Mickey

The republican party's or rather, the lunatic wing of the republican party's, attack on the independence of the judiciary is now being directed at a former Buffalonian and much admired conservative, Judge Frank Easterbrook of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is so republican that his middle name is Hoover. He was born in Buffalo in 1948 and was appointed by President Reagan in 1985. He is well known for his academic work in the field of corporate law and frequently appears on the list of potential Supreme Court nominees. His brother, Gregg Easterbrook is a noted author and is the editor of The New Republic. Judge Easterbrook is now being attacked by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc) who just happens to be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Sensennbrenner is pulling a Schiavo, attempting to dictate the decision he, as a politician, wants to Judge Easterbrook by writing a letter to the court intervening in a drug case appeal. The defendant was found guilty and sentenced to 8 years but sentencing laws actually require a sentence of 10 years. The prosecutors however, did not appeal the sentence. Accordingly, Judge Easterbrook reluctantly affirmed the sentence. That sparked Sensenbrenner to write to Chief Judge Joel Flaum to complain about the ruling and demand a different result. The age old, first year in law school rule here is that any argument not raised on appeal is deemed abandoned. Even so, Sensenbrenner wants Judge Easterbrook to hear and decide an appeal never brought and what is more, is telling the judge how to rule. The Chief Judge of the 7th Circuit, sensibly, declined pointing out the illegality of considering "Super Judge" Sensenbrenner's letter. Politicians intervening in pending cases to demand a particular result, how wonderfully fascist. Picture a spectrum with an independent judiciary on one end and kangaroo courts on the other and then consider in which direction this nudges us. Here is a great interview with Judge Easterbrook where he states: "...the Bills still hold a special place in my heart--as do the bottomless pits in Star Wars, which demonstrate that once civilizations have achieved sufficient technological progress OSHA will wither away. " Attack on the Courts? I hope the adults in the Republican Party will smack Sensenbrenner upside the head and tell him to shut up already.

Anyone who thought we would get zero for TH is an idiot and so is anyone who thought we should cut him and so is anyone who thought we would get a second round pick for him. I was never held any of those opinions. That TD didn't listen to them is fairly reassuring because if he is listening to what people post here, we are in deeper trouble than I thought. If you want to praise him for not listening to idiots, go ahead. I wonder if that is the top bullet point on his resume "Ability to ignore morons". I stick by the point I have been making over and over since the end of last year. TH is an average back who isn't worth all that much. This trade verifies exactly what I always thought the guy was worth. All TD did was wait hoping to get better than the 4th rounder he was offered at the draft. As you acknowledge, nothing brilliant here. This isn't a case of discussing whether TD is a joke or the best non-playoff GM in the league. It is simply an average trade for an average player. As for the long history of TH, how we got him and the end result, it is six of one half dozen of the other. It wasn't a "free pick", that pick was an opportunity and if you blow an opportunity like that, it costs your team plenty. You don't get many opportunities to trade down, pick up an extra pick and still get the guy you wanted. Just because you got the pick that way doesn't mean it was so "free" you can afford to fritter it away. I thought it was a bad pick given our offensive line needs and the running backs we had on the roster at that point. No, it wasn't a terrible pick, it wasn't the biggest mistake in Bills history, I just thought we could have done better need wise, thats all. As it turned out, Travis was so good that we were motivated to take a chance with a first round pick on a guy with an exploded knee. The end result is pretty fair, WM is working out just fine and we got a 3rd back for TH which is only one round less than we used to get him plus we had a decent starter for a couple years. All in all it just was no big deal. My main beef is not with the various takes on TD and his performance here, it with all those who were going on and on about all the first rounders we were going to get for TH. TD never promised that.

Actually, I think the pre-draft idiots who thought we would get a first rounder or at a minimum, a second rounder, far outweigh the number of people who may have said to just cut him.

I tried to point that out a few times myself but I just got run over by the "all hail TD" crowd. Apparently, anything sort of girlishly gushing praise for this trade as the deal of the century makes you a TD hater.

Alexander wants tons and tons and tons of money. No one will sign him for that kind of money and of course, no one is going to trade for a palyer they can't sign. Do you think the Titans would take TH over Alexander if the price were the same? All TD did was not trade him for a 4th rounder at the draft. The hue and cry at that time was not that he should have taken that but that he should have been able to get a second rounder "at least". My take before and after the draft was that TH just isn't worth as much as so many here claimed. My beef wasn't with TD on this one but with all those who were not only sure that we were going to get a second of first rounder for him but were pretty aggressive to any who disagreed. For my part, the trade just vindicates what I always thought, if TH were worth so much, we wouldn't have drafted WM to begin with. As for TD, he didn't pull of any miracle here, he got rid of a good back for less than it cost us to get him. The reaction here by some that this verifies his genius is embarassing to watch. This may very well be one of the most insignificant trades we have ever made.

Oh how times have changed. Before the draft the board was awash in speculation over whether the old fox would get a second or a first round pick for Travis, afterall, we picked him in the second round and since then he proved himself by making the pro bowl. When that didn't work out, there were some after the draft still clinging to the idea that we were going to get a top pick for him. "Just wait" they said, "you'll see, ol' TD will get us into the second round yet just as soon as somebody else's back gets hurt". Now we are asked to congratulate him for getting a third rounder for him? All TD did was get what Travis was worth, a lousy third rounder. Nothing more, nothing less. It was no major coup, no brilliant deal making.

I don't think he can be had for anything less than top dollar. He seriously wants to be paid as one of the top 3 LT's in the game or retire. Certainly that is part posturing so may be he will want only top 10 kinf of money but he sure isn't going to be had for peanuts. Unless we think he is really that good and worth the money, we shouldn't bother with him. I don't see it happening. If we were willing to pay that kind of money for that level of talent, we would have resigned Jennings.

You had to remind me. Curses.

What catches my eye about that story is Seattle dropping out. They would only do that if it was clear that the price tag was too steep which is good news for us. Maybe we won't get the second or first round pick so many dreamed of in those heady days prior to the draft but a third rounder would be better than a fourth and that is looking more and more like a possibility.

Silly boy, you had me at "I don't think..."

ummm.... that was supposed to be a tongue in cheek deal, I wasn't seriously trying to besmirch the sport of fishing. As for Vegas, there is a lot more there than gambling. The cocktail waitresses and free drinks alone are enough of a draw for me but I am easy to please. Clearly, I find the "news" of Henry's departure exciting enough to read every post about it. After reading Nick's post I reached for my nerf Bills logo football and fired one at the dog who was minding his own business on the cool tiles in front of the fireplace after shouting, in my best Van Miller imitation, "Losman goes long to Evans..." So yeah, I am pathetically devouring every tid-bit of football info I can while I count the days to camp just like everyone else on the board.

This whole situation reminds of me of my fishing theory. It goes like this: Fishing is inherently an activity completely bereft of anything even resembling excitement. It only seems to be exciting. Fishing is like stepping into a sensory deprivation tank so that anything that happens, anything at all, seems exciting. Thus holding on to a string which is occasionally tugged by a mindless, mercury ridden fish seems like a trip to Vegas. The TH news is like that. The off season is a football deprivation tank into which we have all been immersed. Anything that happens, any tid bit of football news actually seems exciting in our deprived state of mind numbing football-less-ness.

Like it or not, your friend's view of the Bills with a new QB is pretty much going to be the "common wisdom" for the upcoming season until JP hopefully shuts them up with solid play. Your counter arguments are familiar territory as well. They certainly have some creedence but the bottom line is we just don't know. JP is a walking question mark right now. There are plenty of reasons to think he is going to have a very good year despite his inexperience but there are plenty of reasons to support the idea that he will go through some serious growing pains. We shall see. Camp is just around the corner.

The sources are the people quoted in the stories, not the reporters themselves. Those sources included: Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst Mel Goodman, former CIA analyst Jim Marcinkowski, former CIA case officer Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA counterterrorism operations chief Numerous anonymous intelligence officials Now, if you have some reason to believe that they were misquoted by the media outlets you feel are biased, that the papers lied about what they said, share it with us. I have no idea if Karl Rove broke the law, that is for the Special Prosecutor and the grand jury to figure out. Whether he did something despicable, regardless of whether it was a crime or not, is a different question. You and others on the right keep repeating the same list of excuses as to why this isn't a problem, most of which, like the notion that she was not a covert agent are easily disproved. Frankly, most of them came out and were abandoned in embarassment back when the story first broke in 2003. "Everybody in the DC social circles they were in knew she worked at the CIA" I'd like to hear the proof on that one. The talking points being widely distributed by GOP spin central to fire up the noise machine don't even make that claim (see RNC Talking Points aka "Slime Script" Strange that Mel Goodman was at the CIA for 24 years and was also a friend of Wilson's and all that time he did not know she was a covert agent. I guess he just doesn't go to many cocktail parties. In early 2002, Valerie Plame was an officer in the Directorate of Operations of the CIA task force on counter-proliferation, dealing with weapons of mass destruction, including Saddam's WMD programs. At that time, as she had been for almost two decades, she was an undercover operative. After training at "The Farm," the CIA's school for clandestine agents, she became what the agency considers among its most valuable and dangerous operatives -- a NOC, or someone who works under non-official cover. NOCs travel without diplomatic passports, so if they are captured as spies they have no immunity and can potentially be executed. As a NOC, Plame helped set up a front company, Brewster-Jennings, whose cover has now been blown and whose agents and contacts may be in danger still. But it doesn't matter. Why is it so terribly inconceivable that the President's hatchet man and every President has one, would toast a team player for speaking out of turn with a leak figuring he would never, ever be revealed as the source?

Where did that crap come from, perhaps GOP USA the republican spin machine that served as home sweet home for male prostitutes with White House press credentials? So, Plame was not a covert agent? Hmmmmm.... lets see: Robert Novak's original column, July 14 2003: Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. David Corn in the Nation, July 16 2003: ....a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as "nonofficial cover" and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material....a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm. Newsday, July 21 2003: Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity ....A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. Washington Post, September 29, 2003: She is a case officer in the CIA's clandestine service and works as an analyst on weapons of mass destruction. Novak published her maiden name, Plame, which she had used overseas and has not been using publicly. Intelligence sources said top officials at the agency were very concerned about the disclosure because it could allow foreign intelligence services to track down some of her former contacts and lead to the exposure of agents. MSNBC, September 30, 2003: CIA lawyers answered a series of 11 questions "affirming that the woman's identity was classified, that whoever released it was not authorized to do so and that the news media would not have been able to guess her identity without the leak." Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, September 30, 2003: I know Joseph Wilson well enough to know that his wife was in fact a deep cover operative running a network of informants on what is supposedly this administration’s first-priority issue: Weapons of mass destruction. Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst on NewsHour, September 30, 2003: I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades....she works in an area where people she meets with overseas could be compromised.... she's a woman of great integrity....This is a woman who is very solid, very low key and not about show boating. CNN, October 1, 2003: Sources told CNN that Plame works in the CIA's Directorate of Operations -- the part of the agency in charge of spying -- and worked in the field for many years as an undercover officer. "If she were only an analyst, not an operative, we would not have filed a crimes report" with the Justice Department, a senior intelligence official said. Mel Goodman, former CIA analyst, Washington Post online Q&A, October 1 2003: ....I've worked in Washington for the past 38 years, including 24 years at the CIA...and I know Ambassador Wilson....and I did not know that his wife was an agency employee. Let's face it....this was targetted information as part of a political vendetta....a pure act of revenge. Jim Marcinkowski, former CIA case officer, LA Times, Ocotber 1, 2003: The exposure of Valerie Plame — who I have reason to believe operated undercover — apparently by a senior administration official, is nothing less than a despicable act for which someone should be held accountable. This case is especially upsetting to me because she was my agency classmate as well as my friend. New York Times, October 2, 2003: Valerie Plame was among the small subset of Central Intelligence Agency officers who could not disguise their profession by telling friends that they worked for the United States government. That cover story, standard for American operatives who pretend to be diplomats or other federal employees, was not an option for Ms. Plame, people who knew her said on Wednesday. As a covert operative who specialized in nonconventional weapons and sometimes worked abroad, she passed herself off as a private energy expert, what the agency calls nonofficial cover. New York Daily News, October 2, 2003: Two former senior intelligence officials confirmed that Valerie Plame, 40, is an operations officer in the spy agency's directorate of operations - the clandestine service. Plame "ran intelligence operations overseas," said Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA counterterrorism operations chief. Her specialty in the agency's nonproliferation center was biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and "recruiting agents, sending them to areas where they could access information about proliferation matters, weapons of mass destruction," Cannistraro said. Okay, that's 4 ex-cia employees who say she was a covert agent and numerous senior intelligence officials as well. On top of that, consider that indeed, if she wasn't covert, there could be no crime yet the CIA asked the Justice Department to investigate and it affirmed the need for an investigation and thus a Special Prosecutor was set up who is pursuing the matter with vigor. It seems reasonable to believe that all three have concluded that she in fact was covert for otherwise there would be no need for an investigation. Against that is your link to Joe Mariani "computer consultant and free lance writer". You'll have to excuse me if for now I go with the CIA, the Justice Department, the Special Prosecutor, ex-CIA employees and "senior intelligence officials" rather than Mr. Mariani.

To anyone who has studied constitutional law, the phrase "legislating from the bench" is a joke, a meaningless political catch phrase used to attract the attention of folks like Richio. It gives them a one line justification that is easy to remember and can be repeated ad nauseum. Actually thinking through a difficult issue that challenges even the best legal minds, conservative and liberals alike, would be waaaay to taxing and won't fit on a placard. Of course, that is not to even begin to point out the hypocrisy of being all for "legislating from the bench" when it suits your own politics such as in the Schiavo shame-a-thon or the Supremes telling Florida to shove its election laws up a shark's a$$. To be fair, I am sure we will hear the same from the other side along the lines of Judge so and so being opposed to civil liberties or more likely, an "ideologue". It is why you end up with intellectual lightweights on the Supreme Court like Thomas and to some, Souter. Neither side wants the best brain on the court, they want someone whose votes on any given case can be reliably predicted. Both sides will say there should be no litmus test but that is exactly what they both want, a litmus test on abortion. This is not about legislating from the bench, it is not about the constitution. It is about abortion and that is all there is to it.

Though I am optimistic about the season, some these claims of yours are at least a little bit iffy. I hope you are right in all that you say but I have doubts. Best coaching staff in the league? What is that based on? Mularkey has been a head coach for one year. I like our coaching staff fine but given the results on the field and the shortness of their careers at this point, I don't think such an over the top statement is based on much more besides homerism. Philadelphia and San Diego are doing quite well with the staff they have just to name a few. Knowing where everyone is supposed to be on a given play is nice but unless your expectations for a quarterback are about as low as they can get, this is not much of an achievment. Studying hard with Sam is the minimum I would expect. Neither of these facts translate directly to wins. If that were all there is to being a winning QB, the league would be chock full of them. We lost Pat and Jonas Jennings. Everyone seems to agree that we have had a solid defense the past few years. Pat was on those defenses. Did those defenses achieve what they did despite Pat Williams or in part, because of him? Losing Pat Williams could be a very big deal in the short term even if it was the right move in the long run. As for Jennings, losing arguably the best offensive lineman you have from a line that was suspect to begin with is at least worthy of concern. Fans here have expressed often enough their concerns regarding the line so it is no surprise that sports writers are also concerned. I don't agree necessarily with the pessimism coming out of the footbal rags but clearly, there are legit reasons to be concerned whether this team will play as well as it did last year. What concerns me most is that last year were probably not as good as our record given what turned out to be a wussy filled schedule. I think we likely have to improve just to finish as well as we did last year and even that won't get us into the playoffs. Nobody knows. JP is a big fat question mark. I wouldn't be shocked if he tore it up from the git-go and became the talk of the league by week three. I also wouldn't be shocked if Holcomb replaced him as the starter in week three either. I am cautiously optimistic.

What generation is that? I don't recall forging free agency or prizing it in any particular way. During that time I was far more interested in getting a date with Suzy Kirche and making the varsity eight to really get involved in all this mischief my generation was apparenty conspiring to achieve. Limited free agency was the result of a few successful lawsuits and strikes by the players.

Are you saying that if he has a great year but wants more money, we should get rid of him so that he would be somebody elses problem? Yeah, having a great running back, what a terrible problem that would be. The trophy goes to the best team, not to the team with the best balance sheet. Are we in this to win or to keep our cap numbers low so we are merely competitive? People complain about the mess Butler left behind cap-wise but what everyone forgets is what we got in exchange for that which was lots and lots and lots and lots of winning. During his tenure we were in the playoffs 10 times and our record was 140-83. If that is the price of cap hell, give me more, give me more

Kudos on a very good analogy but it is just a little shy of being applicable to the NFL. Add in to your scenario that the company involved has colluded with all other conceivable employers for your particular skills to prevent you from signing with the highest bidder for your services in a free and open labor market and to artificially limit your compensation to a level significantly below what a free market would pay. You end up having no choice but to sign with them under the terms they offer. That is not a contract freely entered into and would not be enforceable.

My God, is there really a "trade Willis group" out there somewhere? Yikes.

The NFL has a monopoly. The "employers", the teams, act collusively. There is no competition for player's services. Their salaries are artificially suppressed because they can't just initially sign with the highest bidder. If you were graduating from college and interviewing for jobs, you could sign with the employer giving you the best offer. In the NFL, you have to go to the team that drafted you. You sign with them or you don't work. The collusive effect is to suppress player salaries below what they would otherwise command in an open market. That is why whenever their had been another league in existence, player salaries shoot up because of the real competition for players. The contracts drawn up in what is essentially an illegal system are probably not enforceable. Parties can't agree by contract to an illegality even if both are willing. If you hire someone to committ a crime for you and they fail to do so, you can't go after them for breach of contract. Isn't obvious when you look at the number of breach of contract cases brought over hold outs? Tons of hold outs every year right? How many suits filed? Zero. Even disputes brought under the CBA are pretty rare. The whole reason we have limited free agency in the NFL to start with is because the league saw the legal writing on the wall, they had no choice but to prevent unlimited free agency by giving the players limited free agency. The conduct of the teams and the players involved in contract negotiations and what-not makes it pretty clear that neither the teams nor the players treat these contracts as binding beyond a certain point. In fact, given the meaning people normally give to the term "contract", these aren't contracts at all. I could go on and on about contract law and the enforceability of contracts, recoverable damages and the like but the conduct of both the teams and the players make it clear that the parties to theses contracts themselves have a reached a general consensus as to their enforceability so I don't really think a explanation is needed to prove the point. If they could be enforced, the teams would enforce them. If they couldn't be breached without severe penalty, the players wouldn't hold out.

What kind of example does it set for the kids to have an employee told which employer he can work for whether he likes it or not? I certainly understand the turn-off for the fans. We don't get paid to like our teams and to root for them through good times and bad. To us, part of the appeal of the game is loyalty to your team. We are deluding ourselves but willingly so. It is more fun to think of the team and the league that way even if the reality is all dollars and cents. One of the reasons, perhaps, that this kind of thing is so irksome to fans is because it forces us to face the uglier side of the game and threatens our idealistic view of the NFL. The league simply has to strike a stable balance where we get enough of what we like to keep buying tickets and the players and owners get enought of what they want, profit, at the same time. The teams fight with players over holdouts and the like but it never goes nuclear. They stay out of court and the players do the same. What makes a guy like TO dangerous is that he doesn't want to play the business end of the game by the unwritten rules. It has nothing to do with the specifics of his contract, every one knows they are only good for as long as neither side thinks they can do better. Even so, there are just some things you don't do as a player or as an owner. In TO's case, he is way overreaching, you simpy do not screw up as bad as he did last year in failing to file for free agency in time, get bailed out by a team who pays you mega bucks and then hold them up for more the very next year. What scares me about TO is that he is crazy enough to start a law suit.

The player is no less committed than the teams are. If a player performs poorly, he is gone. If a player is not paid market value, he is gone. If they hold out, they don't get paid and the team doesn't get the benefit of their performance. The NFL has a virtual monopoly and the reason they never take player's to court on a breach of contract claim in a typical hold out situation is because they would lose and they know it. Rather than have that precedent established ultimately leading to unlimited free agency, the teams deal with hold outs the way they always do. This is a business and loyalty means about as much to players as it does to teams which is not at all. The teams and the players basically just use whatever tools the CBA gives them to pursue their goals. For now, neither wants to involve the courts and risk killing the golden goose. Frankly, it is pretty much capitalism at its best. The players balance the league's monopoly power with the CBA and, for the limited few who are the top performers, hold outs. The result is about as free a labor market as you can have and still keep intact the team structure, league balance and the draft. As much as it drives us all crazy sometimes, the NFL is a healthy, stable league with a great product and a decent enough bottom line. I wouldn't mess with it. The minute teams start clamping down too hard on hold outs, they would be inviting law suits whose results could make things much, much worse. I think Willis should make as much money as he can while he can and he should do that by gaining lots and lots of yards. If the price of having the top rusher in the league is a hold out and larger salary, there are worse fates.

Would you say that the outing of a CIA agent as political payback to her husband for leaking damaging information to the administration by one of the President's henchman is the equivalent of a Senator giving the name of a CIA informant (NOT AN AGENT) because that informant was allegedly involved in the murder of an American citizen in 1990 and of the husband of an American citizen in 1992? If you are going to imply that the two are the same, why not include the facts of each for people to judge for themselves whether the comparison is a fair one or not? Why do you state that Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez, the CIA informant whose identity was disclosed by Torricelli was a CIA agent when instead he was a paid informant? Were you lying, playing fast and loose with the facts or did you just never bother to find out the facts? In 1992, Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, a Mayan resistance leader, was reported to have committed suicide during an armed confrontation with Guatemalen government troops. His wife, an American named Jennifer Harbury supposedly uncovered information indicating that he had been captured, tortured and killed by government troops. No one paid her much attention until 1993 when she exhumed the body from the grave where the government said they buried him. The body they exhumed was not Bamaca's, it was that of some unknown boy. The Republican controlled House of Rep.'s Ethics committee ruled that Torricelli had acted contrary to the relevant House rule but that the rule was ambiguous so it did not punish him. The State Dept. aide who originally gave him the info lost his security clearance which ended his career in the Executive office and led to his resignation from the State Department. Torricelli was wrong, no doubt, but that idiot's motives were a hell of a lot better than Rove's. Given the context, I would have done exactly to Torricelli as the Republican controlled Ethics committee did and I would do today just what was done to the State Department aide, I'd fire him. Links: Torricelli 1 Harbury Torture Case