Balsy

Time to look in the mirror. You haven't left the world better than you found it. Your generation has neglected infrastructure, Social Security, maintaining balanced budgets, you failed to defend and maintain and grow the middle-class of which most of you were growing up, you failed to maintain livable wages your parents and yourselves benefitted from (despite increasing productivity, and yet you blame american workers for being lazy...despite being more productive), you have failed to maintain the affordable college (that you benefitted from), you failed to do anything measurable on climate change. You all pride yourselves on your "action" and your "decisiveness" and your "badassery". But you failed in any of the ways that matter to future generations. You've created nothing but problems that we're going to have to do the hard work of fixing because y'all were either too ignorant or too cowardly to face in the same manner as your parent's generation did. Just look at the comments you've made on this forum. Shifting a lot of blame to us young people, who don't run crap in this country. I mean even in attendance at sporting events: you blame us for not showing up, instead of looking in the mirror and questioning what you failed to do in making a culture worth being part of. Who the hell wants to be a part of something where they are constantly blamed for? Perhaps we're not the problem; perhaps you and your decades of neglect was. I'm tired of you talking crap about young people. Go look in a mirror.

Clue: It's also not from "cutting more taxes" for the wealthy and corporations. Demand dictates the need to create jobs, not additional money in someone's pocket.   So basically mega corporations didn't invest in "job creation" as you Cons always say they do. They invested in their own pockets, making themselves richer by driving the price up on stocks...stocks they themselves as CEOs and leaders of said corporations, have as compensation packages. So BULLSHIT that tax cuts creates jobs. It makes CEOs richer. It's such a canard. But what is an equal canard is the pretending the Private Sector is the only thing that can create jobs. There is 22-million public sector jobs in this country. And the government often makes contracts with private companies to perform functions. So Yes, collecting taxes can and does create jobs. And, when its public sector jobs/projects it's usually a function to serve the public/community, not just an individual person's private interests.

Sorry not going to itemize a list of the three different counties I've lived in that have asked tax payers for an increase to maintain the base level of service, over the last 8 years. You won't read it. You won't care about it. And, most importantly, you'll just stick your head further up your own ass. If you think I'm full of it, just as your own county auditor. Oh wait...you won't. Because you don't give a crap. All your generation wants to do is tear down, tear down, tear down. You don't give a damn about making things better than the way you got them.

They are compensated for their work...that's what the six-figure salary is for. The president of the United States gets paid $400,000 a year. The president of a University is somehow a harder worker than the president of the country? You clearly didn't understand my point.

Yup. Here is a a link to the Summit County Board of Elections. Here is a link to the Franklin County Board of Elections. Here is a link to the Medina County Board of Elections. You can go look for yourself the amount of times, and how frequent local municipalities are having to ask for additional funds (schools represent a huge portion of these) because of decreased subsidy from the state, because of the state's cutting of state income taxes. *Note I never said "now paying', and I've moved a few times over the past couple of years. And have worked fulltime every place I've lived, while going to college. But have witnessed happen in the place I was living at the time. Now you also have to be honest and point out; that yes additional levies may be because they want to expand a program or what not, usually additional school levies are because the state has cut funding and therefore the cities must raise the property tax in order to maintain the SAME level of service for their local community. Poor districts of course are more greatly affected by these changes to school funding from the state, because districts like orance will pass anything because they give a damn, and understand that more money equals better schools (yes, there is a correlation if you give a damn you can research it for yourself...). And this isn't just my opinion...this is the opinion I've compiled after having conversations with a couple of county auditors both city and county. They all independently have stated themselves, that usually income tax cuts at the state level directly results in a financial pinch at the county/city level, which forces those municipalities to put additional levies on the ballot to maintain the BASE level of service they already have given to citizens. Often times citizens vote no, not fully understanding that these "additional" levies are to maintain the status-quo because of the strain. I highly encourage you to contact your local county auditor, and even city auditor, and ask about the impact of state-level tax-cuts on the local tax base of your individual county. Because I guarantee there has been an increased burden, as I have had this conversation with several county and city auditors, especially in regards to school tax levies.

He already gets paid $$$$$$, anyone getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars SHOULD be working their asses off...

No surprise. Most Americans read very little. Which explains alot.

Yes and they will rather disproportionately shoulder the burden of all other costs. This isn't whacked logic at all, and it's not beyond belief...because it's reality. The only people who have the money to lobby the government are those that are wealthy. The wealthy lobby to get their taxes cut, because it benefits them. Programs cut to pay for those tax cuts are programs that don't benefit the wealthy anyways. So essentially the wealthy get to win-win and everyone else gets to lose. Both by losing services, and by burdening a larger cut of the tax-base. Since Kasich cut the state-income tax, I have seen my taxes raised 11 times at the county and city level. So his "tax-cut" wasn't worth crap. To maintain the base level of all sevices, the cities and counties had to raise taxes. So he gets the political points of a tax-cut, the wealthy get the money...and us in the middle get screwed. There's nothing brainwashed about what I'm saying. We've tried the tax-cut experiment, it doesn't work-out for the middle class. What created the deficit conservatives cried about during Obama's administration, but are suddenly silent about now? The Bush-Era Tax Cuts. Those tax cuts and deregulation certainly long-lasting boost to the economy! Do tell me how exactly all this cutting-of taxes has benefitted this country? Because it's objectively not there. It's made a bunch of people instantly rich, and that's about it. While kicking the cost of operating our government down the road for my generation to have to fix. You guys will drain Social Security dry, won't bother to replenish the funds that were paid into it in good faith with the expectation of return because you had to pay for the wealthy to get a little bit more. You won't bother to do the hard work of building, because all you do is the easy work of destroying. It's your generation that has made Ameri"CAN" into the country of Ameri "CANT". You Can't cut taxes forever, yet you conservatives act as if we can. We can't build things better. We can't gurantee you affordable healthcare like the rest of civilized world. We can't regulate basic crap so your pensions are constantly at risk! We can't properly fund schools. We can't gurantee workers livable wages like we did two even one generations ago. We Can't protect our own citizens from toxins we know are dangerous to their health such as lead. Cause, who gives a damn about poor people! God Bless the United States of AmeriCANT! Make America CANT again!!!

Yeah, the ones that are worth something are simply called "conspiracies".

Nope. I was not a Hillary fan. But I'd like to point out that my point is valid. How can you claim one person is guilty for saying using their 5th amendment right, and another is completely innocent? That's logically inconsistent. If you're going to pedal a conspiracy theory, you better damn-well be logically consistent. Instead of addressing it, you resort to trying to belittle me. That's cool. I can take it. I've never needed a "safe-space" because I'll dish it right back at ya. If you couldn't understand the comparison and why I said it: to point out that CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE NOT WORTH crap. Than you need to work on your reading comprehension skills. I will always fire back when you guys are throwing bullshit around. Using your 5th amendment right does not mean you're guilty, or an admission of a crime as I explained in my post. End. Of. Story.

Gee, I wonder when you're going to jump on board the Russia-Trump collaboration train, because you're not a hypocrite right? Michale Flynn is pleading the 5th in the Russia Probe. Trump associate Carter Page also said if he is called to testify in the probe of Russia Meddling he will also plead the 5th. So that means they're both guilty right? And that means that the Russians were meddling in the election by conspiring with Trump right? Right...because that's logically consistent with you're arguement. So you're totally on board with Trump conspired with Russia. Good to know. As this should be obvious; just because you plead the 5th and invoke your 5th amendment right doesn't mean you're guilty of the crime, Just saying. Just like just because you use your 2nd amendment right to own a firearm doesn't mean you're seeking to kill someone right? The 5th amendment exists to force prosecutors to build a case of guilt with evidence, as opposed to simply convicting someone on their word alone. If word-of-mouth is the only reason you can convict someone, you at least have the right to not be coerced into helping them attempt to do that (by playing the word game). Don't be a hack Hilltopper, you're better than that.

I mean the guy did gather all of his loyal cabinet members in a room one day...and made them sing praises to the great leader one at a time... I mean this is also a guy who doesn't really understand how government works either... I mean anything is possible right? Yeah that didn't happen. Considering no charges were filed, and no evidence of wrong doing was ever found by members of the IRS, or the Obama administration. This goes in the Conspiracy-Theory category. "The probe found "substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted them based on their political viewpoints. But poor management is not a crime..." Unless you're referring to something other than this... I don't agree. This is why the IRS can come after you for not paying taxes. It isn't yours, you owe it. Taxes are a bill. If you go to a restaurant to eat dinner. You order the steak. Once you eat the steak you decide, you're not going to pay for it. That's stealing, because there was an exchange and you didn't live up to your end of the exchange. So no, you directly benefit from having a government and the social services available from it. You get the bill from it currently existing.

Not if he's in charge of getting his party to rally behind a massive tax-cut that does directly impact NFL owners (independent of the NFL Tax-Exempt Status). Yes he (Trump) is an idiot, because he doesn't understand that the NFL isn't tax exempt anymore...but you think it's not a step too far for him to say "Eh, any NFL owners who allow this stuff will be excluded from the tax break (some how?)" I mean...he is just crazy enough to suggest such a thing...and rally his twitter base behind the crazy notion...

Yes. But the billionaire owners aren't. They have a direct motive as I already suggest because it's their pocketbook. Indeed it is. Tax-cuts are handouts. Tax-cuts disproportionately benefit wealthy earners more than lower income earners. So indeed, it's a free-handout for those on the top.

You're right actually. And viewership calculations are often times inflated, and frankly dishonest. There is, however, not a lot of real peer-reviewed research on this topic, simply because it's usually "proprietary" in nature how companies that compile such results do so. Not that I know of anyways, so unfortunately we're limited in scope to rely on secondary reporting of these things.

I'm pretty sure I didn't. Because if it's down because of the Protests...and the protests are still going on...you can't say the slump is BECAUSE of the protests. Because then it shouldn't be recovering, it should continue to go down or stay low, and not recover. A factor yes. The soul cause, no. As the article pointed out, rather clearly, the hurricanes had a significant impact on ratings. And ratings have been going down steadily for years, independently of the protests or not. As the graph below indicates: Decline happened from 2015-2016 (and we're also noticing one from 2016-2017). So Protests causing the decline? Not really. Hurricanes around the opening and the already declining audience from year-to-year is the cause. The snowflakes not watching because of the protests are a minority, at best, of the decline. Suggesting otherwise is dishonest. Thanks, though, I do read and comprehend my own articles.

More like Goodell caved because NFL owners made him cave, because the president is threatening taxes. Trump's free-handout-for-the-wealthy-tax-plan would lower NFL Billionaire tax rates from 40% to 25%. To address the contention that these protests have caused a decline in viewership, it's increased week to week, not decreased; which is opposite of the claim that the kneeling is affecting the bottom line. Hopefully the players continue to kneel. The NFL is going to bench/fine it's best players? Really? The Cowboys aren't going to play their best players if the kneel? PLEASE call Jerry Jones out Cowboys players. That's more a death sentence to the league than the snowflakes who cry about kneeling being disrespectful not watching. Good luck Roger Goodell and NFL owners in Negotiations with the union in 2021 if you want to go that route.

Feeling good today. Zips 24, Broncos 21. Go Zips.

An Ironic statement to be sure.

I know winning Zips gets me too excited to stay away... And...well, I do have a gentleman's agreement to live up to...

Hopefully BGSU can remember what it feels like to win, and Beat Ohio next week...

Since the OOC slate is over for now. It's time for another "Race To Detroit" thread, because the Akron Zips are currently the front runners in the race for the MAC East. Below I will list the current standings and update week-to-week. Feel free to use this thread for MAC Championship discussions. (Mac Record, SCHOOL, Overall Record; games left) East Division 2-0 Akron (3-3); WMU, Toledo, Buffalo, Miami, Ohio, Kent 1-1 Ohio (4-2); BGSU, Kent, Miami, Toledo, Akron, Buffalo 1-1 Buffalo (3-3); NIU, Miami, Akron, BGSU, Ball St, Ohio 1-1 Miami (2-4); Kent, Buffalo, Ohio, Akron, EMU, Ball St. 1-1 BGSU (1-5); Ohio, NIU, Kent, Buffalo, Toledo, EMU 0-2 Kent (1-5); Miami, Ohio, BGSU, WMU, CMU, Akron West Division 2-0 W. Michigan (4-2); Akron, EMU, CMU, Kent, NIU, Toledo 1-0 Toeldo (4-1); CMU, Akron, Ball St, NIU, Ohio, BGSU, WMU 1-0 N. Illinois (3-2); Buffalo, BGSU, EMU, Toledo, Ball St, WMU, CMU 1-1 C. Michigan (3-3); Toledo, Ball St, WMU, EMU, Kent, NIU 0-2 E. Michigan (2-3); Army, WMU, NIU, Ball St, CMU, Miami, BGSU 0-2 Ball State (2-4); CMU, Toledo, EMU, NIU, Buffalo, Miami

I bet it can be disassembled into parts no? I don't know much about giant video boards...but I'm assuming it came in parts and was assembled?

Alrighty folks, this is also the game that several members made friendly wagers on from last season as donations for the Z-fund. Of course this is a gentleman's agreement. If you're one of those don't forget to post it here. If I'm not mistaken I'm matched up with Keener that the Zips will beat WMU this year. And of course, this is just for fun. I'll go troll through the other post and to-see who all was in on the bet.

Our junior varsity team had to cancel 2 games this year, because there weren't enough kids playing at those other schools. And if Junior Varsity usually feeds your Varsity with some level of attrition...