The Frankish Reich

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?

Worst Bills defense ever? No. I checked. 1971. The year I became a Bills fan. Worst scoring defense in the entire NFL. Balanced out by the worst scoring offense in the entire NFL. How an 7 year old became a Bills fan that year is an eternal mystery.

Probably. At least in the McD years. I'd have to think about those 1980s teams though.

Let's end the first half thread on some unconventional wisdom: our defense hasn't been good since Terrell Edmunds left.

Agree - everyone else is expensive and/or on the downside of his career.

Good Lord, our defense is awful. And how about zero pressure on Mills.

Someone said John Lynch last week. I laughed. And then I thought, hey, not so crazy ...

I don't know when he turned into a bigtiime hitter, but I'm glad he did.

Too fast! We put the ball right back into the legendary Davis Mills' hands.

I was about to say Ray Davis isn't fast enough for kick returns...

I actually like those high gloss red helmets.

That one always struck me as weird, since even a brand new lawyer would know better. But there's a whole host of other problems, some of which may warrant outright dismissal. And I think that's where we're headed.

Congratulations for making it. I think I mentioned before that I was a teaching assistant as a grad student a lifetime ago. The most involved/best students I had were in a night class with mostly "nontraditional students."

I thank the NFL gods for scheduling a crap game that I had no interest in, thereby allowing me to avoid this.

I don't know enough about this Connor Grubb thing to comment. I do know enough about Michael Brown to say that it was a tragedy, but I don't think the cop who shot him was guilty of any offense.

I take care of my similarly aged mother, but only for a few weeks at a time. My siblings help more than me. I do the George Costanza's father "serenity now!" thing several times a day. But every night I'm thankful that I have that time with her.

One word (well, technically two): J6. Four words: Peaceful Transition of Power. The sins of GWB (and even more, Cheney) are fairly commonplace in our country. The sins of Trump were not, and hopefully are not.