DC is a bit of an oddity, it's not a state, so there's no governor to deploy the guard, plus much of their governance has to be approved by Congress, this is part of the reason that there's a push for DC statehood, residents are getting tired of this mess.
All so the minority party can still play politics and be relevant. Would be an easy win for dems, but they’re allergic to winning or executing policy that means they would continue to win. It’s all a big clownshow failed-state made to look like we’re not just serfs that toil our lives away for the profits of people who would just as soon kill us all as let go of their massive portion of global wealth.
The House passed the DC Administration Act last time the Democrats held it. The problem is the Senate filibuster. The GOP would rather disenfranchise than cede any bit of their power. The situation is eerily similar to those around the Kansas-Nebraska Act 170 years ago.
Don’t you find it odd that there is always some sort of republican scheme or “problem” keeping the democrats from getting anything meaningful done?
At what point are the Republicans political strategy masterminds that can never be beat, even when not in power?
Or
At what point do we realize that corporate democrats don’t actually want to win or play dirty politics to beat the obviously cheating Republicans?
Why is it that only the Republicans can “play dirty” to advance their agenda? Why can’t the democrats, who are supposed to be fighting for the people against the Republicans, ever get anything major done?
You don’t need to think too hard to realize that it comes down to class and that American politics is smoke and mirrors for us and power for the corrupt/elite and lawmaker/lobbyist class. The corporate democrats (the only ones who have had any power in the last 3 decades) haven’t done fuck all for us. They are a pressure escape to keep us from realizing the system is bullshit all the way down and burning it to the ground.
Don’t get me wrong, Republicans are still the biggest cancer in the system. I’m just tired of democrats getting power and then not using it to make the middle class’ life better consistently over time.
The whole system is broken and I’m done hearing about how hard democrat politicians have been trying for the past several decades when things continually get worse and the republican party remains the minority.
They couldn’t deploy until someone gave the order to deploy.
This authority to activate the D.C. National Guard has been delegated, by the President, to the Secretary of Defense and further delegated to the Secretary of the Army. The D.C. National Guard is the only National Guard unit, out of all of the 54 states and territories, which reports only to the President.
Basically Trump and the above listed people didn’t order them to them to be deployed.
As the Jan. 6 riot was unfolding, city leaders were making frantic calls to Army leaders, asking them to send Guard troops to the Capitol where police and security were being overrun. City leaders complained heatedly about delays in the response as the Pentagon considered Bowser’s National Guard request. City police ended up reinforcing the Capitol Police.
Army leaders, in response, said the district was demanding help but not providing the details and information necessary to determine what forces were needed and how they would be used.
So, send in a smallish number of troops and find out if more are needed yourselves. This excuse doesn’t add up to shit in my eyes.
If there is a way to kill a vulnerable person, a conservative will find it.
Do your part to combat conservatism. Exclude conservatives from your daily life. There is no place in polite society for such vile, grotesque villains.
Sure, ALL conservatives are grotesque villains who love killing vulnerable people… Some people should hear themselves speak, smh. Username checks out I guess.
And your solution is to shame and dehumanize the entire conservative community into submission/irrelevance? Labelling everyone on your right a villain, nazi, fascist or whatever solves absolutely nothing and kills any attempt at honest discourse.
I’m sorry but hardly anything you said about conservatives in this thread was in good faith. Otherwise, kindly point me to any moderate conservative casually calling themself a villain.
Everything I have said in this thread has been factual. I am not attempting to convince you of anything. I am pointing out the harmful, grotesque nature of conservatism. You disagree. I understand. Thank you for your feedback.
You are now free to return to stormfront or nambla or wherever conservatives like to hang out these days.
There it is, calling me a conservative without any proof. Good job grouping me with all the other “villains”. Nevermind that I’m a life-long leftie who understands nuance.
Aight, it’s getting late here. Good luck with that two party system of yours. Seems to work out great for you! Go extremism!
So you’re saying that you oppose the people removing the water then, right? How about J6? Do you believe it was a coup attempt by Trump and his compatriots, and they should all be held accountable? I have yet to meet a Conservative that does not dance around the subject. Please show me that I’m wrong.
Of course it's not all conservatives, but it's enough conservatives that do (or support, donate to, etc) shit like this that cause people to die, one way or another.
Instead of crying about it why don't you go after your fellow conservatives about the shit they do instead of others for calling it out.
they collected $149k, donated $10k to the food back and kept the rest. now the DA is making them pay $50k. which leaves $89k net profit? seems like a lucrative business model.
I heard this cancer therapy installs 5G tracking chips so the Clintons can listen to your conversations. Ha! Nice try libs! Too bad conservatives are too smart to fall for it!
The writers that were paid $3000 in the story wrote 11/134 episodes or 8.2%
The episodes are 42 minutes each, round down 2 minutes for skipped credits, divide 3x10^9 by 40 we get:
75 million episodes streamed (approx)
If they wrote 8.2 % of those streamed, then they wrote 6.15 million individually streamed episodes.
So writers got 0.049c per episode streamed or 0.00012c per minute streamed.
The average American watches 160 minutes of TV Video a day, so round that up to 5000 minutes a month, and say $10 a month per sub on that, we get $10 of revenue for 5000 minutes streamed, or 0.2c per minute.
So streaming revenue (using the above math and assumptions) would be 0.2c per minute of which the writers of the content that was streamed got 0.00012c or 0.06%.
Netflix 2023Q2 revenue was 8.18B and expenses were 6.36B.
I had a friend who was in a musicians union back in the 40s and 50s. Funny thing, I had a dream about him last night and I would’ve forgotten completely had you not made this comment.
He told me a story once. The union got him a gig on television. He was so stoked about it.
He lost half of his thumb in WWII and was very self conscious about it. The host of the show noticed the black cap he used to cover his thumb and asked him about it. He kindly asked the host to avoid making a thing of it and ask that the cameraman avoid shooting it up close.
He stepped out on the stage and the host said, “ladies and gentlemen, here’s Buddy, the thumbless wonder.”
Years and years later that still bothered him. He’s been dead and gone a long time now. He was an awesome dude who ran a guitar shop. His wife left him because he kept giving instruments away and she wanted a better financial future. I used to go to his shop to get strings and half the time he’d say, “They’re on the house buddy. I’ll be dead before they’ll get what I owe ‘em.”
Thanks for sharing this story. That TV host sounds like an unbelievable asshole, no wonder it stuck with your friend for so long. I can’t fathom what would make a person act like that.
I have a cassette full of recordings he gave me somewhere, at least I hope I do. I really need to hunt it and digitize it.
Dude was awesome.
His old guitar shop is now a food pantry. He lived in the back room in that tiny, dusty old shop and constantly had people over playing music. He always loved to see me coming because in Appalachia everyone plays bluegrass and I don’t. He wasn’t a huge fan of “the grass” but he played along any way until he shook too bad to do it. He was practically blown in half in the war and the damage got him down when he was older.
I’d come in and he’d say, “take my strat and show me something.”
I got my first guitar from him (technically my third but it was the one I learned on). A blue Chinese strat copy called a Lotus. I still have it but I need to reassemble it. God, I should do that. I’d love to hear that nasty buzz again. It’s been nearly 20 years since I played that thing.
That reminds me: I have a cassette of parody songs from a local radio station (Fox 97’s Shower Stall Singers) somewhere that might end up lost to history if I don’t find it and upload it.
Considering how few of the episodes they wrote, this seems almost reasonable. It would be a better comparison of we could see how much they make compared to TV reruns or home media sales.
It’s 3k to a few of many writers for 11 total episodes. We don’t know the actual streaming numbers of those exact episodes either. Could they be paid better? Maybe, but no one has compared this to the traditional residuals they did get.
Not that I’m trying to still for the corpo here, but this is a per quarter payment. ~$270 per episode from this single quarter just based on viewers from 2 streaming services. We don’t know how much they’ve got paid in aggregate for this single episode.
Presumably they got something upfront/hourly initially and they’ve been paid residuals for many years, as they did the work in 2011 and episodes have been rerun alot on network tv.
Idk how much is reasonable for the work they did do but it’s certainly been alot more than this small payment.
they’re probably going to make 5k a year for 6 months a work for 30 years from 11 episodes of 1 show. they might be owed more, but there is a ton of missing context around this that passing judgment on what could be a simply outdated contract from before streaming was a major consideration. if this is just a fraction of what an equivalent contribution to a show would have made from TV reruns or home media sales, then there is a conversation to be had, but no one has brought that up.
But we’re not talking about salary here. We’re talking residuals, per quarter, paid on top of the salary they received for the original work.
For a show that is 13 years old. Collecting $6k per quarter for work you did 13 years ago and that you have to do absolutely nothing for anymore seems pretty good to me?
There’s a hell of a lot of working class people who would absolutely love to be getting paid like that. Trying to frame this as the working class vs the rich seems really dishonest. Do TV writers even understand what the working class is, or how much we make? I sure as hell don’t collect $6k per quarter for work I did 13 years ago. If I did, I’d be rich.
Fwiw, the title is intentionally skewed and wrong. I’m not saying writers shouldn’t be upset because they should, but it is making the situation look much worse than it is.
The six original writers were paid $3K each in streaming residuals last quarter for Season 1.
Suits was added to Netflix on June 17th where it streamed for three billion minutes in a single week, June 26 to July 2. Using Nielsen numbers, it streamed for about five billion minutes on Netflix during Q2. Previously it was on Peacock and we don’t have the streaming data for that, but we can assume that it wasn’t anywhere as much. Using the most recent data through July 16, it was seen for a total of 12.8 billion minutes.
Streaming services also doesn’t pay residuals based on minutes watched, but based on a complicated formula.
Suits episodes are 42 minutes long, meaning the base annual residual is $10,034. Netflix US has more than 150M subscribers, so the subscriber factor is 150%. Their initial streaming residual payment would be $15K per episode.
However, that is just the initial payment Netflix needs to make. Subsequent payments for the actual streaming rights per year are adjusted down. This is the first year on Netflix so the residual factor is 45%. This makes the base annual payment $7,448.
Now, the show was on Netflix for 14 days during the last quarter, making their Q2 residual $286. WGA also imposes a 1.5% union due plus $25 per quarter. This brings the payment per episode down to $256.
You can do any profession on which a company make long term profits on employees’ or freelances’ work. Such as science, programming, business development, etc. Amount of residuals paid is zero ($0.- gross).
Media company want to treat writers and actors as any freelance. The issue is that freelances and employees deserve residuals as actors and writers, but it won’t happen. It is easier to remove existing benefits labeling them as “privileges”, than give more benefits to all
And yay, Jesus said unto the people, “I have taken these loaves of bread and water and turned them into a feast for all^1^”
^1^ Does not include anyone with a slightly darker skin tone^2^ or from outside of the greatest country ever^3^ or poor or lame or weak or obese or ugly or that doesn’t fit my perfect description of a person^4^
^2^ Unless that skin tone was achieved through baking oneself under harsh UV rays (real or artificial).
^3^ Obviously I mean the United States. That totally existed in biblical times you pedantic asshole.
^4^ Even if I don’t personally fit this description, this absolutely applies to me as well. I can be fat and poor and worthless, but fuck all you other people struggling with life. Be born better.
Wife stopped him from committing suicide and he eventually killed her. This dude deserves to be strapped to a cannon so his chest can be blown out. I can’t imagine how their son feels finding out his dad is irredeemable trash who would execute his mother, and basically losing both parents in a night.
If all content (all content) was paid for by tax dollars, it would not only be ad free, but there wouldn’t be huge companies standing in-between the artist and the consumer as far as getting the artists paid. And it wouldn’t cost that much. Like less than what you pay for having all streaming services simultaneously.
But imagine the controversy a government would receive broadcasting various kinds of content. People deride the BBC as a mouthpiece of whichever party is in power despite immense work making it as impartial as possible
And then we get into the weeds of how do we decide who gets grants? I’m a fairly enthusiastic watcher of Linus Tech Tips, and he discusses that the entertainment tax grants the Canadian Government gives out are so complex that only the largest companies (the ones who do not need the grants) can hire people to navigate the bureaucracy for the tax breaks. Is choosing artists going to be an America’s Got Talent competition? A random draw? What source do we get viewer/listener numbers from?
I would love to resume the federal government’s artist programs like under the New Deal, but the reality is that our culture is more niche and divided than ever. Rather than swing and jazz being unquestionably dominant for music in the days of yore, now we’d have to check and verify every SoundCloud rapper, YouTube artist, and pop-megastar.
Some years ago the BBC itself ordered a study by Nottingham University which did show that the BBC consistently was pro-whatever-party-was-in-Government, so not being pro a specific party but switching from one of the parties of the power duopoly in Britain to the other as they alternated in Government (funnilly enough giving very little airtime to the smaller leftwing-ecologist party and tons of airtime to smaller far-right parties like UKIP).
However that’s about the News, not the rest.
Mind you the BBC also does in it’s contents invariably beautify the view about certain slices of British Society and British History but that’s the same as the 100% private content producers in the US also do, so it doesn’t seem to be an explicitly “Public TV” thing.
Well, I lived in the UK for over a decade, having immigrated there from Portugal via The Netherlands, and was quite shocked after having been there long enough to start paying attention to Politics and Society as a whole, that my image of it that was formed when I was a kid in Portugal in the 80s was very different from the reality I found on the ground in the late 00s and beyond.
There is a huge “keeping up with appearences” strain in (mainly English, worse the higher the social class) British Society that would be seen as hypocrisy in, for example a place like The Netherlands, and that has a huge impact on the BBC because it’s always controlled (both via seats in its Board and those chosen as Editors) by people who come from the english upper classes, so you end up with the kind of things that are important in “Opinion Forming” of the Public (i.e. the News, politically relevant documentaries and such) being carefully managed to produce the “right opinion” (“rightness” being defined by that slice of English society that dominate the BBC’s Board and Editors, so for example they’re unabashedly pro-Monarchy).
Also the UK has Censorship, in the form of what’s called a D-Notice, where the Government can stop the publishing of certain stories if deemed “against the national interest”, plus things like Libel Legislation are extremelly broad and seem designed to stop whistleblowing, to the point that for example some years ago an Ukranian Oligarch sued in the UK an Ukranian newssite which had denounced actions of his in Ukraine, and the case was accepted by the British courts because “the website could be accessed from Britain”.
The result is that the creative and apolitical programs from the BBC are often top-notch whilst the rest is Propaganda, elegantly done and not at all in-your-face (mainly through half-throughts, false dichotomies, uneven selection of speakers for different sides and selective picking of things to report) but still done to “make opinion” not merelly “inform”.
Mind you, this is not just the BBC, though it does manage to be worse in this than the other TV channels in the UK.
Unsurprisingly the British Press is the Press least trusted by the locals in Europe.
Really interesting information! It’s a shame that they’re not as trusted as I thought in Europe, I revere their short-wave long range news broadcast worldwide. It’s an absolute tragedy Associated Press doesn’t do the same
Government funded art has a tendency of being loyal to their patrons, i.e. the government, which stifles the very essence of the art itself. All content is not for every body, due to taste, and interest. You're also talking about doing away with advertising, hahahahahahahaha.
You need to watch the film Cradle Will Rock if that’s what you think.
You should watch it anyway because it’s a great movie, but it’s also based on a true story about people getting government funding and using it to put on a socialist musical, which made the government freak out and shut the show down. That is what would stifle art- not artists being loyal, artists not being allowed to dissent.
Jesus Christ, if my tax dollars were going to the absolute garbage content that’s being currently produced I would personally run for office to repeal that legislation.
And if the quality is so low when billions are on the line, I am terrified of what we would get when it’s government funded. Even now, you don’t need to look far to see how poorly our taxes are spent. Look into how construction companies take advantage of government contacts.
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