If It's Free, It's Going to Cost You
Rodney Johnson | June 27, 2019 | The Democratic debates are underway, so if you're a masochist with no hobbies, you now have something to watch at night. This isn't a knock on a particular political party. Watching the Democrats today is just as unenlightening and boring as watching the Republican debates in 2016. Moderators ask candidates questions, then candidates fail to answer and go on long screeds about whatever they happen to champion or hate. We need a new system. As with everything else related to politics, there should be a mechanism for accountability. During the debates, which typically include an audience, people should be able to vote after every answer as to whether or not the candidate addressed the question. If they score more than 50%, they get their full time on the next question. If they get 25% to 49%, they get two-thirds of their time for the next question. If they drop below 25% on an answer, they only get 40% of the regular time for their next answer. The extra time won't be re-distributed to anyone else; it will be removed from the debate, effectively giving it back to us, the viewers, as a thank you for having suffered through the show. None of this will happen because networks want more airtime and everyone likes to hear themselves talk. And accountability? Please. That's a four-letter word in Washington that can be summed up as "cost." As the candidates walk through their ways to save us from ourselves, you should keep that word in mind. "Cost." They won't use it. They'll use another four-letter word, "free." When a political candidate uses the word "free," we should reach for our collective wallets. And we've got a slew of "free" programs to talk about with this group! READ MORE » Trending Stories... We live in a world where we wake up to news (and a shocking image) of a drowned father and daughter on the banks of the Rio Grande and threats from North Koreans about not letting the U.S. "bring them to their knees." Tensions between the U.S. and Iran are rising all the while politicians... Late last week, on the first day of summer, I watched the news and weather for a few minutes before my morning run. It was 85 degrees with 97% humidity. It was 4:40am. The meteorologist said the "feel like" temperature was 99 degrees. I ran anyway. It was awful. Such is life on the Gulf... 2019 has turned into the Year of Tech IPOs. Lyft. Pinterest. Zoom. Uber. Fiverr. Slack. And we're only half way through the year. Airbnb, Palantir, Robinhood, and several others have plans to go public before year's end. Some of these fresh listings have been bad (ahem… Uber). Others have shot to the moon (like Slack).... If you don't know by now that Facebook released its libra whitepaper on Tuesday, you're living under a rock. What you may not know is that bitcoin shot up on the news. That's because libra gives credibility to the cryptocurrency market, much like AOL did when it first brought email and the internet to the... They lie, cheat, and steal? No way! In 2014, Puerto Rico issued $3.5 billion in bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the Commonwealth. Now the island's fiscal managers, a group known as the PROMESA board, an entity that Congress created, claims those bonds are worthless. While investors put down their hard-earned cash... | 
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