All_Pro_Bills

Suggesting logic and critical thinking be applied to ideological initiatives is an act of futility. In this case reparations. An on again off again topic. There are lots of questions about criteria and definitions. One fatal flaws of giveaways is that after 90% of the recipients blow their funds on trivial pursuits and needless stuff, what then? Demand more handouts, that's what. Most likely, there must be a necessity for some politician out there to buy some votes and score some points with another "free lunch" idea. My guess is its not going to happen because its all a game the pols run to pit the peasants against each other to distract attention away from the elites so they can horde and steal the productive goods and services out of the country and live the good life supplemented by hefty rich people welfare courtesy of the taxpayers. Its quite a con these psychos are running and its amazing how well it works for them. For the rest of us, not so much.

So resorting to just playing dumb now?

Are you paying attention or just getting paid to defend the establishment? Running a family business of influence and payoffs with China and other foreign entities. But you know that already, don't you? 10% for the big guy. Tell me you didn't hear that quote yet?

Yes, but my base thesis is they all lie.

I can't speak for the motivations of others. Why people believe one thing or another or listen to some sources and not others. Could it be confirmation bias or something like that? I don't know and I'm not going to put any more thought into it. And I'm not talking anarchy, its just how boom and bust cycles end. My thinking is I'm just not going to allow the sociopaths and maniacs running our out of control political, economic, and social systems to do major damage to me personally, and the people I'm responsible for caring after, along with friends and acquaintances that will listen to my assessment of things. I'll offer up my views that social, political, and economic systems are going bust and if anybody wants to listen then great and if they don't then good luck to them. I might listen to the opinions of others but their thoughts don't form the basis of my actions or ideas. But when it comes to media, I will say its hard to get people to tell the truth when they're getting compensated to lie. I think that's all there is to it.

In other words, trying to manipulate the legal system to hide his crimes.

I agree with you about liars. And I may be adding a little dramatic effect here, but the entire system that currently supports the elites in politics and money centers is based on lies and deceit. We're in a late-stage decline phase of the American empire where those things what's holding a decaying and decadent system together. I can think of few institutions and cultural values that are holding together. If you hold to a base assumption that everything social, financial, and political elites and the government says is a lie you'll be right most of the time.

Anyone that's not an idiot or on the payroll knew this from the start. How elaborate would it be to "fake" all the files and e-mails on somebody's personal laptop? You'd need intimate details about their life, their associations, plus planting stuff on other people's computers that corresponded with them, and on and on That's just not possible. So are the posters on the PPP that bought the Russian disinformation story and all the other establishment narratives that one by one have been shown to be false idiots or paid posters for the system?

Come on, it's funny. And the reason its funny is because the authoritarian policies of both jurisdictions are so similar that the idea of replacing Newsom with Trudeau would be plug and play.

Rumor has it that when his term as PM end, Trudeau plans on moving to the US where he will apply for citizenship and run for governor of California.

What happened to the excuse the DOJ (Garland said it) and the FBI (Wray used the excuse with Congress) don't make statements about ongoing investigations. Saying they didn't find any classified documents is making a statement about an ongoing investigation. What it boils down to is they'll open their mouths when it benefits some objective.

The Treasury will never "default" in the way you or I would in a personal or business debt and default situation because they have the ability to create or print "money" at will while you and I do not have that privilege. What such an event would do is trigger a run on the dollar along with turmoil and chaos in the credit markets. But the world wouldn't end lenders to the US government would simply get paid back the required nominal amount of dollars which would be worth much less than the dollars the government borrowed from them. The traditional way to deal with the debt limit is to suppress any debate or conversation and insist on a rubber stamp "yes" vote without any conditions or limitations. Another approach might be forcing a serious conversation that almost nobody in either political party or the government wants to have by threatening consequences about continuing to avoid the use of unlimited deficit spending and a national debt of $31 Trillion. The thing they don't speak out loud is the government will never pay back that money. Which to me means we're in a denial phase about the debt situation and this course of spending eventually will lead to ruin. With eventually getting pretty close.

Whatever your conclusions, this story about allegations of Russian collusion, Trump, and the American media's handling of the story published in the Columbia Journalism Review story is worth a read: https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-ed-note.php

Sure, but there's always the chance they kill you first.

If I'm running the program I'd use some "outside of the box" thinking and offer to pay all those Wagner mercenaries $500K apiece to surrender and switch sides. That would be more effective than transferring all this military hardware.

The cool thing is this. The obsession with Trump where prosecutors identify the person and find the crime is costing a lot of taxpayer money while boosting the image of the DA with the liberal base and making a few lawyers some decent fees. Nothing much else though. NYS residents are just chumps bankrolling this crusade and electing these folks. Will they ever wise up? Doubtful.

NATO will stop Russia dead. Putin isn't going to invade Europe or reform the Soviet Union. So the 1938 analogy is inapplicable. And the ability to destroy the world 100 times over changes the dynamics of the conflict and the risks present 2023 vs. 1938. So are you willing to risk nuclear annihilation of the world to support a fight over national ownership of a couple Russian ethnic provinces in some country on the other side of the Earth? I'm not and I'll wager almost every one of the other 7 billion human inhabitants of the planet aren't either.

I'm saying escalations in hostilities have a potential to lead to WW3 which results in the end of the world. Are you good with that outcome?

I think that conclusion is demonstrably false because to this point any escalation in hostilities from either side has been met with an equal or larger escalation from the other. It might be a major error in judgment to base strategy on the premise the other person is going to back down if they're threatened with more harm. I've been a party in one form or another to some personal disagreements where both potential combatants had a similar expectation (that being the other guy will back down) it never ended well for either person.

When they run out of soldiers the war will be over. Then some Pentagon & defense industry funded think tank will perform a study which concludes the US and its allies should have done more sooner and they'll recommend a 50% boost in annual US defense spending to over $1.2T. And all the puppets in Congress from both parties will vote for it while they consider an annual budget bill that raises grandma's social security eligibility age to 70 and cut school lunch programs due to lack of funding.

Regardless of the size of the QB's deal, the trick is drafting well and getting major contributions out of 3 or 4 players every year that are on cheap rookie deals. The Bills have consistently failed at this and to add insult to injury McDermott hesitates to play rookies. The player acquisition problems are on Beane.

For 2023 12 players account for about 3/4 of the cap. Josh Allen $39,772,281 - 17.56% Stefon Diggs $20,271,111 - 8.95% Von Miller 18,615,000 - 8.22% Tre'Davious White $16,223,147 - 7.16% Dion Dawkins $14,824,870 - 6.55% Matt Milano $13,338,588 - 5.89% Mitch Morse $11,160,000 - 4.93% Ed OliverDT $10,753,000 - 4.75% Micah Hyde $10,571,294 - 4.67% Taron Johnson $9,215,000 - 4.07% DaQuan Jones $8,583,333 - 3.79% Dawson Knox $6,425,000 - 2.84% That doesn't leave much for the other 43 players on the 53 man roster. They'll need to restructure a few deals to create some space but I don't see how they re-sign Poyer and any deal with Edmunds is going to be too expensive. Signing other big time free agents looks like a dream. Scoring an "A" in the draft is going to be required along with signing budget free agents and college free agents on rookie deals.

The Bills have 24 UFA's. And still need to restructure some deals which is can kicking because at some point either you pay guys a lot more in the back-end years or cut them which loads up on dead cap money. Which is something Beane stated was not part of his "sustainable" plan for managing the cap and personal decisions. But here we are.

I agree with 1/2 of this. I think the Bills right now are arguably the 6th best team in the NFL behind KC. Cinn, Dallas, SF, and Philly. If anyone wants to argue top tier is getting beat in the division round every year then fine. But I also think Allen is the most talented player at the QB position and THE single player in the league most responsible for his team's success. Without Allen the Bills are no better than a 7 win team. I see him being wasted by a regime that won't or can't surround him with enough talented players at other positions on offense. Their thinking is they can get by with a middling offensive line and lots of 3rd receiver types because Josh's athleticism can cover up those problems. But against the best teams in the playoffs that approach falls flat. Another off season of ignoring the offense is unacceptable. The good news is the team is set at the QB position for the next 5 to 7 years. The bad news is cap problem, a coaching staff that can't learn from their past mistakes or the successes or strategies of others plus a front office that can't find enough impact starters in the draft year over year along with signing a lot of marginal free agents that are just good enough to get by. Combine these problems with the Jets and Dolphins knocking on the door and next year might be brutal.

The Chiefs came out with a good game plan and to their credit the Bengals made adjustments. KC lost some receivers and had to adjust their offense on the fly. It was back and forth in the second half. It was a chess match between the two that came down to the end which could have gone either way a play or two different. But my expectation is there's close to a zero chance this Bills coaching staff will apply any learning or experiences from the past few seasons and playoffs that will fundamentally alter anything they do regarding the scheme or play calling. So why wait to make a change? It's just wishful thinking to expect some light to go on that will cause this crew to fundamentally change anything. If it hasn't happened yet it isn't going to happen. Is ownership that disconnected from reality? Why waste another season of all our lives, and more importantly Josh Allen's career? The Bills have 24 UFA's and not much cap space. They need to hit on the draft, sign some cheap free agents that will outplay their contracts, and make some adjustment is play calling and scheme on both sides of the ball. A lot changes to stay in the hunt. The coaching staff doesn't seem up to the task, neither does the front office which I think is a bigger problem and a whole other conversation. I think 2023 is going to be rough which will be followed by some big changes and a return to contention.