Way too early. The person who is in the lead as a normal primary begins, is NEVER the final nominee.

WHAT? ISRAEL HAS BEEN RAPING PALESTINIAN PRISONERS?

Sinema.

There are no Republicans anymore, that was just their larval stage before they morphed into their final form - MAGA. Republicans should only be referred to in an historical or scholarly context.

The Republican party is as dead as the Whigs. They’re all MAGA now.

Time to primary this hump.

What? There’s an election every year, especially in cities and states. There will be an election 2027, too.

CNN is MAGA now, so you are only going to be seeing the best case scenarios going forward. If they are pushing 2.8% as good, you know they are just polishing the MAGA Turd.

You can’t believe ANYTHING this government says. Crime is WAY down? Don’t believe it. Inflation isn’t so bad? Don’t believe it. Jobs numbers are up? Don’t believe it.

MAGA is never going to release anything that makes them look bad. They’ll even game stuff that makes them look good, just to look like the bestest there’s ever been!

Both of which I don’t agree with, and the second one is just insulting and stupid.

Got those Liberal all up in his grill.

That’s happening because “Ms. Hochul, … is facing re-election this year, [and] needs Mr. Mamdani’s help in turning out Democratic voters in New York City.” After she’s securely in office for another 4 year term, who knows how willing she’ll be to do those same deals.

If he delivers NYC, then he owns her, and she’ll have to come through with the favors.

They don’t have to talk about, but we can, and they’ll hear it.

In my area, it was $2.79 on the day Trump started bombing. It’s bouncing between $4.29-4.59 now.

I didn’t say that artists deserve to be billionaires. I said that if an artist writes a song, and enough people buy that song to make him a billionaire, at he hasn’t done it by exploiting thousands of workers, and keeping profits that should have been shared with those workers. He got rich because people were willing to buy his ideas.

However, I also acknowledged while his side of the process may be exploitation-free, the side that actually distributes that song in the marketplace is NOT exploitation-free.

I’m not excusing any billionaires, I’m just saying there’s a big difference between wealthy artists, and people whose business was conceived with exploitation baked into the business plan from the start.

Valid.

Now he’s going to want to invade Australia.

Todd Flintstone, Fred’s uglier and stupider brother.

I wasn’t offering a comprehensive list of “famous” or “great” living artists, just a few examples. I’m not naive, I know about Damien Hurst, and his consortiums, but he’s the exception. I chuckled typing his name as an example, he’s a K-Pop band, on a stage with Springsteen and Dylan, but technically he IS an artist, just like technically the K-Pop band are musicians. He’s just figured out a way to monetize his art, but he’s an exception. Koons is another one. So was Thomas Kinkade. These guys are bomb throwers, not serious artists.

Most artists don’t have that kind of notoriety, nor do they want it. Most artists I know, would be happy just making their living from their art, so they can only do art. Some don’t even want to make money from their art. Generally, success is based on how well they personally feel they rendered the emotion they were trying to explore.

And the wealthy have ALWAYS been the best benefactors for the arts, especially music and painting, that’s nothing new, and should be strongly encouraged. Most of Haydn’s greatest compositions were written while he spent decades employed by Prince Esterhazy. Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and just about every composer took commissions from wealthy patrons.

And why shouldn’t an artist take it? The wealthy generally have more money than brains (most inherited), so if they are going to throw away their excess excess excess money on obviously metaphoric rockets, throw some dough to the artists instead. It’s one way to get that promised trickle down money, although you got to squeeze that tree really hard to get the juice out of it.

There are getting to be quite a few these days. Musicians like McCartney, Springsteen, Dylan, Sting, Beyonce, Jay-Z, and more, are reaching Billionaire status these days. Most of them have sold their publishing for $500 million, putting them halfway there, with a lifetime of royalties. Being a Rock Star used to be a great path to serious wealth, when records actually sold in the millions.

Visual artists are another story. I feel sorry for them. They create a beautiful painting, and then sell it for a bit of money. Then that buyer holds it for a few years, and sells it for double, but the artist doesn’t see any of that. All he gets are the proceeds from that initial sale. Being the artist that holds the record for the largest sale by a living artist has got to be rough. Some guy just got $50 mill for a painting that you sold 20 years ago for rent money.

I can name a LOT of them: Damien Hurst, Banksy, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, and many, many more. Plenty more that have died recently, but were hugely famous during their lifetimes, like Chuck Close or Roy Lichtenstein, who are displayed in nearly every museum in the world, including the Met and MOMA. Many artists like Picasso, Rembrandt, Michaelangelo, Monet, and many more, were extraordinarily famous in their lifetimes.

The idea that famous artists and composers didn’t get famous until long after they were dead, is an exaggeration to the point of being mostly false.

I have a degree in music history, and I can name 10 famous composers who were relatively famous in their own lifetimes, for every one that became famous posthumously. Many famous artists and composers were very famous in their lifetimes, which is why they became even more famous in death. There are the notable exceptions like JS Bach and Van Gogh, but there are a lot more like Beethoven or DaVinci, who were enormously famous during their lifetimes. Even those that are known for becoming famous after death, like JS Bach or Schubert, were still well known among local and regional musicians, which is why their music was preserved after death.

And that’s where I concede that there may have been great composers who NEVER became famous because nobody ever heard their music, and nobody ever preserved it. But that’s not the same as becoming FAMOUS after death. That’s a bit of a cliche, with few actual examples.

There are a lot of different kinds of artists, not just actors and singers, and while Nepo-Babies are common in Hollywood, they are less common in most other art forms.

Art tends to be very merit-based. Bad artists don’t tend to be very successful. Good artists don’t always find success, but bad artist almost never do, and never on a huge basis. Wealthy artists are generally very good at what they do.