The Frankish Reich

80 is the new 70. See Trump, 3rd Term.

They're all making the rounds. Sunday morning public affairs shows. Self-promoting book tours. Even dark horses emerging with newish facelifts like Al Gore on Bill Maher last week. (really) Some very early Stock Up/Stock Down takes. Stock Up - Al Gore. Why not start with him? Has the everlasting love of climate warriors. Will benefit from the coming wave of (Bill) Clinton era nostalgia. New face/brow lift thing makes him look younger but weirder than other geriatric competitors. - Ted Cruz. I thought he'd go the inside-appointment route (AG?). But he's distanced himself from Trump more than the other big names. If Trump sinks he takes JD down with him, and Ted is waiting to seize the forgotten mantle of constitutionalism. - Pete Buttigieg. New beard always means "I'm going for it." See Vance, JD. The gay left JD. Smart, sees which way political winds are blowing. Nicely slotted between AOC/Bernie wing and the would-be new centrists (Newsom, Gore) Stock Down - JB Pritzker. There's no room for The Fat Man in the narrow left lane. Will wear Chicago like an albatross. Can't do Rich Dem like Trump can do Rich Rep. - Gavin Newsom. Slim Fit Match.com Ad Photo Man trying to squeeze into the middle lane. Glib, slick, kinda Bill Clinton political skills. But ... California. - Kamala. Everyone but Kamala seems to think "just go away." No lane for losers. Al Gore can at least say he won the popular vote and maybe the electoral too. - Marco Rubio. Will never live down getting pushed aside by JD at that Zelensky Minute of Hate. Only room for one Trump sycophant. Who's your dark horse? Mine are Gore and Cruz.

https://theonion.com/unpopular-pete-hegseth-forced-to-drink-lunch-alone/

https://www.kpvi.com/news/national_news/trump-calls-to-investigate-fake-low-approval-polls/article_420d9450-5712-573e-a732-0917edca205d.html Now ALL the polling firms have conspired to make it look like I'm unpopular. INVESTiGATE!! https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin After little movement between April 9th and 21st, Donald Trump’s approval ratings are now falling rapidly. His net approval just hit -9.1 in the Silver Bulletin average. That’s the first time it’s broken -9 during his second term. And it’s only 0.3 percentage points better than Trump’s net approval rating at this point in his first term. In fact, Trump’s disapproval rating is now higher than it was at this point in his first term. On day 98 of term one, 51.8 percent of Americans disapproved of Donald Trump. Today — 98 days into term two — 53.2 percent of Americans disapprove.

13 state AGs sue over illegal use of "Emergency" powers to enact sweeping tariffs. Now will all those "Marxist" judges rule in favor of the constitution (Congress has the sole authority to levy tariffs)? Will they rule in favor of free trade and capitalism over Trump's Marxist-protectionist policies? We shall see.

Pretty sure we quietly got better. Real quietly.

Ooh, conspiracy shoe now on the other foot! So why haven't those Epstein files been released?

If high picks don't play a lot in 1-2 years, you've kind of already failed since (except for first rounders) they're only under team control for 4 years. I disagree, however, that drafting based on need is the proper way of building a team. It's the proper way of trying to keep a very good playoff team at the top for additional years. But it's not a good way of launching a bad team on a winning trajectory.

Are those photos fake?

I think that move was dumb. It's pretty obvious by now that Pickett fits the profile of NFL backup who will never be more than a transition starter. And by signing Flacco after that they kind of doubled down on the dumb. Better to admit you're not gonna compete this year and commit to whoever (or whoevers, plural) you could get in the mid rounds in the draft.

You're right. I should have said "not that any American president is heeding that caution." The tariff on China-made EVs has basically insured that EV technology in China and other countries would eclipse US technology. Here's the lack of logic that bothers me: - If you're a Joe Biden Democrat, you believe EVs should replace ICEs as quickly as possible for the sake of the environment. So in order to do that, you deprive the American consumer of some of the best EVs out there because they are Chinese-engineered? Even if they're made in Mexico? Doesn't that slow the conversion to an EV-based automobile culture, which is, after all, the worst possible outcome for climate change warriors? - If you're a Donald Trump Republican, you believe EVs have been forced on a U.S. consumer base that doesn't really want them. U.S. auto companies need to make them to fulfill government mandates, including CAFE average fuel efficiency standards. So you ban Chinese EVs or put a huge tariff on them ... why? I thought we really didn't want them, that the consumer - if left to his own devices - will overwhelmingly choose to buy an ICE. Why not let the market decide since the whole push for EVs is, after all, based on the Climate Change Panic Hoax? Another way in which the political parties just aren't making sense these days.

The Gabriel pick was dumb in retrospect, but only because they were able to get Shadeur later on. I actually kind of like what the Browns did here. It's the Dollar Store version of the RG3/Cousins draft. Bring 'em in, see if anyone breaks out. Thinking "we already have 3 QBs in camp" is kind of a sunk cost fallacy, since none of them are particularly good options. I hope Stefanik has the nerve to play Shadeur - the higher upside guy in my opinion - over Gabriel. If they both don't look like NFL material, they get a 3rd chance next year.

I've always answered the endless debate - do you draft the best player available or do you draft for need? - this way. Bad teams always have to draft the best player available (with a possible exception of QB). Good teams always have to use the draft to fill specific needs. We did what good teams need to do. If you look at some hypothetical measure like "future value added" or some such unquantifiable thing, well, I guess we're in the middle of the pack. If you look at some hypothetical measure like "win expectancy added over the next 4 years," I think we did pretty well, since you'll have more talented young players taking roster spots from less talented old players.

https://sports.yahoo.com/article/meet-desmond-watson-464-pound-131042065.html https://www.redszone.com/forums/showthread.php?64272-Could-a-morbidly-obese-goalie-shut-out-an-NHL-Team Looking forward to seeing it. Hey, MLB had to ban "little people" after Bill Veeck had the nerve to try it. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/1010838/2019/06/05/the-tragic-spectacle-of-eddie-gaedel-baseballs-only-3-foot-7-pinch-hitter/

So does economic protectionism/tariffs encourage home-grown USA innovation? The case of Tesla says "no." Tesla: the clear leader in EV technology until a few years ago, including battery/charging technology. Not anymore. China-designed/built BYD and now others are the industry leaders. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/22/chinas-catl-claims-to-beat-byds-ev-battery-record-with-longer-range-on-a-5-minute-charge.html#:~:text=Tech-,China's CATL claims to beat BYD's EV battery record with,on a 5-minute charge&text=While revealing a set of,five minutes of charging time. Protectionism has allowed Tesla to rest on it's laurels. It's only new model in recent years is the silly/poorly made/niche market Cybertruck. So protectionism somehow has allowed - encouraged - Chinese companies to lap the field. A cautionary tale, not that anyone in the current administration is heeding that caution.

Whew. You had me worried there.

Completely off topic: I found a strangely empty $5 car wash about a 20 minute drive from where I live. It’s in a weird industrial area. Competitors are more like $12 - 18 and more crowded. Excellent sit in the car type you get pulled through. Owned by people from a faraway land who speak a language I can’t quite place. Front for some illegal activity? Why so cheap? I will continue my investigations while keeping my car clean.

@Wacka, are you wandering outside your Cheektowaga perimeter again? Remember, we talked about this ...

Sanders may be our first case of a guy whose earnings potential was far greater while ostensibly an amateur.

Since I live in Colorado, I saw a lot of Buffs football in the Coach Prime era (a whole 2 years). This is the point. He has athletic talent, at least a pretty good arm, and can succeed in the right offense. But inability to read defenses led directly to the inordinate number of sacks he took. It’s hard to imagine that a guy with his athleticism would take so many sacks, but that’s where it is. The social aspect of this is that once NFL GMs decided that he wasn’t a Game 1 starter, they had to address whether he could fit as a backup. And he obviously failed that test for, well, obvious reasons.

China: no negotiations until you withdraw your unilateral tariffs. Trump: wait a minute, "someone spoke to someone, I can't tell you who" Markets go up. Insanity continues.

Let's ask former Special Counsel Robert Hur. Oh wait, he now works for Harvard.

It's come to a point where Hegseth's defense is incomprehensible. He got the info on a secured classified/closed network. He then summarized it and passed it along through his iphone. Everyone - EVERYONE - who gets a security clearance is taught that you can't do this.

Here's what I think happened: as usual, the unfocused/hyperactive Trump let his minions at HHS/remnants of Education work up this very powerful letter, much like he lets Big Balls and his friends make demands at other agencies. Nobody vetted it for legality. It made a whole host of outrageous demands totally unrelated to combating antisemitism. Harvard got the letter. It was from people with ostensible authority to do issue such a letter. They took it seriously, they brought in counsel (including former Trump hero Robert Hur), they all decided the demands were clearly unconstitutional, they decided to fight. Only then did DOJ/White House lawyers look at it. They told Trump, yeah, it's pretty indefensible. So they said it was a draft, it was never meant to be sent out, how stupid are Harvard lawyers to think that something as sloppy as this letter was meant to be a real demand? Why didn't they pick up the phone and call someone important to say, umm, "you didn't really mean to send this out, right?" But there it is. They sent it on letterhead signed by people purporting to have authority to make such demands. And the idiotic letter virtually assures that Harvard will win this fight in court. And these are the people who said the Biden administration was incompetent.

Here comes the Trump Administration see-saw effect again. Paul Krugman on how - even if not intentional - it gives a huge advantage to the economic oligarchs: The content of his remarks aside, what was Bessent even doing at this event? Senior government officials aren’t supposed to be helping investment banks entertain their clients. First — and why aren’t more people saying this? — what the hell was the Treasury secretary doing giving a closed-door briefing on a significant policy change that hadn’t yet been officially announced? Isn’t that a setup for large-scale insider trading? Indeed, attendees at that conference surely made market bets before Bessent’s remarks became public. And since when are major policy announcements by government officials made off the record to closed private-sector meetings? One even wonders whether Bessent was announcing policy or making it: Did Trump back him up only after the fact? Bessent's remarks were kinda sorta private and kinda sorta public. But his suggestion that the China tariffs were unsustainable again moved markets, and the JP Morgan Chase folks who invited him got that info at least a minute or two ahead of anyone else. Do you think they traded on it? If you don't think that, as the old timers used to say, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.