If you can think of a way, I would most certainly invest. This seems like something that should have been done already. 😀

Not the right pigmentation for expedient help in the current administration.

I agree. It's a time-tested plan he's using. Portray the darker skin folks as not "true Americans". Works even better if they became successful and you can call them spoiled. This is what the birther stuff was all about. It's what the stuff about left-handed pledges and not wearing lapel pins was about.

It works because it plays to racist beliefs without actually coming out and stating the racist belief.

And for some reason this country cares more about culture wars than anything else. This goes for both sides too. Maybe there is some kind of psychological reason for it but it's just how things are.

What's astounding is the players being out there for the anthem is a paid recruiting tool by the government. We had no problem with players staying in the locker room for the anthem until the government was paying for patriotism and didn't get it.

I had that exact sentiment in my post, but ended up deleting it.

So the question becomes, who is our Peter Norman?

North Korea says that Trump declared war on them.

Fun Times

Remember that time two days ago when Trump tweeted that Iran had tested a missile? Turns out they didn't. He was fooled by a video from months ago.

That seems like a dangerous precedent.

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https...t8qL7X95Oi9n-j


Maybe he should follow his own advice.

That moment when your jingoistic alt-right hero is not a jingoistic alt-right hero...

PITTSBURGH STEELERS: Villanueva: Saluting anthem was last-minute decision, teammates didn't know | WPXI

This is why your President should listen to his own intelligence instead of reports from Fox News.

Sounds more like a dangerous President to me.

Boom!

(I'll get my coat)

Let's get to tax reform now.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/25/politi...tus/index.html

Tax reform is great. Give D.C. 2 Senators and a Rep or exempt them from taxes.

You have a point. Taxation without representation. Isnt that one of the reasons we revolted?

Trump handlers finally pulled him away from Fox News long enough to remind him to mention Puerto Rico. Of course this crisis is on them for having poor infrastructure to begin with.

But don’t worry, everything is “doing well”. This MFer is simply unreal.

Federal dollars may drive them to statehood. :)

It's telling that his first concern is for Wall Street getting their money back, then kinda sorta the actual human devastation.

No vote will be held on Graham-Cassidy. Now to see if they'll try to write and pass a new bill in 4 days time.

yes but...

GOP already eyeing next chance to revive Obamacare repeal - POLITICO

They've been struggling to get 50+VP on health care alone. Does anyone think they can get 50+ on health care+ tax cuts?

Does anyone know Arizona law on replacing deceased Senators? This would be a lot easier with a reliable Yes vote instead of McCain.

This line speaks volumes about Conservatives outlook on life:

I think the multiple tours in Afghanistan as a Ranger made him a hero and a patriot regardless of what he did Sunday.

If I were a GOP voter, I wouldn't be pissed just b/c Obamacare repeal has failed so far. Remaking health care is hard--see how long it took the Democrats to do it.

I'd be pissed that they already passed Obamacare repeal dozens (hundreds?) of times when Obama was president, but refused to just pass those same bills now that they have a Prez who will sign them.

I tend to agree. However...

I served 9 years and my wife currently serves and I'm uncomfortable with how we tend to put service members on a pedestal. Villanueva came out and admitted he screwed up in how he handled this. But the immediate reaction by many was to praise him, buy his jerseys, and trash the rest of the Steelers players along with the NFL without giving thought to the fact that Villanueva may not be the good guy in this. I'm not saying he's the bad guy, but it's difficult to say he was in the right here.

We've become a society where it's unamerican to even question a service member and their service is used to push agendas more than anything.

If I were a GOP voter I'd be pissed that repealing Obamacare has become more about doing to say you did it rather than fix anything. They've openly tried to make healthcare worse for the population as a whole because they're focused on wrong problems.

Repealing Obamacare and doing nothing else would be better than what they've tried to do. They just know it would be political suicide to do so now that more people have some form of healthcare.

What you mean, the Dems drafted it in 3 hours and snuck it into law. That's what my reps tell me in SC.

I expect articulate Trump to emerge now that Twitter is jumping to 280 characters.

Thank you for saying this, Atocep. I worry sometimes about how our country manages to move these sorts of issues into a zone where being a veteran lends someone a special expertise or gravitas...like service somehow makes them more of a citizen (in like a Starship Troopers sense) than everyone else. I've got a brother who is a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. He's an awesome human being (despite the fact that he's still my stupid kid brother...not sure how that happened). He did three tours in Afghanistan and 1 in Iraq. I'm immensely proud of him. He'd also be the first person to remind me that his education is in Business, not Constitutional Law. The national anthem means something different to him than it does to me because of his experiences, but that doesn't make what it means to me somehow less than or inadequate. Just different.

A reflection of that difference is that the national anthem business doesn't really mean much to me except as an excuse to eat more popcorn when I'm scrolling through Facebook.

That said, my official take on it is that if someone wasn't upset about Tim Tebow taking up company time to kneel in prayer on the sidelines, then they can't really be upset about this, either.

(And I say that acknowledging that I only get pissed off about protests when I disagree with what people are protesting for. I'm as hypocritical as the next guy, but I'd like to think that I'm at least self-aware enough to realize that I'm hypocritical.)

We elected a man who trashed a POW for getting captured and belittled a gold star family.

Service members are now just pawns for politicians and their minions to show off faux-patriotism. I'd argue the country doesn't really care at all about them.

How many times have I mentioned in some form or fashion that Trump's support only extends insofar as he delivers?

Roy Moore didn't just win today's runoff, he pretty well trounced the establishment pick that Trump campaigned for.

The WSJ coverage had a beautiful bit that I'm almost giddy about

More & more, I'm starting to wonder if we shouldn't have just elected Bannon.

edit to add: It's easy to say "oh, it's just Alabama being Alabama" however, how many Trump voters do you think are the "hug it out" type? I dare say it's a damned low percentage.

i still don't get why Trump didn't stump for Moore. He's essentially a more horrible Trump with less money.

Republicans spent $10 million to try to defeat Moore. McConnell and Co found him so dangerous they spent huge dollars and had the administration campaign for Strange and they still lost. The losses pilling up for McConnell astounding.

I think -- and this is the reason I felt like Trump's mistake in choices is kind of forgivable -- Trump was being loyal to someone that supported him, fairly early on too IIRC.

The message -- which I'm not particularly confident will be heard -- that was sent back to Trump was "get shit done ... or we'll find people that will"

McConnell backing the loser here feels awfully big to me too. Not sure you could get a much bigger kiss of death than that. (for a candidate, not for McConnell himself)

Well normally I'd be happy that a Trump-backed candidate lost (but Donald you said he win!), but Moore is so much more in Trump's style, and so anti-gay that I can't really say I'm happy he won.

http://time.com/4958583/roy-moore-lu...-donald-trump/

Whooooooooosh

That Roy Moore dude is a nutter. Damn. Well done Alabama. You're where you are for a reason. :lol:

Trump's been deleting all his Luther Strange tweets. Before the general election he's going to claim he was the first to endorse Moore.

I love how all these people that shout "constitution" and are so pissed that illegals break the law, keep getting behind folks that do not seems to respect the constitution or laws...

Class Trump-ism on delivierng aid to Puerto Rico:

"This is an island sitting in the middle of an ocean. It’s a big ocean, it’s a very big ocean."

I'm going to try this next time I'm in a meeting and something comes up that I know next to nothing about... Say the one (unrelated, if possible) thing I do know about it, and then emphasis my own point.

They keep turning up voter fraud in the oddest places:

Jared Kushner registered in New York as a female voter


I think he mean's daughter-in-law.

When Moore inevitably wins the general election, I look forward to the Bernie/Stein crowd claiming Doug Jones wasn't sufficiently progressive enough to win.

That's a shame.

Better than the Tebow analogy.

The tax plan framework is coming out. TBH, not sure how it works out for me but good to know they are working on it.

Details of GOP tax plan framework revealed - Sep. 27, 2017

The amusing thing is, she didn't protest, she refused to do her job. The players are still doing their job.

I've seen plenty of feedback on Tebow from conservatives -- i.e., he was ridiculed, harangued by the media, and ultimately driven out of football for kneeling in prayer.

I really want to respond, "I'm pretty sure he was driven out of football mostly because he could only complete 50% of his passes."

But I'd say the same thing about Kaepernick, too. You have more of a margin for being controversial (or even flat fucking up) if you're in the elite tier. If you're replacement level, your job was on the block at the end of your contract whether or not you kept your mouth shut.

Problem is that Kaepernick is above replacement level. And much better than many of the QBs that moved this off-season.

He's not a star, but he's definitely worthy of a roster shot on talent alone. Add in the social commentary...I understand why teams wouldn't want to give him a shot, but it still seems hard to believe that ALL of the teams wouldn't want to. I wonder how this latest step in the controversy changes that dynamic, if it all.

Kaepernick looked good before the league figured out how to defend the read option. Since then the only time he looked good was Chip Kelly's joke of an offense that made Nick Foles look like a superstar, and even then he was under 60% completions. He's not above replacement level in an actual NFL offense.

I'm pretty sure that would involve the interstate commerce clause, meaning that it would need congressional action.

His career QBR is 88.9, which over the last three seasons (2014-2016) ranks ahead of 16, 16 and 18 teams in the NFL. In 5 full seasons he has been 90 or better 3 times, with only one season below 86. I would say he is at least worthy of a back spot for 18-20 NFL teams currently. He is a shade under 60% in his career for completion pct, but he does not turn the ball over much either, being in single digits in picks every season but one, when he threw 10, so he is not going to kill you there either.

Let's not forget that he also opted out of $14 million guaranteed and asked for starter money. He's a gimmick QB who thinks he should be paid like a star. His career QBR is irrelevant to each individual season. His rating under Harbaugh running the read option was 98.3, 91.6, and 86.4, going down each year. His rating under Kelly running the Duck offense was 90.7. The one year in a traditional offense was 78.5. You're not getting starting QB money, or a guaranteed starting job, when your one season in a traditional offense was 78.5.

He's a guy who completes somewhere around 59% of his passes and doesn't have anything that suggests he'll succeed in most NFL offenses. Couple that with the circus around him and the money he was demanding, and you've got a recipe for unemployment.

McConnell has a -42 net approval.

With Trump voters.

I'm not sure I understand the genius of Trump's "Fuck all these Republicans!" strategy.

Colin Kaepernick is not supposed to be unemployed.

Linked in that article: Colin Kaepernick is better than Joe Flacco.

While the majority of the second article is "Joe Flacco is completely terrible," it goes on to show that in advanced metrics Kaepernick has improved significantly, improving his ability to read defenses, move within the pocket, and throw extremely accurately in short range passes (top five in the league accurate), all while suffering the worst catch rate on catchable passes in the league, suffering through multiple offensive coordinators, and having garbage talent around him.

And when the team that employs Flacco was ready to sign Kaepernick, his psychotic girlfriend called the team owner a slave owner. Kaepernick is where he is because he can't play in a real offense, wants to be paid like a starter, and has more controversy and nonsense around him than Tebow did.

If he was that good he would be playing.

He isn't Tom Brady, but he isn't Matt Barkley, Geno Smith or Dan Orlovsky either. Many players have been given jobs after far more egregious acts than taking a knee, which we have entire teams doing now. I get why he doesn't have a job, but it's not like he is the outlier anymore. And the starter money narrative is not true, his agent released details of what they were looking for and it was not 10 million as was reported.

He does need to tell his girl to stay out of the equation.

Everything you have said in here is true except for the "can't play in a real offense" and "if he was that good he would be playing" parts. The articles show that he is, in fact, that good. Better than half the QBs in the league in raw stats, and even better than that gives him credit for in the advanced look. He is an above-average quarterback by definition. But he's unemployed.

I'm not saying I don't understand it - I totally understand it. I also think it's stupid, and that teams are hurting themselves performance-wise by ignoring him.

Did those other players demand more than $14 million per year and have a girlfriend call one of the team owners a slave owner when he was set to sign them?

He played 1 season in a real offense, 2015. If they break down that season, compared to someone like Flacco, then I'll be interested. What he did last year was irrelevant, it's the same offense that made Nick Foles look like a star.

BYU mentioned his salary demands were not that high, per the agent.


That's the point, they aren't breaking down the offense - they're breaking down things like individual throws by distance and accuracy, his ability to read the defense and check down his options.

I don't believe agents, period, and his agent only said that after teams were leaking his demands to the press.


The numbers are context specific. The offensive system clearly plays a role in a player's production. Jared Goff under Jeff Fischer to Jared Goff under Sean McVay is already looking to be exhibit A in that situation.

Take your gratuitous football talk elsewhere. What kind of place do you think this is?

I don't know if I can be clearer - they looked at his numbers and showed that he was better than half the league. Then, in an effort to eliminate the context you continue to harp on, they analyzed aspects of his game that are not context dependent. How he moves in the pocket to avoid a pass rush has nothing to do with the offensive scheme. Whether or not the throw he made on a given play was accurate has very little (if anything) to do with scheme. They specifically analyze these things to eliminate as much scheme/relative talent bias as possible.

CK opted out of a completely non guaranteed contract. He didn't want to go thru all of the preseason without a guarantee. His contract was changed in 2016 and he waived some injury guarantees at that time so they would let him play.

Even if CK had picked up his player option, the Niners likely would have cut him.

I think we have evidence now that kneeling wasn't the thing keeping him out of the league - kneeling is now the cool thing to do and even some of the owners are doing it. (And all are defending it).

I feel like with Kaep there's more of a total package there - the Castro worship, the girlfriend, the police pig socks - and his comments about what the protests meant to him and what his views are are a lot different than the way the players talk about the protests now. It's evolved a lot, it's gotten more NFL- and corporate-friendly. (I wonder how Kaep feels seeing Jerry Jones kneeling with players and chasing down a cameraman to make sure he gets on TV- we might only be a couple of weeks away from this all becoming a Pepsi ad.) I think if Kaep was an anonymous personality and was willing to pay for the minimum, he'd have a job, but he's not nearly good enough to overcome the character he's created for himself. That's not crazy or unprecedented, I think plenty of fringe guys in sports (or business) can find themselves on the outside if they're too controversial.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/06/nf...lin-kaepernick

That's an article that touches on why NFL coaches aren't as high on Kaepernick as you might think with his stats.

Kaep struck me as a guy who looked super elite at times and then would miss throws that a third grader could hit. He should be rostered somewhere as he's probably a top 25 QB or better.

China is adding some pressure. Not sure how much of a real impact but it seems more than what they have done in the past.

China Ordered All North Korean-Owned Businesses to Close

So they're going to try and make it Trump's Puerto Rico?

It is just me or is Trump actually making more progress on North Korea than the past couple presidents?

Or do I just have amnesia?

I'm not sure I would call it progress but Trump has certainly "unsettled" the crazy kid more than past Presidents acting with the presidential constraint.

I don't think anyone has made progress with North Korea. They're still moving forward on nuclear weapons. That's the problem and it's difficult to say Trump has made any progress when they're comfortable enough to fire misses over Japan.

Chicken or the egg I guess. He seems less willing to put up with their nonsense but in turn I think that has led to more nonsense.

All Trump has done is accelerate the craziness of North Korea. He's basically pushed them into warp drive because he has the decorum of a special needs chimp.

Detroit Lions' Akeem Spence: My father lost a job due to my protest

Despicable doesn't even begin to describe it. Herr Trump has made it okay to target the livelihood of black families.

Yep, play the victim card.
Sounds like the player may have thought about the consequences of HIS actions.
Maybe he should have thought about what could happen.

Part of the problem is no one accepting responsibility for their actions. It is always someone else's fault.

Lost a job? First, the guy is a contractor and was looking for work, he wasn't fired. Second, the dude in charge of hiring people simply said "Hire you? Nope."

That is a *far cry* from the insinuation of the headline - that a football player's father was fired from his job because of the player's protest.

What bullshit. Sec. Price is going to reimburse the government for his carter planes, by paying the equivalent cost of a business class ticket.

Not the difference between business class and charter, just the cost of business class tickets.

How brave of Twitter. I could have done that in 5 minutes on a Saturday morning.

Wouldn't hire somebody that I knew raised a complete p.o.s. like his son either.

Every last one of the bastards should be unemployed.

So I'm reading about this great tax reform and part of the plan is to eliminate the deduction for state income taxes paid. Like seriously what the fuck.

Lets get this clear - you consider him both a p.o.s and a bastard because he's making a polite and peaceful protest about what he sees as an unfair issue in society ... how would you consider it acceptable for him to make this point and protest?

(bearing in mind that in many of the NFL cases the team owners have demonstrated they SUPPORT the protests so you can't say 'he shouldn't do it at work'... the work has accepted its alright to and as a free country it is surely their choice to make that decision?)

Only if you think it's fair to do the same to Magamorons.

Answer: There is no form of protest that they'd accept. Look at the 72 olympics. It's nothing new.

It'll be interesting to see what happens this Sun.

My guess is fan backlash made the Packers blink and use the stand-and-link-arms vs the take a knee/seat variant.

Which Green Bay Packers Sat During the National Anthem? [Sept.*28]

Just to be clear, if it was the pre-Trump protest, the owners did not support it.

If it was post-Trump, the owners "supported" it more as a defense mechanism than believing the Kaepernick pre-Trump stance.

I thought the increase in HSA contributions was going to be part of it but I didn't see any reference to it. Major disappointment if its not included.

Yeah the NFL realizes football has plenty of "blue color" good ole "patriotic" Americans that won't tolerate disrespecting a symbol of white privileged. I don't expect NFL to support the player protests now that (white) fans are starting to complain.

I actually saw two adult men come to blows tonight NOT because of either man kneeling during the anthem. Man #1 did not have his hand over his heart during the anthem. Man #2 called him on it. Man #1 did not appreciate having his patriot card pulled. Words were exchanged and then punches were thrown.

Fun times at youth football!

Stupid. I have never put my hand over my heart because, but hold the anthem in total reverence.

Really? We have now reached the point where the American flag/National Anthem are referred to as symbols of white privileged? The hyperbole on both sides continues to amp up with each passing day.

Delanie Walker, who went on a USO tour this summer and has done several activities for military personnel, is getting death threats for telling people who don't like the protests that it's their right to stay home from games if it offends them. So, yes, when black athletes are getting death threats for protesting violence against people of color in society, it is being used as a means of oppression for those who experience white privilege.

Do you really consider nuclear brinkmanship progress?

I view it more as "playing ego games with millions of people's lives," but whatever.