ComradeKayAdams

Those rushing stats are crazy! Only 6 seasons into his career, Josh is already ranked 86th in career rushing touchdowns for the regular season…a list that includes ALL PLAYERS and that is (not surprisingly) dominated by running backs. Pro Football Reference only shows the top 250 career rushing yards leaders for the regular season. The 250th player has 3,833 rushing yards. Our Josh is up to 3,485 yards and counting, so we should see him appear on that list too by next season. When all is said and done, I believe that Josh is going to go down as the greatest dual-threat QB in NFL history. Maybe Lamar Jackson or Jalen Hurts can disrupt that narrative, but neither has his passing game talent. If Patrick Mahomes ends up as the GOAT, then Josh’s legacy can be augmented by being the GOAT's greatest adversary. Oh yeah, and that whole “first QB to lead the Bills to a championship” legacy too…ugh, too excited to sleep now…

Oh Rico, we all know how this tragic story ends: turning tricks behind parking lot dumpsters along Chippewa Street, or perhaps behind a cluster of trees in Cazenovia Park, or perhaps even behind the Buffalo Bills field house…right outside Sean McDermott’s very office window (eek!). It’s a tale as old as time itself. Like Citizen Kane, but much less cinematic. A rollerball pen. A notepad. A voice recorder. A word processor. All of these are instruments that a first-rate sports journalist might use to communicate with the people. Fishnet stockings. Thigh-high boots. Cherry red lipstick. Backless bodycon mini dresses. New instruments with which Tyler must soon become acquainted in order to keep those $8 increments coming. “Go Long” is about to take on an entirely new meaning in poor Tyler’s career. The antagonist in this story chose to turn his back on the Western New York community that raised him, via betrayal of its football entertainment exemplar, all for an easy ride on the journalism career highway. Unfortunately for dear Dunne, he himself is soon to become the easy ride on a career highway physically manifested as, say, Route 219…going south somewhere in the Southtowns. But wait…is there a happy ending to be uncovered in this story…besides, you know, the usual happy endings?? No, not really. Dunne is done in Western New York. But if you’re looking for a silver mascara-esque lining in this Greek-esque tragedy, know that most of Tyler’s Johns will be honorable and respectful and pay him the full $8 he will have each time rightfully earned. Buffalo, after all, is the “City of Good Neighbors.” Some may even take the time to help him fix that mascara running down his face before his next trick. They may carefully lean in, shape the mascara smudges into the vague form of a charging Buffalo, and whisper ever so softly into Tyler’s ear, “Go Bills.”

Haiku control board?! Poetry moderation?! Two Bills Drive Nazis! Bending tradition Is fair game, given the team. Billdos on field too?? Gary ran his mouth Three decades ago to Mark. But “third time’s the charm!” Newtonian truth: As Mark’s blood pressure goes UP, Dallas must go DOWN. Skip Bayless is wrong. Nick Wright nose nothing, really. But Kay understands: Cowboys on the road… Buffalo’s record at home… Queen City SLAUGHTER. Special note to Dunne: Traitor to Western New York! Want our 8 dollars?! You’re an ugly troll. We’ll “McKelvin” your front yard. Bills fans galvanized.

I see what you did there!!

Apparently he’s an independent football journalist who was born and raised in WNY, went to college in Syracuse, and now currently lives in WNY. Curiously enough, he has been a Green Bay Packers fan since childhood… Dunne seems to have many personal connections with players, coaches, and staff members who would have good career-related reasons for seeing Coach McDermott go down in flames (Doug Whaley and Jim Monos being the most prominent such names). Dunne has also expressed personal grievances against the Bills franchise for restricting his media access with the team. Furthermore, Dunne’s particular business model would stand to benefit greatly from generating controversy that drives online clicks. You don’t have to be a McDermott apologist to question Dunne’s motives. If you see this person roaming the streets of WNY, please ask him why he chose to release his article a few days before the most critical game of our beloved team’s season:

Good for you, Peter Pan! Absolutely NOTHING in this world is more manly than shooting defenseless animals in the woods from large distances, while prancing around in bright green tights for camouflage. A slightly less manly idea for beating the Buffalo blues: spending more time with loved ones. Unless you’re Von Miller, I would even recommend taking a whole week off from work to do so. Yet another idea: accept the reality that Sean McDumbDumb will always fail this team in critical moments as long as he is the head coach. Also accept the reality that the Buffalo Sabres will never make the playoffs as long as Terry Pegula owns them. Turn to the Buffalo Bandits of the National Lacrosse League. The Bandits should remain highly competitive as long as Terry Pegula is unaware that he owns them. Here is an enjoyable synopsis video of last year’s championship season: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8OhGU97grQ

The rumor is that he's suffering from a case of Notgoodatprofootballitis. Possibly career threatening.

I’ve only read excerpts from Miller’s and Crippen’s books, but I doubt Buffalo pro football history before 1920 is covered sufficiently in either book. Maybe Miller covers a bit of Hughitt’s two seasons in the New York Pro Football League (1918-1919), right before he joined the APFA/NFL? 1920’s Buffalo pro football collapsed for multiple reasons. The Great Depression was a key factor, but certainly not the only factor! I guess “small market” is a subjective and relative term. To be more clear, I’m referring to any 1920’s city other than New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, or Cleveland as “small market.” It’s a matter of league size for me. The NFL shrunk to just 12 teams by 1927, 11 by 1930 when the Buffalo franchise permanently disappeared, and only 8 teams by 1932 (5 of which were from the two cities of NYC and Chicago). But I do acknowledge your point, and you’re not wrong! There’s evidence from newspapers back then that the NFL’s subtle disdain for Buffalo could have been due to its weather and its particular geographic location much more so than its population size. Thank you for the article on the Washington Glee Club! It’s a great football underdog story. Now I just need to order one of their jerseys… Yes, Hughitt was such a great player! You know what? One could make a reasonable historical argument that he was the head coach and/or a critical player on the best pro football team in the country for four straight years (1918-1921)!! You’re already aware of the All-Americans’ claims to the 1920 and 1921 APFA titles. Due to all the player movement chaos from the Spanish Flu, the NYPFL’s 1918 Buffalo Niagaras might have been on par with the Ohio League’s 1918 champions, the Dayton Triangles. Likewise, the 1919 Buffalo Prospects could have been highly competitive with the Canton Bulldogs, the 1919 champions of the Ohio League. We’ll never know because these teams obviously never played each other. It’s like asking if the 1964 AFL Bills could have defeated the 1964 NFL Browns (yes!)…or if the 1965 AFL Bills could have defeated the 1965 Packers (um, probably not…).

I am LOVING your attitude, Irv! So refreshing. Wear their insults like armor, and their insults can never be used to pierce you. Way to defuse the verbal trauma! You have inspired me to compose a new ad for the “Irv in 2024: Moderate Me Harder, Daddy” campaign for PPP moderator. Let’s see how this one turns out… Some are calling Irv a moderating “lunatic.” They find the label apt and they pray that it will stick. Oh how smug they are, finding their own insults so slick. That “they” is Leh-nerd S. (I’ll also blame SoCal D!ck). Irv is mentally ill, but is not this forum sick?? Crazy…like a fox, engaging in realpolitik For hearts and minds of PPP’s right-wing Boomer clique, Plus some liberal trolls and one moody Bolshevik. “Brevity!” shout the readers who want poetry quick. Um… y’all want fisticuffs with a skinny vegan chick?! I’ll roll y’all over like an 80’s ginger named Rick! And I’ll strike y’alls balls like T-Bass on a field goal kick! I’ll slap my shots like Tage Thompson netting a hat trick. And…well…f*ck Will Shakespeare’s soul, whose boots I SHALL NOT LICK. Point is that Irv has built a great forum, brick by brick. And moderating is hard work…no mental picnic… VOTE IRV FOR PPP SUBFORUM MODERATOR IN 2024. (This message has been paid for by the “Irv in 2024: Moderate Me Harder, Daddy” campaign).

Hondo, Imagine the 2023 Bills traveling to Kansas City on a Sunday afternoon, and then flying back home to host the Bengals the next night. That is analogous to what the 1920 Buffalo All-Americans had to do to finish their schedule against the Bulldogs and Pros! Remember that everyone back then played on both offense and defense, with about 5 reserve players. I wish we could blame league overlords or someone like George Halas for this terrible schedule, but this was solely the fault of Frank McNeil (Buffalo’s owner at the time). Yeah, pro football pre-1930’s was truly the Wild West compared to what it is now. You had a bunch of regional pro/semi-pro circuits throughout the country with ad hoc scheduling practices. The main goal was simply to play anyone that they thought would draw a large enough crowd (i.e. draw a profit). The Great Depression is what ultimately wiped out the decades-long football culture of somewhat disorganized independent football clubs. The NFL, however, had also been making concerted efforts since its inception to standardize and nationalize pro football. 1927 was a watershed season for this directive. Unfortunately, our beloved Buffalo franchise couldn’t survive both the Great Depression and the NFL’s targeted movement away from small-market Midwest teams. By the way, the 1920 Union Club of Phoenixville was definitely no tomato can on Canton’s schedule! It was a famous independent all-star club from the Philly metro area and actually featured several players who simultaneously played for our Buffalo All-Americans (don’t ask me how that was allowed…). I know nothing, however, about that alleged football juggernaut known as the “Washington Glee Club” lol… If I were to write a book on Buffalo pro football before 1960, I would probably focus on the New York Pro Football League and the emergence of football in Western/Upstate NY roughly between 1870 and 1920. Jeffrey Miller has the 1920-1929 Buffalo NFL franchise covered well with his book, “Buffalo’s Forgotten Champions: The Story of Buffalo’s First Professional Football Team and the Lost 1921 Title.” Ken Crippen has the AAFC Bills covered well with his book, “The Original Buffalo Bills: A History of the All-America Football Conference Team, 1946-1949.” My own book would be fairly comprehensive, focusing on both football strategy evolution and football player stories, while also weaving an overarching societal narrative that pays tribute to the city of Buffalo. If I write it, will you buy?? LOL… -Kay

I hear ya! I would love to see at least Tommy Hughitt and Swede Youngstrom in the Hall of Fame. The problem is that the people deciding who gets in have major biases against certain categories of players, particularly anyone who played pre-merger. It will take special committees and concerted outside pressure to ever get them to right these wrongs. An additional note on uneven scheduling that I forgot to mention: the All-Americans played 20 home games but only 3 away games during the 1920 and 1921 seasons! Two of those away games were against George Halas’ Bears in 1921…and you already know the historical significance of those two games... The third was a December 1920 neutral site game against the Canton Bulldogs. It took place at Manhattan’s Polo Grounds and was the first ever pro football game to have been played in NYC. The purpose was to showcase the Midwest regional NFL (called the APFA at the time) to a larger, more national audience. Hughitt’s All-Americans beat Jim Thorpe’s Bulldogs by a score of 7-3. The very next day, a presumably tired All-Americans team played the Akron Pros in Buffalo and only managed to tie them 0-0…and as you know, the 1920 league title was later awarded to the Pros… When people talk about the greatest games in NFL history, I wish more would talk about this December 1920 game at the Polo Grounds! It certainly played a role in popularizing pro football beyond the Great Lakes region and into the mid-Atlantic metropolitan region. If television was around back then, maybe it would have been as impactful as the 1958 NFL Championship game or Super Bowl 3?

Hondo, Their perceived dominance was partly due to the highly uneven scheduling that took place during the 1920’s NFL. Teams would often not play the same number of games or play the same teams. Strength of schedule varied dramatically. The All-Americans played 5 teams outside the league in 1920, defeating them by a total score of 184-13. They would also blow out very weak teams like the Rochester Jeffersons and Columbus Panhandles. But whenever they played the best teams in the country, the scores were much more modest. To be clear, Buffalo was definitely a great team and on par with the very best! But from 1920-1921, the All-Americans collectively outscored the Akron Pros, Chicago Bears, and Canton Bulldogs by a point total of 42-29 over 8 games. That’s an offense averaging only 5.25 points per game against the best competition. By no means was this awful offensive production by the standards of the 1920’s, but it also wasn’t evidence of an unstoppable juggernaut. In terms of football X’s and O’s, it's hard to say how innovative the Buffalo All-Americans were. There was no real game film back then, so newspaper reports are the best evidence for historians. Fielding Yost’s offense had been around for two decades by the time the NFL began. I’m only GUESSING when I say that his University of Michigan offensive system was already fairly well-known to the players from the Midwest and to the teams from the eastern half of the league (Ohio, Michigan, and Western New York). The Ohio League teams would have probably seen it when Tommy Hughitt played against them as QB of the Youngstown Patricians. Teams from Michigan would also regularly play against Ohio League teams. Did any of this help?? Keep in mind that I’m an AMATEUR INTERNET historian lol…you’ll want to consult the PFRA or other experts for better info. Good conversation, though! Thank you for that! -Kay

Ockie Anderson was probably the better athlete, but Tommy Hughitt had at one point played basically every football position other than OL and DL. You had to have been pretty athletic to be that versatile! Hughitt’s suitability for the Hall of Fame boils down to a question of the Hall’s size. If it’s a place to be reserved for only 1 member, then everyone besides Tom Brady is excluded. If it’s going to hold something like 1,000 members, then Hughitt is absolutely up for debate! But what about, say, 412 members? That would equal 4 members per year times every year of the league’s existence, which is close to the current total of 371. In that case, I am much more inclined to fight for some of our AFL Bills before I am for Hughitt. Three reasons for that: 1. Hughitt and his teams didn’t impact the pro game nearly to the extent that our AFL Bills did. Many fans don’t realize that Cookie’s running prowess and Joe Collier’s defensive dominance did a lot to legitimize (in the eyes of the football-viewing public) the new, wide-open, air-it-out, “gimmicky” AFL style of football. Furthermore, the AFL Bills contributed much to the early schematic blueprints used to counter all those Sid Gillman-esque teams…teams which more closely resembled modern NFL teams, ironically enough, than anything that was seen in the 1960’s NFL. 2. Fair or not, pro football snobbery back then favored anything from the Ohio League and looked down upon anything from places like upstate New York. As you may already know, Tommy Hughitt’s All-Americans were born in the pre-1920’s New York Pro Football League. He will have a steep uphill battle with Hall evaluators and football historians because of this. 3. The All-Americans franchise went downhill quickly after the exodus of the U Penn trio (Lou Little, Heinie Miller, Lud Wray) and after Ockie Anderson’s career-ending knee injury. Hall of Fame evaluators will hold that against Hughitt when determining his greatness. You are correct in thinking that the great tragedy of the 1920-1921 Buffalo All-Americans is what could have been for the city of Buffalo... Instead of a national laughingstock, maybe the world thinks of us as they do Green Bay and Canton? Maybe Hughitt is thought of in a similar way that Lombardi is for the Packers or Jim Thorpe is for the Canton Bulldogs? Maybe the small-market All-Americans franchise goes on to survive the Great Depression like the Bears, Cardinals, and Giants did? Then again, our Bills wouldn’t have ever existed… P.S. Yes, I’m familiar with much of the PFRA’s work! Jeffrey Miller and Ken Crippen are huge names in the Buffalo pro football history world. As a matter of fact, Ken used to post here at TwoBillsDrive as “KRC.”

“It’s the economy, stupid!” - James “Ragin’ Cajun” Carville, circa 1992. “I’ll give you my uterus when you pry it from my cold, clammy birth canal.” - Kay “Sassy Slavic” Adams, circa Friday, May 12, 2023. Christopher, The economy is always an important issue, but it’s not always THE most important. Abortion is a very visceral topic, and the Dobbs ruling has rendered the 2024 election a unique one. You say that young adults are out of touch with the current economic climate. While I very much disagree with that line of thought, doesn’t it work both ways here?? Are not old people (especially old males) out of touch with the psychological AND economic impact of forced childbirth?? For one thing, some sort of public consensus needs to emerge on the causes of inflation and other macroeconomic ailments. I know the conservative/libertarian position on this, and you’ll know mine if you skim through my PPP posting history over the past ~1.5 years. Is there one that would motivate independents, moderates, and apolitical voters? Moreover, Republicans need to present a salable alternative economic plan to the American public in order to get them to override their aversion to the GOP’s abortion stance. Have they done so? Can they do so? Are Trump and DeSantis, for example, proposing different monetary policies from Biden’s in order to cool inflation (that is: raising interest rates, which unfortunately will most likely increase unemployment levels)? We definitely know they’re not proposing more progressive taxation policies or corporate windfall profit taxes. And the Democrats can easily poke holes in a “drill, baby, drill!” plan (I did exactly that in a lengthy PPP post of mine from last year). I also do not care much for your “Republicans:abortion::Democrats:gun control” analogy. In terms of actual legislation being promoted or passed, the GOP is operating at a point far to the right of the American public on abortion (based on policy poll numbers); the Dems, meanwhile, have actually maintained a center-right position on gun control. Sensible restrictions aren’t equivalent to second amendment abolition. A few people shrieking on social media isn’t equivalent to official party policy.

Great post! I’m an amateur internet Bills historian (over at BillsFans.com), so this is a fun topic for me. Regarding Cookie Gilchrist: absolutely! He was the AFL’s most Hall-worthy HB/FB running back, one of that league’s first superstars, and also a 1960’s civil rights icon for the entire sports world. The CFL was considered on par with the NFL and AFL way back then, so Cookie’s 6 years of dominance there should factor in any consideration for the PRO FOOTBALL Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, Cookie is a victim of the Hall’s heavy bias against the AFL. I’ll name 3 other AFL Bills who deserve to be in the Hall of Fame: 1. Tom Sestak, DT: arguably the greatest defensive lineman in AFL history. He was the best player on a legendary 1960’s defense. 2. Mike Stratton, OLB: a rangy do-it-all LB (stopping the run, covering, rushing the QB) and the prototype for the modern era LB. He delivered perhaps the greatest and most impactful single tackle in pro football history (1964 AFL championship game against Keith Lincoln). 3. George Saimes, S: among the very best open-field tacklers in pro football history. Booker Edgerson couldn’t have been the shutdown CB that he was and Butch Byrd couldn’t have been the playmaking CB that he was without Saimes roaming the secondary. Regarding Tasker: yes, definitely! This isn’t even up for debate with anyone who properly respects special teams…i.e. anyone who knows anything about football. Regarding Tommy Hughitt: love the reference! But…he won’t ever make it in and probably doesn’t deserve to be in, either. That inaugural 1920 season has a large asterisk next to it because the All-Americans played half of their 10 games against second-rate opponents outside of the league. So the franchise really only had 1.5 excellent seasons. Also, Hughitt wasn’t obviously the best player on those early teams. They were called the “All-Americans” because they were stacked with elite college talent. I would put teammate, Swede Youngstrom, in the Pro Football Hall of Fame before Hughitt. Having said all that, Hughitt was the undisputed leader of that franchise and someone whom I consider the “Godfather of Buffalo pro football.” I would recommend a spot for him in the Buffalo Bills Wall of Fame and possibly also an official retirement of his jersey number, 1. Ralph Wilson doesn’t place the Bills in Buffalo had it not been for the attendance success of the 1946-1949 AAFC Buffalo Bills, and the AAFC Bills don’t exist in Buffalo without Tommy Hughitt’s successful efforts in the first half of the 1920’s.

Pokeyballs, You misunderstood my previous posts in this thread. When I said “blowout,” I wasn’t referring to the 2020 election. I was making a prediction for the 2024 presidential election. You are welcome to challenge that prediction or my definition of an “electoral college blowout.” It’s an opinion over which I am not going to get overly defensive. I suppose a sudden decline in the economy or in Biden’s health could very well change the overall dynamics of the election. I think my main contention here is a long-term one: the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision will lead to the eventual demise of the GOP as we currently know it, necessitating one of those generational political realignments in American history like the Southern strategy of the 1960’s. The GOP alliance between libertarians and Christian nationalists is untenable because their culture war has been lost, and poll numbers from the abortion debate best exemplify this reality. Watching Republicans fumble around with their defense of the various red state abortion trigger laws has been both embarrassing and infuriating to all rational Americans. CHEERS to Bernie rocking! JEERS to thinking he would have lost to Trump. My powerful rebuttal:

OH. EM. GEE. Irv!! We almost forgot…moderator election season is right around the corner!! Do you need my campaign manager services again for round two?! Yes, yes of course you do. I’m writing your initial campaign advertisement in poetic form: We’re doing this again, just like we did it before! Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. I’m ordering campaign buttons and can always order more! Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. Is heavy-handed moderation something you abhor? Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. He treats everyone the same, from neocon to anti-war. Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. Yet trolls must be identified and brought to the fore… Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. He will clean up their mess and show them the door. Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. And he’ll atomize their subversion like…a forum’s…Niels Bohr? Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. Yeah yeah I know, you can always put the trolls on “ignore.” Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. But scrolling through their posting residue is still quite a chore. Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. Plus I want to see who has been calling me a leftist hippy wh*re. Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. Though my politics are admittedly quite progressive, they have been heretofore. Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. And I do wear bell sleeve dresses with high hemlines, floral patterns I adore! Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. But F*CK YOU for your insolence, and yeah yeah I know I just swore. Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. In Hillary’s proverbial basket you go, reserved for those Irv and I deplore. Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. Anyway…we’ll wait until election day to settle our score. Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024. Also: our campaign buttons will be available online as well as in store. Vote Irv for PPP Moderator in 2024.

Yeah, it will likely be a lot closer than it needs to be. Biden’s approval numbers are historically low: 36%, the lowest for a first-term president in the post-WW2 era who is 18 months away from the next election cycle. But hey, y’all can’t blame me for Zombie Joe and Cackling Kamala! I was a Sandernista in 2020 and am voting for Marianne Williamson* in the upcoming primaries. Nevertheless, Biden and Harris should still trump Trump and DeSantis and any other Christian nationalist. We are WAY past the days of reasonable GOP alternatives a la the great Jack Kemp. All Joe needs to do is harp on about a federal codification of Roe v. Wade (the 24-week limit) or some type of further left/right compromise like a Euro-style 15-week ban (but with clearly delineated exceptions for the usual: rape, i n c e s t, life of the mother/ectopic pregnancies, psychological health of mother/suicide ideations, fetal abnormalities, D&C/D&E miscarriage procedures, cryptic pregnancies/irregular periods/amenorrhea situations, lengthy abortion waiting lists, etc.). Special emphasis should be placed on exceptions like rape to highlight how unreasonable the GOP stance really is on abortion. Example: talking about how rape victims commonly delay abortion procedures or forego criminal prosecution due to emotional traumatization, intimidation from partners, reticence to deal with all the public slut shaming or prosecutorial red tape, etc. I also want to clarify my “319-219 electoral college blowout” remark (a blowout is relative, but a 100-vote electoral college margin does seem sizable in this modern era of highly polarized politics): 1. I conceded 24 red states for 219 votes and am comfortable with allotting 17 obvious blue states for 212 votes. 2. I’m giving Team Blue a Midwestern-ish edge in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota because the Dem Party machine is expected to churn out huge pro-choice Zoomer numbers in major college towns outside the Bible Belt. So that’s 4 more states with 54 more electoral college votes…266-219 in favor of Team Blue. 3. That means Team Red must secure New Hampshire AND Arizona AND Nevada AND North Carolina AND Georgia (5 states, 53 votes) in order to get to 270+. It’s a very narrow electoral college path to victory, made even narrower when you factor in the apparent post-Dobbs agglutination of the 2020 Bernie diaspora around the Dem Party. * - Make sure you vote for Marianne, Redtail Hawk! Universal healthcare is her flagship policy for 2024!

Yes! That’s an excellent distillation of my argument! I’ll even whittle it down to a single sentence: “the American economy can be optimized by greatly increasing the size of the middle class and the economic agency of the working class.” This is essentially the “Tao” that undergirds any social democrat’s domestic economic philosophy. This one sentence, of course, invites plenty of vigorous and heated discussion from all political sides. While I don’t have the stomach this morning to type a full-blown “Kay-mmunist Manifesto,” I’ll offer you a small sample of how a productive discussion should play out… * Inquisitive Kay: Why is an optimal economy so important to you, Didactic Kay? * Didactic Kay: Good question, Inquisitive Kay. For one thing, it’s correlated with the best quality of life for the most people. It also implies ideal investment portfolio growth, which the professional/managerial class can appreciate. Furthermore, the greatest pool of financial capital possible can be redirected into technological projects that, in turn, can best help us solve the world’s most difficult problems (don’t ever confuse me for one of them Luddites, Inquisitive Kay!). * Inquisitive Kay: Very well. And why is a large middle class so important to an optimized economy? * Didactic Kay: Um…I guess basically because it’s the most economically dynamic class in terms of its capacity for economic goods/services consumption, its steady investment pool potential, and its reliable tax revenue (which gets directed into public expenditures)…all of which drive further economic growth. * Inquisitive Kay: All right, so how do we know when we’ve reached such a point of economic optimization? * Didactic Kay: We rely on historical and comparative international macroeconomic data. I can sure as sh!t promise you that it’s not anywhere near those laissez-faire capitalistic systems, sista! * Inquisitive Kay: Neat. So how would we go about getting to this optimal macroeconomic point? * Didactic Kay: Various forms of progressive taxation, i.e. the dreaded “redistribution of wealth.” * Inquisitive Kay: Wait a minute…what the f%#k gives you the right to steal my money, b!tch?? * Didactic Kay: Woah! Settle down, Inquisitive Kay. You can find a moral imperative in that ever-so-lovely “social contract.” You can also realize that not all goods and services are inherently on even ground in terms of their impact on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (namely: health care, education, housing). And while I’ll spare you a dry Marxian rant on the labor theory of value and labor-supply demand curves and the like, let’s think about that infamous example of the wealth of Jeff Bezos versus the wealth of a full-time Amazon warehouse employee. Can you honestly tell me that there’s no inherent labor exploitation occurring in this capitalist enterprise?? Simply put, the highly complex and caveat-laden process of government-mandated wealth redistribution is an attempted process of returning stolen wealth. * Inquisitive Kay: All well and good, Didactic Kay, but the road to hell is paved with… * Didactic Kay: Yeah, I know…good intentions. All governments, no matter how big or small, need carefully crafted metrics of accountability and carefully implemented safeguards from corruption and inefficiencies. No one wants their taxed money stolen or wasted. An educated and civically engaged electorate would help greatly in this regard. * Persnickety Kay: Hey, don’t forget to address the Bill Clinton content in Redtail Hawk’s post. * Didactic Kay: Yes, thank you. So bearing in mind that I wasn’t alive for much of the Clinton presidency, I’m opting to steer clear of any meaningful analysis of what was in Bill’s heart or brain during those years (though we do have a pretty good idea of what was going on in his loins…ba-dum-tss…). I have a reputation for being overly cynical of mainstream politicians. All I’ll say is that I remember reading articles discussing Clinton’s longstanding hostility toward unions, dating back to his ascendant days in Arkansas and reaching a crescendo at some point following the NAFTA signing. If unions backed him during his 1992 and 1996 election campaigns, maybe it was a “lesser of two evils” situation? But Bill Clinton was undoubtedly more progressive in his first presidential campaign and very early on in his presidential tenure. Obama followed a similar trajectory. Hmmm…something about progressivism that’s popular with the people?? And something about the American political system that intrinsically corrupts ($$)?? * Supercilious Kay: Wow! Another outstanding post, Didactic Kay! You’ve really raised the bar of enlightenment in this one. Gosh, you’re such an effective communicator. No doubt this will garner multiple positive emoji reactions, even from the usual right-wing a#&holes like Westsnide and Over_29_Years_Of_D!ckheadedness. * Didactic Kay: Thanks! * Persnickety Kay: Hey, can we wrap it up, ladies? We’ve got so many other threads to read this morning. It’s Draft Day!! Yay!! * Inquisitive Kay: Oh, that’s right. Say, do you think Redtail Hawk is creeped out by this split personality literary shtick? * Didactic Kay: Yeah, probably. I’m sure he blocked us already and isn’t even reading this sentence that I’m typing right now. * Supercilious Kay: Nah, we good. We’re the only far-leftist game in town. All of PPP needs our commentary. We’re super special.

The Democrats are still excellent on civil rights issues, but they have largely abandoned unions and the working class since the early tenure of President Bill Clinton. Maybe Bill looked at three straight decisive presidential GOP victories preceding him (1980 + 1984 + 1988), along with the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994, and simply decided that he needed corporate billionaire campaign money to survive. Or more likely, he was always motivated by power and not political economic philosophies. Either way, Obama and Biden have largely continued what Clinton started economically, even if they’re less transparent about their motives than the Republicans. It is both sad and amusing, though, to witness how differently the VOTERS at each side of the political spectrum view economics. Taking this example of child labor laws: right-wingers see it as a moral lesson on the virtues of the quintessential Protestant work ethic. “Here’s a golden opportunity to help those lazy kids not turn out like those super lazy Millennials!” exclaim liver-spotted Boomery right-wingers like Chris Farley*. Meanwhile, left-wingers CORRECTLY view these laws as obvious political scheming from businesses to suppress already pathetic labor wages via control of the labor supply. A quick perusal of the details in these laws shows that the intentions go well beyond innocent summertime jobs for a little extra fun cash. Another notable example: left-wingers CORRECTLY see our prolonged inflation as a legacy consequence of corporations running historically unprecedented profit margins well beyond the period of supply shock inflation. This is aptly called “greedflation,” and its best solution would be political pressure in the form of threats of windfall profit taxes or price controls. Right-wingers, meanwhile, dust off their Murray Rothbard books to desperately cite the problem of too much government spending put into the economy (even though we were trying to exit a f#*@%$g giant deflationary cycle during the early COVID era…ugh). And so how exactly do these valiant right-wing crusaders advise us to fight the corporate oligarchy?? “Um…let’s try cutting Social Security and Medicare,” nobly suggest doddering overripe right-wing economic “populists” like Chris Farley**. I guess it comes down to those who understand data-driven macroeconomics and those who intransigently choose to be Austrian school poopfaces. * - can’t wait for Chris Farley’s trademark eyeroll emoji reaction to my every post. I love it! It excites me… ** - actually, I’m not 100% familiar with the details of Chris Farley’s politics. All I know is that he is not nearly as jovial and uplifting as his late 20th century comedian namesake.

Yup. The 2024 election became a fait accompli as soon as the Dobbs v. JWHO decision was announced. I don’t see how Trump can avoid the stain of Christian nationalism as he escapes the primaries and enters the generals (same goes for Meatball Ron and any other GOP’er). I’m predicting a 319-219 electoral college blowout. That would be only 24 red states: Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana. My reasoning: 1. The 2022 mid-term red wave turned out to be a trickle. 2. National polls show a large majority support for Roe v. Wade, with the support continuing to grow. 3. The Wisconsin Supreme Court election victory for Janet Protasiewicz highlighted the potency of Democratic campaign machine efforts in college towns. 4. Third-party (Greens + DSA) leftist enthusiasm has collapsed since 2020. And regarding policy details, why the GOP is having a hard time persuading independent voters: 1. 6-week abortion bans are laughably absurd, especially when its advocates don’t understand the concept of irregular periods or the reality of how women often don’t even know they’re pregnant up to that point. 2. Contraception is now under attack, which violates the implicit constitutional right to (sexual) privacy found within the ninth and fourteenth amendments. 3. Everything about the mifepristone case’s dissenting opinion from Alito (and Thomas) was ridiculous. 4. People are seeing through the blatant lies of “supporting abortion up to the point of birth.” There’s no statistical evidence for sociopathic mothers having abortions right up to (or beyond) the point of birth. Abortions rarely even occur in the third trimester. When they do occur, it is because of fetal abnormalities or for protecting the mother’s life. These types of abortions are also incredibly expensive and difficult to arrange. The intention of late-term abortion allowance clauses is to eliminate the red tape that gets in the way of exemption cases like rape, i n c e s t, health of the mother, or incredibly long abortion waiting lists. This is the same reason why verification guidelines for abortion exemptions are extremely lax in most European countries. 5. Pro-lifers can’t seem to articulate their arguments without invoking superstitious justifications. 6. Women are just plain uncomfortable with government controlling their sexual autonomy and their medical decisions. We be strange like that… EDIT: I hate how Two Bills Drive censors the "i n c e s t" word.

I’m the latter, though not all heroes wear capes…or white metallic armor. A select few SLAY with cute-as-sh!t blazer dresses and color matching heels. So you’re basically opining that the observed decline in American socioeconomic mobility is largely a function of poor work ethic among the working class, Millennials, and Gen Z’ers…correct? A riveting thesis, truly, though it seems like you’ve overlooked all the well-known data showing how American worker productivity has actually INCREASED while wages have stagnated. And did you factor in the collapse in labor union power, the outsourcing of jobs overseas, market distortions due to corporate deregulatory policies, and all the market distortions due to extreme wealth disparity between the professional/managerial class and the victims of neoliberalism that I’ve delineated?? Furthermore, you mentioned how these alleged victims are simply not availing themselves of all the wonderful public welfare programs in America. But did you know that these programs are way better funded, more comprehensive, more robust, and not constantly under political attack in countries with healthier socioeconomic mobility metrics? Nowadays, the so-called “American Dream” is somehow better implemented in many of the countries that our ancestors rushed to leave! The fundamental problem with your line of thinking is one of overlooked temporal constraints. No matter one’s work ethic, there are only 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year, and roughly 4 viable decades in the work force. If a given capitalistic (or rather: mixed economy) system contains enough inherent barriers to socioeconomic advancement, large enough subsets of the population will simply run out of time to overcome the numerous costs and obstacles that life typically presents which inhibit wealth building. Sure, just “@” my name if you think I can help push forward a conversation! I usually visit TBD a few times a week. You probably know my politics pretty well by now: standard Sandernista stuff, more or less. My favorite topics are macroeconomics, foreign policy, energy, and the environment. Definitely “@” my name if you see anyone discussing Marianne Williamson’s 2024 presidential run. Hi redtail hawk, Hmmm…well that’s a bit of a loaded question! I’d rather limit my polemical scope to this: “the right-wing posters of PPP are generally not very thoughtful or analytical; they only happen to be predominantly over the age of 40.” You ask how we can make things better while avoiding civil war. The first step would be overturning Citizens United v. FEC. This will require grassroots movements and most likely the unification of the white working class with minorities, Millennials, Gen Z, and Latinos. These groups can only unify with open dialogue via independent media. A few steps down the line, American imperialism must end so that money can be redirected away from the military-industrial complex and toward domestic projects. A few steps after that would be socializing all aspects of health care. Nothing would improve socioeconomic mobility more than that…not even free college/trade school. The first step I outlined will be the hardest. It’s hard enough building legislative momentum; I suspect the Supreme Court, in its current structure, is going to be an even bigger problem. We’re going to need a president in place to bully the SC like FDR did to the Lochner era court. For the record: “enlarged prostate” was my insult, not L Ron Burgundy’s. If making fun of the medical conditions of older men is verboten, does that mean you guys will stop attacking Biden’s dementia?? I can work on my heartfelt apology to PPP’s male right-wing Boomer crowd as soon as all you wizened weirdos outline what you plan to do to stop the abortion red state trigger laws. Capiche?

Hi, L Ron! Yes, PPP is totally infested with male right-wing Boomers. It’s like a nursing home clique, with Fox News blaring in the background. It can feel quite lonely here if you have neither age-related cognitive decline nor an enlarged prostate with which to relate. I don’t post much here anymore because the topics are too boring and many of the posters have truly despicable viewpoints. Commies and trannies, trannies and commies, commies conspiring with trannies at the behest of those (((dirty rapacious Jews)))…eeek!!! It’s all anyone at PPP discusses nowadays. Plus it’s hard having civil and productive conversations with posters whom you know are okay with states forcing rape victims to give birth to the child of their rapists….among all the other nonsensical and deeply immoral repercussions of Dobbs v. Jackson… Having said all that, I’ll reconsider posting more as we move closer to the start of the Bills’ season. At the moment, I split my time between here and BillsFans.com (come join!), lurking and reading about draft prospects, following the Sabres and Bandits, celebrating every day like it’s Dyngus Day…as is the way of Commie Kay, her predilections she shall NEVER betray. 1. Your first paragraph: You are welcome to deny the existence of victims (working class, under-40 people) due to perpetrators (corporate oligarchs, corrupt politicians) working within broken institutions (America’s particular version of capitalism since Reagan, America’s two-party political system). However, keep in mind that in fields like macroeconomics and sociology, the presence of exceptions to rules (i.e., anecdotal stories of people pulling themselves up by their figurative bootstraps) don’t discount statistical aggregate rules. There is a notoriously strong inverse relationship between wealth disparity and socioeconomic mobility. If you want to make a correlation without causation argument here, then you are being willfully ignorant of all sorts of economic phenomena like Boomer wealth distortions to the housing market, reduced consumer spending trends based on student loan debt levels, and American medical debt/bankruptcy data in poorer red states. Furthermore, American worker productivity has gone up during these past four decades while wage growth (relative to inflation) has stagnated. So can we talk about the VICTIMS of labor exploitation here?? Why is Jeff Bezos, to use an infamous example, worth more than the GDP of two-thirds of the world’s countries while many of his full-time warehouse workers still qualify for food stamps? 2. Your second paragraph: You provided no context for your assertion that LGBT in schools poll poorly. How were the polling questions worded? What was the nature of the scenarios presented? In the absence of these details, I can personally say that I do support very basic and very brief education of LGBT in public primary schools. What I mean by that is simply the acknowledgment of their existence in this world and the fact that their minority status in no way justifies hatred and discrimination directed at them. Secondary school is the more appropriate time to present the science behind sexual orientation as well as gender identity (see: oldmanfan’s excellent post in page 3 of the “Transurrection” thread; also: DrW’s excellent post in page 5 of that same thread). 3. Your third paragraph: You correctly labeled the major culture war topics as political wedge issues. Hopefully you also understand the motives and the masterminds behind them? Simply put, they are tools that corporate oligarchs use to distract the victims of neoliberalism. They keep the populist left and the populist right from uniting against the corporate oligarchs. The Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) bailout is a good recent example of what I mean. Instead of attacking the absence of common-sense bank regulations, right-wing media immediately jumped to DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs and left-wing media immediately responded with accusations of bigotry…for a long enough period of time until some other topic replaced SVB in the news cycle. My solution to wedge issues? Well, I certainly think campaign finance reform and ranked choice voting would help mitigate their impact.

Yup…pretty much! The Great Recession was particularly devastating to the early career trajectories of Millennials. Along with the working class, Millennials (and now also Gen Z) have been the biggest victims of late-stage neoliberalism and its collection of supply-side policies that have decimated American socioeconomic mobility over the past four decades. You correctly cited the skyrocketing costs of housing, education, and health care as major reasons for them falling behind economically, relative to previous generations. I’d also add COVID-era inflation on basic goods and services like food, utility costs, and transportation. These obviously hit people just starting out in life (in addition to the working class) disproportionately harder than people with large nest eggs and mature investment portfolios (i.e. the professional/managerial classes plus Gen X’ers/Boomers). Declining religiosity is another notable reason for Millennials bucking the trend of growing more politically conservative with age. Unsurprisingly, the GOP’s dramatic shift toward Christian nationalism is repellent to the under-40 crowd. Since Gen Z’ers are even less religious than Millennials, conservatives badly need to come up with new ways to hold power beyond campaign superspending, voter suppression, and gerrymandering. Historically speaking, religiosity tends to ebb and flow across eras in various cultures. But 21st century America lies in the ages of science and of mass communication, which bring along degrees of irreversible enlightenment. So…speaking of political strategy…in my opinion, the GOP’s best bet for the future would be to cede certain culture war issues that poll below the 35% threshold (example: Roe v. Wade red state trigger laws) and focus exclusively on taxation and political corruption issues. Leaning too stridently into their anti-woke narrative is killing them with far more than the Millennial and Gen Z demographics. In the coming years, there will be a large potential outflux of center-left neoliberals abandoning the Democratic Party as the social democrats continue to rise in power among the party ranks. Republicans would be wise to learn more about this massive voting bloc and try to capture them. They have only won the popular vote in a presidential election ONCE since 1988…that would be 1 for 8…12.5%...sad. With their electoral college pathways to victory dwindling as Boomers die and Gen Z’ers rise, the GOP should be in a race to carve out a favorable political realignment before progressives achieve a mid-century critical mass in electoral popularity.