BloggeRhythms

A Drudge link to an AFP article @yahoo.com/news reads: “CEO: Trump Makes NYT Great Again...”

According to the text: “New York Times Co. chief executive Mark Thompson told a business conference the prestigious daily has added more than 200,000 net subscribers since late September.

"We're seeing a dramatic increase in the willingness to pay for serious independent journalism," Thompson told the UBS. 

“The newspaper had some 1.55 million subscribers at the end of September for digital services, including news and crossword puzzles. 

“The newspaper said it saw a net increase of 41,000 paid subscriptions in the week after the November 8 vote, including print and digital, calling it the largest one-week subscription increase since it started its paywall in 2011. 

“The Times was among the media attacked by Donald Trump during his presidential race, as the newspaper launched a series of investigations that revealed his reported tax loss of more than $900 million.” 

“After the election, the president-elect sat down with reporters and editors at the newspaper for a wide-ranging discussion, after which he called the daily a "world jewel." 

“While the Times has been struggling financially as it tries to make a transition to more digital readership, Thompson said the recent election may have been helpful to the newspaper. 

“He said some of the reasons for gains include "anxiety about fake news" and a "belief that politicians are saying things that are not true and need to be held to account." 

As of this moment 309 “Viewer Reactions” followed the article. Here are the first the five in the order posted: 

Max42 wrote: “"We're seeing a dramatic increase in the willingness to pay for serious independent journalism," Thompson told the UBS.

"What a joke. What you are seeing is an increase in the willingness to pay to call out the NYT for what it is - a hate filled propaganda arm of the Democratic Party."

The comment was followed by 20 similar thoughts and 240 “Likes”

Econ guy followed with: “Hysterical! The Fake News main source is the NYT!”

That was followed by 6 posting similar thoughts along with 214 “Likes”

William Penn added: “A Marxist rag, valued only by lefties and low-information voters.”

9 posted similar thoughts along with 180 “Likes”

Peted posted: “Of course we can believe anything coming from the New York Times because they would never ever make up fake news, would they?

Here, 8 posted posted similar thoughts along with 158 “Likes”

Fah-Q asked: “How many paper subscriptions were cancelled?”

This one got 8 add-on posts and 147 “Likes”

From there, reader comments remained in the same negative vein toward the newspaper itself, virtually no one posting anything favorable or positive whatsoever. 51 negative thoughts were posted in total following the first five “Viewer Reactions,” while another 939 simply “Liked” the disparaging reactions.

For those wanting to see the article itself, here’s a link:  CEO: TRUMP MAKES NYT GREAT AGAIN...

And then Rush updated his listener’s yesterday with the latest news on the Wisconsin vote recount, saying: “Now, for those of you on the edge of your seat keeping track of the recounts: In Wisconsin, as of Saturday night, Trump has gained three votes.  Now, the way that happened, technically speaking, is Hillary gained 89 votes but lost 86 for a net gain of three.  Trump gained 98 votes but lost 82 for a net gain of six. So the difference is Trump plus three at this stage of the recount in Wisconsin.  Do you know that recounts have like a 99.98% accuracy?  Recounts... The number of times a recount results in an overturn, you can't find 'em.”

On the same subject, recounts, breitbart.com via Facebook reports: “The great Philadelphia recount has ended, and Hillary Clinton got five more votes than she had in her previous total.

“Donald Trump’s number stayed the same, as did the totals for Independent candidate Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein after the City Commissioners Office recounted votes in 75 of Philadelphia’s more than 1600 voting divisions. The recount had been launched by 250-plus Philadelphia residents answering the call of Stein, who asked for three petitioners in each of Pennsylvania’s voting district to file recounts to assist in her attempts to get a statewide recount through a Commonwealth Court and then Federal Court lawsuit. 

“Stein’s camp had planned on using the district-level recounts as possible evidence for hacking or fraud. The recount turned up no instances of fraud or hacking here, City Commissioner Al Schmidt said, emphasizing the difficulty of hacking voting machines that aren’t connected to the internet.” 

So it seems that so far, Stein’s campaign to overturn Trump’s election in favor of Bill Clinton’s wife is instead proving that the election results originally reported, and the electronic equipment now used for voting, are both almost 100% reliable.

On another subject, back on November 14th, David M Jackson wrote @usatoday.com: “Donald Trump is pledging no long vacations and no presidential salary during his time in the White House.

"There's just so much to be done," Trump told CBS' 60 Minutes in an interview broadcast Sunday. "So I don't think we'll be very big on vacations, no." 

“As for the president's $400,000-a-year pay, the New York businessman said: "No, I'm not going to take the salary. I'm not taking it." 

“Republicans have regularly criticized President Obama for his fondness for playing golf and his family vacations in Hawaii.” 

On the other hand, the one claiming that he’s of the people, seeking to redistribute the treasure of those with wealth, seems to have personally contradicted both his words and his political platform altogether. 

Paul Bedard @washingtonexaminer.com published the following today: “Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained records from the U.S. Secret Service revealing that its travel expenses for the First Family's 2015 Hawaiian vacation cost taxpayers $1.2 million, which bring the total cost of the vacation trip to at least $4.8 million. This was the Obamas' eighth Hawaiian family vacation. The trip has become an annual event for the Obamas. To date, Obama's and his family's travel expenses total at least $85,029,819.
 
“The records obtained by Judicial Watch for Obama's Secret Service travel to Hawaii reveal the following expenses totaling $1,234,316.67:
 
“Hotel and lodging costs totaled $1,000,458.63.
 
“The Secret Service spent $165,893.88 on car rentals.
 
“Air and rail expenses totaled $67,964.16.”
 
But perhaps this isn’t really something voters care about, whereas Nancy Pelosi told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday: “Our values unify us and our values are about supporting America’s working families, I don’t think people want a new direction."

Nonetheless, as a result of the election, aside from the presidency, Republicans now control more than two-thirds of the nation's legislative chambers, as well as 31 of the 50 governors' offices. 

Indicating that, perhaps, the current POTUS senses that he and platform aren’t liked as well as previously thought. And therefore, getting out of town as often as possible, regardless of cost to taxpayer’s, is far better for him and those closest to him as well.    

Conversely, Trump seems to be having a quite positive effect on people's outlook for the future, judging by a non-scientifically tested change of heart toward discretionary spending. 

Berkeley Lovelace Jr. writes @cnbc.com that on “Power Lunch" on Monday, restaurateur and Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer said: “People are coming back to restaurants in "droves," after a temporary decline in going out to eat ahead of the election.” 

Meyer explained that "restaurants are places that people come to be with people and people didn't feel great with all the uncertainty" around the election. And that “what happened in restaurants mirrored the uncertainty in the financial markets. 

"I think people are coming back in droves. Even if they're coming back to debate, there's nothing like sitting around a table with some good food with friends and that seems to really be bringing people out and we couldn't be happier.” 

And then, most likely with no political intent of his own, he quite clearly illustrated the problems created by the Democrat push for unmanageable increases in the minimum wage.

“Even as restaurants are seeing a post-election recovery in traffic, Meyer said it's been a "sketchy year" for the more high-tier restaurants. He explained that labor has been a really big headwind for fine dining establishments. 

“He said: "The cost of labor has exceeded anything we've seen before and so I think what restaurants are trying to figure is, how to do is, 'How do I properly price that labor into the menu price?'" 

“One thing Meyer said he's done is eliminate tipping, something he implemented last year. 

"The restaurateur said the change will let restaurants provide better services because higher wages will attract better workers.” 

While the long-term results of swapping tipping for higher wages remains to be seen, one thing’s already quite certain. There’s very little chance that driving up restauranteurs costs dramatically, as the Democrats did, does anything good for anybody in the equation. Be they owners, employees or patrons.  

That's it for today folks.

Adios