All_Pro_Bills

You can never know for sure if the Durham investigation was some sort of misdirection play or a legitimate attempt to investigate actual events and potential misdeeds. As just a couple small fish have been tried and acquitted it appears to be nearing the end. That they never attempted to go after any of the "big" name players regardless of where the evidence pointed is telling. As they are part of the protected class in our two-tier justice system. Quite frankly, Durham knew they were off limits and going after them would have resulted in some official intervention in his investigation and most likely the end of his career. My suspicion all long is that like AG Barr, Durham was another Trojan Horse for the establishment and the investigation was never intended to lead to any convictions. Like the 1/6 committee, its purpose was to provide some drama and entertainment value.

When one of those 10's of thousands of new IRS agents audits you and shines a light up your rear end tell us again how the government "cares". That aside, my problem isn't the process and structure of government. My problem is the people running it. For starters, there's nobody in charge from both parties that's under 70+ years old. They need to retire and get out of the way. Move to Florida and take up flower arranging and sweep the beach for lost coins, take a nap and eat dinner at 4 PM. Second they all take office with few assets and leave millionaires while producing no specific product or providing no services. How does that work exactly?

Daboll is good at reading the room and he set the tone early when he decided to go for 2 against the Titans to win the game rather than take the tie and opt for overtime. It showed the coach had confidence in his team and that's developed into a two-way relationship. It was an early gamble and it worked. He immediately established trust and respect with his players which got everyone believing. He also rewarded guys making plays and preparing hard with game time and opportunities no matter their draft status or play level. In a pretty weak looking NFC conference they seem like a legitimate NFC wild card contender and he seems to have the team pointed in the right direction for the first time in a long time.

What was the Cuban missile crisis about? The Russians crossed the line in the sand by attempting to place ICBMs in Cuba. 90 miles from US territory. Washington found this unacceptable. What is one of the Russian concerns about Ukraine and NATO? Parking strategic nuclear weapons on their border. Moscow found this unacceptable as it crosses a line in the sand they've clearly communicated. Now if your a partisan player on one side or the other you can take the stance of one party being right and the other party being wrong. You can even say that Cuba has a right to do whatever they want inside their country and the US had no justification to object just like you've stated in past posts as a justification for Kiev position and Moscow's illegitimate objections and actions. But if you view the concerns objectively and equally you need to consider both valid or both invalid. You can't pick and choose. Moscow is just doing what Washington did in the '60's and the only difference is Moscow blinked and Washington didn't. I think that's pretty much the point.

You need to kill somebody before you let that happen again. Simply mindboggling. Just unbelievable. That staff has apparently learned absolutely nothing from last year's failure. Only the Bills.

My argument is if you want to achieve some objective and avoid conflict you need to negotiate. As I'm not an expert on Russia affairs or some sort of profiler, I don't know what Putin thinks. But your "we should be able to do what we want" thinking is like the guy that has a 200 foot deep backyard that puts his kids jungle gym and his tool shed 199 feet away from his back door and one foot inside the property line. Placing them about 20 feet from the neighbors back porch while seeing nothing wrong with it. Or one of my buddies neighbors that decided it was okay to divert the water flow into his backyard which floods his yard every time it rains. After all, everyone can do whatever they want! But real life don't work that way. There are actions and reactions and consequences. I've witnessed, or been a party to, situations where somebody thought they could do whatever they wanted and ended up getting the crap kicked out of them. And as far as countries go, I'll wager anyone expressing the idea Ukraine can do what they want will have a slightly different opinion about the Saudi's doing "what they want to do" with regards to lowering oil production levels. One lesson is where you stand depends on where you sit. Life's all about perspective. And our official perspective is governed by our own interests.

Yes, Putin and I are on the same page here. That's your stock virtue signalling answer for anyone you don't agree with. Might I suggest you live in the real world at some point here?

That sounds like the negotiating position of a spoiled child. And I guess that's exactly what Russia is doing too. What they want, right? If you consider the only option to a resolution is force and you're not willing to negotiate or yield any bargaining points to the other party in exchange for getting what you want, which is peace, through a negotiated and mutual compromise, then don't ask.

How? Pledge NATO will not extend membership to Ukraine.

Very well articulated. I see you as somebody that's willing to reason and compromise on almost every topic but that's a hard thing to do when you're mostly engaging in debate and discussion with absolute idealists that are completely invested in their views and aren't willing to alter their position or yield an inch of ground on anything no matter what facts or views you might bring to them. Call me cynical, but I'd also propose that when it comes to the critical issues and actions there's about a 95% consistency in policy and governance between the two major political parties and no matter which party is in charge there's maybe a 5% disagreement on things the power don't really care about. I'd argue the people we elect don't run anything. And their decisions generally are provided to them by the permanent bureaucracy and the powers bankrolling both political parties that call the shots from the background. And nobody dares to shine a light on these characters to expose exactly who's calling the shots and how they benefit at the expense of everyone else. While I support the concepts of democracy I see much of it beyond the ability to elect the candidate of your choice as somewhat of an illusion. Few members of Congress serve the actual interests of their constituents and the citizens they represent and if they do they are most certainly ridiculed and marginalized in some respect by agents in the media and the lapdog political class.

Biden asked the Saudi's to hold off on production cuts until after the mid-terms in order to help the Democrats retain control of Congress in exchange for not pursuing detrimental actions against the Kingdom. MBS said no to the threats. So now there is action to legislate punishment. A quid pro quo deal. Something I recall Trump was impeached by the House for allegedly pursuing. Of course Biden's cast of boot lickers here will not recognize or admit to the comparison.

This time is different. It really is. Because those outsized gains over the past few decades with periodic corrections over the course of time have been driven by consistently lower rates. Rates peaked in the early 1980's at about 20% and have been steadily falling. Supporting higher stock and bond prices. That trend is over. And inflation is not being contained by Fed rate hikes. What will they do? Go to 10 or 11 percent? The way our economy is structured and financialized it can't function at those levels. Time to buy "real" assets.

Gabbard doing the bidding of Putin? Predictable horseshit. That's just the way all the dimwits that can't form a rational argument dismiss any dissent to the government which some of you here have a perpetual hard-on for regardless of how dysfunctional it all is at this point. You're idiots. You know who you are.

So today you're going to lecture us on the virtues capitalism while supporting all of Biden's market interference initiatives?

Reminds me of a 60's comedy movie The Fortune Cookie with Jack Lemon as a cameraman at a Browns game that got plowed into on the sidelines.

One thing I find ironic about Hollywood is that the overwhelming majority advocate and support all kinds of gun control and social justice causes but still work and earn a living in movies that are full of gratuitous gun violence, lots of killings, and blowing stuff up.

OPEC understands that Uncle Joe is no more making Presidential decisions than I am. As such they aren't so much disrespecting him as they are ignoring him and sending the message they prefer to deal directly with whomever it is that the DNC appointed as President rather than the guy elected by the voters.

All sides are spewing propaganda. It's the nature of warfare.

That's a good question. For starters, I don't think the people running the Empire are concerned about how much you or I have to pay for anything unless it threatens their power. And the Saudi's regardless of production levels still adhere to the petrodollar system established under Nixon. Because of this they recycle a lot of US dollars into Treasuries and help fund all the deficit spending while keeping rates fairly low. If the US made a move to end the protection racket I expect China and/or Russia would swoop in and assume that role. The other thing is that military power has its limits and is only one aspect of the Empire's control. The bigger one is financial. Specifically, the US dollar's status as reserve and trade settlement currency. Which facilitates control over the value of money. Control the value of money and you control the price of everything. This has helped plunder third world resource rich countries of their assets while keeping prices "cheap" in dollar terms.

You just need to remember that Biden's policy failures are going to hurt everyone. Fate and karma don't discriminate between political ideologies when it comes to handing out punishment for bad decisions. Consequences are not going to skip liberal or conservative households on your street. From statements today the administration is preparing some sort of response to the OPEC+ decision to cut 2M/bbl per day and I expect all options are on the table but one, which is to increase domestic production. The single option where we control all the factors. The single option that requires no coercion or support from anyone else. The single option where you can solve your problem directly where you have the ability but not the will to solve it yourself. But this administration is so hung up on destroying the conventional energy market that they're willing to destroy our economy to do it.

More like participating in a crisis. Handling it? Not so much.

This action seems reasonable especially since government is joining the pot business. What I find most interesting is how all the legal and moral arguments to prohibit things seem to disappear into thin air when tax revenue generation opportunities present themselves.

That will be two shots of delusion and a chaser of idealism.

I think its just business. Putting on the business hat I believe what the Saudi's and OPEC+ are saying to the Fed and the US is that they're not going to allow the transfer of the consequences of irresponsible US fiscal and monetary policy to be transferred to them. Sure the US could threaten the Saudi's with removing the protection racket we provide the kingdom if they don't cooperate. But that void would be quickly filled by either Russia or China or both. And one consequence might be the end of the Petrodollar system which provides a quid pro quo arrangement in exchange for US protection. And if anyone thinks inflation is high now just think how high it might go when around an annualized $25 trillion used in oil trade and settlement needs to find a new home and place to park itself.

There's no plan. That's pretty much it. When you intend to embark on a "transformation" whether its a simple or complex process or system you need to do a few things. First, clearly articulate and understand the current state, and then clearly articulate and define the desired future state. And in between, comes a transition plan which identifies the steps, resources, time, cost, and other such necessities of producing a valid and credible plan to get from point A to point B. Another important task is to truthfully and realistically determine your capability of successfully completing the plan. Which might be called risk management. You need a master plan so to speak for US energy production and consumption. But we have no such thing. All we have are a series of seemly unrelated legislative actions along with attempts to provide incentives and disincentives in the market with the hope it will all work out. And so far its pretty clear it isn't. So the first impulse from our leadership is what is called doing more of what's not working until it works. Which is typically a road to failure. What's more troubling is the goal of not disrupting or destroying current society while performing the transition is absent or ignored.