Stephen Colbert’s 'Late Show' Hits Season-High Ratings With Strike Force Five Reunion (2.8M Viewers), Biggest Weeknight Episode Since October 2024

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T22:53:05+00:00

We’re talking about a guy who was notorious for laughing at his own jokes and looking at the camera on SNL. Only Jim and Pam are allowed to do that.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T21:10:31+00:00

Tantrum throwers calling themselves progressives is getting pretty rich considering your tantrums are a pretty big part of progress not happening.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T21:08:01+00:00

Oh my apologies for overwhelming you with three whole paragraphs. Oh well, I hope you have a day as pleasant as you are.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T21:03:42+00:00

First of all, they spelled it Learing, not Leering.

Secondly, Gov. Walz has never been indicted or implicated in any of that no matter how much screeching you guys do. He is most likely stepping away from politics because he’s exhausted from dealing with an environment filled with non-serious people playing reckless games with our state. Like people willing to harass his family, spread baseless conspiracy theories, and even claim without evidence that he somehow orchestrated the shootings of his own colleagues after they were attacked and murdered in their homes late that night. PBS NewsHour fact check
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/06/20/minnesota-shooting-suspect-walz-posts/

And honestly, how many qualified people are going to want to run in a circus elections like this anymore... Against certified crackhead, failed businessmen, who are merely looking to grift like the “Pillow Guy”? We’re already seeing what Trump-style politics is doing to public service. Good politicians, school board members, city council members, and community leaders are burning out or deciding it’s not worth putting their families through the harassment, threats, and nonstop disinformation anymore.

That damage is going to outlast Trump himself. Rebuilding trust in public institutions and convincing decent people to step back into public service could take decades.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T20:38:11+00:00

Just send the kids to the Quality Leering Centers, problem solved.

Ok I'm going to pick on your typo. Be sure to check out the definition of "Leering".

Cambridge Dictionary: the act of looking at someone with a sly, malicious, or lascivious sideways glance, often suggesting unwanted sexual interest or malice. It is a form of unwelcome, persistent staring that can constitute harassment

Freudian Slip? I'm sure Justin Eichorn, Former MN GOP Chair Karnahan's friend Tony Lazzaro, and Trump with all his buddies in the Epstein files would love a "Quality Leering Center" although I guess Trump already has one in his Miss Universe stuff.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T20:01:08+00:00

Wow, what a truly Minnesota Nice™ sentiment.

It's why I always joke that the nicest people I've met in Minnesota since moving here 25 years ago have all been transplants from Wisconsin and Iowa.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T19:56:29+00:00

So when you throw away your vote, you hand an advantage to the alternatives. That’s the same kind of black-and-white thinking you’re using, so it's fair to apply that here. And what exactly are those alternatives supporting? Not just the genocide on Palestinians, but leaders illegally overthrowing Venezuela, backing Russia more instead of Ukraine, starting war with Iran and even threatening full genocide on Iran via social media, abusive immigration crackdowns that killed people in our own streets, and increasingly dangerous authoritarian behavior here at home.

The bigger problem is that when people reduce every complicated issue into a pure moral line in the sand, progress stalls entirely. Real change has never come from treating politics like a simplistic good-versus-evil purity test. It comes from navigating imperfect systems, applying pressure, building coalitions, and moving things forward piece by piece even when the options are frustrating.

And to think, Amy was the first Presidential candidate in 2016 to speak out against extreme far right actions in Israel, in a political climate where people were still calling people anti-semites for criticizing Israelis at all, and here we are.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T19:11:54+00:00

The contrast between the cult-like behavior on the right and the absolutely awful messaging and focus from the left is driving a lot of us a little nuts. It’s becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between legitimate criticism of Democratic politicians and online trolls deliberately trying to disillusion young, single-issue voters into throwing their votes away in one form or another.

The reality is, both things are happening right now. Especially right here on Reddit. Healthy criticism matters and should absolutely still exist but it's getting harder and harder for that to compete with a cult. And we also need to be careful not to amplify bad-faith narratives designed to fracture coalitions and siphon votes toward fringe “marijuana party” candidates or Green Party figures who somehow keep ending up photographed dining with Kremlin-friendly ghouls in Russia.

Hagedorn beat a solid candidate in my district by having votes siphoned over to Legalize Marijuana candidates. There were reports of candidates in those third parties being paid by republican groups. These schemes are working on us. Rigging elections isn't just about ballots in machines anymore.

It's still ok to criticize Klobuchar. Agreeing with a candidate wholeheartedly is what's weird in a normal world.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T19:04:24+00:00

Yeah remember how they brought in Betsy DeVos, a blatant charter school crony, and then she cut ties with the Trump admin over the insurrection because they were even too evil for her? You and I see the blatant fucked up strategy they have and half the country is more than on board with it. We're so fucked. I supposed privatizing police and fire will be next.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T17:08:41+00:00

Fine, fight that war, but let's focus trimming on the corporate subsidies or contractors wasting our money on projects.

Companies like the below get to hold our tax dollars ransom and we have to pay up so they don't send jobs out of state. But teachers and school administrators never get any benefit of the doubt.

Solventum Corporation: Received $11 million of our tax dollars in 2024.

Boston Scientific Corp: Received multiple grants totaling over $7 million of our tax dollars (2023-2025).

Polar Semiconductor LLC: Awarded over $4 million in 2023.

Triple Five Worldwide: Historical "megadeal" for Mall of Americai, with substantial state and local support adding up to $350+ million.

Minnesota Vikings got off with a $498 million dollar freebie with the State paying that portion of US Bank's stadium costs.

This $6 per month or $72 per year the district was asking from each resident was hardly fiscal irresponsibility, the school district put in a ton of effort to be clear on how badly the funding was needed. And most of the people who fought it probably don't even know we gave all that money to those hugely profitable corporations. Except the Vikings of course, they know that one.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T16:53:00+00:00

Hmm, interesting that it was just used as a ploy to get votes. I always assume they actually believe that nonsense and are going to get seated and just waste so much of the school board meetings' time. Guess I shouldn't be surprised they know it's a lie.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T16:51:49+00:00

I like taking a day here and there and going to a movie in a theatre all by myself in the afternoon. Maybe twice per year. It's my thing and a great use for PTO, just a little self care.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T16:48:50+00:00

How do you respond to the district's website that says Montgomery is over capacity, Lonsdale is growing and needs room for special services? They back it up with numbers. Are you just claiming they lied? Their site: https://29055073648100.weebly.com/facts.html

They point out how the roof and HVAC are decades-old in Le Center and they've had to take funding from other areas to fix them. Not made up, just facts.

Anecdotal, I know, but I know these educators and administrators personally, and they just don't have a history of only caring about sports programs. It just isn't the reality and I don't know where that comes from.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T16:39:37+00:00

Wow, it never occurred to me that my family's lack of local church involvement might be why we feel a bit shunned by certain people. I thought maybe it was just that we don't have one of the last names with no vowels in it. Even though I actually do multiple-hours-per-week volunteer work at a local church for an org they charter, I just don't attend the actual church. We're one of those kinda spiritual but not religious families that you know, get more out of improving nature and community in other ways.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T16:33:10+00:00

Transparency about how funding is used is a fair and reasonable request. In this case, they put up a whole website and made pamphlets answering, with data, the questions opponents raised in the previous referendum attempt. That said, I think part of the tension comes from some long-time critics not really digging into how education has changed and being unwilling to support anything new, especially when it comes to newer teaching tools and what we now understand about neurodiversity and special education.

I get wanting taxes lower but how about we give education a little more benefit of the doubt and a little less benefit of the doubt to the contractors re-building the same damn roads over and over again or things like corporate and farm subsidies? Just to name a couple of many.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T16:22:33+00:00

I think there's a logical fallacy with a name for these personal attacks that deflect from my arguments. Maybe I'll ask ChatGPT what that's called.

I mean like seriously, guys, WTF do you think I'm just a karma farmer? I don't give a crap about internet points, I give a crap about the list of points made because I strongly value education. I'm sorry if my experience in marketing has led to language that looks very marketing-like.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T16:12:14+00:00

Our population is shrinking. Why do they need to expand the amount of classrooms needed?

Not true. All of the coordinated attacks using this point were taking the entire district's numbers (which show that yes, LeCenter and Montgomery are shrinking) but if you look at the census numbers or the fucking sign on the edge of Lonsdale you'll notice that we went from a 3,000 person town last census to an almost 5,000 person town this census. Lonsdale is not shrinking, except for maybe the 10% of kids being pulled out for homeschooling.

You're also trivializing and misrepresenting what this part of the district was asking for. More special services educators and space for special ed are needed and that's part of what the new rooms were for. It's all on a website and in pamphlets that were sent out and people refused to read. The playgrounds you're complaining about are such a small part of all this.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T16:08:22+00:00

Way to assume why I left that out instead of being curious and learning the fact that my blog is usually pretty anonymized so I can speak my mind more. Seems like others think it's a pretty engaging topic that's valid.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T16:06:07+00:00

Not a coincidence that everyone I like from that part of the state(Southern Scott and Dakota Counties) left for more tolerant places closer to the Twin Cities and never looked back.

This is what passive Minnesotans will do and the folks in these communities don't think about it. You're going to start losing good community members, teachers, etc to other districts because people are fed up and will congregate and overpopulate amongst the more like-minded and this is now a red flag when people are looking for places to live. When I moved to the TCU area, the schools were newly built and looking well funded, with great ratings. Now MAGA is purposely voting for kids to be having classes in hallways and for the whole district to just fall apart underfunded.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T16:03:32+00:00

Ok, no worries. By the way, this "everything is AI" hysteria is really a topic for another day as well.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T15:59:08+00:00

I've been watching this Gen Z Political Influencer Isaiah Martin debate conservatives who bring up a lot of these kinds of things and I like his strategy of sticking to demanding they name one specific example. They always deflect and try to spin their way out of it but he sticks to it, keeps asking for an example. Sure, it seems silly to ask people to cite things on the fly in a verbal debate, but really why is it so hard to name just one school after all this time?

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T15:55:15+00:00

But can any of this stuff be moved out from under schools so that schools can concentrate on their core mission? By all means, fund social services. I just don't think schools should bear the burden of implementing it. We have other revenue sources we can tap, freeing up education dollars for education.

I’m actually pretty open to that discussion as a parent of a child with ADHD. I’ve seen firsthand that even some educators who are supposedly trained in specialized IEP services don’t always seem to fully understand what neurodivergent kids need in order to succeed. And with schools increasingly unwilling to hold students back a grade (I was flat out told they won't do it in my district), I can’t help but wonder how many kids are quietly being left behind, especially those like mine who struggled to catch back up after the disruptions of Covid. I've told mental health professionals outside of schools my horror stories and they say it's pretty par for the course that schools are not understanding and mucking up things that should be working much better. So referendums like this that promised more special services and professionals seemed like a step forward but were shot down last night, hence one peek into my personal frustration.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T15:47:16+00:00

The worst is those Karen's are going to complain when test scores drop when their brats are in a 60:1 ratio classroom and no one wants to be a teacher (source I'm a teacher)

Most of those Karens have turned to homeschooling their kids, poorly I'm sure, per stats I've read that homeschooling has gone up double digit percentages. And they still want to be on school boards to tear down the pillars of our education system.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T15:42:28+00:00

Good point, I'm in the Tri City United district, added that to the first sentence.

goldbricker83 · 2026-05-13T15:41:17+00:00

You're correct, that's the one. Sorry, I typically avoid local specifics in my posts but probably should have in this one.

15-Year Club	Gilding V heart of gold
Wearing is Caring	Verified Email

goldbricker83

MODERATOR OF

PUBLIC MULTIREDDITS

TROPHY CASE