@#14 ... So, as far as natural disasters go, Trump's cut both ends that keep America safe and help them to recover after natural disasters. ...

Yup.

And America may not suffer the consequence of those cuts this year, or maybe even next year.

But it is the long-term consequence of Pres Trump's policies that concern me.

The dumbing down of America.

An intentional retreat from American Excellence.

@#30 ... Based on audience reach among weekly listeners ages 13 and up, ...

What is the definition of "audiene reach?"

OK, from the cited article ...

... Compiled from more than 5,000 ongoing interviews conducted in English and Spanish, Edison Podcast Metrics measures actual weekly listening behavior across all platforms based on reach, as opposed to downloads. ...

Is that "listening behavior" reflective of those who listened to the entire podcast, or just started to listen and punted?

I ask because youtube shows me how long folk have stayed to listen to each individual video that I post on youtube.

... In the top 30, I have only ever heard of half of them ...

So, your current alias actually admits it is out of touch with the podcast environment?

Good to know.

&nsp

@#1 ... Warren Loeppky has been a pediatric dentist in the Canadian city of Calgary for 20 years. Over the last decade, he says, tooth decay in children he's seen has become more common, more aggressive and more severe. Many of his young patients have so much damage that he has to work with them under general anesthesia.

"It's always sad seeing a young child in pain," Loeppky says. ...

Yes, it is sad to see that.

And especially for an unnecessary reason.

This just popped up on a playlist here ...

@#22 ... I'm from the "Second Amendment crowd." I have no clue what the Second Amendment has to do with an article about invoking a Congressional, not Presidential, power. Talk to me. ...

My view ...

It is not about the Second Amendment per se.

It is about the objections raised when some folk think their Second Amendment rights have been violated.

Yet, those folk (and, to be specific, I am not saying you) seem to be strangely quiet when Pres Trump says, ~I don't know~ when asked if he should support the Constitution.

@#21 ... Be vewwwy, vewwwy quiet. ...

Elmer Fudd reference.

Brings back memories.

The one thing I have not yet seen from Pres Trump is a rational explanation of how his political polices relate to the education of American students.

As I have seen so far is along the lines of, ~do what I tell you to do.~

More from the poll ...

... More than half of Americans, 56%, disapprove of the Republican president's approach on higher education, the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds, while about 4 in 10 approve, in line with his overall job approval.

Since taking office in January, Trump has tried to force change at universities he says have become hotbeds of liberalism and antisemitism.

The spotlight most recently has been on Harvard University, where Trump's administration has frozen more than $2.2 billion in federal grants, threatened to strip the school's tax-exempt status, and demanded broad policy changes. ...

@#27 ... Again, I already informed you of why using downloads is useless metric and a poor measure of popularity and influence. ...

Yeah, your current alias stated that opinion.

And I did not buy it, I even countered it.

So, what else it got?

Besides stating again and again the same unsubstantiated phlegm?

OK, let me ask the same question from a different viewpoint ...

As Mr Rogan tries to sell his show to advertisers, will he point to the comments of your current alias that it posts here?

Or might he (and, more importantly, his advertisers) be more concerned about the numbers in, say, my #26 comment?

More from the article ...

... News of the IRS's plan came from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a House Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday to discuss the Treasury's budget proposal. (The IRS is a subsidiary of the Treasury.) When asked by Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD) whether proposed reductions in the IRS's IT budget, along with plans to cut additional staff, would affect the agencies ability to collect tax revenue, Bessent said it wouldn't, thanks to the current "AI boom."

"I believe through smarter IT, through this AI boom, that we can use that to enhance collections," Bessent told Hoyer and the Committee (24:29 into the video linked above). "I expect collections would continue to be very robust as they were this year."

Bessent's comments didn't explain how the IRS intends to deploy AI. Given how much it has slashed its enforcement staff since Trump took office, the agency definitely needs to do something.

The Treasury Inspector General's office issued a report last week on IRS workforce reductions as of March indicating that more than 11,000 IRS employees (approximately 11 percent of the Service's workforce) had been terminated since Trump's Office of Personnel Management began directing government agencies to cut jobs.

Revenue agents, whose job it is to audit tax returns for accuracy, made up the bulk of those fired.

Those cuts affected 31 percent of the IRS's revenue agent workforce. Revenue officers, who are responsible for collecting delinquent taxes, were the second-most slashed position, with 18 percent of collections officials at the IRS fired during the layoffs. ...

@#24 ... About this podcast? - YES ...

No, not about this particular podcast.

But more to the point that your current alias seems to be out of touch with the current podcasts and their relative popularity.

@#19 ... Not a peep from the 2nd amendment crowd. ...

An interesting observation.

Why the silence?

@#3 ... Democrats suck. ...

Yeah, I was surprised as well about the support he got from the Democrats.

Their support seemed to be more of, well, he's not done anything that detracts, instead of, what does he have to qualify?

OK, the two Senators for my state voted "nay" so I'm not gonna need to send emails to their offices.

@#8 ... HE BROKE ....THE LAW, ...

Now do Pres Trump.

Or the J6 rioters who assaulted the police officers, among other offenses.

OK, I went into my search engine of choice to look for a text-based version of Sec Noem's responses to the questions Sen Murphy posed.

I came up with nothing.

Her X account seemed to be strangely quiet.

Quite odd for a Trump admin senior official.

I'd proffer that these occurrences may happen when a TV reality star, with no apparent experience in transportation, is named as the Sec of Transportation for the Country.

More from the article ...

... ABC News reported that air traffic controllers were heard telling FedEx aircraft employees that their screens went blank and for the pilots to ask their companies to use its influence to get the screen issue fixed.

In a separate situation, a controller told a private jet on arrival to stay at or above 3,000 feet because of the radar outage in case the controllers couldn't make contact as the plane prepared to land.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported Friday that "there was a telecommunications outage that impacted communications and radar display at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport airspace," and that "the outage occurred around 3:55 a.m. on Friday ... and lasted approximately 90 seconds." ...

@#22 ... Further on the Meidastouch as this is truly the first time I ever heard of them ...

So, your current alias admits it is clueless about the podcast arena it seems to tout?

Why might that be?

... who argue in their complaint that President Trump's efforts to "radically restructure and dismantle the federal government" without any authorization from Congress violate the Constitution. ...

The Constitution that Pres Trump has sworn twice to uphold.

Yet, when asked ...

@#13 ... Steve Vladeck carefully explains all the ways Miller is an idiot. ...

Thx for that link.

Most informative.

@#20 ... And "stupider" than the BellRinger alias? Yeah, that's gotta take some work. :) ...

OK, after i saw that posted, I took a step back.

Yeah, I do remember actually having a couple quite intelligent discussions with the BellRinger current alias, ones in which there were an exchange of ideas and comments and counter-comments.

A couple, though. Not many, a couple.

So, my opinion is that the person behind that current alias is capable of a good discussion.

My question then becomes ... why does that person seem to actively to avoid such discussions, and apparently prefer trolling?

@#18 ... ScottS seems to be the angrier, stupider version. ...

I do not disagree.

And "stupider" than the BellRinger alias? Yeah, that's gotta take some work. :)

Maybe trying harder to get those replies it seems to crave?