UNSOLICITED GIFTS: STANDING UP FOR FREEDOM HAS NEVER BEEN MORE IMPORTANT
BY DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY APRIL 3, 2024) — Unlike what so many think, the identity of THE PLANET has not been shaped by ideology. We see ideology as a straight jacket that restricts independent thought. Our guide is common sense. Our destination, truth. Simple as that.
We recently received two unsolicited gifts. The first came with the delivery of an Easter goodie basket from a fan of THE PLANET. It came with a note thanking us for being “the last and most important local vestige of free speech,” highlighting our live, give-and-take “Comments” section. The second came from PLANET regular Merry & Bright, who yesterday wrote:
Dan, everything is suddenly up and running. Once again posting on your website helps out the taxpayers of Bitchfield. As I said in a previous post you and Mike Daly of Its Pittsfield Tonight are the only media that listens to the taxpayers. Thank you.
Thank YOU, M&B. As for Daly, we agree with your verdict: a welcome addition in service to transparency.
These random “thanks” mean much. They provide psychic pay, coin that’s worth any amount of worthless U.S. dollars for the way it rages against taking sites like this for granted.
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You may have noticed that last year, after a five-year run of sponsorship, THE PLANET stopped taking ads. The revenues essentially paid for the cost of running the site, including technological overhauls designed to keep us current with ever-faster, more sophisticated streaming platforms. We dropped the ads because of this site’s absolute commitment to FREE SPEECH, now under attack such as it hasn’t been before. Our two ad brokers, Google then Amazon, started to require certain restrictions on what could and could not be posted. In return, THE PLANET, told them to keep their money and pound sand.
THE PLANET outside Newhouse III, Journalism School, Syracuse University. The Bill of Rights is inscribed on the glass face. Those Rights, under attack by Woke-ism, must be safeguarded.
We haven’t looked back since. We are not for sale.
We shall stand on principle, something that you’d think local elected officials might want to try. Ah, but that’s what separates us from them. We remain unspoiled. They, meanwhile, have given themselves to a dysentery-green type of slime that we shall place under the all-encompassing rubric of corruption.
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It’s almost comical (but isn’t) that the most fervent believers in the most implanted of political philosophies, all of which have proven to be failures, see themselves as “free thinkers.” They arrive at that entrenched delusion by branding policy brands such as WOKE a thoughtful destination. Who among the Believers has the courage to admit this isn’t so? Who has such an uncommon degree of common sense to reveal that the skunks have no clothes?
Politicization, its new weaponized version, has overwhelmed our institutions. No need for an extensive exposition on this point. It is damnable, though, how politics has poisoned food (“This product has been responsibly sourced by Rainforce Alliance police on sustainable acreage”), language (the time-wasting angst over personal pronouns), entertainment (West Side Story is racist), gender, race, and everything else you can name.
THE PLANET is blind.
Not in the sense of sightless, culturally appropriated ideologues but in the sense of Lady Justice (sexist?). You’ll recall she wears a blindfold so she cannot prejudge. THE PLANET judges based on a starting point of neutral. Not up, not down. Not left, not right.
Our method: Continuously educate, examine facts from various sources, and render opinions. Our goal: Stimulate public discussion, always healthy but especially in a one-party state and city so ideologically bound to the radical Left by Democrat hegemony.
Most dead carp rot from the head down. Bitchfield is rotting from the tail up. Politically, it lost its head decades ago.
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“A numerator cannot be a denominator” — Sir Donald Turpentine, Knight of the Bath.
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”
LOVE TO ALL.
Copyright (c) 2023 By Dan Valenti, PLANET VALENTI and EUROPOLIS MANAGEMENT. All rights reserved. The views and opinions expressed in the comment section or in the text other than those of PLANET VALENTI are not necessarily endorsed by the operators of this website. PLANET VALENTI assumes no responsibility for such views and opinions, and it reserves the right to remove or edit any comment, including but not limited to those that violate the website’s Rules of Conduct and its editorial policies. Those who leave comments own all the responsibilities that are or can be attached to those comments, be they rhetorical, semantic, or legal. Such commentators remain solely responsible for what they post and shall be and remain solely accountable for their words. PLANET VALENTI shall not be held responsible for the consequences that may result from any posted comment or outside opinion or commentary as provided in, but not limited to, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and this website’s terms of service. We serve as a marketplace of ideas, without prejudice and available to all. All users of this site — including readers, commentators, contributors, or anyone else — hereby agree to these conditions by virtue of this notice and their use of/participation in this site. When PLANET VALENTI ends with the words “The Usual Disclaimer,” that phrase shall be understood to refer to the full text of this disclaimer.
April 3, 2024
I am thankful that blogger Dan Valenti’s writings and free speech comment section allows the common people of Pittsfield and beyond to write about the government. Similar to reverse discrimination, the likes of Pete White and Earl Persip refuse to be interviewed by blogger Dan Valenti, and they denounce his journalism with harsh language that is often used with banality in politics.
The government plays financial shell games that most people do not understand, such as the Lottery SCAM really being regressive taxation that targets the mostly financially illiterate low- to moderate-income residents so that greedy lobbyists such as Dan Bosley can get huge state tax breaks for his wealthy big business clients in Boston. Pittsfield always raises municipal spending by at least 5 percent per fiscal year so that their cooked books are in compliance with the state government’s fiscal rules. The state government gives away billions of dollars per fiscal year in state tax breaks to the wealthy households and big businesses – that don’t exist in large numbers outside of the Boston area – to enrich the financial, corporate and ruling elites, while the rest of us pound sand and complain about “Taxachusetts”. All of it goes over most people’s heads, but we all feel it in our bones and pocket-books.
Jon Melle
Thanks, JON.
Bravo Dan,
Thanks for planting the Planet “free speech flag “ at the top of the mountain on our behalf. I have a feeling it was an easy decision for you to tell them to stick the ad dollars rather than break your principal beliefs in what you believe in. You just seem the type.
OP
Yes, it was an easy decision. Thank you for your support.
We need Republicans to stand on principle today like Liz Cheney who lost her job when she would not cowtow to FOX media and MAGA…..Pittsfield needs to stop subsidizing private for profit businesses by turning them into not for profit tax status companies.
Cuckoo, cuckoo.
Biden’s build back better at work Skippy
Full employment and 45 000 projects underway….you can’t get good news out when a rapist traitor insurectionist is out fumbling his dumbass comment to the FOX shutins
Should not be so hard on Biden, he’s disabled.
Liz is out to pasture with the rest of the “primaried” RINO herd. Lindsey, Mitch, Lisa, … et al need to join her
P.S. “We the People” of Wyoming fired Liz.
I hear she is shopping for a new state.
Have carpet bag will travel
She hates what Putin did to the Ukraine and loves her democracy. Trump has to win or go to jail and the media wants Trump to win.
I am always amused when democrats tout their love for the Cheneys. Even as a true-blue Democrat, I never had any love for anyone in the Bush Admin, and none for the Cheneys. Yet here you are King George and Queen Cheney?
It’s a symptom called TDS.
Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) came on the scene shortly after the Steele Dossier arrived. It continued to manifest itself from 2016-2020.
For some unknown reason in 1/2021, after China Joe Xiden was selected, TDS continues to rage on in many.
The part no one likes to talk about. What TDS does to the human body:
TDS is known to cause fits of uncontrollable rage, crying, explosive diarrhea, chronic masturbation, alcohol/drug usage, keyboard warrior courage, irrational thoughts, unable to express ideas clearly or in an adult manner, repeats the same liberal talking points without any facts over and over and over, NIMBY-illegal aliens, and the worse one yet, extreme bouts of loneliness (no friends).
It’s respect for defending democracy. Love is what Trump get for lying to the FOX shutins
Like hiding information from the public during the witch hunt that proved Trump asked for guards on the 3rd and was rebuffed by Pelosi?? That Cheney? Yeah a true blue democrat if there ever was one
As luck would have it Pete White is a blue balls democrat.
If Lizzy didn’t have TDS like yourself, you and others would be treating her like you would anyone else on the conservative side.
The good people of Maine took an overwhelming stand on the leftist policy regarding electric vehicles. They were on track to copy California law, which Massachusetts is doing as well. If Massachusetts doesn’t do an about face on this issue a lot of dealerships will be stuck with a product nobody wants.
https://www.themainewire.com/2024/03/maine-rejects-electric-vehicle-nonsense-bobby-charles/?fbclid=IwAR2et8-6kDrhbG_fTBnzVIwAP62Y1ys07lhHGr2z0tB8dqyp9SMxEMIPtxI_aem_AZT_iEy2zGawLsS3cXj71EWq2w-Q5-_WCerFZ60mpFuK6ABw-Ylu77TGXOpK_w9O8eU
Do your part to save the environment. When you see an unused EV plugged in, pull the plug!
I love the smell of gas exhaust in the morning.Go to work and use electricity for everything except a wheel.
Thanks but no thanks, I like natural gas for heating, cooking, and hot water.
You love the smell of your own gas and it damaged your brain
Great column, Dan. Add mine to M&B thanking you for your service. And don’t forget give thanks for your enemies. Thank them for acting as the tool for “that Power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”.
13 years, three a week: what a long haul for one man.
Freedom of Religion, which could be the foundation of Free Speech, cannot perish. But men may become cowards.
Love the nod, CHAZ.
Add my thanks to the pile Dan. You da man.
I don’t think we have changed much about the way the suits run the city in the last ten years because they just don’t give a shit. At best we can embarrass them for thirty seconds but most of them have no shame and it rolls right off them.
But it does help to vent.
And if I have encouraged just one family to move the hell away for a better life I feel good about that.
Get out if you can!
https://www.berkshireeagle.com/news/central_berkshires/pittsfield-mayor-peter-marchetti-mental-health-substance-use-disorder-advisory-committee/article_144ecf22-f07a-11ee-8fbc-83709d227412.html
Social Work Alley is at it again. Such a lovey list of who’s who of the social work/political sphere. How man of these were campaign contributors or political apppoinments/favors
Might as well just let them overrun downtown. It’s going to happen! Narcan in every school too
Jesus only needed 12 Apostles. 30 members? That is too many to be effective. Twill be another dog and pony show, courtesy of your tax dollars.
T&S
Spot on. To make it look like “they” are “doing something.” More failure from city govt.
Off Topic – Just finished reading about Mayor Maypo’s Substance and Mental Health Need Panel. Can’t help questioning why not one Pittsfield Fire Department or Pittsfield Police personnel was not asked to be a member. Afterall it is these men and woman of the Fire Department and Pittsfield Police officers that are the first responders to drug overdoses. Yes, the “hired councilors” of the PPD are on the panel, but they need an officer that is working the beat on a daily basis. These are the same public employees that have to deal with the vomit and irrational sometimes violent behavior while giving aid to these people constantly all day, every day. Of these 30 members most of them sit behind a desk and work with these people after the event which brought them to their offices.
They probably asked. PFD and PPD don’t do free. Only for extra pay. Most don’t care about mental health, after the call they just bad mouth the person.
Partially true Cry. Do you blame them for wanting money for their time? I don’t.
Trust me, there are plenty of pockets getting lined on this nonsense.
The real reason PPD/PFD aren’t on this board, is the board doesn’t want to hear the real truth about substance abuse. The toll it takes on family members and society as a whole, in the form of crime.
The only tried and true treatment to curb, not cure, addiction, is incarceration.
The person themselves have to want to quit dope/crime. Hanging out with former friends (I.e.- fellow addicts) is a recipe for recidivism.
Take this facts to the bank Mayor Maypole.
No I don’t blame them. I was just honestly stating what I beleive is the reason for no PFD and PPD.
Free speech is a treasured commodity. Unfortunately, many on here don’t see the forest through the trees. Or maybe it’s better to state that Donald Trump lives rent-free in people’s head. This is also known as Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).
One thing Trump never had, was a “disinformation czar,” like the Xiden/Barry administration tried.
Remember Nina Jankowicz?
Of course, if you disagreed with her or her liberal ideologies, it was deemed “misinformation.”
Certainly, doesn’t sound like free speech to me.
Make it make sense TSC, JM, Snark, INDA. You support Xiden/Barry and these polices.
Disinformation head Nina Jankowicz resigns after DHS board is paused (nbcnews.com)
I might support someone other than Biden but if Trump is the only other choice then Biden it has to be. Been living without a dictator ruling my country for a long time and not ready to start now.
This happened in 2013 under the Bathhouse Barry administration. Read up on it. You are a victim of government propaganda.
Trump a dictator? You are a true a$$clown my friend.
No wars, gas under $2 a gallon, immigration under control, middle class (working people) thriving, and a man that touts his love for America, sound like a dictator to you?
Have you housed an illegal alien family yet Snark? What about singing up to assist in Xiden/Barry’s attempt to get us into WW3? Wokeness doesn’t quite play out with joining the military and red-blooded, American males.
More like your type: green/purple hair, a bunch of facial piercings (self-mutilation), sleeved up with arm tats and face tattoos, unemployed, gamer, TDS.
Basically, unemployed sums it all up.
U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans – Foreign Policy
Thanks to The Planet!
And for telling Google and Amazon censorship sucks.
You seem to like google
You seem to love CNN.
Communist News Network
FREE! Duck Duck Go.
No spying and censorship like Google
RE: Dan Casey Drive. The Commissioner states that the City is trying to provide an acceptable remediation plan to the State. It looks siimple to me the road is collapsed into the causeway. The culverts are deprecated. Fix replace culvert to Mass DOT standard and then restore the road.
I don’t buy that there is a challenge in getting the state to sign off. I suggest D Miraglia press on with what was actually presented to the State.
Here’s the rub: when a system degrades, the rate of degradation accelerates as it’s components fail. Therefore, the road is now degrading twice the rate.
We can always narrow the road and paint bike lanes. That always increases safety by a factor of five.
And put a rotary at both ends
Maybe Churchill St residents are ‘out of favor.’
Don’t forget the plungers. The causeway needs plungers.
They should just fill in the smaller section of the lake and build the new Waconah Park on it. Facing east. And the kids who get free camp tickets can swim and fish during the game and not annoy the other 16 people who came to watch baseball. They can use a pontoon boat for the grandstands because the crowds hardly ever exceed 30 people.
I am doing this consultation free to the city as my way of giving back but this is the last time.
Leave parking spaces for fishermen.
There are no fish at the causeway
The last one was caught in August 2019.
Dan,
Thank you for this sounding board, and for telling it like it is.
Ditto! Aside. Grandma can’t afford her blood thinner’s 500 a month. She has to take a generic brand made of rat poison? Any suggestions.
Donald Trump suggests using bleach to cure covid and perhaps that might thin blood as well? Never know unless ya try it.
Still repeating MSM fake news from 2020 Snarky.
You don’t have a clue!
Caitlin Clark travels before she shoots.
April 3, 2024
Hello blogger Dan Valenti,
The city government has a FREE CASH Slush Fund of $8.1 million, and the Marchetti administration plans to use up to $2.5 million to reduce the tax rate in his May 14, 2024, municipal budget proposal. That leaves $5.6 million in FREE CASH in fiscal year 2025 (July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025). The city’s FREE CASH is a financial shell game the city administration has to play with the inequitable state government in Boston, which will underfund local aid by millions of dollars in fiscal year 2025.
Going back over 40 years since the misguided Proposition 2.5 state law went into effect, Pittsfield politics always increases municipal spending by at least 5 percent per fiscal year. The Eagle stated: “City expenses are climbing faster than city revenues.” The automatic 5% city spending increase plus contractual budget obligations compounded by a marginal increase in state aid will add another 5% spending increase on top of the benchmark 5% spending increase. My prediction is that Pittsfield politics will increase its annual operating budget spending by close to 10 percent in less than 3 months time.
Jon Melle
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“Pittsfield Mayor Marchetti says his budget will bring cuts, but still can’t fend off tax increases”
Meg Britton-Mehlisch, The Berkshire Eagle, April 3, 2024
PITTSFIELD — Mayor Peter Marchetti said his goal in creating his first city budget was to maintain Pittsfield’s current level of services and resources for residents. After running the numbers, Marchetti doesn’t think that will be possible.
Marchetti and Finance Director Matt Kerwood laid out the state of city finances at the annual joint meeting of the City Council and Pittsfield Public School Committee on Tuesday. The coming fiscal year brings increasing health insurance costs, retirement contributions, debt payments and negotiated wage increases as well as smaller than anticipated increases in state aid.
Along with a difficult financial picture, the mayor is facing a council that has petitioned the administration to present a “budget that is close to level funding, knowing that contracts need to be filled.”
The mayor told the council that while he finds the kinds of cuts to city services required to achieve a level-funded budget — one that freezes the money departments have at their current amounts — unacceptable, he can’t make the numbers work on a budget that maintains city services either.
The mayor said he plans to present his budget to the council on May 14, 2024.
“I think we’re going to meet somewhere in the middle,” Marchetti told the council, “because the budget you’re going to receive from this administration won’t be level-service funded because we can’t get there.”
In short: cuts are coming.
That doesn’t mean that residents will see a decrease in their tax bills when the fiscal year 2025 starts on July 1, 2024, though. The mayor said in the most restrictive scenario — that of a level-funded budget — the city would have to come up with about $11.2 million in cuts to city services and the administration would still have to ask the council to approve a tax increase.
That’s because of a squeeze the city is feeling from some budget drivers. Kerwood told city leaders the city is anticipating a 5.2 percent increase in health insurance costs, a 5.4 percent increase in retirement contributions, a 9 percent increase in debt payments and a $3 million increase in city and school employee wages and overtime.
City expenses are climbing faster than city revenues.
In the preliminary look provided by Kerwood at city revenues for fiscal year 2025, state aid is estimated to come in at about $73.7 million — about $519,000 over the current fiscal year. That’s a much smaller increase than the prior two years in which state aid increased by about $6.9 million and $5.5 million in FY 2024 and FY 2023, respectively.
Kerwood believes the local receipts the city collects from things like motor vehicle excise and hotel and meals tax will total just under $13.9 million — about $390,000 over the current year.
The finance director said the administration is also willing to use up to $2.5 million of the city’s $8.1 million in free cash to reduce the tax rate if called upon to do so.
One of the final pieces of the revenue picture is the tax levy. Kerwood said the city anticipates raising $115.2 million in property taxes. That would be a $6 million — or 5.53 percent — increase over the taxes collected by the city this year.
Councilors said that as much as they’d like to avoid it they know rising tax bills are coming. Councilor Kathy Amuso, who authored the petition for a “close to level funded” budget said her goal this budget cycle wasn’t to “dismantle departments” with budget cuts but find a path toward more modest increases in tax bills.
“My expectation is that my tax bill — whenever I open it, whenever it comes in January — isn’t going to be reduced,” Amuso said. “But I want to just be prudent and look at the budget.”
Councilor Patrick Kavey called on the mayor to give special consideration to maintaining staffing in the city’s highway department — which the council expanded in recent years — to avoid having city residents foot the bill for paying contractors to do the same road work at a higher rate later on. He also asked that the building inspector’s office be shielded from any cuts as one of the revenue generating offices in the city.
Council Vice President Earl Persip gave his support to putting funds toward programs or supports that result in greater efficiencies in city business. Marchetti said he’s still committed to hiring the Edward J. Collins Jr. Center for Public Management at the University of Massachusetts-Boston to conduct efficiency studies of city departments — though that work may not happen until the coming fall.
The mayor said that when the budget is presented in a month’s time, he expects the council to carry the weight of making a palatable budget for the city alongside him.
“When you guys receive the budget, if your priorities don’t align with mine it’s when you guys get out the red pen and we’ll abide by the reductions that you guys want to make,” the mayor said. “I think I said early on that there’s not necessarily going to be blood on these hands alone — if we need to make drastic cuts, we’re going to share them together.”
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“I think I said early on that there’s not necessarily going to be blood on these hands alone — if we need to make drastic cuts, we’re going to share them together.”
So the guiding vision in Pittsfield right now is to NOT make Marchetti look bad. Just imagine what they’ll accomplish.
And talk about drama!
“out, damned spot!”
– Lady Macbeth
Yeah, just fire Spot.
USA TODAY
One of the biggest ballot items in the Missouri general municipal election is the Jackson County stadium sales tax.
The voters voted no on Jackson County Question 1, according to the Kansas City Star and multiple local television stations.
Jackson County residents rejected a 3/8th-cent sales tax for Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas City Royals stadium projects as polls closed Tuesday at 7 p.m. local time. The increased sales tax would’ve helped fund a new downtown Kansas City ballpark for the Royals, and renovations to GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium for the Chiefs.
GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, the home site of the Chiefs, is the third oldest active NFL stadium. It opened Aug. 12, 1972, and has been renovated multiple times.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2024/04/02/kansas-city-chiefs-royals-lose-jackson-county-stadium-measure/73186530007/
Some cities actually allow citizen input before using public funds for private business ventures. Others, ramrod it down their throats and never allow referendums or citizen voting to decide major expenditures. Can you think of any?
Dan. Thank you for running this blog where the overburdened Kapanski’s have a place to vent their frustrations at the idiocy of their government. It also allows the Kapanski’s to see how brainwashed, delusional or high on grass that some are in this area that we live. I am surprised you informed the board how google, amazon and the rest of high tech worked to get illegitimate elected by controlling what was presented. Yet some on here can not see how the media has been hijacked since the 60’s. Well I hope all stay safe during this April storm off to work for the corrupt government taxmoney
Thank you, SHIRL.
Not sure if the media has been hijacked or they are an integral part of it.
Note to the Mayor, we have the 2nd highest Commercial tax rate in the State. Also have the highest residential tax rate in the County. Those are facts. You trying to spin it, using what people pay is disingenuous. The homes in Pittsfield are cheaper than most in the County. That doesn’t change the facts.
Look at what is happening to J.K. Rowling in Scotland. Scotland just passed a Hate Bill on April 1st saying that anyone speaking out against a whole list of people can be jailed for 7 years. Transgenders were included on that list and J.K. Rowling emailed that biological male prisoners claiming to be Transgender just prior to being sentenced for horrific crimes aren’t women at all, but men, every last one of them. Many in Scotland wanted her to be jailed, but the police refused to do it saying what she said wasn’t a crime. The far left and globalists are so upset and are saying that J.K. Rowling wasn’t put in jail because she is rich. They have an answer for everything to destroy free speech.
Dan, thanks for getting rid of the ads and for providing a relatively free forum. However, equating your own stance on issues with ‘neutral’ is disingenuous: by doing that you fall into the same morass that you so strongly criticize. Any objective analysis would place most of your positions as right, if not far right, and your protestations to the contrary are further evidence of that bias. Defining your own positions as ‘neutral’ and ‘common sense’ is an error that is the epitome of bias, as any objective reader can easily see. Your writing is eloquent and the service you provide is valuable, but don’t kid yourself into thinking that you are neutral and others must use your positions as benchmark reference points.
NAT
Thanks for the eloquent critique. I should only direction to what I actually said, not what you think I said. I begin examinations–begin–at neutral and apply common sense (and logic) to an analysis. Where I end up? Depends on where I find truth. Most of the time, the destination is to the right of center line. Why? Because that’s where one find a greater degree of truth. Most of the time. Not always. For example, on the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. Again, thanks for the push back. It earns my respect.
Philistines. You mean to say the Israeli genocide against Philistia that came to a head when G-d gave David a rock.
There was also the Babylonian genocide against the Israelites, the Roman genocide and many Syrian and Greek genocides.
On December 6, 2017, President Trump formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and stated that the American embassy would be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
This did not help matters any.
Where are the air quality and climate clowns? Churchill cutting down trees for developments,and where does the sewage go to? Also,it is very dangerous to walk on Churchill.
The other is the stench of cannibus. The neighbors in the ward are ok with that? I’m certain the people in the city aren’t.
I disagree. The liberals have tried to destroy the words “common sense” by saying it’s just your bias speaking. I think there are universal truths we can all agree on and that is the balance we are trying to find. Trying to keep everything unchallenged is what we are fighting now with the far left and the globalists. ANY speech that challenges their views means you aren’t being objective and can’t be believed. These are mind games they play all the time.
Well said, PAT.
“The liberals have tried to destroy the words “common sense” by saying it’s just your bias speaking”
I tie the war against Common Sense to the deconstruction/skeptic school that culminated in the mid 1990’s. The mantra was: Common Sense is just one way to understand reality. They then qualify it by saying, “if you cannot prove a CS tenet, it is not real.” The course of study convinces the young mind that nothing can be proved, thus nothing is ‘real.’
You can extrapolate the absurdity to today.
I am constantly amazed at the difference between intellegence and common sense.
Yeah these intelligentsia, decent vocabulary mind you, all claim as their intellectual roots Nazi propagandists and their students and unchallenged social workers from the 70’s. Sixties kids.
“right, if not far right”
I quipped that I was about as far Left as I could get on the Pittsfield City Council. Almost no one got it, none on the Council for certain – evidence to how terribly ingrained this bad metaphor has rooted itself.
Once again, I dispute the terminology which is atavistic and completely out of context to be of any use. Left and Right are not free for use in American culture. “Left” and “Right” describe European conflicts, originating with the Jacobin period of France (where apparently pols choose their seats) which evolved into the military conflicts between fascists and communists, who were by and large fighting for the same thing: Power. There were plenty more Europeans who did not participate in either – left and right may not apply to the average man.*
The ‘Left’ wing persists uninterrupted and perfectly preserved in the USA as agents of the Soviet Union (now called Russian Federation), China, and their many surrogates. There is however no ‘Right Wing.’ What is referred to as RW is the aggregate of classic liberals, classical thinkers (Romantic, Scottish traditions), neo-con weirdos, and everyone else who is not accepted by the communist oriented Left.
If you would really want to dissect American political differentiation, I hypothesize that you would need to examine in detail the structure and strategies of the two political parties since it is they who put on the show. I think, if you were to do so, you would find the two misplaced terms to be insufficient.
*Tangent: This raises a future question of what one does to be pigeo-holed. Today, staying free is impossible. Keeping your head down and keeping quiet (just stick to health and weather) is no guarantee. Write a letter to the editor? object to or support a municipal appropriation? Vote at the ballot box to alert the pigeon-holers? Think a dirty thought? Donate to a bad cause? Wrong friends? Or, gasp, LANGUAGE! watch your language! I am afraid that not on the list is strictly what you do. I suggest you review the oft-repeated speech by Guido Calabresi: https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/commence/24/
If you were to give a questionnaire to a large group of USA individuals asking them to rate 1-10 how they feel on major issues – such as immigration, taxation, abortion, government control, welfare, food stamps, police authority and free schooling – you would find the results yield two large groups of individuals, with some in the middle. It doesn’t matter how you label the groups – right/left, gop/dem, conservative/progressive or eggs/bananas – what matters is that the USA electorate naturally by-and-large cleaves into those two groups. Talking about those two groups using whatever label is a truthful and useful heuristic.
Maybe. But how can it be heuristic if the individuals reject the label and distinction? Most people have a variety of opinions on individual questions. Abortion: co.minists believe abortion is an absolute right, even a virtue that has no boundaries. Many others oppose at varying points of gestation, many have zero acceptance. There is no effective cleaving.
It is not heuristic – it shuts down any appetite to explore further the question of political thought and trends.
Poor choice of words.
I can’t believe what Biden and those woke Democrats are trying to get away with. If it wasn’t bad enough to proclaim trans awareness day on our Sacred Easter Sunday, next year they are celebrating it on April 20th, 4/20/25. Everyone knows that is Hitlers birthday. I can’t believe the shameful display of downright evilness of those libs. It’s also national pot day so I’m sure they will all be token up their reefer pipes. I’m sure President Trump will change the date of Easter. He is after all the Most Christian man of Faith. MAGA24. Now I have to tend to my flock of sheep, they keep me feeling warm and fuzzy.
Do you make the sheep cum? Baaaaaaa.
Ugh. Polyamory.
Michael Avenatti posted on twitter or “X”, ” We can’t be hypocrites when it comes to the 1st Amendment. It’s outrageous that Cohen and Daniels can do countless TV interviews, post on social, and make $$ on bogus documentaries – all by talking s*** about Trump – but he is gagged and threatened with jail if he responds
90 daze are up. Get busy Dan. Start by mentioning Ricky kneeling next to mayor Maypo whispering in his ear. Or the bobble head nodding with the school superintendent and the architects at city council meeting.
Or maybe the silly laughter by council members as the council members continue to make silly of the traffic situation on west street which by the way is not going to be fixed anytime soon, as students have to rush to class at B C C daily. Check out Thursday and Friday night workers rushing home up west street or south street speedway daily.
HUNCH
You have fathomed out the Weekend column!
You should watch the Georgia hearing on Atty Clark. They wrecked a good man for a ‘dirty thought’.