TomT wrote on Apr 17^th, 2020 at 6:43pm:

This thread is like finding unexploded ordinance.  I think I'll just tiptoe away...  ;D

I've never understood the fear of stated opinions and quite frankly, I appreciate the warning since I guess I'm ultimately responsible for everyone's feelings around here. :)

I've been a news/politics/opinion junky since I sat in front of a TV hugging my stuffed Yogi Bear while watching Walter Cronkite listing casualties and waiting for my parents to get home. Bias? Spin? Bring it on baby. Actual facts are not all that hard to come by now if you look but what I appreciate most is timing -- as in who said what when and why.

To be honest, and as stupid as it may sound, Twitter is a great source for tidbits of useful information for me. My list of browser bookmarks goes from my President to historians, writers, gov ethics lawyers, constitutional scholars to reporters... lefty-looses and righty-tightys. Whatever. It's all good. I like to know where people are coming from and I get stuff I'd have never thought of on my own. What people accept and/or dismiss as important or not simply fascinates me. Discounting a whole national news and or opinion source is foolishness to me. I look to the names I have experience with no matter their bent. Some are very knowledgeable, some insightful, some reactionary or purely partisan trying to stay relevant and some are just plain nuts. That's what makes life interesting.

A forum was created here years ago for these types of (contentious?) discussions and it's still available. You needed/need to opt in (or out) to even see it and even then people still complained. Point is, it's still there if anyone is bored and wants to make use of it.