Dan

Trump admin really doesn’t want Talarico to win the Senate Texas nomination. I’d like to think that’s because they know he’d be a strong candidate who could draw enough “values” voters to win the general, but I fear it’s because Trump and Cheung are looking forward to endlessly demeaning Crockett.

What’s that word, where you broadly assign blame for everything you can possibly think of to a certain group of people?

And then when the people around you just nod in agreement….or assign even more unrelated grievances of their own to the pile of blame?

Presidents who were elected having previously lost a Presidential election:

Trump 2024 (lost 2020)
Nixon 1968 (lost 1960)
Andrew Jackson 1828 (lost 1824)

That’s quite a threesome.

Then there’s Grover Cleveland 1892 (lost 1888)

And Wm H Harrison 1840 (lost 1836), but was POTUS for like 10 mins.

Exactly. The question isn’t how long she will be tolerated - there will be an end to Bondi’s service at some point - but for how long and to what depths will we as a society allow this behavior from those representing us and working on our behalf.

Sadly, I feel the answer is clear.

It is funny how your basic questions were answered.

It’s also funny how you’ve assumed that anyone who replies to you disagrees with you - I wrote nothing about your core complaints of Gaza, Roe, Covid, etc - and that you immediately resorted to calling me unintelligent in the matters of the day.

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You asked questions.

I posted answers.

You’ll hear what you want to hear.

Why didn’t Biden pack the courts? Sinema and Manchin.

Term limits? $15 nat’l min wage? End the filifbuster? Sinema and Manchin.

Forgive student debt? Convict Trump via the judicial system?

Blocked by the same courts that now roll over for executive-branch belly rubs.

Solution? Re-elect Trump. 👍

The article will make you sicker.

Her mission was accomplished.

I agree with this and often want to post something similar. It’s not (just) Trump.

OTOH, what are the odds these orgs would have found someone as perfectly cooperative as Donald J Trump?

It’s amazing. And infuriating. And depressing.

In the end, they treated it exactly like a business. In true modern US private equity fashion, they took over what they saw as a weak performing asset, extracted what they could from it (FIFA Peace Prize, anyone?), couldn’t find a way to stop the bleeding they caused, and shut it down. 13/13

I’m leaving off slashing staff and eliminating divisions, since businesses do that all the time.

The Kennedy Center is destroyed for years, if not generations. Instead of rebuilding the enterprise they tore apart and proving that their vision is the better one, they’re mothballing the place. 12/

- installs a CEO with zero industry experience
- wholly alienates a majority of its long-cultivated customer base
- prompts the portion of its customer base that freely “overpays” for the product to walk away entirely

11/

Grennell has expressed, publicly, his pride at slashing staffing levels across the Kennedy Center, and said that the place needs to be run more like a business.

I wonder if someone could tell me an example of a successful business operating in the following manner:

10/

“….at this time. They can 10x the money they give to politicians. They like you and what you do - you know that - but their giving is more valuable elsewhere right now.”

Doesn’t sound much like “giving” if you ask me. But those are the people who can make transformational, sustainable gifts. 9/

I’ve sat at roundtables where organizations worked to tailor their development marketing to donors with much higher capacities than they were currently drawing in. A prominent local family worth billions was brought up. The next comment was, “they are focused solely on political donations…” 8/

Anyone ready and eager to dig deep into your open wallet and give generously to an AI campaign? Arts donors get little in the way of tangible returns. The intangibles are numerous, including legacy, sustainability, and even rewarding senses of self-satisfaction. 7/

Revenue rises come not from market pricing power, but from donor generosity. Considering the adage “people give to people,” giving rises and falls with the donor’s personal connection to an institution and its people, from the leader at the top to the newest person in the call center. 6/

A university course I took on arts fundraising years ago recalled the truism, “you can’t perform the Minute Waltz in 40 seconds.” I meant you can, I guess, but it wouldn’t be the “Minute” Waltz any longer. There are few economies of scale available. Human costs rise faster than admission prices. 5/

Can exceptions exist? Sure. Opera was the “Broadway of its day” at the turn of the 20th century. But even Broadway today requires huge angel investments from wealthy backers well aware that they are essentially donating their funds until or unless lightning strikes and they’ve backed a smash hit. 4/

Arts requires patronage. It has since time immemorial, and will remain the case forever more. Whether from a king’s court, a social democratic government, or a regular Joe throwing a bill in a busker’s bucket, arts never have, and likely never will, operate in a for-profit business environment. 3/

The juxtaposition of Michael Kaiser and Richard Grennell is mind-bogging. Kaiser is one of, if not perhaps the greatest arts administrator of our time (nb: arts enthusiasts, by their nature, will debate this to the end of the earth), and Grennell represents the “just run it like a business” camp. 2/

Inside the Kennedy Center’s scorched-earth Washington National Opera split — The Washington Post How the Washington National Opera’s Francesca Zambello forced a confrontation to leave the Kennedy Center after the Trump takeover threatened its future.

More on the dismantling of the Kennedy Center, which, given other major developments in the country, may see like small potatoes. But it hits close to home, having done a lot of work there in the past, and speaks to the absolute fragility of the arts world. 1/
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They’re gonna scream that Jack Smith’s subpoena of Jim Jordan’s phone records means that Biden’s DOJ surveilled just as much. Even though they are not the same. But the base will believe it to be the same.

This, and “Something.” Man, if those two tunes don’t melt your troubles away, I need to check for a pulse. Great share. Thanks.

Her abduction was one of the first videos I shared this year. I’m glad to see this development, though I fear it’s far from the last action the administration will attempt on her. The time and turmoil she’s gone though for almost a year is of incalculable value.

There were a lot of peoples in the Ottoman Empire. There was a lot of land. Some peoples were given much land, some peoples were given little land. Iraq disputed its borders with Iran and Kuwait for a few decades, but the only border disputed from day 1 for almost a century now, is the one with Jews

Of course it doesn’t. It’s perfectly fine for an Arabian chieftain to be transplanted to Transjordan and given a kingdom there (so the Saudi chieftain could be rewarded with the entire Arabian Peninsula), but allowing Jews who lived in the same Palestinian Mandate to have a State is de facto g’cide