perhaps the MSM has been relying on a piece of that "Foreign Aid" money, which has now dried up…?
I could be wrong, but I find it very unlikely that Q would be indicating 7 ellipses and 1 dot. It seems much more likely that Q would be intending 21 dots (i.e., no ellipses).
Why? Because most applications will automatically convert 3 dots typed sequentially into an ellipse. There is little distinction, visually, between three dots and one elliose–so it's easy to miss the automatic conversion (even if one is aware of the possibility).
I do think Q/Q+ are precise, even with typographical minutia (e.g., n-dash / m-dash, etc.), so I could be wrong. It would just seem weird if Q intended 7 ellipses and one dot since that's what one would get automatically anyway by typing 21 dots in a row.