Picked up 610 WTEL Philadelphia last night with Black Information Network.
That interview Walter Sterling did last night with the woman who had been sex trafficked by her parents truly was radio.
WMEX Boston, at one time a top forty powerhouse and which, for the last couple decades, has gone through one failed format and owner after another, may finally be gone for good.
National Review
The Republican Abandonment of Donald Trump Begins
By Jim Geraghty
September 23, 2026 10:06 AM
On the menu today: Republicans like to believe they’re the party that is more supportive of law enforcement, and these days they’re quoting The Police when it comes to President Trump: “Don’t Stand So Close to Me.” GOP candidates running for office could only appear connected to a president with a high-30-something job approval rating for so long. This week, everywhere you look, Republicans are emphasizing that they want the war against Iran to end, and will do whatever it takes to bring down unleaded gasoline prices and diesel prices. Whether or not you believe the current public polls suggesting GOP doom accurately represent the mood of the electorate, Republicans who want to win in November are acting like their internal polling matches those public polls. Read on.
Moving Away from MAGA
It isn’t just GOP Representative María Elvira Salazar’s decision to run a commercial criticizing President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign. “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Salazar says in the ad. “The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”
All over the campaign trails of the 2026 midterms, you can see Republicans starting to try to distance themselves from President Trump.
Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds scrubbed references to Trump from his campaign website.
Donalds is following in the footsteps of GOP Representative Young Kim, who often faces tough reelection bids in her R+1 southern California district.
Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers is running an ad that begins, “The war in Iran needs to end, to bring costs down.”
Iowa GOP representatives Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks joined in a vote to limit Trump’s war powers last week. Both lawmakers represent competitive districts, and this marked the first time either one had voted to rein in Trump’s Iran war powers. Nunn wrote on X, “With the negotiating window closed, sustained combat operations now require congressional authorization. Having deployed multiple times and flown over 700 combat hours in the Middle East, I will not support another open-ended war.”
Ashley Hinson, a GOP representative who’s running for governor in Iowa, wrote on X Monday, “Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran.”
Wisconsin GOP candidate for governor, Representative Tom Tiffany, on rising gas prices and Iran: “I just believe we should be exiting Iran, it’s time to move on. We’ve degraded their nuclear facilities, we’ve degraded their military, most of their ships are at the bottom of the ocean. Time to come home, take care of business here in America.”
In a meeting with voters, Colorado GOP Representative Jeff Hurd “talked about where he disagrees with the Trump administration. Hurd said he opposes Trump’s sweeping tariffs against Canada and a Republican push to sell public lands. He voted to extend healthcare subsidies.”
In New Hampshire:
When New Hampshire Republicans gathered Monday for their post-primary “Unity Breakfast” in Concord, talk of Trump was conspicuously absent. In fact, no GOP candidate who spoke at the breakfast even mentioned Trump; neither did the chairman of the state Republican Party. And whenever Trump did come up, top candidates quickly distanced themselves from him.
“I’ve never even met the president, but there is no question that I will be a much more effective voice with this administration,” U.S. Senate candidate John Sununu told Fox News during an interview at the breakfast.
It’s as if someone flipped a switch. The war in Iran is very unpopular — only about a third of Americans support it — and Congress never voted on an authorization for the use of force. Republicans on the campaign trail don’t want to act as if they support it anymore, and don’t want to get blamed for a war they had no say in starting. You may recall that when the war began, President Trump said it would last “four to five weeks,” and now we’re in the sixth month.
(Back in January, I wrote that Trump should have gotten a congressional authorization of use of force against Venezuela, never mind Iran. “One of the reasons it’s a good idea for presidents to get Congress to authorize the use of military force is that it makes Congress buy into the operation. The legislative branch of the government — you know, the one with the actual power to declare war — is no longer a passive spectator but is invested in the outcome of the decision to use force.” When you don’t get Congress to sign on, they feel free to abandon support at any time.)
For six months, President Trump has promised that gas prices would “go down tremendously” or “come roaring down” once the war ended. As of this morning, the national average for a gallon of unleaded gas is $4.47; one year ago, the price was $3.17. The national average for a gallon of diesel fuel is $6.52.
As of this morning, the president’s job approval rating in the RealClearPolitics average is at 39 percent, and it has been around 40 percent since March or so. When Americans go to the polls on November 3, Trump’s job approval rating will be around that level. Very little is going to change in the political and economic landscape over the next six weeks.
The country is infuriated about gas prices and the cost of living. Last week’s Marquette Law School Poll national survey found that Trump’s approval rating on how he’s handling the economy is at 28 percent, and his approval rating on how he’s handling the Iran war is at 26 percent. His approval rating on how he’s handling inflation is 19 percent. According to CNN’s Harry Enten, that’s the lowest any president has ever polled on the issue of inflation — lower than Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, or Joe Biden.
I can hear it now, “The polls are fake, all the polls are fake.” Okay. Let’s assume that Marquette survey has a bad sample or something. How high do you think the president’s approval rating on the issue of inflation is, right now? You think one in four Americans believes he’s doing a good job on inflation? One in three?
The standard argument from the Trump defenders is that “inflation under Biden was 9 percent!” And that’s true, but it’s also true that the 9.1 percent peak arrived in June 2022. Over the last 19 months of Biden’s presidency, the U.S. inflation rate averaged 3.09 percent. Over the first 19 months of Trump’s presidency (taking us up to last month), the average was 2.94 percent. (Note that because of the government shutdown, October 2025 CPI data was never released, but that omission is unlikely to change the Trump average by much.)
But don’t worry, Republicans. The president’s midterm messaging is as sharp and focused as ever:
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All of the SLEAZEBAGS, like Third Rate “Reporter,” Kaitlan Collins, of Fake News CNN, a truly unhappy person, said they weren’t going to be covering me. Then why were they ranting and raving like Lunatics, in the Press Area, at the United Nations? Why was she there? She’s got a “TRUMP” addiction, and so does CNN and MSDNC. They’re all sick, treasonous, and demented! The “good news” is that they have a great, for them, and totally disloyal Judge. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
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Republicans running in 2026 have concluded they’re on their own. The president had the chance to shape the party’s image and message for the campaign season at the midterm convention, and it was all about him. And this was Trump’s way of talking up the GOP Senate nominee, Ken Paxton:
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And by the way, you’ve got to elect Ken Paxton. You gotta do it. And I said something yesterday, and I don’t know if he’ll ever talk to me again. Perhaps he will. [Laughter] But I said it and my people said, “Please don’t say that.” So I won’t say it, but I’ll tell you what I was thinking about saying. [Laughter] I said, “I don’t like the way Ken dresses.” Although I also said he looked really sharp in that suit yesterday. I thought spiffy. And then I said, “I don’t really like the way Ken talks.” And then I said something that they really hated. “Please, sir, don’t say it, sir.” So I’m not gonna say it, but I’ll tell you what I was thinking about saying. [Laughter] I said, “I don’t really like the way he looks. I don’t like it. I don’t like any –” But you know what I do like? He was the greatest attorney general in the history of Texas. He was the greatest attorney general in the history of our country. He helped us so much with the walls, with illegal immigration, with everything. He was our greatest attorney general, and he deserves to go to the United States Senate.
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Again, you don’t have to believe the public polling. Just watch the behavior of Republicans running.
And if you think the Republicans running for reelection are turning on Trump, wait until you see what the ones who aren’t running this year are doing — such as Utah Republican Senator John Curtis, who won’t be up for reelection until 2030.
Curtis is calling for the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate Donald Trump Jr.:
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More recently, questions have arisen about the relationships of President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., with foreign business figures and the acceptance of significant gifts. These include a lavish wedding afterparty, on a private island, provided by Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev, who reportedly traveled to China as part of a delegation accompanying Vladimir Putin shortly before giving the gift.
These concerns are compounded by Donald Trump Jr.’s active promotion of family-backed cryptocurrency ventures, his continued pursuit of international real estate deals involving direct meetings with foreign heads of state, and his reported investments in defense contracting. This pattern extends to his significant financial and advisory ties to prediction market platforms that depend on favorable federal regulatory decisions being considered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
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Mississippi GOP Senator Roger Wicker also won’t be up for reelection until 2030:
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Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker lambasted the White House decision to invite Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a state dinner this week, calling the foreign head of state “a brutal, unelected and oppressive dictator” who cannot be trusted.
Wicker, typically a staunch defender of President Donald Trump and Republican loyalist, targeted most of his criticism at Xi and Chinese policy during a Senate floor speech Tuesday. But the comments were nonetheless a surprise rebuke of the president’s courting of Beijing amid broader concerns, such as the durability of U.S. security commitments to the Indo-Pacific, including in deterring a potential invasion of Taiwan from the Chinese mainland.
“Had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome here in the United States, based on all of the troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.
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Some might argue that Republicans more openly criticizing Trump is the sound of impending lame-duckhood, but Trump will still run the executive branch for a bit more than two years, and have the biggest megaphone in politics. He just won’t have quite as many GOP legislators willing to assent to whatever he wants on any given day.
ADDENDA: Our Noah Rothman, on the phenomenon of the “True Crime” genre of books, podcasts, and television shows, and the unhinged reaction in some quarters to the Lindsay Clancy trial:
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In the end, “true crime” isn’t about the perpetrators, the victims, or even the state’s discrete allegations in this case or the other. It’s about us — the viewer, the listener, the host and guests — all displaying their infinite capacity for cleverness. And if that exhibition produces entirely new victims or revictimizes the already traumatized, well, that’s a small price to pay.
block quote end
As my old podcast co-host Mickey observed, some people who think they are “true crime” fans are in fact just fans of messy human dramas.
. . . If you will be in Austin for the next few days, I may see you at the Texas Tribune Festival!
New York Post
Maryland DoorDash customer picks up order from driver at crash scene: ‘I think that’s my food right there’
By James Cirrone, Fox Business
Published Sep. 23, 2026, 3:39 a.m. ET
Originally Published by: Fox Business
A man went viral on social media after filming himself picking up a DoorDash order at the scene of a crash involving his delivery driver.
Glenn Ndibnu began recording as he arrived at the wreck on Church Road in Bowie, Maryland, where multiple ambulances were present.
“I DoorDashed some food, and my DoorDasher told me he got in a car accident, and he was like, ‘I can come meet him and get the food from him,'” he explained in the video.
He then expressed guilt over crossing the road to go pick up his food after what happened to his driver.
“I think that’s my food right there. Is it f—ed up for me to walk across and pick it up?” Ndibnu said.
“I look so f—ed up right now about to go get this food.”
Ndibnu ultimately got his food and apologized to the driver, William Koroma, who later launched a GoFundMe campaign to help replace the car that was totaled in the crash.
In subsequent posts on Instagram, Ndibnu linked to the online fundraiser.
“My vehicle experienced brake failure, and I was involved in a major accident,” Koroma wrote on the GoFundMe page.
“My car was totaled, and I am deeply grateful that I survived and that no one else was seriously injured.”
He added: “Since the accident, I have been facing several challenges at once. Losing my vehicle has left me without reliable transportation, and I have also lost my job.”
Koroma did not elaborate on his injuries, but said he has also been hit with medical bills.
The GoFundMe has raised nearly $14,000 as of Tuesday morning.
PEOPLE
The McDonald Brothers Sold Their Hamburger Business for Just $2.7 Million. Did They Regret It?
By Victoria Edel Published on September 22, 2026 08:59PM EDT
Richard “Dick” McDonald and his brother Maurice “Mac” McDonald had the ideas that started it all.
In 1940, Richard and Maurice opened the original McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, Calif. But at the time it wasn’t the McDonald’s millions know today. Instead, it was a drive-in restaurant, where carhops, often women, would bring people their food to their cars.
But after eight years, the brothers were frustrated that their modest business wasn’t bringing in enough money. They thought they could do better. They fired all the carhops, closed the restaurant and reopened with a new menu: a hamburger (that cost 15 cents), a cheeseburger, soft drinks, milk, coffee, potato chips and a slice of pie. Chips were soon replaced by fries.
They also got rid of anything that would need a fork, knife or spoon, and replaced dishes and glassware with paper cups and bags. “It was a complete disaster at first,” Richard told the Associated Press in 1984. “There were times we were tempted to throw in the sponge. The carhops were gone. People didn’t like having to wait on themselves and throw away their own trash.”
But their biggest innovation was how they divided labor. “The guiding principles of the factory assembly line were applied to the workings of a commercial kitchen,” Rolling Stone wrote in 1998. Every worker performed just one task. They called it the Speedee Service System, and it ultimately became the standard in fast food.
‘‘Our whole concept was based on speed, lower prices and volume,’’ Richard once said, per The New York Times. Every burger was sold with the same condiments — with no substitutions. He imagined a scenario where a ‘‘guy comes in, you ask him what he wants on his burgers; he says, ‘I got to go back to the car to ask my wife.’ Wouldn’t work.’’
Richard also helped plan one of McDonald’s most defining features — the Golden Arches. “I thought the arches would sort of lift the building up,’’ he told The Chicago Tribune in 1985. ‘‘Our architect said, ‘Those arches have to go.’ But they worked — it was luck, I guess.’’
By 1954, McDonald’s had 21 franchises. At the same time, Ray Kroc was in business selling milkshake machines, and the McDonalds were some of his best customers. Kroc asked them for a job as their franchise agent. They agreed.
In 1955, Kroc founded the Franchise Realty Corporation and opened his first McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Ill. He later changed the name to the McDonald’s Corporation. By 1960, there were 228 McDonald’s franchises in the country.
In 1961, Richard and Maurice decided to sell Kroc the business. He paid $2.7 million, worth around $30.4 million in today’s dollars. According to Kroc’s memoir, Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s, Richard and Maurice landed on that number because then they’d each have $1 million after taxes.
Did the brothers mind that they had missed out on major paydays if they had kept the company? Not at all. Richard told the Associated Press in 1984, “Everybody has an ego and I must admit I enjoyed seeing my name on restaurants all over the world.” He added to journalist David Halberstam in his 1993 book The Fifties, “I would have wound up in some skyscraper somewhere with about four ulcers and eight tax attorneys trying to figure out how to pay all my income tax.”
Richard told PEOPLE in 1975, “I still eat at McDonald’s, and I like the food.” He added, “But, to be honest, I don’t think they’re as good as they were a few years ago, before they went to frozen patties and French fries.” In 1984, Richard was on hand to eat the 50th billionth burger that McDonald’s served.
After the sale, Maurice and Richard planned on opening a chain of no-frills motels, but abandoned the plan when Maurice’s health began to fail. Maurice died in 1971 at the age of 69. Richard died in 1998 at 89. The story of Kroc and the McDonald brothers was told in the 2016 film The Founder, starring Michael Keaton as Kroc and Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch as the McDonald brothers.
Kroc imagined there could one day be 1,000 restaurants, but today McDonald’s has over 36,000 restaurants in over 100 nations, per the company’s website. Kroc, who died in 1984 at 81, was acknowledged as the founder of the McDonald’s Corporation, which Richard took some issue with. He told The Spokesman-Review in 1991 that he thought the decision to refer to Kroc as the founder was “probably a public relations stunt,” but that was his “only complaint” about the sale.
New York Post
McDonald’s promises to bring back colorful PlayPlaces in bid to win over frustrated parents
By Taylor Herzlich
Published Sep. 25, 2026, 5:38 p.m. ET
McDonald’s says it’s no longer playing around with kid amenities and customer service.
The fast-food chain this week unveiled $8.5 billion in planned spending over the next 10 years, which includes remodeled restaurants with “upgraded play places, improved dining rooms and more open kitchens,” according to Jill McDonald, executive vice president.
It’s a welcome change for fans who have been begging McDonald’s to bring back the colorful, kid-friendly indoor playgrounds, which were closed in March 2020 during the pandemic for public health reasons.
Customers online have noted that what was supposed to be a temporary closure has turned permanent for many McDonald’s locations, while restaurants have gradually lost their whimsy over time through lifeless, minimalist redesigns.
A future McDonald’s restaurant model shows revamped locations will include bright, colorful PlayPlaces featuring jungle gyms, slides and interactive play areas, including a “McMini Crew” activity board that lets kids pretend they’re behind the counter.
However, it’s unclear whether the initiative will only remodel existing PlayPlaces or also add PlayPlaces to joints that don’t currently have them. McDonald’s was not able to immediately clarify how many spots will have the PlayPlaces.
PlayPlaces were once a staple of the Golden Arches, with the first prototype built at a McDonald’s in Birmingham, Ala., in 1971 – and parents around the country say they’ve been sorely missed.
In a post on X that racked up 6.5 million views, one user argued the world’s largest fast-food chain could turn around its struggling business if it simply brought back the playgrounds.
“Parents. That was the whole business,” the post said. “Parents at 5:40 on a Tuesday with three kids in the back and nothing thawed at home. You did not go for the burger. You went because your kids could run screaming through a plastic tube for 40 minutes while you sat with a coffee and experienced silence. That was the product. The food was the cover charge.”
The user claimed two cheeseburger Happy Meals and two Quarter Pounder Cheeseburger meals with medium drinks and fries would run $34.96 at her local McDonald’s – almost the exact same price as a similar meal from Chili’s.
At Chili’s, “I don’t get a toy, but I do get crayons and something for the kids to color. I also get free chips and salsa, a free drink, and French fry refills. Plus, I get table service and human interaction. Hmmm…what would I do for dinner with two young kids and my husband?” she wrote.
An exterior view of a McDonald's restaurant with a red and yellow playground, red umbrellas on a patio, and a yellow McDonald's sign.
Other social media users were quick to agree, saying children used to beg to go to McDonald’s for dinner because they wanted to play in the ball pit and use the slide – not necessarily because they were loyal to the food.
“Todays McDonalds look like hospital waiting rooms or … prisons. Where are the colorful characters? Where’s the color at all? Where’s the joy?” one user griped. “McDonalds couldn’t be more sterile and cold if it tried! No kid I know wants to go there but they do like Chick-Fil-A!”
Another user commented that McDonald’s needs to add more healthy ingredients to menus instead of “chemical soup,” while yet another criticized the use of touchscreen kiosks at McDonald’s locations, saying they just lead to longer wait times and poor customer service.
The $8.5 billion investment is expected to be spent through 2036, including about $5 billion through 2030, through a combination of rent relief and capital support. The funding will go toward restaurant remodels, technology upgrades and operational improvements.
McDonald’s expects restaurant expansion to contribute about 2.5% of systemwide sales growth in 2027 and around 2% by 2030.
New McDonald's facade with a yellow and brown slatted exterior, illuminated McDonald's arches logo, and "Take Away" sign above the entrance.
A McDonald’s representative referred The Post to comments from Tiffanie Boyd, McDonald’s chief people officer, at Investor Day, where she announced the “Make it Golden” strategy.
A low-angle view of a McDonald's sign with yellow arches, red background, and "PLAY PLACE" and "DRIVE-THRU" text in colorful and white lettering against a blue sky with clouds.
“It will equip our 2 million people with the training, tools and support needed to deliver the great food and great hospitality that are uniquely McDonald’s,” she said.
The fast food giant appears to be pivoting away from tech after years of directing customers of soulless screens instead of human employees for basics like placing orders.
Frustrated customers have argued online that the company’s past tech investments were the wrong move, with several using Chick-fil-A as an example. The rival chain has succeeded off a business model based on human interaction and colorful indoor playgrounds with games.
One fast food afficionado compared the spending plan to Cracker Barrel’s failed rebrand, writing: “This was the same issue that started the Cracker Barrel controversy. Ignorant-ass C-suiters convinced by an overpriced educational experience that they know more about what WE THE CONSUMERS want than we do.”
Shares in McDonald’s slumped nearly 5% Wednesday as CEO Chris Kempczinski unveiled the company’s remodeling initiative. The stock is down more than 20% so far this year.
Burger King – which launched a turnaround based on improved menu items and better customer service – is up 5.6% over the same period.
