mtutiger

I personally haven't experienced that, but I appreciate your experience. Given your own personal experiences, and how you likely felt when you received that email, why do you take so much joy in others receiving that email in this instance?

This was a direct impact for us, the staff has come out to the local Forest Preserve for events my son and I have been to. And I have gone for runs out there from time to time. People take this stuff for granted... What a shame

I have never once felt like they feel right now. And I'd bet, deep down, you know you haven't either

Have you ever been sent an email like that in your career? How would you feel if you were? Would you want to remain with that company or leave?

For as much as these guys talk about running their government like a business, I've never seen an email like that at all in my professional career. Probably because it would be terrible for business to send an email like that

Certainly explains why Congressmen are getting an earful from their constituents about what ya boys are doing

I would add that history has shown that farmers in particular, despite being a really conservative demographic, can be responsive to economic pain... George H.W. Bush's election in 1988 is a good example. While he won and won big over Dukakis nationally, Dukakis made some decent sized gains in Rural Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, etc. due to the 1980s farm crisis.

I've been beating this drum for a while, but Trump/Musk are touching a lot of third rails with his cuts. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, people were going to notice and be pissed off. Cliff Bentz' town hall, held in LaGrande, OR (in a county won by Trump 68-31ish), is probably the biggest red flag to me out of all the ones I've seen reported. But it makes sense when you consider that it's an agricultural area and an area with a large US Forest Service presence (the feds own something like 40-45% of land in Union County, OR)... taking a meat cleaver to federal jobs in in the American west in particular, where so many jobs are tied to the federal government, is just really terrible politics (on top of being devastating to these communities) Trump has always gotten a lot of rope because of the good economy in 2017-2019. And just generally because people assumed he wouldn't do a lot of the extreme stuff he campaigned on. But he and Elon are doing a great deal to unravel that goodwill as we speak.

A four star general who worked his way through the system and is fully and eminently qualified for the job, and whom has been well liked generally across the political spectrum, who was nominated by TRUMP himself in 2020 to be Air Force Chief of Staff, is being replaced by a retired three star general who isn't remotely qualified and for whom was once quoted (while wearing a MAGA hat): Meritocracy my ass.... looks more like DEI for Trumpers.

LaHood (my critter) doesn't do them, but honestly wouldn't surprise me if he got a similar reception to some of these guys if he did one... Even if it were in a place like Princeton or Streator, the freezes on USDA programs and attacks on Medicaid are poison for farmers

Solid observation...

Boom Boom Boss Man Got Involved

Well, as @Archie assured us in the other thread, everything is hunky dory, no issues whatsoever. Case closed /S

If a far right leader in France calls it a Nazi salute, is it safe to call it a Nazi salute???

What a disgrace

Certain folks who are simps for DOGE will never admit it, but having to fire and then track down and rehire nuclear safety experts cannot be described any other way than being an abject failure.

I saw a FB thread from an acquaintance of mine after the first matchup talking about how exciting it was and drawing parallels to the 1980 Olympics... and the entire time I was staring at the thread I was wondering whether they were oblivious to the fact that in the this parallel, our nation is the one playing the role of the USSR (as the aggressor nation). Really try to hard to compartmentalize sports and politics and all, but it was really hard to be anything more than ambivalent to how this game would turn out tbh. Which really sucks.

Trump's tariffs raise alarms for Illinois farm industry If they were getting "good results", you wouldn't have orgs like the Illinois Farm Bureau (probably the only bastion of GOP power in an otherwise blue state) speaking out on the record warning against his policies, would we?

You sure about that?

State Media

Yeah, Sargent has a POV but is a lot more self aware of it than most from his crowd.

We're currently being led by a guy whose favorite past time is name calling. And a guy *you* voted for. So please spare us your high minded talk about civilized debate and decorum... It's a load of horse****