A billionaire cofounder of Home Depot who said “nobody works” has donated nearly $64 million to political causes over the years, including the campaigns of former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Sen. John McCain, according to data from the Federal Election Commission.
In an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday, 93-year-old Bernie Marcus said “nobody works, nobody gives a damn,” blaming the change on “socialism.”
“‘Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid,'” he said, adding that he thinks if he founded Home Depot today it may not have been as successful.
Category: Culture
48 years, 47 days
by Owen | 0632, 20 Dec 22 | Culture | 0 Comments
My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. It’s a bit personal this time, but ’tis the season.
48 years and 47 days. That is how long my father had lived when he died: 48 years and 47 days. I surpassed that age last week.
My dad died when I was 16. He missed me graduating from his alma mater. He missed me marrying the woman who would complete my soul. He missed the birth of our children and their children. He missed it all, but he was always there on my mind. He was always watching and guiding. At least, I have always sought counsel from his memory in good times and bad.
Like many sons, I suppose, he was my hero — even if I understand now that every hero has weaknesses. Through my hormone-confused teenage boy brain, my dad was everything a man should be. Honest. Strong. Smart. Loving. Generous. Brave. Adventurous. Fun. Funny. He was not afraid to love without compromise even as his belt occasionally had to keep his two headstrong sons in line.
I was just beginning to learn what it meant to be a man when my education was truncated. I’ve clung to those memories, or fragments of memories, muddled by time, for guidance as I have tried to be the man, husband, father, and grandfather, that I want to be … that I should be.
There are lessons, small and large, that I picked up from Dad that I try to follow. I always use my middle initial in professional communications because it, “looks more professional.” Perhaps that’s an anachronism now, but it is my lifelong homage to a man who went by his middle name.
On more than one occasion, I remember my father reminding my brother and I that, “I chose your mom. I didn’t choose you.” We never had any doubt about where we stood in the family hierarchy. I didn’t really come to appreciate that thought until many years later, but now I understand. Their marriage and love for each other was the foundation upon which our family was built. Without it, everything else is weaker and suffers. Being a good husband makes me a better father.
My dad was respectful to everyone. Growing up, his family had little. My grandparents worked hard and rose from relative poverty, through the middle class, to something on the upper rungs of the middle class by retirement. After eight years in the Army after college, my dad moved us to Saudi Arabia in 1976 where my dad was a junior civil engineer. He worked hard to rise to someone of modest importance, and he had a degree of wealth. After returning to the States in 1986, my dad tried, and failed, at entrepreneurship and we sunk into the upper rungs of the lower class.
Through all of that, I watched my dad work and play with everyone from Saudi princes to rough-knuckle workers at construction sites. He treated them with the same respect and generosity. He was as comfortable in a room of blue-bloods as he was playing gin with the semi-literate old man who changed oil at his little used car lot. I have a vivid memory of driving somewhere in an old Chevy pickup that he had for a while, and I made some smart-aleck comment about a worker picking up garbage on the road. He pulled the car over and said, with a blistering fury in his voice that melted my teenage hubris, “Son, that man is earning an honest living.”
It is from my dad that I inherited my incurable wanderlust. He traveled the world and grew irritable in routine. I remember him jokingly remarking once that, “If they don’t take American Express, you don’t need to go there.” Surely that was a tongue-in-cheek remark from a man who saw more of the world than most and loved to venture off the beaten path. He also once remarked that, “You can’t see a place from the hotel.”
Perhaps the most pervasive memory I have of my dad is just that he was there. Sons need dads. I sure needed mine. As I pushed my boundaries and tried to figure out the world, I could always rely on the man downstairs to help me understand. He was the rock to which I clung when the storm was too strong. He was always there. Until he wasn’t.
Everything my dad ever did, thought, experienced, felt, and learned happened within 48 years and 47 days. That’s it. That’s all the time he had. I’m walking down a path that my dad never trod. My imagined guide is no longer visible. I’ve passed him by.
God willing, I will grow old with my wife. I will try to say and do the things that I want my kids and grandkids to remember. Perhaps (almost certainly) I will say and do a few things that I’d rather they forget. I will be fearless about living. I will feel my body and mind wither and know that old age is a privilege.
Time is our most valuable resource, and it is ferociously finite. Especially this Christmas season, spend your precious time on the people you love, and the ones who love you. One of the greatest gifts we can give is a few of the irreplaceable moments we have on this earth. Those moments will shape someone else’s future. Give wisely. Give generously.
Homelessness Because of Lack of Housing?
by Owen | 1619, 18 Dec 22 | Culture, Politics | 1 Comment
As with all big issues, there are several interlocking causes, but this is certainly one of them.
The reasons often offered include a moderate climate, the availability of generous welfare benefits, mental health and drug abuse. However, a lengthy and meticulously sourced article in the current issue of Atlantic magazine demolishes all of those supposed causes.
Rather, the article argues persuasively, California and other left-leaning states tend to have the nation’s most egregious levels of homelessness because they have made it extraordinarily difficult to build enough housing to meet demands.
Author Jerusalem Demsas contends that the progressive politics of California and other states are “largely to blame for the homelessness crisis: A contradiction at the core of liberal ideology has precluded Democratic politicians, who run most of the cities where homelessness is most acute, from addressing the issue.
“Liberals have stated preferences that housing should be affordable, particularly for marginalized groups … But local politicians seeking to protect the interests of incumbent homeowners spawned a web of regulations, laws, and norms that has made blocking the development of new housing pitifully simple.”
Demsas singles out Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area as examples of how environmentalists, architectural preservationists, homeowner groups and left-leaning organizations joined hands to enact a thicket of difficult procedural hurdles that became “veto points” to thwart efforts to build the new housing needed in prosperous “superstar cities.”
Former Teacher Sentenced to Community Service for Injecting Minor
by Owen | 2031, 17 Dec 22 | Crime, Culture | 0 Comments
MINEOLA, N.Y. — A former Long Island high school teacher accused of injecting a teen with a COVID-19 vaccine at her home without his parents’ knowledge pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to community service and probation, avoiding a felony charge that could have sent her to prison.
Laura Parker Russo, 55, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of attempting the unauthorized practice of medicine when she appeared in a courtroom in Mineola, New York, on Friday. She also pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.
Russo was arrested at the beginning of January, and authorities accused her of giving the 17-year-old, the son of someone she knew, a vaccine dose. Newsday reported that Russo later testified in a hearing over her job that she got the dose when a pharmacist gave her expiring doses after she asked for an empty vial to use as a Christmas ornament.
Authorities said the teen later told his parents, who called police. Prosecutors had initially charged her with the unauthorized practice of profession, a felony with a penalty of up to four years in prison.
First, the sentence is too light. I’m okay with the plea to the lesser charge, but she still should spend time behind bars. This hubris where teachers take it upon themselves to make life-altering decisions about kids without the kids’ parents’ knowledge is reprehensible. It must be deterred.
Second, this applies to kids who are dealing with mental disorders, physical medical issues, depression, gender dysphoria, or anything else. Teachers and other hired professionals must never exclude parents from decisions about their children.
Leftists Remember that Free Speech is Important
by Owen | 1747, 16 Dec 22 | Culture, Politics, Technology | 7 Comments
Perhaps it took Musk actually pushing back to get Leftists to defend free speech again. Forgive me if I doubt their sincerity. They were silent when conservatives were being banned.
Stéphane Dujarric said on Friday the UN was “very disturbed” by the barring of prominent tech reporters at news organisations including CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times who have written about Musk and the tech company he owns.
Dujarric said media voices should not be silenced on a platform that professed to be a haven for freedom of speech. “The move sets a dangerous precedent at a time when journalists all over the world are facing censorship, physical threats and even worse,” he told reporters.
NYC Focuses on Mentally Ill
by Owen | 1929, 14 Dec 22 | Crime, Culture | 1 Comment
Credit where credit is due, this is the direction to go.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams late last month announced a new push to remove people with mental illness from the city’s streets, an effort he said would include hospitalizing some homeless people against their will.
Under the new city policy, law enforcement will have the power to detain any person who “appears to be mentally ill” and is deemed to pose a threat to themselves or others into custody and force them to undergo psychiatric evaluation at a local hospital.
Like many major cities in the United States, New York has dealt with a persistently high rate of homelessness in recent decades. Although the image of a person with schizophrenia talking to themselves on a street corner might sum up homelessness in the eyes of many members of the public, the relationship between homelessness and mental health is complex. Research shows that most homeless people do not have a severe mental illness, but the mentally ill are often the focus of debates around the issue because they are more visible and often raise concerns about public safety. There is also a lot of debate among experts about how many become homeless because they have psychiatric disorders versus how much the trauma of living on the streets causes or exacerbates mental illness.
I’m always wary about police power to make these kinds of determinations. It could easily be abused. But we also need to at least have a way to initiate a process to both (a) get the mentally ill off of the streets, and (b) get them the help they need. Once we do that, the majority of the remaining homeless are drug addicts, homeless by choice, or both.
Liberals Lament that Kids are Learning Leadership, Patriotism, and Civics
by Owen | 2041, 12 Dec 22 | Culture, Education, Military | 16 Comments
The New York Times seems very concerned that too many kids are learning about discipline, patriotism, leadership, civics, and financial literacy. Such lessons are dangerous to the Left’s mission.
But 50 years later, new conflicts are emerging, as parents in some cities say their children are being forced to put on military uniforms, obey a chain of command and recite patriotic declarations in classes they never wanted to take.
In Chicago, concerns raised by activists, news coverage and an inspector general’s report led the school district to backtrack this year on automatic JROTC enrollments at several high schools that serve primarily lower-income neighborhoods on the city’s South and West sides. In other places, the Times found, the practice continues, with students and parents sometimes rebuffed when they fight compulsory enrollment.
JROTC classes, which offer instruction in a wide range of topics, including leadership, civic values, weapons handling and financial literacy, have provided the military with a valuable way to interact with teenagers at a time when it is facing its most serious recruiting challenge since the end of the Vietnam War.
[…]
High school principals who have embraced the program say it motivates students who are struggling, teaches self-discipline to disruptive students and provides those who may feel isolated with a sense of camaraderie. It has found a welcome home in rural areas where the military has deep roots but also in urban centers where educators want to divert students away from drugs or violence and toward what for many can be a promising career or a college scholarship.
And military officials point to research indicating JROTC students have better attendance and graduation rates, and fewer discipline problems at school.
There are plenty of classes that are required in school that do a far worse job of teaching anything. We’d be a better society if more kids stuck with JROTC even if they never enter the military.
Giving Up on Work
by Owen | 1941, 6 Dec 22 | Culture, Economy | 11 Comments
While the U.S. labor market remains incredibly tight — with the economy adding another 263,000 jobs in November — around 7 million “prime age” men between the ages of 25 and 54 are reportedly sitting it out.
[…]
The Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank also found that 25% of prime age Americans aren’t currently working — and while some say they’re looking for jobs, but can’t find any, others are actively choosing not to join the job hunt.
[…]
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce surveyed Americans who lost their jobs during the pandemic and about a quarter said federal aid incentivized them to not actively look for work, while about half aren’t willing to take jobs that don’t offer the option of remote work. Over a third of younger respondents said they were focusing on learning new skills and prioritizing their personal growth before re-entering the labor force.
[…]
College-educated women are now participating in the labor force at the same rate they were before the pandemic, while the share of college-educated men working or actively looking for work has lessened.
We need to take a much harder stance on taxpayer support for people who won’t work. They won’t go back to work until they have to. Make them have to. I get it. Sometimes work sucks. But those of us who work should not have to pay for lazy asses to lounge around smoking dope and playing Xbox.
Government Offered to Euthanize Disabled Veteran for Complaining
by Owen | 0828, 3 Dec 22 | Culture, Foreign Affairs | 3 Comments
Wow.
A disabled veteran in Canada has slammed her government for offering to euthanize her when she grew frustrated at delays in having a wheelchair lift installed in her home.
Retired Army Corporal Christine Gauthier, a former Paralympian, testified in Parliament on Thursday that a Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) caseworker made the assisted suicide offer.
After years of frustrating delays in getting the home lift, Gauthier says the caseworker told her: ‘Madam, if you are really so desperate, we can give you medical assistance in dying now.’
Women’s Soccer Gets Unearned Windfall
by Owen | 2037, 30 Nov 22 | Culture | 14 Comments
This is not fair or equitable. I thought women wanted to be judged by merit?
The fruits of the new agreement between the U.S. men’s and women’s soccer teams is about to pay off.
Under the equal-pay agreement signed this year, the teams will split the prize money for the World Cup. That means that both teams will get $6.5 million for the men’s team advancing to the Round of 16 and will continue to split the prize money down the middle.
The terms, agreed to in May and formally signed in September, put both teams on the same payment model through 2028.
Wisconsin Deer Harvest Up 14%
by Owen | 2137, 29 Nov 22 | Culture | 0 Comments
Nice work, Wisconsin hunters!
Hunters registered 203,295 white-tailed deer during the 2022 Wisconsin nine-day gun deer season, an increase of 14% from the previous year and 8% above the five-year average, according to a preliminary report issued Tuesday by the state Department of Natural Resources.
The 2022 kill included 98,397 bucks (up 15% from 2021) and 104,898 antlerless deer (up 14%).
All four deer management regions showed higher deer registrations, with the highest year-over-year increase in the central forest (up 31%), followed by the northern forest (19%), central farmland (14%) and southern farmland (10%).
Turkey Pardon Tradition is Stupid
by Owen | 1900, 21 Nov 22 | Culture | 3 Comments
I remain adamant that this is one of our nation’s stupidest traditions. Be American… slaughter that turkey and enjoy the blessings of tryptophan while watching football.
Fresh off several weeks of celebrations for his family and political party, a jovial President Joe Biden expressed thanks on Monday as he took part in the annual White House tradition of pardoning turkeys from becoming Thanksgiving dinner.
Make government small again
by Owen | 0648, 19 Nov 22 | Culture, Politics | 0 Comments
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News this week.
As I sit writing this column, it has been five days since the election, and we still do not know the outcome of several critical races. It is unacceptable that our elections have become so sloppy and rife with opportunities for fraud that we can no longer trust that the outcomes reflect the true will of the people. Irrespective of who ends up winning, the losing side will rightfully question the results and the steady erosion of our civic society will continue apace.
In the aftermath of another contentious election, I once again find myself lamenting the emotional investment that so many of us have in the outcome. Why does the outcome of this election matter so much to so many people? Why does it matter at such a personal, emotional level? Why do we think that the outcome will have an impact on our daily lives? Why is it so easy to appreciate why people would be willing to risk ruin and cheat in order to bend elections their way?
We care so much because it does matter so much, but it shouldn’t. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were not supposed to live our lives so much under the boot of government that every election feels like we are making irrevocable life-altering decisions. If, as Henry David Thoreau said, “that government is best which governs least,” then our government is very far from being the best.
Over the decades we have allowed our government at all levels to increasingly encroach on our lives. It is the natural progression of government to grow, and it has often been done with good intentions. When there is a problem in our society, whether it be poverty, pollution, or poultry, our political leaders look to try to solve them. Solving problems, or pretending to solve problems, is how politicians garner support to further their political careers and the only tool at their disposal to solve problems is government.
From this impetus we get government programs to “solve” poverty. We get regulations, programs, and subsidies designed to reduce pollution. We get more regulations, programs, and subsidies to ensure that our Thanksgiving turkeys are safe to eat. While each regulation, program, tax, subsidy, prohibition, and mandate might be argued on its relative merits, the cumulative effect is a government that has its beak in everything we do.
The last few years revealed the raw power and brute force that we have allowed our government to accumulate. With the wave of a hand, our government locked us out of our jobs, forced unproven medicines into our veins at penalty of being excluded from society, crippled our kids’ education and development for years, and looted the next generation’s wealth. It happened while we were told that it was for our benefit and that the government was looking out for our best interests.
Underneath all of that altruism, entities used the same levers of government for ill intent. We saw regulations applied unevenly based on political favoritism. For example, leftist protests were allowed to continue unabated while churches were closed. We witnessed Governor Evers and other governors doling out COVID relief money for personal political impact instead of actual need. We will be tracking for decades the incredible amount of fraud and corruption that is taking place as the federal government prints and spends money with little or no oversight.
We have allowed our governments at all levels to be too big, too intrusive, too powerful, too coercive, and too corrosive. As long as this is the case, our elections will continue to be battles in a passionate ideological warfare where the combatants are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to win because the consequences of losing are too dire. Such warfare will continue to rend our civic society along the many seams of our polycultural society.
If we want a return to normalcy, or, at least, if we want to avoid the inevitable slide into further despotism, we must drastically push our government back to the fringes of our lives. The purpose of our government is to protect individual liberty. That’s it. Nothing more. It is not the purpose of government to manage the economy, dictate our culture, or regulate our personal lives. The longer we allow our government to stray from its purpose, the more our society will devolve into irreconcilable factions that lurch for power.
I find myself rereading General Washington’s prophetic farewell address in 1796 and anticipating our future with dread:
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”
Qatar Bans Alcohol in Indoor Stadiums for World Cup
by Owen | 1943, 18 Nov 22 | Culture, Foreign Affairs | 0 Comments
It’s certainly their prerogative, but what a jerk move to decide this at the last minute.
Soccer fans reacted with a mix of anger and resignation to Qatar’s ban on alcohol inside World Cup stadiums.
Alcohol is prohibited inside stadiums during the 2022 World Cup, FIFA announced Friday. The last-minute U-turn came just two days before the tournament is set to begin.
The World Cup is the first to be held in a conservative Muslim country with strict controls on alcohol, the consumption of which is banned in public, and the reversal has raised questions among some supporters about the host country’s ability to deliver on promises to fans.
Make government small again
by Owen | 0740, 15 Nov 22 | Culture, Politics | 1 Comment
My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:
As I sit writing this column, it has been five days since the election, and we still do not know the outcome of several critical races. It is unacceptable that our elections have become so sloppy and rife with opportunities for fraud that we can no longer trust that the outcomes reflect the true will of the people. Irrespective of who ends up winning, the losing side will rightfully question the results and the steady erosion of our civic society will continue apace.
In the aftermath of another contentious election, I once again find myself lamenting the emotional investment that so many of us have in the outcome. Why does the outcome of this election matter so much to so many people? Why does it matter at such a personal, emotional level? Why do we think that the outcome will have an impact on our daily lives? Why is it so easy to appreciate why people would be willing to risk ruin and cheat in order to bend elections their way?
We care so much because it does matter so much, but it shouldn’t. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were not supposed to live our lives so much under the boot of government that every election feels like we are making irrevocable life-altering decisions. If, as Henry David Thoreau said, “that government is best which governs least,” then our government is very far from being the best.
[…]
We have allowed our governments at all levels to be too big, too intrusive, too powerful, too coercive, and too corrosive. As long as this is the case, our elections will continue to be battles in a passionate ideological warfare where the combatants are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to win because the consequences of losing are too dire. Such warfare will continue to rend our civic society along the many seams of our polycultural society.
If we want a return to normalcy, or, at least, if we want to avoid the inevitable slide into further despotism, we must drastically push our government back to the fringes of our lives. The purpose of our government is to protect individual liberty. That’s it. Nothing more. It is not the purpose of government to manage the economy, dictate our culture, or regulate our personal lives. The longer we allow our government to stray from its purpose, the more our society will devolve into irreconcilable factions that lurch for power.
Population Plateau
by Owen | 1016, 13 Nov 22 | Culture | 0 Comments
I won’t be alive to see it, but the implications are enormous. We have seen how even the slowing of growth and aging of our population is having huge implications on our nation’s politics and social contract. Right now, we already have geriatric politicians fleecing their grandchildren to sustain their way of life.
The UN’s latest projections, released earlier this year, suggest the world will house about 9.7 billion humans in 2050.
“Demographic projections are highly accurate, and it has to do with the fact that most of the people who will be alive in 30 years have already been born,” the UN’s population division director, John Willmoth, says.
“But when you start getting 70, 80 years down the road, there’s much more uncertainty.”
Under its most likely scenario, the UN projects the world population will reach about 10.4 billion in the 2080s.
From there, it’s set to plateau for a couple of decades, before falling around the turn of the 22nd century.
[…]
The magic “replacement number” is 2.1: If women on average have more children than that each, the population of the world grows. If fertility rates are lower, the population shrinks.
And that’s where we’re heading.
“We have now reached peak child,” Dr Charles-Edwards says. “There will never be more children alive on the Earth than there is today.”
Fertility peaked in the 1950s when women were, on average, having five children each.
That number varied dramatically between regions of the world.
But since then, fertility rates have reliably fallen. In fact, in some parts of the world, including Australia, Europe, North America, and some parts of Asia, fertility rates are already below that replacement number.
Piece of Challenger Found
by Owen | 1049, 11 Nov 22 | Culture | 0 Comments
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A large section of the destroyed space shuttle Challenger has been found buried in sand at the bottom of the Atlantic, more than three decades after the tragedy that killed a schoolteacher and six others.
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center announced the discovery Thursday.
“Of course, the emotions come back, right?” said Michael Ciannilli, a NASA manager who confirmed the remnant’s authenticity. When he saw the underwater video footage, “My heart skipped a beat, I must say, and it brought me right back to 1986 … and what we all went through as a nation.”
It’s one of the biggest pieces of Challenger found in the decades since the acciden t, according to Ciannilli, and the first remnant to be discovered since two fragments from the left wing washed ashore in 1996.
Divers for a TV documentary first spotted the piece in March while looking for wreckage of a World War II plane. NASA verified through video a few months ago that the piece was part of the shuttle that broke apart shortly after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986. All seven on board were killed, including the first schoolteacher bound for space, Christa McAuliffe.
KFC Apologizes for Kristallnacht Promotion
by Owen | 1803, 10 Nov 22 | Culture, Foreign Affairs | 0 Comments
SMH. How does this happen?
KFC has apologised after sending a promotional message to customers in Germany, urging them to commemorate Kristallnacht with cheesy chicken.
The Nazi-led series of attacks in the country in 1938 left more than 90 people dead, and destroyed Jewish-owned businesses and places of worship.
It is widely seen as the beginning of the Holocaust.
The message, heavily criticised for its insensitivity, was later blamed on “an error in our system”.
The fast food chain sent an app alert on Wednesday, saying: “It’s memorial day for Kristallnacht! Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!”
Construction Halted After Noose Found at Obama Site
by Owen | 1721, 10 Nov 22 | Crime, Culture, Politics | 2 Comments
So…
A noose was discovered at the site of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park on Thursday morning, according to the group overseeing the center’s construction.
“This morning, we were informed that an act of hate was discovered at the project site,” Lakeside Alliance said in a statement, adding that operations on the site have been suspended. “We reported the incident to the police and will provide any assistance required to identify those responsible.”
The circumstances of the discovery weren’t clear. Chicago police didn’t immediately respond to a request for details.
[…]
Lakeside Alliance said it was offering a $100,000 reward for help in finding those responsible for “this shameful act.” It is also holding anti-bias training for staff and workers.
First, there’s a 96% chance that this is a hoax. The last 20 years has shown us that this kind of stuff is almost always a hoax.
Second, isn’t the reaction waaaaaaay out of proportion? Let’s say that a worker found a noose and it isn’t a hoax. What is a reasonable response? Maybe call the cops to report it and then go on with your day? Or perhaps just throw it away and get on with your day? But is it really a reasonable response to halt construction, offer a $100k reward, force all employees into sensitivity training, and have the mayor and governor weigh in? How many LEO resources will be committed to this investigation compared to the murders and assaults happening nightly down the street?
Ridiculous.
Kimmel Brags About Tanking Show to Feed His Vanity
by Owen | 1658, 4 Nov 22 | Culture, Politics | 5 Comments
What a tool. A lot of “little people” were negatively impacted by the collapse in ratings and revenue to appease his vanity. ABC execs should be canned for allowing their product to be destroyed.
It appears the execs once spoke to Kimmel about laying off Trump in order to not alienate Republican viewers. Kimmel said ABC execs were right in their apprehension, as he estimates he lost around half of his audience due to Trump jokes.
“There was one time, right around the beginning of this whole Trump thing… maybe not quite [eight years ago],” Kimmel said when asked if ABC ever expressed concern to him about attacking Trump. “I said listen, I get it, you’re right. I have lost half of my fanbase, maybe more. Ten years ago, among Republicans I was the most popular talk show. At least according to the research they did.”
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