Media use of the term accountability
I’m curious as to if y’all have ever examined the term accountability and its use in the media. What I think the media, including yourselves, is really culpability in terms of punishment. The media is always seeking blame vs. trying to learn from mistakes. In industry we have been trying for years to get out of the blame game when it comes to accidents and injuries. We try and teach employees to be open and honest so we can learn and improve operations. We obviously need to back that up by not punishing people when they are open and honest and tell the true “account”. Overwhelmingly they are the most hard on themselves. We use media as an example of how we do not want to behave and language we do not want to use because media is always seeking blame and looking for punishment. You never hear about trying to find solutions for improvement based on unbiased facts and observations. Definition of accountability. an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions. Love your show and your perspective but in many ways it’s the same when it comes to this subject.
Groomers
I know Saagar shares some of DeSantis' concerns about protecting children, but I'd love to hear from you both. Will there ever be a prominent political party that takes a stand against all the child abuse/rape that has taken place in Churches? It used to be "just the Catholics", then the Southern Baptists scandal broke. I grew up in Charismatic Christian circles and heard a few stories there too. I'm not anti religion, but the intense scrutiny on education seems a bit much considering the huge bible holding republican voting elephant in the room. It feels weird as a high school teacher who was raised in evangelical Christianity: I send my kids to school and not to church. But all the Christians and their politicians are worried about me and my colleagues.
A populist case for fiscal responsibility
Setting aside how dumb the debt ceiling threat is, I think there's something to be said for cutting unnecessary spending. Republicans hammer Democrats all the time on spending, yet Republicans also waste massive amounts of money on corporate tax cuts, subsidies, and funding their own agenda items like building the wall. Given how wasteful both major parties are, is there space for a populist to make a real fiscal responsibility plan? For example: 1. Closing the carried interest loophole 2. Removing the cap on social security 3. Allowing Medicaid to negotiate drug prices 4. Attaching conditions to subsidies like we do with welfare (you can't spend this on alcohol or stock buybacks) 5. Getting thousands of minimum wage workers off SNAP simply by raising the minimum wage 6. Using IRS resources to enforce existing tax laws on corporations and top earners before tipped and low income employees 7. Establish a windfall profits tax on oil, food, and other essential goods (stopping greedflation in the process) 8. Forcing the Pentagon to pass an audit as a condition for increasing their budget And if successful, use the surplus to fund things like infrastructure and medicare for all?
community feedback
Can Breaking Points develop a criteria by which they will address community feedback? There has been deafening silence regarding Krystal at the end of the RFK interview. I appreciate that you solicit community feedback via the AMA segments, but given the amount of concern voiced by paying supporters of BP, ignoring it completely is not a good look. It's beyond a mere disagreement of opinion; it's about trust and integrity, which should be foundational values at BP. Show us that they are.