55 Comments
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May 22
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Small correction. I think she said she would not serve more than 5 terms. She is in her fifth term now.

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May 22
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Wish I had read your comment first. You are so right!

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Carl, I guess you aren't a woman who has lost fundamental freedoms under a serial violent liar who Eli$e raises MILLIONS for and with. There is no both-sides-ing her with Biden by putting them in the "career politician" Venn diagram circle. The other circle is "Works with global crime syndicate mobster who had unpaid Russian operative Manafort and indebted Russian informant McGonical influencing his election, who also used the press to catch and kill stories of sex, mistresses, NDAs, hush money, extortion," etc. Eli$e chose to work for Trump as a political calculation, she took the risk. Biden has NEVER done anything close to that in the third Venn circle: "career public servant."

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Exactly and so much more we have forgotten about.

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I don’t understand you saying a political career is “extremely lucrative.” The base salary in Congress is $174,000 a year. It’s only lucrative if you’re Bob Menendez or Jared Kushner.

I suppose it’s not an “aura of power” though if you can expand presidential powers into dictatorial ones.

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While politicians can use there campaign funds for some things - legal fees I believe - I've always thought the money for a politician came after he/she left Congress.

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Every now and then you get a Chris Collins busted for insider trading.

Menendez actually got away with being a crook once. Some real chutzpah to go at it again. He did a Thomas/Alito and is blaming his wife. That’s becoming a cliché.

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I’m waiting to see Trump try to pin it all on Melania.

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Bahaha!

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😂🤣😂

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The lucrativeness of a political career largely comes when its over. Look at how many of them retire or are defeated and immediately land well-paying jobs as lobbyists, "think tank" fellows and/or TV pundits. The longer your political career, the more you can command because the more "connections" you made.

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Yes but many members of government profit outside of government- for example speeches etc

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Do you consider that close to the "median income of those they represent"?

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I was with you until the end. My own experience over 40 years was a passion among the colleagues I worked with to get it right with a strong sense of right and wrong. I can be pretty cynical, but your is even more cynical. I think you have to be careful when you talk about balance. Climate change is a great example. 97 percent of scientists believe the source is man. So what is the proper balance for covering climate change. You can't make it 50-50. Sometimes you just have to report and the facts and draw conclusions from that.

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May 22
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It is not an opinion when you add one plus one and get two.

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May 22
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That is not journalism by any stretch of the imagination. I stand by the climate change example. You don't have to report both sides of that issue. That is settled science.

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Years ago I heard a show on WAMC where the editor of the Times Union said basically the same thing. Here’s how he put it: If candidate A says the moon is made of rock and candidate B says the moon is made of green cheese, then news reporters cannot and should not simply report what they said, they also need to report that the moon is in fact made of rock. Otherwise people will have no way to judge which candidate is actually the best.

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May 22
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Please clarify, what is the 9% inflation comment?

And the laptop? Really? It was reported on ad nauseam everywhere, just like Benghazi was investigated and reported on, long past the point when it became obvious there just wasn’t enough there there. The Republicans wanted both of these to be the big smoking guns that would bring the Democrats down, but just because they didn’t get the results they wanted doesn’t mean there was any downplaying by the “left wing media.” As a listener of NPR I vividly remember being heartily sick of hearing about both these things and wishing the Republicans would either present some real evidence or stop wasting everyone’s time.

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May 23
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I never said there wasn’t anything questionable about the event, just that it did not rise to the crisis level the Republicans were making it out to be. I find the media reported on it and made corrections as needed as more information came out. The politics of it is one thing, the reporting on it is another. Of the two “wings” of the media, I find the right wing to be far more involved with the politics of events than the left.

And I just broke my own rule. I forgot I wasn’t going to reply to you anymore. Mea culpa.

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May 23
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If inflation was under 2% when Biden took office, it started its climb very shortly thereafter due in part to actions taken under Trump and, to be fair, exacerbated by actions taken under Biden. It’s a relatively minor bit of fudging, and maybe she should have mentioned it, but it wouldn’t affect the overall point of what Biden was probably trying to say, which is that his policies helped keep the United States out a recession, which all the experts were predicting, and lowered the rate of inflation in the US much faster than in other countries around the world. I didn’t watch the interview, but the fact that an interviewer let a small inaccuracy stand is hardly news that needs to be widely reported. And if you think it is, you must have an even bigger problem with right wing media and their outright lying.

I don’t think the laptop story was suppressed. I think the media rightly saw it as small fish, not worth too much time or space. Until the story became the exhaustive and exhausting effort by the Republicans to make a mountain out of a molehill.

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Are their any moderate media?

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Since I was first editor in 1999, there were many who used that "left-wing" media trope ad nauseum, yet when it came to political endorsements, more than 75 percent were Republicans or Conservatives. Is this the left-wing media you are talking about?

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I used to oppose term limits because we already had them. They're called elections. But then I realized the degree to which most of these elections are rigged beforehand via gerrymandering, in both red states and blue. Absent fair redistricting, which most citizens want and most career pols oppose, I'd be okay with term limits.

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You mean I have to choose? I think she meets both of those categories.. fanatic and phony. It amazes me how many people can’t see through her.

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...her advocates, perhaps, deserve more "credit," i.e. many do "see through her"- and do not care: as long as she is useful to the MAGA-machine...

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Blame the wife… the chicken’s way out.

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The conundrum for NY 21 voters if Eli$e gets the VP nod: vote for her on the top ticket to get rid of her locally.

Thank goodness I've moved to Michigan. I would consider it.

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If all of NY was MAGA I probably would move to Michigan or somewhere more exotic. So far only upstate is “ Alabama with snow.”

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LOL. Change is coming slowly up here.

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Since that’s where Chris Wallace was, it must be the heretic chair.

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Like you mentioned, the actions of Elise as a kiss up to djt and a politician who dodges the straight answer, are not a surprise to some of us. The "newsletter" she sends out is fluff and name calling compared to the one of substance that I receive from Senator K. Gillibrand.

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Aliito should recuse himself,, not just for the flag but for all he said at different gatherings for religious right wing folk, for his sneering and making jokes, for his gaining favors. Even more, Clarence Thomas should recuse himself, for his gaining many many financial favors from Crow, his dinners with millionaires, and mostly for his wife's participation in the Jan. 6 gatherings against the fair election of Biden, and for her outspoken support of the lie that the election was stolen...She believes it...her husband, Clarence, has refused to ever recuse himself from any of the cases involving Trump. If Alito and Thomas recuse themselves perhaps the rest of the Supreme Court will say that Trump is not immune from persecution for crimes--that no one is immune, no one above the law.

I remember seeing all the photos of Thomas and rush LImbaugh, who, it seems, was his main journalist for news, Trump giving LImbaugh the medal of honor.

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The question I’d love to see Shannon Bream or some other big-time TV interviewer ask one of the veep bootlicker hopefuls is why they want the job.

Mike Pence and his family were nearly murdered. Same with Sen. Romney. It’s on video how close Trump’s mob got to both of them. And Trump later said that maybe Pence deserved to be hanged. You’re deep in the cups of koolaid if you don’t think that mob would’ve killed any Democrat or apostate Republican they got ahold of. It’s a little disturbing so many people can so easily overlook that.

Even putting the possibility of a violent death aside is looking to what results from never ending service to Trump. Michael Cohen is maybe patient zero. Seems like he’s living the good life. Then there’s Rudy and pillow man Lindell. Rudy could have schools named after him and he’s a national joke for Trump. Mike Lindell went down the rabbit hole and destroyed his business to serve Trump.

JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, Elise and all the rest think they’re the one that’s going to successfully ride the tiger and get the brass ring and never get eaten. Maybe. But Donald Trump has left a long trail of destroyed lives.

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I continue to be irate, speechless and

scared to death.

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If only we could succeed in voting her OUT! I will DEFINITELY vote against her!!!

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This is why we need a Blue congress who will draw articles of impeachment against Alito and Thomas, AND force ethics standards on the Supreme court. If this can happen, maybe one or two of the right wing justices will retire while Biden is still President... We can only hope, right???

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We also need Dick Durbin to resign as Chair of the Judiciary and put Sheldon Whitehouse in - Durbin, like Biden, still hold on to traditional norms which we know expired decades ago.

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Yes, yes! I just wrote to him yesterday about that!

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She's a fanatic AND a phony! And a complete DISGRACE! Can you imagine how she'd fare with a microphone being shut off when it's not her turn to speak. Even NewsNation is exposing her. Here's their take: https://youtu.be/cedGEirZFxg?si=REHsVH62uNjwsa0i

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I’m a bit more skeptical of the value of the Winter’s Dream light show. 7,700 more room nights is good, but does it justify the initial $3 million investment? I guess we’ll see how the numbers hold up over the next few seasons. $70,000 return on bed tax indicates $1.75 million in room rentals. It will take a long time to recover the investment in an ephemeral experience at that rate. An increase of 31% of visitors from NYC sounds good, but what is the actual number? Is it 30, 300, 3,000?

In my view the BOS should be looking for events that create a more lasting value to the region.

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I'm also a little skeptical. The number of rooms seems really high and the $6 million investment seems extremely high.

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Among the politician class, most MAGA fanatics are complete phonies.

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I'm told by friends in the know that the Gazette editorial board was pressured by the publisher to endorse Stefanik last election. Now he's the owner. I'll keep an open mind. But I won't restart my subscription just yet.

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I don’t think that the FOX people like Elise and hopefully that will be the demise of her newly extreme ambitions.

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Agreed, that's why they ambushed her. Stefanik is not Fox Network's pick for VP. I saw polling of all the people in the running for the VP slot. Stefanik polled at the bottom with 13%.

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