A romantic wife sent her husband a text: "If you are sleeping, send me your dreams. If you are laughing, send me your smile. If you are drinking, send me a sip. I love you."
To which the husband replied, "I am on the toilet, please advise."
*.*
A woman trying to enter the U.S. with a box of giraffe feces had her precious contents confiscated and destroyed by customs agents.
She said she was planning to make necklaces out of them.
This might explain, at least in part, why she has no friends.
*.*
Top Five Advantages of being a Headless Horseman:
Think of all the money you'd save on haircuts.
Never having to decide about ear piercings.
You won't wake up with bed head.
Never have to worry about hat sizes.
Bullies powerless to give you "noogies"!
*.*
Oneliners:
Confucius say casket put in wrong hole is grave mistake.
To everyone who watches my life and gossips about it; season 2 is about to come out.
I took the shell off my snail thinking it would make him faster; it just made him sluggish.
I'm waiting for the day when schools use the trick math question: "How many teams are in the Big 10?"
Remember, if you won the Powerball lottery last night, don't forget about that $20 million you owe me.
Well, aren't we just too scoops of Grumpy in a bowl full of Grouchy this morning.
If you can think of a better fish pun, let minnow.
Look, someone's gotta be the weirdest person in any given social group and it might as well be me.
For $200, I'll show up to your house and give you ridiculous quotes on projects your wife wants done.
When you block your ex on everything and she messages you through eBay.
*.*
I'm not lazy.
I'm just on energy save mode.
Quote of the Times;
“We are devaluing American money so rapidly that in America today, you can’t even bribe Democrat Senators with cash alone!” - Congressman Matt Gaetz
Link of the Times;
"The Whole George Floyd Story Was A Lie":
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/whole-george-floyd-story-was-lie-tucker-carlson
Issue of the Times;
How My Views on Government Have Changed by Aaron Hertzberg
I used to regard the government as extremely inept/incompetent, fairly corrupt, and facing incentives that pushed institutions/officials to be generally corrupt and inept.
Now, I regard the government as fundamentally evil on par with other classical evil regimes throughout human history — something made clear by the government’s behavior during the pandemic.
1. The government went out of their way to suppress, sabotage, and destroy every available effective covid treatment, which by itself caused hundreds of thousands of deaths if not millions around the world. This wasn’t merely the government making claims disparaging the safety and efficacy of covid treatments – the government aggressively marshaled a “whole of government approach” to wield every available political lever to ruthlessly crush any and every treatment. The government took a leading role in targeting, harassing, deplatforming, delicensing, and terminating the careers of heroic dissident doctors who chose to treat covid patients in defiance of the nihilistic guidelines promulgated by the NIH and other agencies to ‘do nothing’ and send patients home until they ‘turned blue.’ The government also was an enthusiastic participant in conducting fraudulent trials for the express purpose of conjuring false data showing that popular effective covid treatments had no efficacy treating covid.
2. The other covid policies – lockdowns, facemasks, and the other forms of social restrictions – were some of the most evil and pernicious policies ever implemented by a society that considers itself to be ethical. It is now clear that the death toll from these policies exceeded the genuine death toll from covid disease (which itself was only significant because of the suppression and denial of treatment as stated above).
Moreover, the very policies championed and savagely implemented by Federal and state governments worsened the morbidity and mortality of covid disease. Forcing people to stay indoors, avoid exercising, avoid social contact, and a bevy of other things that dramatically raised the stress levels and obesity of the population at large made people far more susceptible to covid disease (as well as a host of other medical conditions).
Even more shockingly, these society-upending policies lacked any supportive evidence before they were implemented. It is now well-documented that none of the covid mitigations had any epidemiological impact. Lockdowns had no effect on the transmission or epidemiology of covid waves. Cloth/surgical facemasks did not reduce the spread of covid at all, and even the various types of N95 masks proved utterly useless in the hands of the general population.
Key government officials including Fauci actually admitted that they never took into account the myriad harms that such policies would inflict on society, which is not an ‘oversight’ – the least horrible possibility is that they had no regard for carnage caused by their policies, which is genuinely evil.
3. The covid vaccines – funded, marketed, and mandated by the government – were barely effective for maybe a few months at most, but caused a significant amount of death and severe life-altering injuries (I have done research work in this area, including compiling 3,300+ case report studies documenting various covid vaccine injuries/deaths in the formal academic literature). The government is STILL denying that there were any deaths associated with the mRNA vaccines at all – in 2023, with well over 300 cases of vaccine-associated deaths reported in the formal academic literature (!!!).
The toll from the covid vaccines in just the US is probably somewhere between 100,000-300,000 deaths, and maybe more (this is based on analyses of excess mortality, government disability data, insurance data, pharmacovigilance data, and survey study data). There are probably at least half a million people in the US living with significant injuries caused by a covid vaccine, and possibly more than 2 million. Because of the shockingly poor quality of US data and studies, it is very difficult to sort out the various causes of excess morbidity and mortality (covid disease, covid policies, covid vaccines) or to get a firm idea of how much is “excess” in the first place, but one thing is undeniable: the covid vaccines inflicted mass carnage across society.
4. The government tried to dehumanize unvaccinated people, and largely succeeded according to polling showing that a significant percentage of people if not outright majorities held a variety of shocking views about unvaccinated people including that they are selfish; stupid; a danger to society; should be forcibly confined to their homes; have their children taken away; and be relocated to “quarantine facilities.” A considerable plurality of vaccinated people, in a word, overtly despised the unvaccinated.
This sort of evil abhorrent demagoguery is historically exactly how a society is groomed to accept genocide of a minority group or faction within society.
5. The government prosecuted the most significant and consequential censorship regime in the history of any Western country, which besides for the widespread carnage it caused also demonstrates that the government has no regard for the rule of law or legal norms whatsoever and believes in a radical “ends justify the means” with no clear limitation.
It is worth underscoring that the carnage wreaked by censorship isn’t just the destruction of the social compact of society or the lethal effects of censoring knowledge of effective treatments from people who bereft of them died, but encompasses all sorts of second-order minutiae that you wouldn’t think of, such as suicides by people suffering from various conditions who were disconnected from their support groups when Facebook deleted the group and the personal accounts of its members.
6. The government is now acting like a dictatorial regime to label and categorize the positions of its political opposition as a “terrorist threat” (e.g. parents protesting school boards, religious Catholics, Latin mass adherents, advocates for gun rights, parental rights, etc., opponents of covid and other governmental policies, people who are skeptical of the official “man-made climate change” orthodoxy, et al).
7. The government is persecuting political dissent. The most obvious examples of this are the indictments of President Trump. However, this stretches far beyond the Trump indictments. The political prosecutions of thousands of January 6 protesters – if you pay attention to the actual Jan 6 criminal prosecutions – are a moral abomination. The vast majority of defendants did not do anything remotely violent or even illegal, but were held without bail for years in ‘unique’ prison conditions; denied proper legal representation (their public defenders were on the side of the government); denied a fair trial (a trial by jury of rabid political activists who hate you is a farce); and are being charged for crimes using novel concocted legal theories that have never been enforced for any other type of protester, including the far more violent and societally disruptive BLM/Antifa riots over the summer of 2020. The government also attempted to jail a pro-life activist for a decade on clearly spurious charges for shoving someone threatening his ten-year old child that was (surprisingly) rejected by a jury who found the defendant not guilty.
8. The US government is not only endorsing, marketing, and using its considerable power to impose the barbaric ideology of a litany of sexual deviancies that are nihilistic and depraved even beyond anything ever attributed to Sodom. This includes the federal government’s currently ongoing efforts to force institutions to implement demented wicked barbarism like the psychological, physical, and hormonal mutilation of children as “gender-affirming” care by withholding some types of federal funding for even schools or hospitals that refuse to allow men in the women’s bathrooms (or provide said ‘medical care’ if relevant). The sacrificing of children on the altar of demented gender ideology is quite literally a modern-day incarnation of Moloch.
9. The government is deliberately and willfully trying to impoverish its own citizens, and deprive them of many products that have become staple amenities in society (such as air conditioning, gas stoves, cars, etc etc etc etc). To properly flesh this out and demonstrate the ‘willful/deliberate’ nature of this would require a lengthy analysis of numerous decisions, statements, and actions of the relevant people/agencies that is beyond the scope of this “comment.” I mention this here only because it is one of the standout egregious dimensions of the cold-blooded wickedness that is the weltanschauung of the government today.
10. The government is encouraging and implementing a systematic regime of apartheid, particularly against straight white men. DEI seminars and workshops portraying white people, straight people, and religious people as invertebrate incorrigible evil racists are a ubiquitous feature across government agencies and public sector corporations. This evil and racist ideology is implemented through hiring/admission policies, spending priorities, conditions attached to receiving government grants, and pretty much anything that the government exerts any influence over.
11. The government as a general entity is a pathological liar so much so that if it were an actual person it would make Pinocchio a paragon of honesty by comparison. It is hard to distinguish between the US government and the USSR government at this point – practically everything they say now is a calculated lie.
In a general sense, the government is a diabolical, evil institution that is primarily concerned with pushing twisted ideologies, mutilating children, and persecuting political dissent, while willing to kill millions in pursuit of whatever political or other objectives they are trying to achieve.
News of the Times;
Boyzone’s Shane Lynch: ‘The music industry is Satanic’:
https://www.premierchristianity.com/features/boyzones-shane-lynch-the-music-industry-is-satanic/16349.article
Clemson removes tampon dispensers from men’s restrooms:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/clemson-removes-tampon-dispenser-from-mens-restrooms/
Biden Bans Traditional Pool Pumps:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/joe-biden-bans-traditional-pool-pumps/ar-AA1hEERM
I was kidnapped by my runaway electric car:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12592047/Driver-kidnapped-electric-car-Glasgow.html
Fifth Circuit Corrects Critical Error:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/05/fifth-circuit-corrects-critical-error-in-prior-ruling-to-shut-down-deep-state-censorship-tactic/
Western nation admits 74% of triple-vaccinated now at risk of VAIDS:
https://www.wnd.com/2023/10/western-nation-admits-74-triple-vaccinated-now-vaids/
New Zealand Gov’t Exempted Elite From ‘Deadly’ Covid Jabs:
https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/new-zealand-govt-exempted-elite-from-deadly-covid-jabs-while-forcing-vax-on-public/
Costco Is SELLING OUT of Gold Bars:
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/costco-gold-bars/
Chapter 11 Filings By Businesses Soar 61% So Far This Year
https://www.retaildive.com/news/chapter-11-bankruptcy-filings-soar/695590/
DHS Admits Biden’s Border Crisis Is Making It Easier For Terrorists To Enter America:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/11/dhs-admits-bidens-border-crisis-is-making-it-easier-for-terrorists-to-enter-america/
Why $365M DEI investment into STEM failed to diversify engineering:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/scholars-to-study-why-365m-dei-investment-into-stem-failed-to-diversify-engineering/
Basketball Coach Bemoans “Run-of-the-Mill White Kids”"
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/university-wisconsin-womens-basketball-coach-bemoans-run-mill/
Christian dad of 11 fired after opposing LGBT ‘pride’ activities:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/christian-dad-of-11-fired-after-opposing-lgbt-pride-activities-wearing-t-shirt-with-bible-verse/
Philadelphia Journalist Shot Dead In Home:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/philadelphia-journalist-who-mocked-concern-over-violent-crime-democrat-cities-shot-dead
Murdered Gay Journalist Who Mocked Conservatives Accused Of Grooming His Killer At 15:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/murdered-gay-journalist-who-mocked-conservatives-accused-grooming-his-killer-15
Now?
Rage?
Scientists say they're closer than ever to being able to bring back extinct animals.
Can there possibly be that many scientists that haven't seen a single one of the Jurassic Park movies?
*.*
Top Five Classic Signs Of Fall:
Rake that sat in the garage all summer mysteriously disappears.
Kids next door selling pumpkin spice lemonade.
My baseball team is at the playoffs... in the stands.
Pissed-off geese flying south in an "F" formation.
Neighbor's leaves gently blowing into my yard.
*.*
Oneliners:
I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but adding more cheese than the recipe called for was not one of them.
Anyone who doesn't know what shampoo tastes like has never washed a dog.
That song, "We're not going to take it" is over 40 years old and yet, I feel like we're still taking it.
Who knew the apocalypse was going to be so slow and expensive.
Apparently, when you treat people like they treat you, they get upset.
Due to personal reasons, I'll be drinking again this weekend.
If they really want to prepare high school kids for real life they'd offer a class called, "Working With Jerks."
Being excited to get into bed is a whole new level of adulting.
I'm pretty sure the person who put the first 'r' in February also decided how to spell Wednesday.
I'll Carpe Diem tomorrow.
*.*
The key to happiness is low expectations.
Lower, nope lower.
Keeeeeep going.
*.*
Whoever said out of sight out of mind never had a spider disappear in their bedroom.
Quote of the Times;
“The US Army and US Marines are running ads featuring White males again all of a sudden. I think this means we are definitely going to war.” - @WallStreetSilv
Link of the Times;
Make the ‘American Dream’ Great Again:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/10/is-american-dream-dead-new-survey-shows-americans-trust-help-society/
Issue of the Times;
Rand Paul rages at ‘staggering’ media ‘know-nothingism,’ COVID cover-up by Paul Bedard
Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) new book Deception is exactly what you thought it would be: a thorough takedown of Dr. Anthony Fauci and his disciples for feeding America a full plate of COVID-19 mush over the past three years.
Tapping an extraordinary amount of research, he wrote that Fauci and the National Institutes of Health not only funded dangerous gain-of-function virus research at a Wuhan, China, lab but that Fauci knew it was the source of COVID-19 as early as February 2020 and spent years covering it up.
“Fauci says he sleeps fine,” Paul wrote in the 524-page book published by Regnery. “In all likelihood, Fauci is lying — lying to himself, or the public, maybe both. His hubris and ego may not allow him to question his own role and responsibility even at 3:00 in the morning,” the Kentucky senator and ophthalmologist added.
But as important as getting in the last word after three years of sparring with Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, over the origins of the coronavirus was highlighting the ignorance of the Washington press corps and its reluctance to question the “cult” of Fauci.
“The ignorance of today’s ‘journalists’ is staggering. They only know how to repeat the dogma fed to them,” Paul wrote in Deception: The Great COVID Cover-Up.
Paul’s criticism came from his personal experience with “media jackals” when he became the first senator to test positive for COVID-19 and after he returned to work following the recommended quarantine.
First, he wrote, reporters hit him for staying at work after he took his initial test despite having no symptoms and no test results for a week. “Lost on all these armchair ‘Karens,’ was the fact that if you count a stomach ache as a COVID symptom, it had been 10 days since I had any iota of illness,” he wrote.
Then, after returning from Kentucky following his COVID-19 “sabbatical,” he encountered a “contagion of ‘know-nothingism’” from reporters.
"They barreled up to me with multiple masks on their twenty-something faces and demanded to know why I wasn’t wearing a mask," the senator said. "I calmly explained to them that the benefit of having survived COVID-19 was that I now had immunity."
That didn’t sit well with the press. “The reporters, none of whom had a science degree (nor had any of them likely even passed an advanced science course), angrily and self-righteously excoriated me for my ‘ignorance’ and my ‘dangerous noncompliance,'” Paul wrote.
“Their eyes visible above their ‘BLM’ and ‘Trust Science’ masks only narrowed in angry and impotent disbelief,” he said.
Paul also hit the media’s blind faith in Fauci, whose emails show he panned masks as ineffective in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
“Of course, while he was writing this privately, he was sanctimoniously lecturing me in a Senate hearing wearing a ridiculous Washington Nationals cloth mask. When I rightly called him out for his public health theater, he angrily and huffily denied that it was theater,” the Kentucky Republican said, adding, “I am still shocked at the childishly ignorant and emotional responses he gave, and by the media’s fawning response to it.”
If there is one lesson Paul wants learned from the crisis, it is to question authority. “I continue to be astonished at the lack of curiosity among Democrats and the mainstream media who for two years viewed COVID as such a great threat to humankind that it warranted the denial of civil liberties and education to millions of Americans. And now, they shrug their collective shoulders and ask us all to ‘move on.’ I, for one, will not," he said.
News of the Times;
Enemy 'civilian casualties' ok by me:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180303042746/https://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2002/07/25/enemy-civilian-casualties-ok-by-me-n1391583
We deserve better psyops:
https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/bbcs-reformed-conspiracy-theorist
Just Pass Everyone:
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/09/just-pass-everyone/
Education Secretary says he doesn't 'respect' parents thinking 'they know what's right for kids':
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/education-secretary-says-he-doesnt-respect-parents-thinking-they-know
Puberty Blockers Given to Teens Worsened Their Mental Illnesses:
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/406331.php
Rasmussen Poll Shows 30% of DEMOCRATS “at Least Somewhat Likely” to Vote for President Trump:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/yuge-latest-rasmussen-poll-shows-30-democrats-least/
NYC sees a surge in TUBERCULOSIS cases amid influx of migrants:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-10-11-nyc-tuberculosis-cases-surge-influx-of-migrants.html
And In Machete-Wielding-Educator News:
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2023/09/and-in-machete-wielding-educator-news.html
UNLV law school apologizes:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/unlv-law-school-apologizes-for-using-word-picnic-changes-it-to-lunch-by-the-lake/
Blood Pressure Drugs Recalled After Powerful Opioid Found:
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/fda-notice-blood-pressure-drugs-recalled-after-powerful-opioid-found
Prosecutors and our 'ham sandwich' nation:
https://www.savannahnow.com/story/lifestyle/columns/2015/04/09/george-will-prosecutors-and-our-ham-sandwich-nation/13618881007/
Defund The Police + Decriminalize Shoplifting:
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=55965
Washington National Cathedral replaces traditional stained glass with BLM windows:
https://notthebee.com/article/washington-national-cathedral-replaces-traditional-stained-glass-windows-with-ugly-modern-blm-windows-because-of-course
Far Left Activist Stabbed to Death by Unhinged Attacker:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/leftist-activist-stabbed-death-unhinged-attacker-near-nyc/
Homeless Pirates Pillage Leisure Boats In San Francisco Bay:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/aarg-homeless-pirates-pillage-leisure-boats-san-francisco-bay
Can there possibly be that many scientists that haven't seen a single one of the Jurassic Park movies?
*.*
Top Five Classic Signs Of Fall:
Rake that sat in the garage all summer mysteriously disappears.
Kids next door selling pumpkin spice lemonade.
My baseball team is at the playoffs... in the stands.
Pissed-off geese flying south in an "F" formation.
Neighbor's leaves gently blowing into my yard.
*.*
Oneliners:
I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but adding more cheese than the recipe called for was not one of them.
Anyone who doesn't know what shampoo tastes like has never washed a dog.
That song, "We're not going to take it" is over 40 years old and yet, I feel like we're still taking it.
Who knew the apocalypse was going to be so slow and expensive.
Apparently, when you treat people like they treat you, they get upset.
Due to personal reasons, I'll be drinking again this weekend.
If they really want to prepare high school kids for real life they'd offer a class called, "Working With Jerks."
Being excited to get into bed is a whole new level of adulting.
I'm pretty sure the person who put the first 'r' in February also decided how to spell Wednesday.
I'll Carpe Diem tomorrow.
*.*
The key to happiness is low expectations.
Lower, nope lower.
Keeeeeep going.
*.*
Whoever said out of sight out of mind never had a spider disappear in their bedroom.
Quote of the Times;
“The US Army and US Marines are running ads featuring White males again all of a sudden. I think this means we are definitely going to war.” - @WallStreetSilv
Link of the Times;
Make the ‘American Dream’ Great Again:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/10/is-american-dream-dead-new-survey-shows-americans-trust-help-society/
Issue of the Times;
Rand Paul rages at ‘staggering’ media ‘know-nothingism,’ COVID cover-up by Paul Bedard
Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) new book Deception is exactly what you thought it would be: a thorough takedown of Dr. Anthony Fauci and his disciples for feeding America a full plate of COVID-19 mush over the past three years.
Tapping an extraordinary amount of research, he wrote that Fauci and the National Institutes of Health not only funded dangerous gain-of-function virus research at a Wuhan, China, lab but that Fauci knew it was the source of COVID-19 as early as February 2020 and spent years covering it up.
“Fauci says he sleeps fine,” Paul wrote in the 524-page book published by Regnery. “In all likelihood, Fauci is lying — lying to himself, or the public, maybe both. His hubris and ego may not allow him to question his own role and responsibility even at 3:00 in the morning,” the Kentucky senator and ophthalmologist added.
But as important as getting in the last word after three years of sparring with Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, over the origins of the coronavirus was highlighting the ignorance of the Washington press corps and its reluctance to question the “cult” of Fauci.
“The ignorance of today’s ‘journalists’ is staggering. They only know how to repeat the dogma fed to them,” Paul wrote in Deception: The Great COVID Cover-Up.
Paul’s criticism came from his personal experience with “media jackals” when he became the first senator to test positive for COVID-19 and after he returned to work following the recommended quarantine.
First, he wrote, reporters hit him for staying at work after he took his initial test despite having no symptoms and no test results for a week. “Lost on all these armchair ‘Karens,’ was the fact that if you count a stomach ache as a COVID symptom, it had been 10 days since I had any iota of illness,” he wrote.
Then, after returning from Kentucky following his COVID-19 “sabbatical,” he encountered a “contagion of ‘know-nothingism’” from reporters.
"They barreled up to me with multiple masks on their twenty-something faces and demanded to know why I wasn’t wearing a mask," the senator said. "I calmly explained to them that the benefit of having survived COVID-19 was that I now had immunity."
That didn’t sit well with the press. “The reporters, none of whom had a science degree (nor had any of them likely even passed an advanced science course), angrily and self-righteously excoriated me for my ‘ignorance’ and my ‘dangerous noncompliance,'” Paul wrote.
“Their eyes visible above their ‘BLM’ and ‘Trust Science’ masks only narrowed in angry and impotent disbelief,” he said.
Paul also hit the media’s blind faith in Fauci, whose emails show he panned masks as ineffective in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
“Of course, while he was writing this privately, he was sanctimoniously lecturing me in a Senate hearing wearing a ridiculous Washington Nationals cloth mask. When I rightly called him out for his public health theater, he angrily and huffily denied that it was theater,” the Kentucky Republican said, adding, “I am still shocked at the childishly ignorant and emotional responses he gave, and by the media’s fawning response to it.”
If there is one lesson Paul wants learned from the crisis, it is to question authority. “I continue to be astonished at the lack of curiosity among Democrats and the mainstream media who for two years viewed COVID as such a great threat to humankind that it warranted the denial of civil liberties and education to millions of Americans. And now, they shrug their collective shoulders and ask us all to ‘move on.’ I, for one, will not," he said.
News of the Times;
Enemy 'civilian casualties' ok by me:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180303042746/https://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2002/07/25/enemy-civilian-casualties-ok-by-me-n1391583
We deserve better psyops:
https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/bbcs-reformed-conspiracy-theorist
Just Pass Everyone:
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/09/just-pass-everyone/
Education Secretary says he doesn't 'respect' parents thinking 'they know what's right for kids':
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/education-secretary-says-he-doesnt-respect-parents-thinking-they-know
Puberty Blockers Given to Teens Worsened Their Mental Illnesses:
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/406331.php
Rasmussen Poll Shows 30% of DEMOCRATS “at Least Somewhat Likely” to Vote for President Trump:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/yuge-latest-rasmussen-poll-shows-30-democrats-least/
NYC sees a surge in TUBERCULOSIS cases amid influx of migrants:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-10-11-nyc-tuberculosis-cases-surge-influx-of-migrants.html
And In Machete-Wielding-Educator News:
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2023/09/and-in-machete-wielding-educator-news.html
UNLV law school apologizes:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/unlv-law-school-apologizes-for-using-word-picnic-changes-it-to-lunch-by-the-lake/
Blood Pressure Drugs Recalled After Powerful Opioid Found:
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/fda-notice-blood-pressure-drugs-recalled-after-powerful-opioid-found
Prosecutors and our 'ham sandwich' nation:
https://www.savannahnow.com/story/lifestyle/columns/2015/04/09/george-will-prosecutors-and-our-ham-sandwich-nation/13618881007/
Defund The Police + Decriminalize Shoplifting:
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=55965
Washington National Cathedral replaces traditional stained glass with BLM windows:
https://notthebee.com/article/washington-national-cathedral-replaces-traditional-stained-glass-windows-with-ugly-modern-blm-windows-because-of-course
Far Left Activist Stabbed to Death by Unhinged Attacker:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/leftist-activist-stabbed-death-unhinged-attacker-near-nyc/
Homeless Pirates Pillage Leisure Boats In San Francisco Bay:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/aarg-homeless-pirates-pillage-leisure-boats-san-francisco-bay
Hand?
Oh, Monday.
Why do you have to be so consistent?
*.*
I married my wife for her looks...
But not the ones I've been getting lately.
*.*
Oneliners:
I was thinking about getting a ham radio, but I'm concerned about all that sodium.
Cleaning the house with kids is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos.
I hate when I'm waiting for Mom to cook dinner then I realize I'm Mom.
You can't plant flowers if you haven't botany.
Which wine pairs well with pretending to like sports?
SIGN: The last car to park here was never seen again.
When I was your age, I had to walk 10 feet through shag carpeting to change the TV channel.
It's me and my four hours of sleep against the world.
Every warning label has an awesome back story.
If you love someone, let them nap.
*.*
Top 5 Things We Wish The New iPhone 15 Was Able To Do:
Pay for itself.
Built-in Phasers, set to stun.
Floss me app.
Fillet a fish.
Air Fry.
*.*
Do not read the next sentence.
You little rebel, I like you.
Quote of the Times;
“Anyone who seriously believes that the war can be ended through Russian-Ukrainian negotiations lives in another world. Reality looks different. In reality, such issues can only be discussed between Washington and Moscow.” - Hungarian PM Viktor Orban
Link of the Times;
Eric July And Vox Day Respond To Attempts To Cancel Chuck Dixon:
https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/09/25/eric-july-and-vox-day-respond-to-attempts-to-cancel-chuck-dixon/
Issue of the Times;
Government Is The Hidden Hand Directing The Culture Wars by J.W. Rich
Recent data from the Pew Research Center shows that from 1994 to 2022, Americans’ views of opposing political parties became increasingly negative. In 1994, only 21 percent of Republicans and 17 percent of Democrats held “very unfavorable” views of the other party. In 2022, that category rose to 62 percent for Republicans and 54 percent for Democrats.
If we include those who hold “unfavorable” views, then over 80 percent of both Republicans and Democrats have negative views of the other party.
One of the many undesirable effects of this polarization is an environment in which anything can become a political lightning rod. Whether it involves Dr. Seuss books, Mr. Potato Head, or the Barbie movie, controversy seems to lurk around every societal corner. Nothing is safe, nothing is sacred, and anything can be weaponized by one political factor against another. The term often used to describe this perpetual conflict is “culture war”—a depressingly apt term. But through all the angry tweets, op-eds, and “cancel” campaigns, few ask about where these culture wars come from and whether we can end them.
While a complex social event is never the product of just one factor, culture wars generally emerge from one group of people using some form of power to pressure another group into changing its beliefs or behavior. The pressured group may fight back and cause the pressuring group to redouble its efforts. This cycle, if it continues, can broaden into a full-blown culture war.
What does this dynamic look like in practice? Imagine a country where a group of ice cream fanatics decide to make every citizen eat more ice cream. They might try to pass legislation that favors eating ice cream, attack and shame ice cream skeptics, and encourage eating ice cream as a social norm. They would probably win converts, but they would also make enemies (especially the lactose intolerant!). Those who do not wish to eat ice cream would react negatively and maybe try to push an anti–ice cream agenda. Soon, an ice cream culture war could break out, each side pressuring the other to conform to its beliefs.
The catalyst of a culture war is the pressure exerted by one group on another to adopt its ways of thinking and acting. But why do groups elect to use force on others to spread their viewpoints? Prima facie, there is no strong incentive to resort to aggressive evangelism. Societies are built through cooperation, even between those who disagree. The baker sells his bread to members of his political party as well as the opposing party. If he sold bread only to customers who adopted his political beliefs, the market would turn on him. The same incentive to cooperate exists for groups motivated by ideology. While it is certainly in their interest to add to their ranks, doing so in an aggressive and forceful manner is likely to work against them.
The state does not obey the same social norms as its citizens; its injunctions are not optional but coercive in nature. More importantly, such coercion (e.g., taxation, legislation, and law enforcement) does not exist in a vacuum but aims to achieve various ends. Interest groups looking to spread their beliefs can redirect state power to their own purposes. This may involve anything from getting a subsidy for an ideologically friendly company to using state-enforced censorship against ideological enemies.
As the power and reach of a state grows, so too do the opportunities to direct that power. In terms of total spending, the federal government of the United States is the largest in history. It is no coincidence that now, when the power of the state is greater than ever, culture wars are raging all around us. These conflicts are occurring not because people are deciding to fight with one another but because they are compelled to. If there were only free and voluntary associations, then alternative beliefs could coexist. There would be no need to promote, for example, one lifestyle over another, because everyone could live how they see fit.
But state power removes all choice and variety. As the state increases its control over domains like public school curricula and corporate subsidies, fewer ideas and directions are given a chance to succeed. Culture wars fester within such narrowing policy confines because values and beliefs are either represented or excluded.
Conflicts instigated through state power always spill into other areas of society. When the political representation or exclusion of one’s beliefs is at stake, a culture war can become an environment in which any means of defense seems fair game. Social institutions, corporations, and popular media can all be weaponized and wielded against one’s enemies. The result is as familiar as it is exhausting: unending conflict and controversy, with every institution, organization, and event in society politicized and nowhere to hide from the unceasing cross fire.
Culture wars are not created solely by the state, but a state with too much power makes them inevitable. High-minded sentiments about “having conversations” and “understanding the beliefs of others” might sound like appealing options for cooling the tensions of a culture war, but they gravely underestimate the scope of the problem. No amount of civil discussion will remove the divisions created by state power. Until that power is destroyed—or, at the very least, greatly diminished—the culture wars will continue.
News of the Times;
It’s No Accident The Southern Border Is Collapsing, It’s Intentional:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/21/its-no-accident-the-southern-border-is-collapsing-its-intentional/
Biden Admin Lets 221K+ Migrants Fly Directly Into U.S.:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/09/24/border-bypass-biden-admin-lets-221k-migrants-fly-directly-into-u-s-n1729490
American Tax Dollars Funding Way More Than Just Weapons in Ukraine:
https://www.westernjournal.com/uncovered-american-tax-dollars-funding-way-just-weapons-ukraine/
A war Russia set to win:
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/a-war-russia-set-to-win-441926
China is on a mission to spread deflation worldwide:
https://www.cryptopolitan.com/china-mission-to-spread-deflation-worldwide/
885,000 Full-Time Jobs Lost, 1.127 Million Part-Time Jobs Added:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/inside-todays-jobs-report-885000-full-time-jobs-lost-offset-1127-million-part-time-jobs
Dozens Of Baltimore Businesses Threaten to Not Pay Taxes:
https://www.newswars.com/weve-reached-our-breaking-point-dozens-of-baltimore-businesses-threaten-to-not-pay-taxes/
Killing Of Baltimore Tech CEO Is Yet Another Failure Of 'Soft-On-Crime' Policies:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/killing-baltimore-tech-ceo-yet-another-failure-soft-crime-policies-pushed-democrats
FBI Sued for What Elderly Man Says Happened to His Coin Collection:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/fbi-sued-elderly-man-says-happened-coin-collection/
Croydon stabbing:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12566905/Croydon-stabbing-girl-boy-bus-way-school-murder.html
Body of Forbes '30 Under 30' tech CEO, 26, was found on the roof:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12564889/amp/pava-lapere-baltimore-murder-jason-billingsley-roof.html
Vetoing Liquor Privatization:
https://reason.com/2015/07/03/vetoing-liquor-privatization-pennsylvani/
All Philly Liquor Stores Closed After Mass Looting:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/watch-all-hell-breaks-out-philadelphia-teen-looters-target-retail-stores
If you need some fire in your belly, watch this North Carolina mom:
https://notthebee.com/article/viral-video-shows-north-carolina-mom-go-nuclear-on-school-board-for-wasting-their-time-and-not-actually-educating-children
FBI Targets Trump Voters As Domestic Terrorists Ahead Of 2024 Election:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/04/fbi-targets-trump-voters-as-domestic-terrorists-ahead-of-2024-election/
Why do you have to be so consistent?
*.*
I married my wife for her looks...
But not the ones I've been getting lately.
*.*
Oneliners:
I was thinking about getting a ham radio, but I'm concerned about all that sodium.
Cleaning the house with kids is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos.
I hate when I'm waiting for Mom to cook dinner then I realize I'm Mom.
You can't plant flowers if you haven't botany.
Which wine pairs well with pretending to like sports?
SIGN: The last car to park here was never seen again.
When I was your age, I had to walk 10 feet through shag carpeting to change the TV channel.
It's me and my four hours of sleep against the world.
Every warning label has an awesome back story.
If you love someone, let them nap.
*.*
Top 5 Things We Wish The New iPhone 15 Was Able To Do:
Pay for itself.
Built-in Phasers, set to stun.
Floss me app.
Fillet a fish.
Air Fry.
*.*
Do not read the next sentence.
You little rebel, I like you.
Quote of the Times;
“Anyone who seriously believes that the war can be ended through Russian-Ukrainian negotiations lives in another world. Reality looks different. In reality, such issues can only be discussed between Washington and Moscow.” - Hungarian PM Viktor Orban
Link of the Times;
Eric July And Vox Day Respond To Attempts To Cancel Chuck Dixon:
https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/09/25/eric-july-and-vox-day-respond-to-attempts-to-cancel-chuck-dixon/
Issue of the Times;
Government Is The Hidden Hand Directing The Culture Wars by J.W. Rich
Recent data from the Pew Research Center shows that from 1994 to 2022, Americans’ views of opposing political parties became increasingly negative. In 1994, only 21 percent of Republicans and 17 percent of Democrats held “very unfavorable” views of the other party. In 2022, that category rose to 62 percent for Republicans and 54 percent for Democrats.
If we include those who hold “unfavorable” views, then over 80 percent of both Republicans and Democrats have negative views of the other party.
One of the many undesirable effects of this polarization is an environment in which anything can become a political lightning rod. Whether it involves Dr. Seuss books, Mr. Potato Head, or the Barbie movie, controversy seems to lurk around every societal corner. Nothing is safe, nothing is sacred, and anything can be weaponized by one political factor against another. The term often used to describe this perpetual conflict is “culture war”—a depressingly apt term. But through all the angry tweets, op-eds, and “cancel” campaigns, few ask about where these culture wars come from and whether we can end them.
While a complex social event is never the product of just one factor, culture wars generally emerge from one group of people using some form of power to pressure another group into changing its beliefs or behavior. The pressured group may fight back and cause the pressuring group to redouble its efforts. This cycle, if it continues, can broaden into a full-blown culture war.
What does this dynamic look like in practice? Imagine a country where a group of ice cream fanatics decide to make every citizen eat more ice cream. They might try to pass legislation that favors eating ice cream, attack and shame ice cream skeptics, and encourage eating ice cream as a social norm. They would probably win converts, but they would also make enemies (especially the lactose intolerant!). Those who do not wish to eat ice cream would react negatively and maybe try to push an anti–ice cream agenda. Soon, an ice cream culture war could break out, each side pressuring the other to conform to its beliefs.
The catalyst of a culture war is the pressure exerted by one group on another to adopt its ways of thinking and acting. But why do groups elect to use force on others to spread their viewpoints? Prima facie, there is no strong incentive to resort to aggressive evangelism. Societies are built through cooperation, even between those who disagree. The baker sells his bread to members of his political party as well as the opposing party. If he sold bread only to customers who adopted his political beliefs, the market would turn on him. The same incentive to cooperate exists for groups motivated by ideology. While it is certainly in their interest to add to their ranks, doing so in an aggressive and forceful manner is likely to work against them.
The state does not obey the same social norms as its citizens; its injunctions are not optional but coercive in nature. More importantly, such coercion (e.g., taxation, legislation, and law enforcement) does not exist in a vacuum but aims to achieve various ends. Interest groups looking to spread their beliefs can redirect state power to their own purposes. This may involve anything from getting a subsidy for an ideologically friendly company to using state-enforced censorship against ideological enemies.
As the power and reach of a state grows, so too do the opportunities to direct that power. In terms of total spending, the federal government of the United States is the largest in history. It is no coincidence that now, when the power of the state is greater than ever, culture wars are raging all around us. These conflicts are occurring not because people are deciding to fight with one another but because they are compelled to. If there were only free and voluntary associations, then alternative beliefs could coexist. There would be no need to promote, for example, one lifestyle over another, because everyone could live how they see fit.
But state power removes all choice and variety. As the state increases its control over domains like public school curricula and corporate subsidies, fewer ideas and directions are given a chance to succeed. Culture wars fester within such narrowing policy confines because values and beliefs are either represented or excluded.
Conflicts instigated through state power always spill into other areas of society. When the political representation or exclusion of one’s beliefs is at stake, a culture war can become an environment in which any means of defense seems fair game. Social institutions, corporations, and popular media can all be weaponized and wielded against one’s enemies. The result is as familiar as it is exhausting: unending conflict and controversy, with every institution, organization, and event in society politicized and nowhere to hide from the unceasing cross fire.
Culture wars are not created solely by the state, but a state with too much power makes them inevitable. High-minded sentiments about “having conversations” and “understanding the beliefs of others” might sound like appealing options for cooling the tensions of a culture war, but they gravely underestimate the scope of the problem. No amount of civil discussion will remove the divisions created by state power. Until that power is destroyed—or, at the very least, greatly diminished—the culture wars will continue.
News of the Times;
It’s No Accident The Southern Border Is Collapsing, It’s Intentional:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/21/its-no-accident-the-southern-border-is-collapsing-its-intentional/
Biden Admin Lets 221K+ Migrants Fly Directly Into U.S.:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/09/24/border-bypass-biden-admin-lets-221k-migrants-fly-directly-into-u-s-n1729490
American Tax Dollars Funding Way More Than Just Weapons in Ukraine:
https://www.westernjournal.com/uncovered-american-tax-dollars-funding-way-just-weapons-ukraine/
A war Russia set to win:
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/a-war-russia-set-to-win-441926
China is on a mission to spread deflation worldwide:
https://www.cryptopolitan.com/china-mission-to-spread-deflation-worldwide/
885,000 Full-Time Jobs Lost, 1.127 Million Part-Time Jobs Added:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/inside-todays-jobs-report-885000-full-time-jobs-lost-offset-1127-million-part-time-jobs
Dozens Of Baltimore Businesses Threaten to Not Pay Taxes:
https://www.newswars.com/weve-reached-our-breaking-point-dozens-of-baltimore-businesses-threaten-to-not-pay-taxes/
Killing Of Baltimore Tech CEO Is Yet Another Failure Of 'Soft-On-Crime' Policies:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/killing-baltimore-tech-ceo-yet-another-failure-soft-crime-policies-pushed-democrats
FBI Sued for What Elderly Man Says Happened to His Coin Collection:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/fbi-sued-elderly-man-says-happened-coin-collection/
Croydon stabbing:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12566905/Croydon-stabbing-girl-boy-bus-way-school-murder.html
Body of Forbes '30 Under 30' tech CEO, 26, was found on the roof:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12564889/amp/pava-lapere-baltimore-murder-jason-billingsley-roof.html
Vetoing Liquor Privatization:
https://reason.com/2015/07/03/vetoing-liquor-privatization-pennsylvani/
All Philly Liquor Stores Closed After Mass Looting:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/watch-all-hell-breaks-out-philadelphia-teen-looters-target-retail-stores
If you need some fire in your belly, watch this North Carolina mom:
https://notthebee.com/article/viral-video-shows-north-carolina-mom-go-nuclear-on-school-board-for-wasting-their-time-and-not-actually-educating-children
FBI Targets Trump Voters As Domestic Terrorists Ahead Of 2024 Election:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/04/fbi-targets-trump-voters-as-domestic-terrorists-ahead-of-2024-election/
Living?
Best get up and get going.
Today's bad decisions aren't going to make themselves!
*.*
SON: Can we go to a haunted house this year?
DAD: What's wrong with the one we live in?
SON: Huh?
DAD: Goodnight...
*.*
Oneliners:
Alexa, rake my leaves.
I've been diagnosed as a kleptomaniac; I've been taking all kinds of stuff for it.
Why does life keep teaching me lessons I have no desire to learn?
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
Everyone needs a friend that they probably shouldn't be able to sit next to at a serious function.
In Canada, is AI referred to as AI, eh?
If you were 7 when "Rock Lobster" came out, then you'd B-52 by now.
I'm at the age where I appreciate a nice handrail.
Moving day tip: wear lots of deodorant.
I'm fairly certain that my final word will be, "Oops!"
*.*
Top 5 Signs your Genie in the Lamp is a Dud:
He just granted you three fishes.
Keeps saying, "Well, you're no Aladdin."
Mid-riff exposing outfit shows off beer belly.
He identifies as a leprechaun.
Had Dylan Mulvaney's face laser etched into She / Her / Hers lamp.
*.*
Some days I amaze myself.
Other days, I put my phone in the freezer.
Quote of the Times;
“The United States, South Africa, and Zimbabwe all provide copious historical information on the economic results of changing the demographics of the population. And the per capita lifetime budgetary impact makes it clear that even a relatively small demographic shift on the order of 10 percent can have a massive and lasting impact on the wealth of nations.” - Vox Day
Link of the Times;
Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class:
https://nypost.com/2022/05/26/team-biden-might-be-purposefully-crushing-the-middle-class/
Issue of the Times;
The Middle Class Is Increasingly Becoming “The Impoverished Class” by Michael @ http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/
America’s middle class is being systematically eviscerated. When the Federal Reserve pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system during the pandemic, most Americans didn’t realize what that would do to them. That money certainly made the wealthy a whole lot wealthier, but it also dramatically increased the cost of living for the rest of us. So now inflation has been rising much faster than paychecks have, and the cost of living has become exceedingly oppressive. In fact, last year we witnessed the largest decline in real median household income in more than a decade…
The official tally is in and it is brutal: Americans suffered the biggest drop in household income in 2022 in a dozen years.
Real median household income was $74,580 in 2022, a drop of 2.3 percent from the prior year, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.
This is the biggest drop in household income since 2010, when it household income fell 2.6 percent. That means it is worse than the pandemic decline of 2.2 percent. It is the fourth worst year in records going back to 1985.
In 2010, the U.S. economy was just coming out of the horrible recession that we had just experienced in 2008 and 2009.
Those were not fun times.
And the times that we are moving into will not be fun either.
We are being told that “high inflation” is the primary reason why real median household income is falling…
The declines were driven by high inflation. The measure of inflation that is used to calculate real income rose 7.8 percent, the worst inflation since 1981.
1981 was a long time ago.
But at that time, the U.S. economy quickly recovered under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan.
We will not be so fortunate this time around.
Our leaders flooded the system with giant mountains of money, and almost everyone cheered as they were doing it.
But now we are paying the price.
Recently, a “Gen X mom” named Jessica McCabe made headlines all over the world when she posted a video on TikTok in which she expressed how frustrating it is to watch her adult children deeply struggle in this economy…
“I am so tired of feeling helpless as a parent,” McCabe started off the video. She acknowledged that her son was 25 and her daughter was 28 and explained: “I thought by teaching them what I learned, which is you work hard, you get a good job, you’re gonna get the things in life that you need, right? Worked for me, why wouldn’t it work for them?”
Unfortunately for all of us, the rules have changed.
What worked in the 1980s and 1990s simply does not work today.
In her video, she acknowledged that struggle is a part of life, but she also said that it is just so disheartening to see her kids “get further and further down” no matter how hard they try…
She continued: “I see them struggling, and before my generation comes at me, yes, I understand struggling as a part of life. We all struggle, but there’s a difference between struggling and drowning. So we struggled, and it was tough. But you know what, we made it. We knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel with our struggle. It seems like kids today, no matter how much they struggle, they just get further and further down.”
Sadly, this is the reality of life for most Americans today.
More than 60 percent of the nation is currently living paycheck to paycheck, and former Ford CEO Mark Fields just admitted to CNBC that someone needs to make more than $100,000 a year just to be able to afford a new vehicle these days…
The former Ford CEO said that a consumer has to “make over $100,000 to afford a new car.” As a result, the price of vehicles is starting to come down, which is leading to an inventory correction.
“Vehicles are getting older, they need to be replaced.”
Americans are keeping their vehicles longer than ever, and that is because most of us simply cannot afford to replace them.
As I have discussed previously, Americans are increasingly turning to debt to help make ends meet from month to month.
Credit card debt surged dramatically during the second quarter, and this is starting to become an enormous problem…
American households now have an average of $10,170 credit card debt, as record numbers say they are worried about being cut off from access to loans.
Data from the New York Federal Reserve shows nationwide credit card debt swelled by $43 billion in the second quarter of the year – the second largest increase on record.
Of course there is a limit to how much debt that U.S. consumers can take on, and financial institutions are starting to say “no” a lot more often…
Meanwhile a separate survey by the Fed revealed 60 percent of respondents found it more difficult to access credit – the highest level since the data series began in June 2013.
I warned my readers that the flow of credit would start to get tighter and tighter.
And now it is happening.
Right now, so many formerly middle class Americans have been pushed into what I call “the impoverished class”, and many that were formerly poor now find themselves pushed out into the streets.
In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal we have witnessed the largest increase in homelessness ever recorded this year…
The United States has seen the biggest ever spike in homeless people living on the streets – as preliminary figures showed a record 11 percent increase in one year.
There are nearly 600,000 rough sleepers across cities and towns in America, and the jump from 2022 to 2023 so far is the highest since the government started tracking the data in 2007, according to the WSJ.
Places like Oakland and San Francisco in California have become hotbeds for homelessness, as people living on the streets are like ‘drug tourists’ who arrive to have easy access to narcotics.
So please don’t believe anyone that tries to convince you that the economy is doing just fine.
It most certainly is not.
Homeless encampments are popping up like mushrooms all over the nation, and many communities are not pleased about this at all.
For example, just check out what has been happening in Austin, Texas…
Shocking footage has exposed the scene in an Austin park filled with liquor bottles, needles, Narcan and junk ‘as far as the eye can see,’ as a homeless encampment continues to grow.
The videos were of the West Bouldin Creek Greenbelt were posted on Monday by activist Jamie Hammonds, who reports from the Texas capital on the X page @DocumentingATX.
‘Another Greenbelt destroyed here in Austin… nothing but trash and junk as far as you can see… this is absolutely horrible,’ Hammonds said, adding that the encampment was at least the size of a football field, and you could smell it ‘even before you enter the greenbelt.’
As the economy continues to crumble, things are going to get even worse.
And as things get worse, the middle class will continue to shrink.
It is almost as if we are all playing a really bizarre game of musical chairs.
With each passing day, even more spots in the middle class are being removed from the game, and the ranks of “the impoverished class” continue to grow larger and larger.
News of the Times;
Russian foreign minister: US ‘directly at war’ with Russia:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/sep/24/russian-foreign-minister-us-directly-war-russia-us/
Child Poverty More than Doubled in Biden’s Second Year:
https://theohiostar.com/news/child-poverty-more-than-doubled-in-bidens-second-year-census-data-shows/ohstarstaff/2023/09/13/
Elites Enjoy Lavish Dinner at Palace of Versailles While Discussing Climate Change:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/elites-enjoy-lavish-dinner-palace-versailles-while-discussing/
Federal Judge Knocks Down DACA:
https://headlineusa.com/federal-judge-knocks-down-daca-rules-obamas-dreamers-scheme-illegal/
California man says his wife was stabbed to death:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/hemet-mom-killed-drugs-couple
Academic Whose Research ‘Proved’ Systemic Racism is Fired from University for Faking Data:
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/anti-white-academic-whose-research-proved-systemic-racism-is-fired-from-university-for-faking-data/
Woman Dies After Abortion at Planned Parenthood:
https://www.lifenews.com/2023/09/25/woman-dies-after-abortion-at-planned-parenthood-causes-deadly-sepsis/
Texas Republican Mayra Flores:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/texas-republican-mayra-flores-mexican-cartel-is-full/
Illegal Immigrant Who Was Released Into US by Biden Admin Arrested for Murder Months Later:
https://www.westernjournal.com/illegal-immigrant-released-us-biden-admin-arrested-murder-months-later/
Devastating risks of transitioning to 'green' energy:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12545855/Devastating-transition-green-energy-metal-mining-23-million-people-toxic-waste-rivers-polluted-farmland.html
The Two-Parent Advantage:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-two-parent-advantage
As Trump predicted, Washington and Jefferson are next:
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/09/20/as-trump-predicted-washington-and-jefferson-are-next-n579151
1,000 school districts support hiding kids' gender issue from parents:
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/stparents-rights-group-finds-1000-school-districts-support-kids-hiding
Western Heights principal defends drag queen alter ego:
https://nondoc.com/2023/09/11/western-heights-principal-shane-murnan-drag-queen-shantel-mandalay/
Today's bad decisions aren't going to make themselves!
*.*
SON: Can we go to a haunted house this year?
DAD: What's wrong with the one we live in?
SON: Huh?
DAD: Goodnight...
*.*
Oneliners:
Alexa, rake my leaves.
I've been diagnosed as a kleptomaniac; I've been taking all kinds of stuff for it.
Why does life keep teaching me lessons I have no desire to learn?
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
Everyone needs a friend that they probably shouldn't be able to sit next to at a serious function.
In Canada, is AI referred to as AI, eh?
If you were 7 when "Rock Lobster" came out, then you'd B-52 by now.
I'm at the age where I appreciate a nice handrail.
Moving day tip: wear lots of deodorant.
I'm fairly certain that my final word will be, "Oops!"
*.*
Top 5 Signs your Genie in the Lamp is a Dud:
He just granted you three fishes.
Keeps saying, "Well, you're no Aladdin."
Mid-riff exposing outfit shows off beer belly.
He identifies as a leprechaun.
Had Dylan Mulvaney's face laser etched into She / Her / Hers lamp.
*.*
Some days I amaze myself.
Other days, I put my phone in the freezer.
Quote of the Times;
“The United States, South Africa, and Zimbabwe all provide copious historical information on the economic results of changing the demographics of the population. And the per capita lifetime budgetary impact makes it clear that even a relatively small demographic shift on the order of 10 percent can have a massive and lasting impact on the wealth of nations.” - Vox Day
Link of the Times;
Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class:
https://nypost.com/2022/05/26/team-biden-might-be-purposefully-crushing-the-middle-class/
Issue of the Times;
The Middle Class Is Increasingly Becoming “The Impoverished Class” by Michael @ http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/
America’s middle class is being systematically eviscerated. When the Federal Reserve pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system during the pandemic, most Americans didn’t realize what that would do to them. That money certainly made the wealthy a whole lot wealthier, but it also dramatically increased the cost of living for the rest of us. So now inflation has been rising much faster than paychecks have, and the cost of living has become exceedingly oppressive. In fact, last year we witnessed the largest decline in real median household income in more than a decade…
The official tally is in and it is brutal: Americans suffered the biggest drop in household income in 2022 in a dozen years.
Real median household income was $74,580 in 2022, a drop of 2.3 percent from the prior year, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.
This is the biggest drop in household income since 2010, when it household income fell 2.6 percent. That means it is worse than the pandemic decline of 2.2 percent. It is the fourth worst year in records going back to 1985.
In 2010, the U.S. economy was just coming out of the horrible recession that we had just experienced in 2008 and 2009.
Those were not fun times.
And the times that we are moving into will not be fun either.
We are being told that “high inflation” is the primary reason why real median household income is falling…
The declines were driven by high inflation. The measure of inflation that is used to calculate real income rose 7.8 percent, the worst inflation since 1981.
1981 was a long time ago.
But at that time, the U.S. economy quickly recovered under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan.
We will not be so fortunate this time around.
Our leaders flooded the system with giant mountains of money, and almost everyone cheered as they were doing it.
But now we are paying the price.
Recently, a “Gen X mom” named Jessica McCabe made headlines all over the world when she posted a video on TikTok in which she expressed how frustrating it is to watch her adult children deeply struggle in this economy…
“I am so tired of feeling helpless as a parent,” McCabe started off the video. She acknowledged that her son was 25 and her daughter was 28 and explained: “I thought by teaching them what I learned, which is you work hard, you get a good job, you’re gonna get the things in life that you need, right? Worked for me, why wouldn’t it work for them?”
Unfortunately for all of us, the rules have changed.
What worked in the 1980s and 1990s simply does not work today.
In her video, she acknowledged that struggle is a part of life, but she also said that it is just so disheartening to see her kids “get further and further down” no matter how hard they try…
She continued: “I see them struggling, and before my generation comes at me, yes, I understand struggling as a part of life. We all struggle, but there’s a difference between struggling and drowning. So we struggled, and it was tough. But you know what, we made it. We knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel with our struggle. It seems like kids today, no matter how much they struggle, they just get further and further down.”
Sadly, this is the reality of life for most Americans today.
More than 60 percent of the nation is currently living paycheck to paycheck, and former Ford CEO Mark Fields just admitted to CNBC that someone needs to make more than $100,000 a year just to be able to afford a new vehicle these days…
The former Ford CEO said that a consumer has to “make over $100,000 to afford a new car.” As a result, the price of vehicles is starting to come down, which is leading to an inventory correction.
“Vehicles are getting older, they need to be replaced.”
Americans are keeping their vehicles longer than ever, and that is because most of us simply cannot afford to replace them.
As I have discussed previously, Americans are increasingly turning to debt to help make ends meet from month to month.
Credit card debt surged dramatically during the second quarter, and this is starting to become an enormous problem…
American households now have an average of $10,170 credit card debt, as record numbers say they are worried about being cut off from access to loans.
Data from the New York Federal Reserve shows nationwide credit card debt swelled by $43 billion in the second quarter of the year – the second largest increase on record.
Of course there is a limit to how much debt that U.S. consumers can take on, and financial institutions are starting to say “no” a lot more often…
Meanwhile a separate survey by the Fed revealed 60 percent of respondents found it more difficult to access credit – the highest level since the data series began in June 2013.
I warned my readers that the flow of credit would start to get tighter and tighter.
And now it is happening.
Right now, so many formerly middle class Americans have been pushed into what I call “the impoverished class”, and many that were formerly poor now find themselves pushed out into the streets.
In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal we have witnessed the largest increase in homelessness ever recorded this year…
The United States has seen the biggest ever spike in homeless people living on the streets – as preliminary figures showed a record 11 percent increase in one year.
There are nearly 600,000 rough sleepers across cities and towns in America, and the jump from 2022 to 2023 so far is the highest since the government started tracking the data in 2007, according to the WSJ.
Places like Oakland and San Francisco in California have become hotbeds for homelessness, as people living on the streets are like ‘drug tourists’ who arrive to have easy access to narcotics.
So please don’t believe anyone that tries to convince you that the economy is doing just fine.
It most certainly is not.
Homeless encampments are popping up like mushrooms all over the nation, and many communities are not pleased about this at all.
For example, just check out what has been happening in Austin, Texas…
Shocking footage has exposed the scene in an Austin park filled with liquor bottles, needles, Narcan and junk ‘as far as the eye can see,’ as a homeless encampment continues to grow.
The videos were of the West Bouldin Creek Greenbelt were posted on Monday by activist Jamie Hammonds, who reports from the Texas capital on the X page @DocumentingATX.
‘Another Greenbelt destroyed here in Austin… nothing but trash and junk as far as you can see… this is absolutely horrible,’ Hammonds said, adding that the encampment was at least the size of a football field, and you could smell it ‘even before you enter the greenbelt.’
As the economy continues to crumble, things are going to get even worse.
And as things get worse, the middle class will continue to shrink.
It is almost as if we are all playing a really bizarre game of musical chairs.
With each passing day, even more spots in the middle class are being removed from the game, and the ranks of “the impoverished class” continue to grow larger and larger.
News of the Times;
Russian foreign minister: US ‘directly at war’ with Russia:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/sep/24/russian-foreign-minister-us-directly-war-russia-us/
Child Poverty More than Doubled in Biden’s Second Year:
https://theohiostar.com/news/child-poverty-more-than-doubled-in-bidens-second-year-census-data-shows/ohstarstaff/2023/09/13/
Elites Enjoy Lavish Dinner at Palace of Versailles While Discussing Climate Change:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/elites-enjoy-lavish-dinner-palace-versailles-while-discussing/
Federal Judge Knocks Down DACA:
https://headlineusa.com/federal-judge-knocks-down-daca-rules-obamas-dreamers-scheme-illegal/
California man says his wife was stabbed to death:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/hemet-mom-killed-drugs-couple
Academic Whose Research ‘Proved’ Systemic Racism is Fired from University for Faking Data:
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/anti-white-academic-whose-research-proved-systemic-racism-is-fired-from-university-for-faking-data/
Woman Dies After Abortion at Planned Parenthood:
https://www.lifenews.com/2023/09/25/woman-dies-after-abortion-at-planned-parenthood-causes-deadly-sepsis/
Texas Republican Mayra Flores:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/texas-republican-mayra-flores-mexican-cartel-is-full/
Illegal Immigrant Who Was Released Into US by Biden Admin Arrested for Murder Months Later:
https://www.westernjournal.com/illegal-immigrant-released-us-biden-admin-arrested-murder-months-later/
Devastating risks of transitioning to 'green' energy:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12545855/Devastating-transition-green-energy-metal-mining-23-million-people-toxic-waste-rivers-polluted-farmland.html
The Two-Parent Advantage:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-two-parent-advantage
As Trump predicted, Washington and Jefferson are next:
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/09/20/as-trump-predicted-washington-and-jefferson-are-next-n579151
1,000 school districts support hiding kids' gender issue from parents:
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/stparents-rights-group-finds-1000-school-districts-support-kids-hiding
Western Heights principal defends drag queen alter ego:
https://nondoc.com/2023/09/11/western-heights-principal-shane-murnan-drag-queen-shantel-mandalay/
ESPN?
36% of people in a Good Housekeeping survey said they always have chopsticks in their kitchen.
59% of people say that Chopsticks is the only song they can play on the piano.
*.*
Joan: "I'm looking for a golden anniversary gift for my husband."
Lisa: "But haven't you only been married fifteen years?"
Joan: "Yes, but it feels like fifty!"
*.*
Top Five Major Regrets I've Had In 2023:
Spending $250 on that Aaron Rogers Jets jersey.
Buying Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner an early anniversary gift.
Going to a Mitch McConnell motivational seminar.
Operating a mud bath booth at Burning Man.
Making that World Series bet on the Oakland A's.
*.*
My therapist says I have trouble expressing emotion.
Can't say I'm surprised.
*.*
One review on the new movie, "The Nun 2," said it was scary enough that it could become habit.
Gotta get those nun jokes in when you can.
Quote of the Times;
“Go ahead and watch a black-and-white film from the 1950s and see for yourself how it makes you feel. Intact families, close communities, disciplined people, penitent churchgoers, innocent children, reverence for our elders, and a cohesive national fabric stitched tightly together with hard work, dignity, and pride.” - @PiratesNFlowers
Link of the Times;
Tradewinds of Change:
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-91323-tradewinds-of-change
Issue of the Times;
ESPN Vs. Charter Could Be The End Of The Cable Bundle… And Televised Sports As We Know It by Clay Travis
In the summer of 2014, the cable and satellite bundle peaked. One hundred million households were subscribed to ESPN, the most successful channel in the history of cable, and the apex of the greatest business in the history of media had been reached.
But no one knew it.
Cable, satellite, and media executives were all blissfully unaware of what was coming. Fox Sports FS1 had launched the prior year — yours truly appeared on the very first show in the history of the network, a 2013 college football preview show. In the summer of 2014 the SEC Network would make its debut. The SEC Network was, in fact, the single most successful cable and satellite channel debut in the history of the cable industry. With the launch of the SEC Network, ESPN, the channel’s owner, stood at the pinnacle of its power, the company seemed indestructible, a gold plated money minting machine.
Billions of dollars in profits flowed off ESPN each year, enabling all of Disney to flourish. It was the crown jewel of the company, a profit spigot, the Titanic of the cable fleet.
But an iceberg loomed ahead.
And almost no one saw it coming.
The era of cable and satellite cord cutting began in the fall of 2014.
Quietly, at first.
So quietly, in fact, that most at ESPN and in the cable industry refused to acknowledge what was occurring. A few million here, a few million there, slowly a trickle turning into a stream and then the stream turning into a river and before long there was a flood of cord cutters.
If they made a movie about the cord cutting disaster — and at some point they might — a quant would be the hero. Someone deep in the recesses of ESPN’s business department who looked at the cable revenue spigot and started to realize what was going on — the greatest business in the history of media was sputtering, just as ESPN spent greater and greater sums of money on sports rights. That person probably jumped and waved their arms, begged ESPN executives not to keep spending money on sports rights like drunken sailors.
And that person was summarily ignored.
By the summer of 2023, just nine years after peak cable was hit in 2014, only 70 million households were paying for cable or satellite subscriptions. ESPN had lost 30% of its business, just as the cost for sports rights loomed larger and larger.
And then last week, inexplicably, things got worse. Charter Communications, home to 15 million cable and satellite subscribers, refused to bend the knee to ESPN’s price increase demands and cut the channel — along with ABC and all other Disney properties — off air just as Florida prepared to kick off against Utah on the opening Thursday night of college football.
And the games remained off air all throughout Week Zero and into the first full weekend of college football.
Now, the NFL season looms for ESPN, the Jets against the Bills, Aaron Rodgers vs. Josh Allen on Monday Night Football and still there’s no resolution in sight.
How did ESPN’s business die?
Gradually and then all at once.
Nine years ago ESPN was in 100 million households, without Charter they are in around 55 million households. In the space of nine years, ESPN has lost almost half its audience, half its business, half its subscription revenue.
This is a massive media story, one of the biggest of our lives. And it’s not just ESPN. ESPN just stands to lose the most because it had the most lucrative business model in cable. It’s all of the cable and satellite bundle, the entire cable neighborhood is on fire.
As much as you’ve read about this ESPN-Charter battle so far? It should be ten times that much. Because this is how the free ride that most of us sports fans have grown used to comes to a screeching halt. This is bad, very bad, if you’re a sports fan, a sports media employee, a sports executive or an employee of a sports team, this is asteroid hitting the planet bad, a dinosaur level extinction event.
Whether you’re a star athlete, an owner, or just a fan, if you care who wins games or simply enjoy watching those games, we’re all about to have to pay a ton more for that privilege.
Put simply, everyone is fucked.
Including, potentially, everyone in all of media, not just those of us in sports media.
Because the golden cable cash spigot has suddenly run out of coins and if sports collapses, the entire cable bundle may collapse with it.
How do we begin to figure out what comes next?
Well, we first have to start at the beginning, when ESPN was founded in 1979 in Bristol, Connecticut. Few knew it then, but ESPN was destined to become the greatest cash producing business in the history of media.
Some people think of me as anti-ESPN, but that’s not accurate. I used to be one of the biggest ESPN fans on the planet. Because I did and still do love sports to an unhealthy degree. Before Keith Olbermann decided men should become women’s sports champions, he, alongside Dan Patrick, were the best tag team of sports anchors in my life. Every morning as I got ready for school I would sit on the couch in my Nashville, Tennessee home and watch SportsCenter as I shoveled cereal in my mouth. If you’d told me in 1993 that at some point Keith Olbermann or Dan Patrick would have ever known my name, I would have walked on air for a week, a month even.
Because when I was fourteen years old, I was convinced that Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann were two of the coolest dudes on the planet.
And it wasn’t just that duo. Chris Berman, Tom Jackson, Linda Cohn, Stuart Scott, these ESPN anchors were all legends in my mind.
Because I was old enough to remember an era when our family didn’t have cable. When you got a couple of minutes of crappy local sports highlights, when you had to get the newspapers and, oh no!, your team was on the west coast and you’d have to go the entire day waiting to see if they won or not. Hell, I listened to games on the radio. And not because I happened to be in the car on a long ride while a game was going on, because that was the only way I knew to hear a game live. There was no option to watch it on TV, not even on pay-per-view.
If you haven’t ever found yourself squinting at the bottom of the TV screen to see the score ticker go by on CNN Headline News or ESPN, you really have no idea what I’m talking about.
But for sports fans, ESPN in those days was the oasis in a media desert, our salvation, nirvana for the sports fan soul.
I didn’t understand ESPN’s business back in those days, but I understood the raw concept of supply and demand. ESPN was selling what I wanted. And chances are it was selling what you wanted too. And what did we want? The games. (And the highlights, at least back then).
Over the decades, ESPN ran a game plan that allowed it to become the most lucrative media company in American history. They used our cable and satellite subscription fees — our cable bill — to buy up sports rights and as their cable and satellite subscription revenue grew they bought better and better sports rights. And when the cable and satellite companies balked at paying ESPN more, what did they do? They got fans to threaten to leave the cable and satellite companies so that the cable and satellite companies always buckled and ended up paying more.
We were the addicts and ESPN had the games that sated our need.
It was a hell of a business, like I said, the best business in the history of American media.
By the fall of 2014, ESPN was making around $6 a month per subscriber, at $6 a month x 100 million subscribers that means ESPN was making around $7 billion a year. Toss in another couple of billion in advertising and we’re talking about a $9 billion, roughly, revenue enterprise.
A quick refresher for those of you who don’t understand the cable and satellite business — every channel has a cost per month. So while you might pay $100 a month for a cable or satellite subscription, each channel costs a different amount. Some channels cost a quarter a month, others a dollar, ESPN was far and away the most expensive channel, costing several dollars a month for every single cable and satellite subscriber, all 100 million of us at the peak in 2014. And ESPN used all the money they made off cable and satellite subscriptions to buy up sports rights. The better the sports rights, the more they could charge, it was a phenomenal business, a fly wheel of cash.
Presently, ESPN spends roughly nine billion a year on sports rights. The company has committed, and this is before they have to pony up for new rights for the NBA and new rights for the college football playoff, $45 billion in sports rights fees through 2027. $45 billion! With tens of billions more still to come for the NBA and college football, ESPN wants to keep both.
The biggest and most expensive rights packages presently? That’s the college football playoff and the NFL’s Monday Night Football package, each of which airs exclusively on ESPN’s cable channel. ESPN pays $2.7 billion per year for Monday Night Football, a gargantuan sum of money for less than twenty games a year. That’s well over $100 million per NFL game.
But the flaw in the business, and all businesses have flaws, was this — most people paying for ESPN, that is, most of the 100 million subscribers in 2014, weren’t actually sports fans. Yet they still paid $100 a year for ESPN. Your Aunt Gladys, who hadn’t watched a sporting event in decades, paid the same every month for ESPN as you did. Only she didn’t know. Because your cable bill was never itemized. You knew what HBO cost a month, because it was extra, a premium channel — and your mom and dad, like my mom and dad, may well have refused to pay extra for it, leaving you gorging on the free previews back in the day — but you never knew what ESPN or TBS or TNT or AMC or CNN or Fox News cost because the cable cost wasn’t itemized by channel, it was buried in your cable and satellite bundle, in your monthly bill.
Now let’s pause for a moment and go back in time to 2014, when the cable and satellite bundle peaked.
Do you know what else happened in 2014 in the world of media?
“House of Cards” season two debuted on Netflix.
Do you remember “House of Cards?” Kevin Spacey played a diabolical South Carolina politician hellbent on the pursuit of power. It was a great show, but it was also an incredible gamble, because it was the first ever Netflix original show. Up to that point, Netflix had made all of its money by buying up everyone else’s reruns and bundling them in its streaming service. I still remember how stunned I was, as I sat bleary eyed up in front of my family’s first flat screen TV, and watched each “House of Cards,” episode keep playing, one after the other unless I stopped each new episode, the weekly scheduled show was no more, Netflix released entire seasons all at once.
Let’s consider the stature of two media companies back in 2014 when “House of Cards” season two debuted — Disney, ESPN’s parent company, and Netflix, which just released season two of its first ever original series, were widely divergent in their power.
Disney stock traded at $84 a share when season two of Netflix debuted in 2014. Netflix, meanwhile, traded at $57 a share. Their market caps were wildly different, but let’s fast forward to today, Netflix is presently $445 a share. That means in the past nine years, your initial Netflix stock purchase has increased by roughly 8x. Meanwhile, Disney is currently $81 a share, a LOWER price than it was nine years ago.
Netflix, which was a $25 billion market cap stock in 2014 is now worth just shy of $200 billion and Disney is a $148 billion market cap stock, roughly the same as it was in 2014.
How did this happen?
Streaming.
It turns out “House of Cards,” star Frank Underwood’s biggest kill wasn’t on screen at all, it was in the media business.
Netflix, which soon had many competitors in the streaming space, destroyed the cable and satellite bundle.
In 2014, I paid for one streaming service, Netflix. Now, and I shudder to even lay all these out, the Travis household is subscribed to what feels like every streaming service on the planet. And we still have cable too, you’re welcome, Comcast. The Travis household is subscribed to Amazon Prime — I think we actually have two of these accounts because I lost our password and it was either get divorced or just have my wife sign up a new account because I couldn’t track down the old password — Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, Peacock, Apple+, Paramount, I still think we pay for the WWE Network somehow, basically if you have created a streaming service we pay for it.
Disney made tens of billions on the cable and satellite bundle. Do you know what Disney has made off streaming so far? They’ve lost $11 billion.
Let me repeat that, they’ve lost $11 billion. I’m not a math genius, but when you have to make $11 billion to get back to zero, that doesn’t seem like a great business to be in.
And the same is true for every American company that has entered streaming except for Netflix.
All of them have lost money, every single one. Netflix is the only American content company to make money off streaming so far.
Why is that?
Because Netflix’s only business is streaming.
Every other one of these big media companies, except for Apple and Amazon, which are using streaming as ancillary offerings for their primary businesses, has cut their own cable and satellite throat by creating a streaming service because they were afraid Netflix would have the streaming industry to themselves.
The cable and satellite industry was the best business in world media history. And all of these big media companies destroyed that business by going all-in on streaming, which so far is the worst business in world media history.
Okay, you might be thinking, how does this impact sports and the ESPN/Charter battle?
Well, you know the broadband wires in your house that you probably forgot are there — it turns out that’s actually a way better business for the cable and satellite companies than the cable and satellite business is.
We’re all addicted to the Internet.
And we can’t get on the Internet without those broadband cables (at least most of us can’t). And that business is a way better business now than cable and satellite.
Charter has been in the cable and satellite business for a long time. But they have smart business guys too and those smart business guys are seeing all of you drop cable and satellite bundles and they see that the long range cable business is not going to be particularly profitable. What’s more, even if they don’t have smart quant guys they can see what Disney is telling everyone about ESPN because Disney CEO Bob Iger keeps telling everyone his plans for ESPN.
And that plan is this, succinctly, “We’re going to take ESPN directly to consumers as a streaming service eventually, but not yet. First we’re going to bleed the cable and satellite companies for as much money as we can.”
In the meantime ESPN+ is just an attempt to monetize all the content that isn’t good enough to be on regular ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, the SEC Network, you get my drift. ESPN+ is just a test case for the future when all of ESPN will be streamed direct to the consumer.
But ESPN got cocky — they went and told everyone that eventually ESPN would put all its games on a direct to consumer streaming company. And then they wouldn’t need the cable and satellite companies at all to bring their channel to the masses.
But, in the meantime, ESPN expected the cable and satellite companies to keep paying them full freight. But that wasn’t all, ESPN expected they could keep raising prices too. Effectively ESPN told the cable and satellite companies that it was going to cut their arms and legs off, but it wasn’t sure when it would decide to do so. Still, ESPN expected for the cable companies to sharpen the sword for them.
And most cable and satellite companies didn’t fight back that hard because they also have exposure to the cable and satellite bundle. Comcast, for instance, doesn’t want to lose ESPN because if they do then all the NBC cable properties will lose a ton of money due to the cord cutting. So they may not like their ESPN deals, but they can at least convince themselves that they are making a ton of money by milking the cable and satellite bundle dry too.
But the Charter guys, who don’t own cable channels like Comcast, look at the math and think, “We don’t really care about the cable and satellite bundle because we make most of our money off broadband.” So unlike virtually every other carriage dispute we’ve seen, when ESPN’s games being pulled made fans furious and the resulting threats terrified the cable companies, the Charter people are actually encouraging you to go sign up for YouTube TV or whatever other streaming service you want to use. Why? Because they make more money off broadband, they don’t really care about their cable business any more.
And they know that ESPN wants to cut their arms and legs off, but they’re calling ESPN’s bluff here because for the first time ever, ESPN’s got less leverage than the cable company does. ESPN needs cable more than cable needs ESPN.
So ESPN is fucked.
And so, maybe, is the entire cable and satellite bundle.
Because Charter knows that if ESPN goes direct to consumer, guess what, THEY STILL MAKE MONEY!
Because you have to stream ESPN on their broadband service and they take a share of the sign up money to bring ESPN to the home too.
And ESPN knows that their cable and satellite business is collapsing but, and this is key, they’ve also done the math and realize that streaming is going to destroy their existing cable business. Because, and this is what no one seems willing to say, ESPN doesn’t just have one bad business now — the cable and satellite bundle — they have the streaming business too, which is an even worse business. And, and this is very key, each business is accelerating the demise of the other. Streaming isn’t making ESPN stronger, it’s making ESPN weaker because it’s hastening the destruction of a profitable business — cable and satellite — for a money-losing business — streaming.
And that’s what many are still missing — as the cable and satellite bundle boat takes on water and sinks, the streaming bundle is also taking on water and sinking too. ESPN has tried to sell people on the idea that at the exact moment that the cable and satellite bundle collapses they are going to step to a brand new business, the streaming business, and it’s going to be a sturdy and successful lifeboat that carries them to richer waters.
But the reality is, streaming is a way worse business than the cable and satellite bundle. Because the only people who pay for ESPN will be sports fans. The free ride is over, your Aunt Gladys is never signing up and subsidizing your sports viewing again.
For the record, I’m not great at math. The only math class I ever took in college was – and I’m not making this up – something called, “Mathematical Concepts,” It was me and every sorority girl at George Washington University.
So it was the greatest class of my life.
Anyway, let me help you here with my rudimentary math ability. Let’s say ESPN makes $8 billion a year now in subscription fees. ($10 a month x 70 million subscribers they has before Charter cut this by 15 million). Toss in another two billion in advertising and let’s say ESPN presently nets around $10 billion a year. Okay, how many people will sign up for ESPN as a direct to consumer streaming service? If they could get 70 million subscribers we’d all have to pay $120 a year for ESPN streaming by itself. (This assumes advertising will still be the same, which it won’t, but let’s just be generous and pretend it will.) But, as I noted above, many of these people paying for ESPN now as part of their cable and satellite package never watch ESPN.
So how many people will actually subscribe to a direct to consumer ESPN streaming service? Turns out there are some early test cases.
The NFL Sunday Ticket is the most desirable direct to consumer product on the planet. Do you know how many households subscribe for NFL Sunday Ticket? Around three million.
Uh oh.
Wait a minute, you’re telling me that the NFL can only get around three million households to sign up for actual NFL games, all of the out of market games, in the entire country?
We’ve got a major math problem here for ESPN.
Let’s be generous again and say that ESPN can get 7x as many subscribers as the NFL can for Monday Night Football and college football. That’s 20 million, roughly, subscribers. What would those 20 million people have to pay for ESPN over streaming to replicate what ESPN makes now? $500 a year. That’s roughly $40 a month.
And that’s if everyone pays that amount all year around.
Which they won’t.
Not even close.
Because here’s the other problem — most people will pay seasonally for the sports they actually care about the most.
Many ESPN streaming subscribers will pick the months they care about the most — football season — and cancel for non-football season. Especially when the service costs this much a month. (Most ESPN+ subscribers aren’t paying for the service now or its bundled for free alongside other products so ESPN+ isn’t a good test case.) Churn is a major issue on streaming, which is why there has to be constantly new offerings. And even with this constant flow of new content lots of people cut their subscriptions, return and binge, and then cut their subscriptions again. And this doesn’t even consider the amount of shared passwords ESPN will have for games, that will be a huge mess.
As if this math weren’t bad enough, remember that ESPN has $45 billion already in sunk sports costs. They bought like the cable bundle was going to last forever. And they still have to buy forever in the future. The NBA and college football playoffs which both expire soon are going to cost tens of billions more. It’s likely ESPN is going to end up with $100 billion in total sports rights costs before long.
And what happens if they don’t buy these rights? No one signs up. So ESPN is locked into a bad streaming business that keeps getting worse.
That’s why Charter has essentially called ESPN’s bluff. They’re telling ESPN to go ahead and launch their direct to consumer streaming service because Charter thinks they’ll make more money on this than they do on cable. But ESPN knows the streaming math doesn’t add up. And I’m honestly not sure what the long range plan here is for ESPN. Because the math, I don’t think, ever adds up. And this is why I think ESPN is trying desperately to find a buyer for the network. Because the ultimate flaw of ESPN’s business is now revealing itself.
And it’s this — ESPN doesn’t actually produce anything of value, it just rents the games from the leagues.
ESPN is the sports version of Blockbuster Video. You remember Blockbuster, right? They didn’t produce anything, they just carried the movies you came to rent. And Netflix destroyed them too.
ESPN, truth be told, has never fit what works for Disney. Because Disney, whatever you think about the company, is in the production of content it owns forever business. The Marvel movies, Star Wars, Pixar, the animated films, the amusement parks, Disney is in the business of creating content that will last for generations. Notwithstanding the looming disaster that is the new woke, live action version of “Snow White,” your kids and grandkids will probably watch these old animated movies and enjoy them just like you did. Same with Star Wars and the Marvel movies. Your grandkids will know who Darth Vader is.
But a Thursday night college football game or an NBA game on Christmas that’s played this year?
It’s all disposable content immediately replaced by the next rented games on the network.
None of it has any lasting value.
That’s bad for Disney, but ESPN is worse than Blockbuster Video because when Blockbuster Video collapsed the entire shopping mall didn’t go bankrupt with it. The grocery store was still open, the Subway still made sandwiches, the gas station stayed open, a new store probably opened where Blockbuster used to be.
But ESPN’s demise threatens to destroy every shop in the neighborhood.
TNT, Turner, AMC, Nickelodeon, you name the channel, all of them are basically being held together by the cable bundle. And ESPN is the most important channel in the cable and satellite bundle, it’s the linchpin, the anchor store. ESPN is your neighborhood shopping mall’s anchor tenant — the Macy’s, the Nordstrom, the Dillard’s the JC Penny. When a mall’s anchor tenant leaves the mall is often dead for, the rest of the shopping mall collapses around it. That’s why the best analogy for ESPN isn’t Blockbuster, it’s Sears, a big mall anchor tenant that collapsed and went bankrupt.
(Side note: I actually think CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News will be okay long range because the demand for live news isn’t going away, they’ll have to just find new ways to distribute their content. Plus, unlike ESPN which has to pay tens of billions for sports rights, the news isn’t licensed, it’s easier to cut costs. But all the non-live cable channels? They’re going to vanish into the streaming universe. Shark Week will come to Netflix or the like. They’re all finished.)
Okay, if you’ve read to this point, you might be thinking, “This feels like it’s going to be really bad, Clay.”
Uh, yeah, it is, that’s why I called it a media extinction level event.
The asteroid is going to hit everyone in media.
In a major way.
This is also why I don’t see why anyone buys ESPN. Unless you desperately need the sports rights ESPN has right now, why wouldn’t the streaming companies, if they really want to get in the sports business, just outbid ESPN for the NBA and the college football playoff and the other rights as they come to market? ESPN’s only real assets are the rights they presently own. So why would you pay ESPN for the rights fees when you could just wait and outbid them for those games as they come to market? The only value ESPN has is if someone has to have these existing sports rights immediately. But if you wait over the next five to ten years those ESPN rights end and the leagues will sell to the highest bidders on the open market.
And the streaming companies deciding to bid is the best case for the sports leagues.
Because unless the streaming companies step up to the plate, athlete salaries and sports team valuations may have peaked. Because, remember, athlete salaries and sports teams valuations have been subsidized by the cable and satellite bundle too. Do you really think NBA players you’ve never heard of deserve $50 million a year salaries? Of course not. They’re getting paid that because of the cable and satellite bundle. The regional sports networks, which fund much of this salary largesse, are already going bankrupt and no one seems to be able to explain what happens next in terms of local sports rights.
But this isn’t just sports.
Every cable and satellite channel is in danger of bankruptcy too. As I laid out above, ESPN is the anchor tenant in the cable and satellite bundle mall. The only thing holding our mall together is sports and live news. And sports may have just left the building.
Now, to be fair, in the time I wrote this maybe Charter and ESPN have come to an agreement and the immediate collapse of the cable and satellite bundle will be forestalled. Maybe this will all happen in three or four years instead of right now.
But it is happening.
It is inevitable. We’ve basically reached the scene in Avengers where Thanos, the evil villain in the Marvel films, snaps his fingers and half of the population vanishes.
It’s like that, except with media companies.
And unlike in the Avengers, no one can travel back in time and reverse the snap. In fact, crazily, with the rush to streaming the cable and satellite companies have been competing to see who can snap first. They’re all Thanos-ing themselves.
Intentionally.
So, yeah, this is bad. Probably way worse than you ever thought it was.
And if you’re a sports fans like me and you just want to sit down on your couch and pick up one remote and watch every game with ease, that’s never happening again. Watching sports is going to cost you a ton, way more than you ever paid for cable. And some of the games you want to watch are going to be on services that aren’t available in your market or aren’t at a price point you’re willing to pay.
And what’s old may become new again.
You might find yourself scanning for games on your radio. You might be hitting refresh on your phone to watch scoreboards, the new digital version of the cable and satellite streaming scores on the bottom of the screen that we grew up with.
And no matter what teams you root for, you’re about to pay infinitely more to watch them.
If you can find their games at all.
And as much as you may think ESPN’s woke politics suck, things are about to get much worse for every sports fan.
But, again, it’s not just sports, it’s all of cable.
I liked the cable and satellite bundle. You probably did too. And I liked the mall too. I enjoyed going there, getting a pretzel in the food court, buying a new pair of jeans.
I went to my local mall recently, the one I grew up going to, the one I used to have a job in at the local “American Eagle,” but the anchor tenants are all gone.
The parking lot was empty.
Most of the stores were vacant.
The bustle and hubbub was all gone, almost no one was there.
It was a ghost town.
It felt just like one of those zombie shows.
That I used to watch on cable.
News of the Times;
Audit the Pentagon:
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023/09/11/audit-the-pentagon-trillions-still-mia-since-pre-9-11/
Biden ignores genocide of Christians:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/09/biden-ignores-genocide-of-christians-reaffirms-commitment-to-and-friendship-with-democratic-nigeria
There’s Nothing Slow-Motion About Uncle Sam’s Financial Train Wreck:
https://www.the-red-line.com/2023/09/15/theres-nothing-slow-motion-about-uncle-sams-financial-train-wreck
The Toxic Gentleness of the American Theater:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/toxic-gentleness-american-theater
NYC's $4.7BN migrant bill equal to cost of:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12492779/New-York-migrants-cost.html
NYC school kids KICKED OUT to make room for migrants:
https://www.theblaze.com/shows/the-news-why-it-matters/nyc-school-kids-kicked-out-to-make-room-for-migrants-no-more-room
Bill Maher Drops Truth Bomb About Hunter Biden Scandal:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/michaelcantrell/2023/09/07/bill-maher-drops-truth-bomb-about-hunter-biden-scandal-n1725223
How college diversity statements got started as a way to weed out White and Asian job applicants:
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/09/08/how-college-diversity-statements-got-started-as-a-way-to-weed-out-white-and-asian-job-applicants-n576673
Dem Who Got Carjacked Takes Another Wild Turn With New Report:
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2023/09/09/story-about-the-mn-dem-who-wanted-to-dismantle-police-who-got-carjacked-takes-another-wild-turn-n2163609
GOP Rep Calls for States to Begin Considering Secession:
https://www.westernjournal.com/gop-rep-calls-states-begin-considering-secession/
Reporter Owen Shroyer Sentenced to 60 DAYS IN PRISON for Speech Crimes:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/breaking-owen-shroyer-sentenced-60-days-prison-speaking/
Carjackers Now Targeting Unsuspecting Drivers by Intentionally Crashing into Them:
https://www.dailyfetched.com/carjackers-now-targeting-unsuspecting-drivers-by-intentionally-crashing-into-them/
France halts iPhone 12 sales over radiation levels:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66795168
Media Outlets EDITS Zelensky’s United Nations Speech To Give The Appearance That He Had A Much Larger Audience:
https://www.usasupreme.com/media-outlet-edits-zelenskys-united-nations-speech-to-give-the-appearance-that-he-had-a-much-larger-audience-so-much-so-that-the-impossible-happened-at-the-0014-mark/
U. Maryland professor gets $600k grant to make math more ‘diverse’:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/u-maryland-professor-gets-600k-grant-to-make-math-more-diverse-and-equitable/
59% of people say that Chopsticks is the only song they can play on the piano.
*.*
Joan: "I'm looking for a golden anniversary gift for my husband."
Lisa: "But haven't you only been married fifteen years?"
Joan: "Yes, but it feels like fifty!"
*.*
Top Five Major Regrets I've Had In 2023:
Spending $250 on that Aaron Rogers Jets jersey.
Buying Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner an early anniversary gift.
Going to a Mitch McConnell motivational seminar.
Operating a mud bath booth at Burning Man.
Making that World Series bet on the Oakland A's.
*.*
My therapist says I have trouble expressing emotion.
Can't say I'm surprised.
*.*
One review on the new movie, "The Nun 2," said it was scary enough that it could become habit.
Gotta get those nun jokes in when you can.
Quote of the Times;
“Go ahead and watch a black-and-white film from the 1950s and see for yourself how it makes you feel. Intact families, close communities, disciplined people, penitent churchgoers, innocent children, reverence for our elders, and a cohesive national fabric stitched tightly together with hard work, dignity, and pride.” - @PiratesNFlowers
Link of the Times;
Tradewinds of Change:
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-91323-tradewinds-of-change
Issue of the Times;
ESPN Vs. Charter Could Be The End Of The Cable Bundle… And Televised Sports As We Know It by Clay Travis
In the summer of 2014, the cable and satellite bundle peaked. One hundred million households were subscribed to ESPN, the most successful channel in the history of cable, and the apex of the greatest business in the history of media had been reached.
But no one knew it.
Cable, satellite, and media executives were all blissfully unaware of what was coming. Fox Sports FS1 had launched the prior year — yours truly appeared on the very first show in the history of the network, a 2013 college football preview show. In the summer of 2014 the SEC Network would make its debut. The SEC Network was, in fact, the single most successful cable and satellite channel debut in the history of the cable industry. With the launch of the SEC Network, ESPN, the channel’s owner, stood at the pinnacle of its power, the company seemed indestructible, a gold plated money minting machine.
Billions of dollars in profits flowed off ESPN each year, enabling all of Disney to flourish. It was the crown jewel of the company, a profit spigot, the Titanic of the cable fleet.
But an iceberg loomed ahead.
And almost no one saw it coming.
The era of cable and satellite cord cutting began in the fall of 2014.
Quietly, at first.
So quietly, in fact, that most at ESPN and in the cable industry refused to acknowledge what was occurring. A few million here, a few million there, slowly a trickle turning into a stream and then the stream turning into a river and before long there was a flood of cord cutters.
If they made a movie about the cord cutting disaster — and at some point they might — a quant would be the hero. Someone deep in the recesses of ESPN’s business department who looked at the cable revenue spigot and started to realize what was going on — the greatest business in the history of media was sputtering, just as ESPN spent greater and greater sums of money on sports rights. That person probably jumped and waved their arms, begged ESPN executives not to keep spending money on sports rights like drunken sailors.
And that person was summarily ignored.
By the summer of 2023, just nine years after peak cable was hit in 2014, only 70 million households were paying for cable or satellite subscriptions. ESPN had lost 30% of its business, just as the cost for sports rights loomed larger and larger.
And then last week, inexplicably, things got worse. Charter Communications, home to 15 million cable and satellite subscribers, refused to bend the knee to ESPN’s price increase demands and cut the channel — along with ABC and all other Disney properties — off air just as Florida prepared to kick off against Utah on the opening Thursday night of college football.
And the games remained off air all throughout Week Zero and into the first full weekend of college football.
Now, the NFL season looms for ESPN, the Jets against the Bills, Aaron Rodgers vs. Josh Allen on Monday Night Football and still there’s no resolution in sight.
How did ESPN’s business die?
Gradually and then all at once.
Nine years ago ESPN was in 100 million households, without Charter they are in around 55 million households. In the space of nine years, ESPN has lost almost half its audience, half its business, half its subscription revenue.
This is a massive media story, one of the biggest of our lives. And it’s not just ESPN. ESPN just stands to lose the most because it had the most lucrative business model in cable. It’s all of the cable and satellite bundle, the entire cable neighborhood is on fire.
As much as you’ve read about this ESPN-Charter battle so far? It should be ten times that much. Because this is how the free ride that most of us sports fans have grown used to comes to a screeching halt. This is bad, very bad, if you’re a sports fan, a sports media employee, a sports executive or an employee of a sports team, this is asteroid hitting the planet bad, a dinosaur level extinction event.
Whether you’re a star athlete, an owner, or just a fan, if you care who wins games or simply enjoy watching those games, we’re all about to have to pay a ton more for that privilege.
Put simply, everyone is fucked.
Including, potentially, everyone in all of media, not just those of us in sports media.
Because the golden cable cash spigot has suddenly run out of coins and if sports collapses, the entire cable bundle may collapse with it.
How do we begin to figure out what comes next?
Well, we first have to start at the beginning, when ESPN was founded in 1979 in Bristol, Connecticut. Few knew it then, but ESPN was destined to become the greatest cash producing business in the history of media.
Some people think of me as anti-ESPN, but that’s not accurate. I used to be one of the biggest ESPN fans on the planet. Because I did and still do love sports to an unhealthy degree. Before Keith Olbermann decided men should become women’s sports champions, he, alongside Dan Patrick, were the best tag team of sports anchors in my life. Every morning as I got ready for school I would sit on the couch in my Nashville, Tennessee home and watch SportsCenter as I shoveled cereal in my mouth. If you’d told me in 1993 that at some point Keith Olbermann or Dan Patrick would have ever known my name, I would have walked on air for a week, a month even.
Because when I was fourteen years old, I was convinced that Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann were two of the coolest dudes on the planet.
And it wasn’t just that duo. Chris Berman, Tom Jackson, Linda Cohn, Stuart Scott, these ESPN anchors were all legends in my mind.
Because I was old enough to remember an era when our family didn’t have cable. When you got a couple of minutes of crappy local sports highlights, when you had to get the newspapers and, oh no!, your team was on the west coast and you’d have to go the entire day waiting to see if they won or not. Hell, I listened to games on the radio. And not because I happened to be in the car on a long ride while a game was going on, because that was the only way I knew to hear a game live. There was no option to watch it on TV, not even on pay-per-view.
If you haven’t ever found yourself squinting at the bottom of the TV screen to see the score ticker go by on CNN Headline News or ESPN, you really have no idea what I’m talking about.
But for sports fans, ESPN in those days was the oasis in a media desert, our salvation, nirvana for the sports fan soul.
I didn’t understand ESPN’s business back in those days, but I understood the raw concept of supply and demand. ESPN was selling what I wanted. And chances are it was selling what you wanted too. And what did we want? The games. (And the highlights, at least back then).
Over the decades, ESPN ran a game plan that allowed it to become the most lucrative media company in American history. They used our cable and satellite subscription fees — our cable bill — to buy up sports rights and as their cable and satellite subscription revenue grew they bought better and better sports rights. And when the cable and satellite companies balked at paying ESPN more, what did they do? They got fans to threaten to leave the cable and satellite companies so that the cable and satellite companies always buckled and ended up paying more.
We were the addicts and ESPN had the games that sated our need.
It was a hell of a business, like I said, the best business in the history of American media.
By the fall of 2014, ESPN was making around $6 a month per subscriber, at $6 a month x 100 million subscribers that means ESPN was making around $7 billion a year. Toss in another couple of billion in advertising and we’re talking about a $9 billion, roughly, revenue enterprise.
A quick refresher for those of you who don’t understand the cable and satellite business — every channel has a cost per month. So while you might pay $100 a month for a cable or satellite subscription, each channel costs a different amount. Some channels cost a quarter a month, others a dollar, ESPN was far and away the most expensive channel, costing several dollars a month for every single cable and satellite subscriber, all 100 million of us at the peak in 2014. And ESPN used all the money they made off cable and satellite subscriptions to buy up sports rights. The better the sports rights, the more they could charge, it was a phenomenal business, a fly wheel of cash.
Presently, ESPN spends roughly nine billion a year on sports rights. The company has committed, and this is before they have to pony up for new rights for the NBA and new rights for the college football playoff, $45 billion in sports rights fees through 2027. $45 billion! With tens of billions more still to come for the NBA and college football, ESPN wants to keep both.
The biggest and most expensive rights packages presently? That’s the college football playoff and the NFL’s Monday Night Football package, each of which airs exclusively on ESPN’s cable channel. ESPN pays $2.7 billion per year for Monday Night Football, a gargantuan sum of money for less than twenty games a year. That’s well over $100 million per NFL game.
But the flaw in the business, and all businesses have flaws, was this — most people paying for ESPN, that is, most of the 100 million subscribers in 2014, weren’t actually sports fans. Yet they still paid $100 a year for ESPN. Your Aunt Gladys, who hadn’t watched a sporting event in decades, paid the same every month for ESPN as you did. Only she didn’t know. Because your cable bill was never itemized. You knew what HBO cost a month, because it was extra, a premium channel — and your mom and dad, like my mom and dad, may well have refused to pay extra for it, leaving you gorging on the free previews back in the day — but you never knew what ESPN or TBS or TNT or AMC or CNN or Fox News cost because the cable cost wasn’t itemized by channel, it was buried in your cable and satellite bundle, in your monthly bill.
Now let’s pause for a moment and go back in time to 2014, when the cable and satellite bundle peaked.
Do you know what else happened in 2014 in the world of media?
“House of Cards” season two debuted on Netflix.
Do you remember “House of Cards?” Kevin Spacey played a diabolical South Carolina politician hellbent on the pursuit of power. It was a great show, but it was also an incredible gamble, because it was the first ever Netflix original show. Up to that point, Netflix had made all of its money by buying up everyone else’s reruns and bundling them in its streaming service. I still remember how stunned I was, as I sat bleary eyed up in front of my family’s first flat screen TV, and watched each “House of Cards,” episode keep playing, one after the other unless I stopped each new episode, the weekly scheduled show was no more, Netflix released entire seasons all at once.
Let’s consider the stature of two media companies back in 2014 when “House of Cards” season two debuted — Disney, ESPN’s parent company, and Netflix, which just released season two of its first ever original series, were widely divergent in their power.
Disney stock traded at $84 a share when season two of Netflix debuted in 2014. Netflix, meanwhile, traded at $57 a share. Their market caps were wildly different, but let’s fast forward to today, Netflix is presently $445 a share. That means in the past nine years, your initial Netflix stock purchase has increased by roughly 8x. Meanwhile, Disney is currently $81 a share, a LOWER price than it was nine years ago.
Netflix, which was a $25 billion market cap stock in 2014 is now worth just shy of $200 billion and Disney is a $148 billion market cap stock, roughly the same as it was in 2014.
How did this happen?
Streaming.
It turns out “House of Cards,” star Frank Underwood’s biggest kill wasn’t on screen at all, it was in the media business.
Netflix, which soon had many competitors in the streaming space, destroyed the cable and satellite bundle.
In 2014, I paid for one streaming service, Netflix. Now, and I shudder to even lay all these out, the Travis household is subscribed to what feels like every streaming service on the planet. And we still have cable too, you’re welcome, Comcast. The Travis household is subscribed to Amazon Prime — I think we actually have two of these accounts because I lost our password and it was either get divorced or just have my wife sign up a new account because I couldn’t track down the old password — Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, Peacock, Apple+, Paramount, I still think we pay for the WWE Network somehow, basically if you have created a streaming service we pay for it.
Disney made tens of billions on the cable and satellite bundle. Do you know what Disney has made off streaming so far? They’ve lost $11 billion.
Let me repeat that, they’ve lost $11 billion. I’m not a math genius, but when you have to make $11 billion to get back to zero, that doesn’t seem like a great business to be in.
And the same is true for every American company that has entered streaming except for Netflix.
All of them have lost money, every single one. Netflix is the only American content company to make money off streaming so far.
Why is that?
Because Netflix’s only business is streaming.
Every other one of these big media companies, except for Apple and Amazon, which are using streaming as ancillary offerings for their primary businesses, has cut their own cable and satellite throat by creating a streaming service because they were afraid Netflix would have the streaming industry to themselves.
The cable and satellite industry was the best business in world media history. And all of these big media companies destroyed that business by going all-in on streaming, which so far is the worst business in world media history.
Okay, you might be thinking, how does this impact sports and the ESPN/Charter battle?
Well, you know the broadband wires in your house that you probably forgot are there — it turns out that’s actually a way better business for the cable and satellite companies than the cable and satellite business is.
We’re all addicted to the Internet.
And we can’t get on the Internet without those broadband cables (at least most of us can’t). And that business is a way better business now than cable and satellite.
Charter has been in the cable and satellite business for a long time. But they have smart business guys too and those smart business guys are seeing all of you drop cable and satellite bundles and they see that the long range cable business is not going to be particularly profitable. What’s more, even if they don’t have smart quant guys they can see what Disney is telling everyone about ESPN because Disney CEO Bob Iger keeps telling everyone his plans for ESPN.
And that plan is this, succinctly, “We’re going to take ESPN directly to consumers as a streaming service eventually, but not yet. First we’re going to bleed the cable and satellite companies for as much money as we can.”
In the meantime ESPN+ is just an attempt to monetize all the content that isn’t good enough to be on regular ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, the SEC Network, you get my drift. ESPN+ is just a test case for the future when all of ESPN will be streamed direct to the consumer.
But ESPN got cocky — they went and told everyone that eventually ESPN would put all its games on a direct to consumer streaming company. And then they wouldn’t need the cable and satellite companies at all to bring their channel to the masses.
But, in the meantime, ESPN expected the cable and satellite companies to keep paying them full freight. But that wasn’t all, ESPN expected they could keep raising prices too. Effectively ESPN told the cable and satellite companies that it was going to cut their arms and legs off, but it wasn’t sure when it would decide to do so. Still, ESPN expected for the cable companies to sharpen the sword for them.
And most cable and satellite companies didn’t fight back that hard because they also have exposure to the cable and satellite bundle. Comcast, for instance, doesn’t want to lose ESPN because if they do then all the NBC cable properties will lose a ton of money due to the cord cutting. So they may not like their ESPN deals, but they can at least convince themselves that they are making a ton of money by milking the cable and satellite bundle dry too.
But the Charter guys, who don’t own cable channels like Comcast, look at the math and think, “We don’t really care about the cable and satellite bundle because we make most of our money off broadband.” So unlike virtually every other carriage dispute we’ve seen, when ESPN’s games being pulled made fans furious and the resulting threats terrified the cable companies, the Charter people are actually encouraging you to go sign up for YouTube TV or whatever other streaming service you want to use. Why? Because they make more money off broadband, they don’t really care about their cable business any more.
And they know that ESPN wants to cut their arms and legs off, but they’re calling ESPN’s bluff here because for the first time ever, ESPN’s got less leverage than the cable company does. ESPN needs cable more than cable needs ESPN.
So ESPN is fucked.
And so, maybe, is the entire cable and satellite bundle.
Because Charter knows that if ESPN goes direct to consumer, guess what, THEY STILL MAKE MONEY!
Because you have to stream ESPN on their broadband service and they take a share of the sign up money to bring ESPN to the home too.
And ESPN knows that their cable and satellite business is collapsing but, and this is key, they’ve also done the math and realize that streaming is going to destroy their existing cable business. Because, and this is what no one seems willing to say, ESPN doesn’t just have one bad business now — the cable and satellite bundle — they have the streaming business too, which is an even worse business. And, and this is very key, each business is accelerating the demise of the other. Streaming isn’t making ESPN stronger, it’s making ESPN weaker because it’s hastening the destruction of a profitable business — cable and satellite — for a money-losing business — streaming.
And that’s what many are still missing — as the cable and satellite bundle boat takes on water and sinks, the streaming bundle is also taking on water and sinking too. ESPN has tried to sell people on the idea that at the exact moment that the cable and satellite bundle collapses they are going to step to a brand new business, the streaming business, and it’s going to be a sturdy and successful lifeboat that carries them to richer waters.
But the reality is, streaming is a way worse business than the cable and satellite bundle. Because the only people who pay for ESPN will be sports fans. The free ride is over, your Aunt Gladys is never signing up and subsidizing your sports viewing again.
For the record, I’m not great at math. The only math class I ever took in college was – and I’m not making this up – something called, “Mathematical Concepts,” It was me and every sorority girl at George Washington University.
So it was the greatest class of my life.
Anyway, let me help you here with my rudimentary math ability. Let’s say ESPN makes $8 billion a year now in subscription fees. ($10 a month x 70 million subscribers they has before Charter cut this by 15 million). Toss in another two billion in advertising and let’s say ESPN presently nets around $10 billion a year. Okay, how many people will sign up for ESPN as a direct to consumer streaming service? If they could get 70 million subscribers we’d all have to pay $120 a year for ESPN streaming by itself. (This assumes advertising will still be the same, which it won’t, but let’s just be generous and pretend it will.) But, as I noted above, many of these people paying for ESPN now as part of their cable and satellite package never watch ESPN.
So how many people will actually subscribe to a direct to consumer ESPN streaming service? Turns out there are some early test cases.
The NFL Sunday Ticket is the most desirable direct to consumer product on the planet. Do you know how many households subscribe for NFL Sunday Ticket? Around three million.
Uh oh.
Wait a minute, you’re telling me that the NFL can only get around three million households to sign up for actual NFL games, all of the out of market games, in the entire country?
We’ve got a major math problem here for ESPN.
Let’s be generous again and say that ESPN can get 7x as many subscribers as the NFL can for Monday Night Football and college football. That’s 20 million, roughly, subscribers. What would those 20 million people have to pay for ESPN over streaming to replicate what ESPN makes now? $500 a year. That’s roughly $40 a month.
And that’s if everyone pays that amount all year around.
Which they won’t.
Not even close.
Because here’s the other problem — most people will pay seasonally for the sports they actually care about the most.
Many ESPN streaming subscribers will pick the months they care about the most — football season — and cancel for non-football season. Especially when the service costs this much a month. (Most ESPN+ subscribers aren’t paying for the service now or its bundled for free alongside other products so ESPN+ isn’t a good test case.) Churn is a major issue on streaming, which is why there has to be constantly new offerings. And even with this constant flow of new content lots of people cut their subscriptions, return and binge, and then cut their subscriptions again. And this doesn’t even consider the amount of shared passwords ESPN will have for games, that will be a huge mess.
As if this math weren’t bad enough, remember that ESPN has $45 billion already in sunk sports costs. They bought like the cable bundle was going to last forever. And they still have to buy forever in the future. The NBA and college football playoffs which both expire soon are going to cost tens of billions more. It’s likely ESPN is going to end up with $100 billion in total sports rights costs before long.
And what happens if they don’t buy these rights? No one signs up. So ESPN is locked into a bad streaming business that keeps getting worse.
That’s why Charter has essentially called ESPN’s bluff. They’re telling ESPN to go ahead and launch their direct to consumer streaming service because Charter thinks they’ll make more money on this than they do on cable. But ESPN knows the streaming math doesn’t add up. And I’m honestly not sure what the long range plan here is for ESPN. Because the math, I don’t think, ever adds up. And this is why I think ESPN is trying desperately to find a buyer for the network. Because the ultimate flaw of ESPN’s business is now revealing itself.
And it’s this — ESPN doesn’t actually produce anything of value, it just rents the games from the leagues.
ESPN is the sports version of Blockbuster Video. You remember Blockbuster, right? They didn’t produce anything, they just carried the movies you came to rent. And Netflix destroyed them too.
ESPN, truth be told, has never fit what works for Disney. Because Disney, whatever you think about the company, is in the production of content it owns forever business. The Marvel movies, Star Wars, Pixar, the animated films, the amusement parks, Disney is in the business of creating content that will last for generations. Notwithstanding the looming disaster that is the new woke, live action version of “Snow White,” your kids and grandkids will probably watch these old animated movies and enjoy them just like you did. Same with Star Wars and the Marvel movies. Your grandkids will know who Darth Vader is.
But a Thursday night college football game or an NBA game on Christmas that’s played this year?
It’s all disposable content immediately replaced by the next rented games on the network.
None of it has any lasting value.
That’s bad for Disney, but ESPN is worse than Blockbuster Video because when Blockbuster Video collapsed the entire shopping mall didn’t go bankrupt with it. The grocery store was still open, the Subway still made sandwiches, the gas station stayed open, a new store probably opened where Blockbuster used to be.
But ESPN’s demise threatens to destroy every shop in the neighborhood.
TNT, Turner, AMC, Nickelodeon, you name the channel, all of them are basically being held together by the cable bundle. And ESPN is the most important channel in the cable and satellite bundle, it’s the linchpin, the anchor store. ESPN is your neighborhood shopping mall’s anchor tenant — the Macy’s, the Nordstrom, the Dillard’s the JC Penny. When a mall’s anchor tenant leaves the mall is often dead for, the rest of the shopping mall collapses around it. That’s why the best analogy for ESPN isn’t Blockbuster, it’s Sears, a big mall anchor tenant that collapsed and went bankrupt.
(Side note: I actually think CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News will be okay long range because the demand for live news isn’t going away, they’ll have to just find new ways to distribute their content. Plus, unlike ESPN which has to pay tens of billions for sports rights, the news isn’t licensed, it’s easier to cut costs. But all the non-live cable channels? They’re going to vanish into the streaming universe. Shark Week will come to Netflix or the like. They’re all finished.)
Okay, if you’ve read to this point, you might be thinking, “This feels like it’s going to be really bad, Clay.”
Uh, yeah, it is, that’s why I called it a media extinction level event.
The asteroid is going to hit everyone in media.
In a major way.
This is also why I don’t see why anyone buys ESPN. Unless you desperately need the sports rights ESPN has right now, why wouldn’t the streaming companies, if they really want to get in the sports business, just outbid ESPN for the NBA and the college football playoff and the other rights as they come to market? ESPN’s only real assets are the rights they presently own. So why would you pay ESPN for the rights fees when you could just wait and outbid them for those games as they come to market? The only value ESPN has is if someone has to have these existing sports rights immediately. But if you wait over the next five to ten years those ESPN rights end and the leagues will sell to the highest bidders on the open market.
And the streaming companies deciding to bid is the best case for the sports leagues.
Because unless the streaming companies step up to the plate, athlete salaries and sports team valuations may have peaked. Because, remember, athlete salaries and sports teams valuations have been subsidized by the cable and satellite bundle too. Do you really think NBA players you’ve never heard of deserve $50 million a year salaries? Of course not. They’re getting paid that because of the cable and satellite bundle. The regional sports networks, which fund much of this salary largesse, are already going bankrupt and no one seems to be able to explain what happens next in terms of local sports rights.
But this isn’t just sports.
Every cable and satellite channel is in danger of bankruptcy too. As I laid out above, ESPN is the anchor tenant in the cable and satellite bundle mall. The only thing holding our mall together is sports and live news. And sports may have just left the building.
Now, to be fair, in the time I wrote this maybe Charter and ESPN have come to an agreement and the immediate collapse of the cable and satellite bundle will be forestalled. Maybe this will all happen in three or four years instead of right now.
But it is happening.
It is inevitable. We’ve basically reached the scene in Avengers where Thanos, the evil villain in the Marvel films, snaps his fingers and half of the population vanishes.
It’s like that, except with media companies.
And unlike in the Avengers, no one can travel back in time and reverse the snap. In fact, crazily, with the rush to streaming the cable and satellite companies have been competing to see who can snap first. They’re all Thanos-ing themselves.
Intentionally.
So, yeah, this is bad. Probably way worse than you ever thought it was.
And if you’re a sports fans like me and you just want to sit down on your couch and pick up one remote and watch every game with ease, that’s never happening again. Watching sports is going to cost you a ton, way more than you ever paid for cable. And some of the games you want to watch are going to be on services that aren’t available in your market or aren’t at a price point you’re willing to pay.
And what’s old may become new again.
You might find yourself scanning for games on your radio. You might be hitting refresh on your phone to watch scoreboards, the new digital version of the cable and satellite streaming scores on the bottom of the screen that we grew up with.
And no matter what teams you root for, you’re about to pay infinitely more to watch them.
If you can find their games at all.
And as much as you may think ESPN’s woke politics suck, things are about to get much worse for every sports fan.
But, again, it’s not just sports, it’s all of cable.
I liked the cable and satellite bundle. You probably did too. And I liked the mall too. I enjoyed going there, getting a pretzel in the food court, buying a new pair of jeans.
I went to my local mall recently, the one I grew up going to, the one I used to have a job in at the local “American Eagle,” but the anchor tenants are all gone.
The parking lot was empty.
Most of the stores were vacant.
The bustle and hubbub was all gone, almost no one was there.
It was a ghost town.
It felt just like one of those zombie shows.
That I used to watch on cable.
News of the Times;
Audit the Pentagon:
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023/09/11/audit-the-pentagon-trillions-still-mia-since-pre-9-11/
Biden ignores genocide of Christians:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/09/biden-ignores-genocide-of-christians-reaffirms-commitment-to-and-friendship-with-democratic-nigeria
There’s Nothing Slow-Motion About Uncle Sam’s Financial Train Wreck:
https://www.the-red-line.com/2023/09/15/theres-nothing-slow-motion-about-uncle-sams-financial-train-wreck
The Toxic Gentleness of the American Theater:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/toxic-gentleness-american-theater
NYC's $4.7BN migrant bill equal to cost of:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12492779/New-York-migrants-cost.html
NYC school kids KICKED OUT to make room for migrants:
https://www.theblaze.com/shows/the-news-why-it-matters/nyc-school-kids-kicked-out-to-make-room-for-migrants-no-more-room
Bill Maher Drops Truth Bomb About Hunter Biden Scandal:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/michaelcantrell/2023/09/07/bill-maher-drops-truth-bomb-about-hunter-biden-scandal-n1725223
How college diversity statements got started as a way to weed out White and Asian job applicants:
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/09/08/how-college-diversity-statements-got-started-as-a-way-to-weed-out-white-and-asian-job-applicants-n576673
Dem Who Got Carjacked Takes Another Wild Turn With New Report:
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2023/09/09/story-about-the-mn-dem-who-wanted-to-dismantle-police-who-got-carjacked-takes-another-wild-turn-n2163609
GOP Rep Calls for States to Begin Considering Secession:
https://www.westernjournal.com/gop-rep-calls-states-begin-considering-secession/
Reporter Owen Shroyer Sentenced to 60 DAYS IN PRISON for Speech Crimes:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/breaking-owen-shroyer-sentenced-60-days-prison-speaking/
Carjackers Now Targeting Unsuspecting Drivers by Intentionally Crashing into Them:
https://www.dailyfetched.com/carjackers-now-targeting-unsuspecting-drivers-by-intentionally-crashing-into-them/
France halts iPhone 12 sales over radiation levels:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66795168
Media Outlets EDITS Zelensky’s United Nations Speech To Give The Appearance That He Had A Much Larger Audience:
https://www.usasupreme.com/media-outlet-edits-zelenskys-united-nations-speech-to-give-the-appearance-that-he-had-a-much-larger-audience-so-much-so-that-the-impossible-happened-at-the-0014-mark/
U. Maryland professor gets $600k grant to make math more ‘diverse’:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/u-maryland-professor-gets-600k-grant-to-make-math-more-diverse-and-equitable/
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And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.