interests whose taxes he slashed. And so it has gone for 45 years now.
While I agree with all the criticisms of NPR’s both sides news reporting and their contribution to where we are today, shows like Science Friday, This American Life and Fresh Air (to name a few) are consistently excellent. It will be sad if content like that disappears. Fuck Trump and the short-sighted monied interests in this country. Hope their greed consumes them like wildfire.
mayim
For so much of this, it’s what do we value? I don’t have cable TV, and live too far for anything resembling an OTA signal, so I rarely watch PBS directly. My main consumption of NPR is podcasts of favorite shows.
But this is so much more than than. Do we value good programming like Nova and American Experience? I do watch them on-line fairly frequently.
There’s so much more: IMLS for museum and library funding, NEH and NEA ~ funding for all sorts of projects, and so on. Many people I talk to see it as one fight after another ~ but my opinion is that it’s all one big fight. Once CPB closes, it’s easier to close the next agency. Guessing IMLS is next, and that going to be hard on just about every community in the country.
My biggest concern: once they are gone, it will be very hard to get them back.
sab
@Eduardo: I understand how you feel. It isn’t what it used to be but it still is so much better than everything else out there.
As we as a country went astray we dragged NPR and CPB with us.
frosty
@Betty Cracker:
One of my sons gave me a video camera feeder for Father’s Day. I set it up on the porch where the panels could get the sun.
Facing the street. Lots and lots of videos of cars but not one bird. I’m rethinking the location. Someplace without traffic, with sun, that the squirrels can’t get to… still thinking!
Baud
@sab:
Didn’t you have some good news to share?
Eyeroller
@Miss Bianca: I don’t listen to NPR or watch PBS but it seemed like there is a confusing set of independent and semi-independent stations and funding sources. I know NPR is often called Nice Polite Republicans and from when I occasionally hear them, and what I see reported here, it seemed to fit, and yet NPR listeners and PBS viewers are overall better informed and more likely to vote Democratic than those who don’t listen to or watch them. So I was preparing to figure out how to donate to CPB and then bam, they were shutting down. So I suppose they had no reserves, or did not think they could raise enough sufficiently rapidly.
Gvg
@lowtechcyclist: public universities DO NOT HAVE THE LEGAL ABILITY to take on anyone unless their owners/ the state elected government fully authorized it. And even that is limited by state federal powers. They are not autonomous. The private schools might be, but no public school is.
Timill
@Eduardo:
Yes – that’s why I got a music player on my phone, a whole lot of .mp3 music from Amazon, and set up a bunch of 8-hour playlists.
I used to commute, first between Knoxville and Fort Lauderdale, and then between Knoxville and Lake Worth. There’s a lot of miles there…
Gvg
@Melancholy Jaques: who is going to do that now that the GOP is firing everyone that says so and cutting funding to anything that try’s to stick to calm facts? It’s not like the worse offenders such as Fox or some of the more rightward liar mainstream news outlets are getting hurt too. No it’s only the ones that told fact, but not loud and screechy enough for you. You are not being serious, you are being a helper of the enemy. Do you want that?
Quit pouting.
RevRick
@zhena gogolia: The Democratic base turned out. It was the irregular voters and uninformed voters who didn’t or instead voted for Trump. As for those who didn’t get off their asses, they were actually more supportive of Trump than the actual electorate.
As for racism and misogyny, those factors did play some part, but probably less than we imagine and fear. After all, both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris were the third time all highest vote getters in their elections, Hillary only be exceeded by Obama’s totals in 2008 and 2012, and Kamala only being exceeded by Biden in 2020 and by #@(&! X in 2024.
As an historical aside, no Democratic Presidential candidate exceeded the total garnered by William Jennings Bryan in 1896 until Woodrow Wilson did so in his reelection in 1916!
There’s been a tremendous surge in voter turnout in Presidential elections since 2008, reaching levels not seen since the turn of the 20th century.
RevRick
@frosty: And my son got us a bird feeder with its own camera for Christmas. No problem with seeing birds. It’s just keeping the feeder stocked. Crows seem especially interested, because they clearly understand that the camera lens is an eye and will stare into it.
Timill
@RevRick: Clearly they recognize the Lidless Eye when they see it…
sab
@Baud: It seems stupid now. Just yardwork.
The other day was 90+ degrees, and we hired some people to clear out some weeds and a woodpile in our yard. ( We don’t have a fireplace.)
They turned up, with a darkened SUV. They proceeded to do the work. Early on I realized the SUV had four little kids sitting in the continuously running air-conditioned SUV, because it was very hot outside and they had nowhere else to go (Mom was clearing brush.)
I brought out some canned lemonade and asked mMom if they could have it. Of course she said yes. In no time the kids had to pee.
So I locked the pitbull in a bedroom. She was very upset because she loves little kids. So were the two cats locked in with her barking (her, not them.)
So I let them ( the kids) in on condition that they not let the seven cats out. So they went to look for the cats. Our cats are excellent hiders. Upstairs, downstsirs the kids found a lot of litter boxes and food dishes, but only one bold cat.
So they went to the basement. ( Our basement is not scary.) The litlest guy didn’t want to go down the stairs, so he plopped himself into a chair in the living room. I am pretty sure he was on the spectrum, because he did echolalia instead of responsive talking. I think he is about four. His mom says he is afraid of dogs but loves cats.
He sat quietly on his chair while all the other kids ran looking for cats, and two of our shyest cats came up under his chair and looked at him while he looked back. It was magical. And nobody else saw those shy cats or any other cats. Just that one quiet little boy.
Meanwhile his parents had cleared all the woodpile, and attacked three enormous logs (18″ or 24″ times 3′ long. ) They were massive. We were planning to have them rot in our yard for the next couple of decades because they were too big to move. But this family rolled all those logs onto a trailer and hauled them all away.
Meanwhile I and the cats had fun with the bunch of kids in my air-conditioned house.
Nothing very exciting, but kind of lovely. We only have one grandchild and she is almost grown up. All these little boys chasing cats was so much fun.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: You are a lovely person and I like your stories.
Melancholy Jaques
@Omnes Omnibus:
I agree with you that there are things that ought to be public goods, federally funded and provided to everyone. I just don’t think CPB, PBS, or NPR were doing that.
We can have news & programming sources other than what we call legacy media. We don’t have to do it the same way it’s been done for the last 50 years. As long as they are dependent on federal dollars they will have to kowtow to the worst of the right wingers. To be free of that pernicious influence, they need to get their money elsewhere.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I can be very mean to people who are not children or cats.
ETA Those logs were huge and I never expected people would try to move them, much less succeed. If I had been watching them and not their kids I would have stopped the effort. Fortunately no one was injured.
Miss Bianca
@Melancholy Jaques: thanks. I hope you are planning to be the first to step up to the plate to contribute. Or are you, like your nymsake, content with binding up burdens to lay on other people’s shoulders, the better to soliloquize over them?
sab
@Melancholy Jaques: PBS and NPR are funded through local stations. You cannot line up a sugar daddy and get your show funded that way. You have to have local stations buy it. I don’t know how you can be more locally funded than that.
sab
@Melancholy Jaques: The Bush appointed head of CPB agreed with you. She feels that whenever there is federal funding there will be political controversy.
I see her point but I don’t see how to get the funding otherwise.
My ideal would be higher taxes and a tax deduction, but we threw that out years ago.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: You have never been mean to me. In fact you stood up for me when a front pager was trying to bully me in the comments.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: But I did pie you one year when Ms Warren was running. I was perfectly honest about that : Not secret pieing. Not fie I pie you! More I love you but not this month.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I did. I thought then and I think now the FPer as a Fper was out of line and leaning on the scales. You are perfectly capable of defending yourself against other ordinary jackals. They should also be capable of defending themselves and shouldn’t expect front page help. That still kind of irks me
ETA: You were being adamant, not abusive.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: Thank you.