James M.

My family and I have been Nordstrom customers for decades, but we rarely shop there anymore because it's really gone down hill.

Nordstrom has joined in with most other retailers to offer customers poor quality merchandise at high prices. It's ridiculous. We are morons if we pay that much money for merchandise that will fall apart right away.

Also, it is increasingly hard to find anything that is actually chic. The buyers at Nordstrom have been doing a really lousy job for years now. They buy the same for all stores in all regions, with no regard for local cultural preference or needs. Most of the clothes are unattractive. What are they thinking?

It's obvious the buyers are young and biased toward youth, but that's a bad business decision because it is their elders who actually have money. Now that the credit card frenzy has crashed, the youth no longer have access to easy credit. Mature consumers have actual cash and credit. Yet, good luck finding much that's appealing for anyone over the age of 40.

It's really too bad because our entire family were die-hard Nordstrom shoppers who valued their once excellent customer service, nice stores, and lovely and handsome merchandise. No more, I'm afraid, because those things just aren't there anymore like they once were.

I am giving Nordstrom three stars, though, for its excellent return policy and free shipping.

Daily Kos has interesting political mini-articles and some insightful commentary after them. However, it is no longer a go to site for me because it's become nothing but a propaganda tool for the founder's favorite presidential candidate. It's poorly run, with far too little proactive and responsible moderation. Any Democrats writing on the site who criticize Hillary Clinton, or express any opinions that are outside the scope of what the owner and a certain group of users believe is acceptable for a Democrat are immediately swarmed with insults, called "shills," "rightwing," "libertarians," and so on, and by flagging those who don't fit their narrow definition of what it means to be a Democrat, they get those voices banned immediately. Why would a thinking person want to frequent such a site, let alone contribute to it?

I'm a flaming liberal and I don't consider censuring differing and critical voices, especially those from within, a liberal position. Rather, I consider it authoritarian and unhealthy for any community. For that reason, I do not feel Daily Kos deserves to be called a politically liberal or progressive website.

In fact, the censuring of diverse voices of even other Democrats has become so incessant, I now have doubts as to whether the site is even what it claims to be. It appears to me that what it really is is a way to make money for the owner. Other people do all the writing at no cost to him and he makes money from the site, while at the same time promoting himself in liberal/Democratic circles so that he has access to even more influence, and thereby, more economic opportunity. Now that I've reached that conclusion, I feel like I've been had. I don't read the site anymore because I won't lend my support to a con artist.