ewsieg

From a lifetime of experience in dealing with multiple industries, I feel like several shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt, including manufacturers and dealerships. My issue with SOS is shutting them down, which they have the right to do, and doing a press release that lies and says this: "LANSING, Mich. – Today, the Michigan Department of State (MDOS) suspended the license of LaFontaine Chevrolet Buick GMC of St. Clair, Inc. for imminent harm to the public. The vehicle dealership is located at 3050 King Rd. in China Township, Mich." No harm was done to the public. Zip, Zero, Zilch. An administrative issue was not correctly done, LaFontaine should do it correctly, but let's not pretend it caused harm to the public. I think any department and especially one headed by someone that is elected by its citizens, should always question the legitimacy of any laws and regulations and if they are going to enforce them, I would like to think they understand them.

Used/New, it really doesn't matter. They aren't new cars and they aren't being sold as new cars. End of story as far as the consumer is concerned. They are 'like new' cars sold at a discount, just like demo cars. The difference here is the manufacturer, in agreement with the dealership, allows them to be sold as 'new' which allows the consumer to also gain the benefit of certain discounts only allowed on new cars. (actually it might not be a difference at all, Demo cars were typically given to sales people to drive (benefit to the employee, also lets him promote the vehicles, these are essentially demo cars given to customers to build loyalty) It actually costs more for the dealership as well. 15 years ago if I had to drop off my car at Moran, they had an Enterprise office and if my car was under warranty, the manufacturer would cover the cost of the rental. If not, I had to pay for a rental or simply be without my car for the duration of the service. Depending on the situation, the dealer might cover it as well. Dealerships, in an attempt to secure more service department business started using their own vehicles. The manufacturer doesn't have to cover the cost of a rental, but in turn they agree to still allow the dealership to sell the service vehicles as new. The dealership is able to provide better service which keeps more returning customers and they gain volume on the added costs they incur making it better for them as well. It works out for everybody. SOS should have noticed the discrepancy in the paperwork, called it out, and had them fix it. Or, as I said, even better yet, they should have noticed the discrepancy, realized how ass backwords Michigan law is, and worked with dealerships in conjunction with the legislative branch to find a way to ensure dealerships don't have to spend more time and money to play their stupid little checkbox game AND help protect consumers. This benefits no one. Not a single person bought a vehicle with 5k miles and got home, looked at the odometer and went 'WTF?'. In fact this law only hurts consumers because in Michigan, unlike most other states that allow this to be documented as a new vehicle sale, the warranty on that car starts when the dealership puts it into it's rental service. In other states, the manufacturer doesn't start the clock on the warranty until it is titled to the new owner.

I think this perfectly summarizes the idea that folks are more patient with their own side. Defund the police was a very serious movement by a small group of progressives. Instead of calling it out, ridiculing it, and defending the police, the mainstream portion of the party tried to keep the momentum but co-opt it into many of the things you went into detail on. It wasn't until the pastors and ministers of urban areas started to be heard that they actually want a bigger police presence in their neighborhoods not less, did it finally peter out. But by not recognizing the obvious, which is even if there are issues with police in this country, having no police is crazier than Brittany Spears, those that entertained the progressives looked ridiculous to the majority of the country.

No one was conned, it was a clerical error and SOS wanted to make it look like they were defending the consumer. My Mother in Law works at Moran Chevrolet and people come into the dealership specifically looking to buy these. The dealer uses them as 'rentals' for customers that are getting their vehicles serviced. The dealership is allowed to use them for a period of time and the manufacturer allows them to still sell them as 'new' to make them eligible for additional discounts as they are never titled to an individual. The consumer is able to get a 'new' car at a discount because of the miles on it, plus get the manufacturer discounts for new cars to make it a better deal for them then if they purchased a new car right off the lot with less then 100 miles. Michigan is one of the only states that doesn't allow you to sell the car as new (by the state). So they are legally allowed to sell it as used in the eyes of the state, but new in the eyes of the manufacturer. Lafontaine was not going back and ensuring that the documentation was correct for the state. In short, instead of trying to match laws to an issue that dealerships and manufacturers that already solved, they are 1) not doing anything to try and ease the useless paperwork dealerships need to do and 2) they are playing it off as some big win. Benson will probably tout it as what she'll do to protect Michiganders as she runs for Governor.

No to the first part, maybe to the second part. Depends if the report looks good or not.

There is a part of me that feels Schumer folded, but I also recognize the pain having a shutdown has on so many people. He ended up getting a vote on the ACA subsidies. I could see Trump telling the GOP to vote for it, what does he care about spending more money to make his base happy? If they do, then they look like asshats that shut down the economy, did everything they could not to fund SNAP, for no reason at all as the sticky point on the left was the ACA subsidies. If they vote against, dems can clearly point to the GOP as the reason for high costs. That said, the GOP response will be that they always said the ACA was going to cost more and we can't simply keep funding it, we need to fix it (i'm not saying they will actually put out any plan). At that point, it just comes down to messaging. I feel like Trump's tweets about tariffs and giving money back to citizens indicated he felt like he was in the hot seat. So politically I'm annoyed by Schumer, for families that depend on SNAP and probably struggle at the end of the month already, i'm glad they will get some relief.

Honestly, I don't think she's smart enough to try and pretend to move to the middle. She also is still a big Trump supporter, she's just seeing some things that I think most of us assume others in the republican party see as well, she's just vocal about it, even if it doesn't align with what Trump wants out of her.

One may argue that only cements the idea that she's an idiot. What sane person wants that job?!?!? I get the feeling she came into Congress thinking everyone (on one side of the aisle) was crooked with a bit of a naivety to her that allowed her to entertain conspiracy theories. Now that she's there, she's seeing it's more bickering then work and is realizing it's not a D or R thing. As she's not your normal politician, she's simply reporting back on what she sees. I still wouldn't want to put her in a position of power, but my guess is a good chunk of folks go into politics like her and are quickly dismayed. Unlike her, most shut their mouth and follow the party line regardless though.

I agree with most, but mocking people doesn't generally turn people around, in fact it tends to harden some.

In the long run, I think i'm rooting for Youtube. Essentially they want ABC and ESPN, but they don't want all the nonsense channels that Disney wants to force them to take as well. In short, they are trying to move back towards a traditional Cable style, where you can pick and choose packages, but also include other 3rd party apps into 1 'menu' via Youtube where you have everything in one interface.

I'm not going to pretend I know the specific details of the hispanic/latino community in NYC, but as a whole, they tend to not like the words communist or socialist. Mamdani easily winning that group shows the populist message he's giving resonates with them. As for Spanberger not only winning, but by such a margin, just shows how racist our society is still. Oh wait, she's the white one? Sorry, still a rookie at these DNC talking points and got ahead of myself.

You're just overreacting </WorldCom employee who went to work on a midnight shift the day the accounting scandal was reported and watched our stock shrink to nothing (first time I learned stock could still go up and down outside of Wall Street hours) while his boss huddled up with other mgmt in a conference room at 4am and came out with nothing more than 'folks, business as usual, you're all expected to be hear on your next scheduled day, and we'll be able to answer questions soon'.>

The funny part is you thought there was a good Cuomo.

Calling Mamdani as good for NYC is likely just as rich. He's basically hoping folks in NYC forgot about Bill DeBlasio. I'm not saying Mamdani isn't pointing out legitimate issues and issues that should be priority. I just don't have any confidence a democratic socialist will make the right decisions to correct those issues without exacerbating other issues, and not fixing the issues at hand. Cuomo would probably be a better mayor, but he doesn't represent change, which is what people want. He does represent the status quo, which isn't great either.

We are banged up, but there isn't another team that isn't dealing with some injuries. Just a few weeks ago we were playing with the 'Legion of whom', while a few guys are questionable for this upcoming week, as of right now, we might have our entire starting defensive backfield in place for Washington. I would have preferred some additional depth at DE as I have no trust in Paschal or Davenport staying on the field (heck, just get on the field at this point). Obviously the Lions still like something about them though.

My brother was just telling me about a use case he was walking through regarding a competitor (kind of, same business, but they don't operate in the same region). This company used AI to eliminate a ton of jobs in the end of Q2. They already have publicly acknowledged with Q3 results they expect to blow past their original budget numbers due to so many mistakes on the backend which are much more costly to correct now. Anyone that uses AI to save money right now probably shouldn't spend it quite yet.

So the JD / Erika hug, is it just fun to troll, or do you think it was inappropriate? I really don't know if they had any close relationship prior to Kirk's death, but they certainly had met, probably many times. I just looked up the hug and it actually took me longer than expected to see it as I wanted to see it from start to end, many just clipped it from approach to embrace and cut off, or from embrace to walk off. I was expecting some super long hug, maybe a little groping, hip thrusts, passionate kissing, spanking, etc based on what i've heard about it. I just timed it, from the time JD is announced, walks out on stage, walks to meet Erika, they hug, and Erika walks off of the stage was 17 seconds. Actual physical contact was from the 8 second to 12 second mark of the video I saw, that's from her reaching out to touch him to her still keeping her hand on his shoulder as they separated and she began to walk off.

I mean the Lions were able to get their QB and gain picks. That doesn't happen to often.

You know what they say, vote for your interest.

MTG was on Maher and honestly, it wasn't that bad. I'm not saying she's smarter than I thought, but I got the feeling that while she may have headed to congress based on some incorrect views, she really is trying to do a good job. (Not saying she's going about it correctly, just saying I got the vibe she wants to do good work, she not there just to grift/troll) The other guy on the panel, several times, seemed perplexed, not because what MTG said was so ridiculous, but because he was shocked what she said actually made sense. I will admit I was a bit perplexed too. We definitely don't need to worry about President MTG though, she is not smooth in front of a camera.

Whoa now, I just reread everything I posted about Bari and some of the generalities discussed as a part of that and no where can I see where I said anything like this. All I'm trying to say, and it is only my opinion however I do feel many agree with me, is that a Journalist from 25 years ago had a very defined role, just as an editor, just as a columnist, etc. Because media has changed so much, and not for the better (IMO again), those roles are often blurred, sometimes even on purpose. For example, where a person will act as a journalist on a story and later act as a columnist to discuss their own story. As for the major MSM orgs, my guess is we would be pretty close on the ones we trust. As for CBS, I'll watch to see what comes of it, but I already have a distrust for any news organization that is owned by a larger media corporation. As for Weiss, I have no idea if she'll be good or not. She wouldn't have been my choice if I were Ellison, but I'd also like to think that if I was Ellison I wouldn't give a **** about what Trump thought of how I was running my company.

Well, journalists/editors have long had ideas of what integrity meant and many have often found ways to convince themselves that they aren't putting their own bias into their stories. Overall, journalism was much better years ago. 1) There was more money in that field and 2) there wasn't direct competition from clickbait style journalism. As a result you also had a higher percentage of folks educated in journalism doing the job back then too. I'm not saying Bari is a good journalist. I think she's done some good work on articles i've read of hers, but I also think when she gets passionate about something, she focuses too much on the evidence that supports and underlying belief. That's not unheard of in that industry, but it is what has separated the best from the hacks. In the end, not much will change. When CBS puts out a story that sides with your beliefs, you're going to say 'heck, even the CBS agrees with me.' and when they don't, well of course it's because of Bari destroying the CBS brand in your view.

I do think Bari believes she's an honest actor trying to shore up CBS, but I think she understands the reality that media is no longer about Integrity, it's about ratings. So I do think that's what she's trying to shore up. I do think she cares about integrity as well, but that's more of a 'plus' than a feature. Plus I don't think she's got a great track record of not showing bias, so that's not a plus for her. As far as decades tenured news chiefs, they were pissed off someone without extensive mgmt background was picked. Everyone either has a story, or knows someone well, that has a story about a company choosing someone for a position over someone else that on paper seemed to be a more obvious pick. People leave jobs every day for that reason. There are also stories where that decision turned out to be great, and others disastrous. Based on the trend of media today, my guess is if it's 'successful', that will still be disastrous for a society that needs good journalism. We need good journalism under democrats too, God only knows how much better a position we'd be in if some of those decades-tenured news chiefs bothered to force Biden to account for his positions. Might have led to him not running and giving the dems a chance to mount a legitimate race against Trump.

I wouldn't be surprised if Boras is putting on some pressure. That said, 4/80 could have been a legitimate offer last year, but not 1 year ago last year. Prior to the 2024 season, I could see the Tigers offering this. Get it leaked out now with a 'last year' comment to make it look like this is what the Tigers offered after he won his first CY and it definitely makes them look absurd.

I initially was a little put off that you would say I was disingenuous, sarcastic...yes, disingenuous isn't something I feel I am though. That said, I looked it up: definition - not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does. I do find myself often pretending to not know as much as I do so I don't sound too smart. That's the cross I have to bear because of my intelligence. 😉 In this instance, I can assure you I wasn't being disingenuous though. I can't remember the last time I watched the nightly news and when I did, I don't think I could tell you which station it even was. I do know O'Donnell was brought in to revive the ratings, but she didn't. She was let go because of that. I know nothing about this new duo that replaced her, except that ratings haven't improved. You could argue they deserved more time, but we all got to this political forum based on our love of sports, so a new president/GM/owner coming in and putting in the folks they want, doesn't seem that crazy to me. Just like not every decision Trump makes is some masterful 4d chess move, despite of all the 'proof' Archie and Tigerholic provide to support the brilliant 4d chess moves, not every decision made by someone that doesn't fully side with democrats is some brilliant 4d chess move to help provide the crowning of King Trump.