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I love Todd, and even saw him in concert a month ago in Louisville. He sounded better than ever, performing songs from throughout his long career, and his band was excellent. The crowd was mostly older people, but with a sizable number of younger folks, and even black folks, in attendance.

But I disagree with the gist of his comments here about Taylor Swife. While I'm no big fan, I hardly think she ruined music. I even like a couple of her songs. She's just a continuation of the "teenybopper" tradition that has always been present in pop music. Anybody remember Neil Sedaka? The Osmonds? Hell, I even love a couple of Madonna songs. I'd be interested in getting into a deeper conversation with Todd about this, because I have a feeling he's not as hostile about Taylor as he might sound here. Taylor's just the obvious target.

There's no question that music fans have largely moved away from what we know as rock 'n' roll, or the big tent that included rock 'n' roll, but it's complicated. Tastes change. Technology changes. The growing role of gaming, movies and streaming cannot be denied.

This evolution away from rock as the driving force behind popular music has been happening since the early to mid-1970s, when listeners discovered FM radio and the Top 40 AM stations lost their position as the primary testing ground for new hitmakers. FM's higher-quality stereophonic signal opened the floodgates to a wide range of musical styles, and it was great in the beginning as deejays threw everything against the wall. That killed off AM, and even FM was soon being divided up into narrow musical niches by the suits at the big broadcast conglomerates. Many one-time freeform stations became boring AOR stations playing the same 100 arena rock songs released between the late 1960s and the early 1980s. Other than public radio and community radio, the airwaves gradually became mostly a vast wasteland. And with satellite radio and streaming services at one's fingertips, I doubt radio will ever return to its glory days.

One thing I will say emphatically is that there is no shortage of creative, engaging rock music (and soul and funk and folk and country) to be found today. The musical choices are every bit as beguiling as what we love and remember from our youth (pick your favorite decade); you just have to dig a little deeper and keep your mind open. My Spotify playlist for 2026 favorites is up to around 160 songs so far, mostly artists who aren't well known, in every genre you can think of. Don't give up, and don't worry about what Todd says! :)

I have been wrong before but I still have faith in the American People to, after trying every else, they will finally vote to do the right thing. As for them refusing to accept the results of the mid term elections or refusing to seat the elected representatives. I hope they do. That would be a perfect storm.
But, we'll see.

#28 | Posted by donnerboy

I am sorry Donner but you are wrong soo so wrong. Americans for the past 46 years have chosen poorly time and time again. the fact we have lasted this long is due to the underlying strength of our country following WW2, of the inherent strength of a multi-cultural democracy

But that is over, we are dying as a country because the regressive conservative movement has been allowed to fester for too long. they have spent decades preparing for this moment and their revolution is nearly complete. We are one significant tragedy away from the complete overthrow of democracy and the institution of a monarchal style leadership.

People don't understand that these people, fundamentally, do not believe in equality, do not believe in democracy, they are supremacists. they believe, to their core, that the common man should be ruled by an elite, that democracy is anathema to the human condition.

They have spent decades preparing the ground for this moment when all of the progress of the past 175 years can be thrown out. This is what they want. The majority of these magat scum are ignorant immoral ----- lead by evil oligarchs.

And the countervailing forces are too weak to do anything about it. We should have been demanding Piggys impeachment, we should have had general strikes across the land for weeks on end. We should be resisting these fascists.

Instead, we get No Kings koombayahs Yay us!

That'll show em

VOTE HARDER!!

THAT"ll show em

Meanwhile they have made Piggy a king and expect him to relinquish power.

Americans are morally bankrupt

And we deserve to suffer

More from the article ...

... Testing 21 cars from 19 different brands revealed patterns of traffic to advertisers and trackers, as well as data shared with Big Tech firms like Microsoft and Adobe. And using a car's companion app can multiply the problem, their testing found.

In 2023, the Mozilla Foundation published a widely covered report looking at the privacy policies of more than two dozen automakers. They were appalled, writing that "cars are the worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy." But that analysis was conducted by sitting down and reading all the various privacy policies of each brand; today's study involved measuring traffic from actual cars under a number of scenarios, including idling and being driven.

The researchers even parked 11 cars -- just the electric ones -- in a Faraday tent to see if the loss of a cellular signal would push that traffic to the car's Wi-Fi connection instead.

Attempts to actually see what was in the data packets using modified certificates failed in every case. But "the network traces still yielded valuable information, including the domains contacted via DNS traffic, Server Name Indication (SNI) in TLS handshakes, the volume and timing of transmissions, and differences in behavior across experimental scenarios," they found.

All of the cars contacted a first-party domain (i.e., the OEM) -- after all, all the cars tested were connected cars and that means connecting to something. And a few left it there -- the Buick Envista and Mercedes-Benz EQS didn't appear to reach out to anywhere else, for example.

Others were far more promiscuous, with Tesla topping the chart: The Model 3 contacted 34 advertising, tracking, and analytic domains, as well as 37 domains from apps integrated into the infotainment system.

Alphabet's domains were the most frequently contacted -- again not enormously surprising given the penetration of its Android Automotive OS into the sector. "But many of the [second-level domains] we observed were not necessary for core services (e.g., doubleclick.net and googlesyndication.com, which are used for advertising purposes)," the authors wrote. Media streaming -- Spotify, Sirius XM, and so on -- is well represented, as are mapping companies like HERE, TomTom, and Mapbox. ...


But there is a law and Trumpy violated it. And every government employee who works in these campaign ads violated those laws.
And I'm not ignoring the threat of pardons. I say indict them anyway and MAKE him pardon them. Holding Trumpy and his co-conspirators accountable is for another Congress. Not this one.
No, donner, we are well and truly ------
I get it. It feels hopeless sometimes. Because we are in the middle of HISTORY and hard to see how this will end. And using history as a guide it won't end well for the fascists.
I have been in battles before when it feels like I am losing the fight and the thing is ... sometimes it does feel like you are losing because you cannot tell from where you are. And you WILL lose if you give up things when the going gets tough. Then you push thru and win. Because you didn't give up. So don't give up. Our Democracy WILL prevail over fascism in the end. It just won't prevail as fast or like we wish it would.
Don't let them decide what America will be.
Anyway the fight has barely begun (Dems currently have no power) so don't give up now! The midterms are here and accountability IS coming. I expect it to be at least a bit painful for the Americans who participated in and supported the Great American FAFO. It will be painful for all of us to watch.

#22 | Posted by donnerboy

Couple of nitpicks

I don't believe Piggy can violate a law related to his core duties. Absolute immunity is, effectively, that condition

You say indict anyway. Who exactly will indict? Certainly not Piggy's DOJ. So, we are talking 2027, at the earliest. So, effectively immune

Fascists haven't always lost, plenty of nations today have fascist governments (Russia, Turkey, Iran, ---- even China) so to say that it won't end well for them is naive

Honestly it is hard to give 2 ----s when my vote has counted exactly nothing in federal elections since 1984 when I voted for the first time. to say nothing of the fact that democrats are more and more not representing my interests or desires for this country.

I think you are way to naive about accountability AND about the willingness of republicans to cheat and steal and dems lack of capacity to challenge them effectively

I am more and more hoping and praying for a depression. Maybe, just possibly, that will cure Americans of their ignorance and venality

No there isn't

The president is immune
That's beside the point. The Presidents so called "immunity" does not negate the law.
The president may be immune ATM (a discussion for another thread) but none of the government employees who worked on this are immune from being prosecuted for violating the Hatch Act.
So yes there is a law. It's called the Hatch Act.
There are also appropriation laws.
"No part of any appropriation contained in this Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by the Congress."
The GAO Legal Principles (that interpret this law) classify prohibited government media into three distinct types: self-aggrandizement (puffery), purely partisan material, and covert propaganda.
Under the current Congress accountability is not here. But accountability is coming.

#16 | Posted by donnerboy

I'm sorry donnerboy but you are wrong.

We can have a discussion on the immunity decision, but since it is a SC decision it will (most likely) take an amendment to overturn.

You seem to ignore the pardon power

You seem to ignore a DoJ that is no longer apolitical

There is little incentive to investigate let alone prosecute people in this circumstance.

the president CAN withhold spending. The act of spending (not appropriating) is a core function. President cannot break the law regarding impoundment.

People don't understand that fact

Even without a political DoJ what incentive do they have to pursue any crime committed by the Executive?

If even if the dems overcome the longshot and take either the house or the senate, in what world do you envision the Piggy white house to work with them? They will ignore all subpeonas, they will refuse to testify, Piggy will drag it out and pardon anyone even threatened with prosecution.

No, donner, we are well and truly ------

We no longer live in a representative democracy, we live in a dictatorship

People need to understand something very very basic

Our system of governance is no longer what it was

It was a system based on the rule of law with numerous unspoken agreements on what people should and should not do.

That is no longer the case

Prior to the trump SC decision there was at least the concept that a president could be held accountable, thus restraining his actions a little bit

Shame, if nothing else, would prevent the worst of the abuses

That simply no longer applies.

Our SC in all its infinite wisdom said a president cannot break the law

Yes, yes, supposedly limited to core functions.

But in reality, core functions means whatever the ---- the president wants it to mean

Well Mr. Truthhurts sir, you say, his co-conspirators would never, ever break the law because THEY would be held accountable

And I shake my head and say oh, naive sweet summer child. There is a thing called pardon.

We, in our infinite wisdom (or is it folly) gave the president unquestionable pardon power

So, think about it, pardon power-core presidential power.

He can pardon whoever he wants for whatever reason he wants including accepting obvious quid pro quo bribes for pardons

He has done that, repeatedly

He has blanket pardon THOUSANDS of criminals who committed the worst crimes our democracy could suffer-insurrection

There is little doubt this man will pardon more thousands on his way out the door preventing thousands more from receiving justice

These are the facts of a nation no longer ruled by law but by the whims of one person

So, when people say that is illegal, they naively miss the point

When the president does it, it isn't illegal

Not by him or anyone he will pardon

This is what the SC has created.

It is literally the opposite of what we fought our revolution over

So, once again, I must sincerely, from the bottom of my heart thank magat scum for what you have done to this country that I love(d)

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