This guy. My first “official job” in 1994 paid me $4.15/hour. Two years later I’d worked my way up to $4.80 an hour, only for the minimum wage to kick up to $4.75. I didn’t see a corresponding increase. I wouldn’t see $10/hour until I worked an overnight shift for a hotel chain in 2004.

He claims $6/hour as a cook somewhere between ’76-’79, which would be over $22/hour in today’s wages. My single mom of 2 might have been making $5-$6/hour as a cook in the mid 80’s but don’t hold me to that, it could have easily been less.

It’s not the idea of whether we should be raising the minimum wage, I’ll save that discussion for a different post. The point here is the disconnect from reality. His argument is that businesses would go out of business paying minimum wage even as his example has him making the equivalent of 3 times the current minimum wage as kid in the 70’s.

It’s ok to disagree on the merits of something, to not see eye to eye on various policies, there’s opportunity to come to an understanding, if not an agreement. It’s not ok when you can’t approach the discussion from a position of honesty, there’s no middle ground between dishonesty and reality.

Another take on the governor’s use of his private plane. With all that’s gone on the last year, I forgot about the massive discount Congress gave to the very rich when it came to buying a plane. In short, buy a plane and deduct it from your tax bill, effectively making it free. And also, they don’t pay into the upkeep of airports, etc.
https://themontanapost.com/blog/2021/02/24/the-plane-truth-is-that-gianfortes-private-jet-doesnt-serve-montana/

As a human being, I sympathize with the pain that Rush Limbaugh’s family is feeling. That pain is real, and human beings are very rarely a consistent monster to everyone that knows them, we’re almost always far more complex than that.

But, as a human being, I also personally feel no sadness in his passing. I was 12 the first time I heard of Rush Limbaugh, a friend of mine was a big fan. He listened to his radio show and bought his books. I remember the title, “Rush is Right!”, or something similar. Even then I did not like the arrogance and rhetoric that were part of his persona, it just clashed with the limited world view I had at the time. I could not agree with the anger and and sheer meanness of his words. My friend, though, he ate them up like candy. He was an angry kid. Angry at the world, angry at his parents, angry at himself. Rush gave him a target in his daily monologues about the depravity of the Left, the Libtards and their ilk. I didn’t realize it then, but Rush was leading my friend down a bad path. Not the politics, really, but the rhetoric.

Rush Limbaugh was one of a handful of pseudo-conservative media personalities that built their empire on hate, anger and lies. He paved the way for the likes of Alex Jones, Mike Savage and Tucker Carlson. He’s the guy that enabled people like Ben Shapiro to succeed against all reason. Rush Limbaugh, along with Fox News and a few others, helped radicalize and divide a nation and he did so to his dying day. Proud, unapologetic and happy with the result.

His family may hurt, and for that I sympathize, but I am glad he is no longer hurting ours with his malicious propaganda. All the wealth in the world is not worth the damage he did to our country and its citizens.

Much of the media coverage is useless or next to useless, but if you focus on the complaints and arguments of the representatives opposed to impeachment, their arguments follow a few basic patterns

1) It’s illegal to impeach the President because reasons
2) It would be bad to impeach because then they’ll call witnesses
3) It will lead to more impeachments

Since this is a very heated topic for some, let’s take emotion out of this equation by reframing the argument as one between parents and their children. In fact, if you are a parent, you may have run into this very situation. Same arguments, different presentation.

So,

1) I’m your child and you love me. I shouldn’t be able to get in trouble for the things I do

2) It’s not fair to ask other people what happened, they’ll tattle on me

3) If you punish me now, you might have to punish my brothers and sisters in the future when they do something wrong.

If my children came to me with these arguments, they’d need more than Johnny Cochrane and Perry Mason for the defense… Something to consider.