The Frankish Reich

All of these various influences (Calvinism, the Iroquois confederation, etc, etc) can be found in the thinking of the founding fathers. Everyone sees a little of what they want to see. Liberal bleeding hearts see respect for native American governance; religious righties see hardcore protestantism. But the one giant who towers above all others combined? Montesquieu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montesquieu

Yes, it's a political exercise. And of course El Presidente has just insured that it will work as intended through his comic overreaction.

Well, the bombings of the "drug smugglers" in the Gulf and Pacific are of very questionable legality. I'd say illegal unless I see a better justification than what Trump has given. The DOD lawyers have apparently written a memo (not released to the public) providing this justification (which is quite different from Trump's public one): - Drug smuggling activity funds the Mexican/international cartels, which in turn have been characterized as international terrorist organizations; hence, the bombings are aimed at international terrorism. It's a very, very shaky theory that's never been tested in anyone's courts. Trump's justification is just flat-out not a justification at all.

So I take it Ben Franklin knew about the Iroquois confederacy. So when we drafted the Articles of Confederation it probably was at least a tiny bit influenced by it. That’s all.

Scold.

You can have all the turkey and trimmings you want. But the nice wine and spirits are strictly rationed in my house.

Deep fried is great! Smoked even better, but I don’t have the equipment for that big of a turkey. Enjoy it!

Ahh, the day after turkey day. so remind me, are groceries cheaper now than they were last year?

The correct approach. It is a history of the American Revolution. Not the history. There probably is no such thing as the history. Adults understand this. Children want to be told.

I'm a little worried. I've got like 12-15 people for Thanksgiving this year. The Kroger Butterball for .99/lb deal only applied to 10-20 lb turkeys. Clearly I need at least 23. Two smaller turkeys? Lame. But get the bigger one and I'm at $1.99/lb. What to do? Should I blame Biden? Trump? Please inform.

The Neville Chamberlain Peace in Our Time Award goes to ... Donald J. Trump, for his extraordinary efforts to reward Russian aggression.

The Trump-Mamdani lovefest: I called it. A great bs artist will always admire the next great bs artist. They are both campaign slogan first, actual policy initiative second guys.

True. That's the problem here: we've already done the Elway-Shanahan thing, moving toward a run-first, throw second approach to take some of the burden off Josh. I'm in the camp that says that when you have a HOF QB, the solution is always to shift the burden back onto the QB.

Oh, I think some nutcase from North Georgia sees an opportunity to cash in while Trump is still in office. Simple as that. MTG Live on Youtube. Or MTG on Fox News. Or MTG everywhere.

I've watched Ep 1. It was good. I learned some things, took a moment to rethink some things. Well worth watching the whole thing. Disagreement? Let's let some scholars raise some points, and then we'll argue about them like grown adults.

A Herculean effort! Actually, more of a Sisyphean effort.

Thanks. The whole pardon thing, from whichever side, bothers me. When I was a relatively new lawyer for the feds, I got one of those dreaded assignments - reviewing case files in response to pardon requests. I probably overdid it. I really dug into a few cases and wrote really solid memos for the DOJ Pardon Attorney (there is such a thing, although it's now very politicized). I never really followed up on what happened; they weren't high-profile cases. But nothing was political. We were instructed to look at things like acceptance of guilt and evidence of rehabilitation, and the view of the prosecuting agency and the victims of the crime, and the value of a pardon for restoring certain civil rights like voting or owning a gun. I took my work seriously and left it to the Pardon Attorney to make his or her final recommendation to the President. So it saddens me to see a President just ignore that process and ran through pardons for political or other (including political contributions) reasons. It is easy to make fun of the bureaucratic process, but without it, this is what we get. People - not the Pardon Attorney after full review - sticking Pardon letters into the autopen or in front of the President to apply a sharpie signature without even knowing the first thing about what he's doing or who it impacts.

Not since his rookie season have we seen Allen look this helpless

And Shakir breaks a tackle to prove me wrong!

Has anyone other than Cook broken a tackle tonight? And that includes Allen

There's a really good argument that Dick Jauron did more with the talent he had than McD is doing with the talent he has.

Exactly. This game will not prove anything about the relative merits of these teams. I hate, hate, hate football on Thursday. Eff college, just play on Saturday night.

Oh man. This is getting ugly

Don't give up so quickly.

Rousseau? MIA this year. Bernard? Didn't we think he was, like, good last year? Or better than Edmunds? The DTs: disappeared, or injured. Bosa: pass rush, yes; subpar Von against the run. Benford: injury risk = injury reality. Milano: playing out the string. Epenesa: already in his decline phase? Without ever really being good?