The Frankish Reich

I won't defend Trump getting pissed at court observers who say he's falling asleep. That's childish. But yes, he has good reason to fall asleep! Witnesses today included an officer of a court reporting company, called to authenticate the transcript of a Trump deposition. If you've ever had to sit through a trial, this is a lot of what goes on. Silly ritual that should be avoided by both sides stipulating that Exhibit A is a true and accurate transcript, etc.

She'd be doing your crazy ass campaign manager behind your back.

Well, there's kind of a difference between saying "I consider your 1980s policy statements to be racist" and actually working with the fake news media to make up stories (complete with photoshopped grainy photo) like "Ted Cruz's father linked to Oswald." That's what's happened in the Trump era. People (his defenders at least) have completely lost the ability to recognize clear distinctions. No, not "everybody did it," at least not in the same outrageous way as Trump.

No one needs Sarah Palin 2.0. 2024: passed over as Trump's VP 2025: divorces 2026: Fox News commenter 2028: reality show star

It's official: low information voters support Trump. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/poll-biden-trump-supporters-sharply-divided-media-consume-rcna149497 Takeaways: - Not surprisingly, those who get their news through mainstream sources support Biden by a healthy margin. - those who get their news through social media, etc., are basically split evenly between supporting Trump vs Biden - those who really don't follow the news at all strongly support Trump

You don't seem to know it, but you are giving us a generalized monetarist explanation for inflation, typically associated with an expert, Milton Friedman. I am pointing out that a pure monetarist explanation doesn't work so well with what we've seen going on in national and the world economy, and that therefore economists are turning back to what business cycle theories have taught us over the years. Your expert, my expert. Unless of course there's a hidden Orlando Theory of Inflation that hasn't been publicized.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/01/17/what-economists-have-learnt-from-the-post-pandemic-business-cycle

I guess one good bite will change my whole way of thinking …

This is true. I would say how much he dislikes animals in general. Maybe it goes to that germophobia thing, although that never stopped him from fingering the nether regions of porn stars, so who knows? Maybe that's why that dismissed juror found him "mysterious and fascinating." We all have our little biases. When I find out someone is a baseball fan (everyone here is a football fan), I tend to think more highly of them. No good reason for that; it's just someone appreciating something I also appreciate gives rise to a kind of conscious bias. I know damn well I'm doing it. I'm not a fan of that subconscious bias theorizing. Same with people who like dogs. And more importantly, people that dogs seem to like. I don't do that modern "mind if I pet your dog?" thing. The dog strains toward me on the leash, looks like a friendly dog, I put down my hand to make friends. Never been bitten, but have had cranky owners scold me. That's their problem. I sense that dogs don't like Trump either.

Good luck, Hunter. 😁

I thought this was going to be right-wingy skewed stats, but actually these people seem pretty serious. It tries to include not just the classic unemployed, but also those stuck in a part-time job who want to be working full-time, and those working in any job who don't make a living wage (as they define it) doing so. And so: what was their "true rate of unemployment" at the peak of the "Trump economy," just before COVID hit? 25.1% 1.1% higher than it is today. (this is why it pays to read the underlying stuff that comes across some random Tommy Boy's twitter feed) https://www.lisep.org/tru Oops. I don't infer from this that the Biden economy is great, particularly for the lowest quartile. It isn't. Neither was Trump's. Maybe it's that the President really doesn't have that much to do with cyclical economic trends. All I can say is that this is not a great talking point for the "Biden's economy sucks" crowd.

- Showed love of guns and willingness to use them on a puppy? Check. - Had extramarital affair with Trump campaign official? Check. - Did cheesy dental practice promotion on the order of Trump Steaks or Trump Bibles? Check. In short: checks all the Trump boxes. Hard to make Kamala look good. She's doing a great job! Don't you have some kittens to drown?

Hint: look up the definition of snark.

Allow me to explain. Apparently this Yuri believed that the Soviet Union had so poisoned the American mind that the ultimate success of the Soviet Union was inevitable. Weirdly enough, less than a decade after some of these pronouncements, the Soviet Union was no more. An astonishing failure of a prediction somehow spun into a success.

Unlike a lot of neologisms, this one is actually a correct reflection of the policy. We will insist that you carry a pregnancy to term and give birth. What's not to understand?

This was posted on 4/20, perhaps explaining why it makes no sense.

And as Paul Harvey would've said, here's the rest of the story: Sauer replied that Trump's attorneys had not raised that concern "directly" in the current Supreme Court case — in which justices are considering Trump's arguments that presidential immunity precludes the prosecution of charges that the former president illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election. The short answer, then, is "no." The question is not properly before the Court.

I'm still adapting to the new college world. This guy started at Temple, then transferred to Vandy, then to Kentucky for his "senior" year.

Showing tape of this 6'8" 350 guy "mauling" a 180 lb safety.

well that was what the wait was for

So who are we sending up there?

This is why the draft is boring. (I'm watching because it is currently snowing in Colorado!) Nowadays everyone knows everything about everybody. It's the classic efficient market. No more ridiculous overdrafts (except that punter who just went in the 4th). No real surprises. All pretty much according to rankings. Film on everyone available at a click.

Bears, team with a lot of needs, picks a punter in the 4th. Kiper says it's great! Pivotal player, game changer.

What happened to Mel Kiper? Every draft pick is a great one now.

As one Justice asked: where in the constitution does it say that the President shall have lifetime immunity for criminal acts committed while he was President? The answer is: nowhere. There is absolutely nothing in the constitution that accords former presidents immunity from criminal prosecution. The Supreme Court is just making it up. So what about the textualist's backup argument? That we should look to history of the interpretation of the constitution? Well, no help there. Gerald Ford preemptively pardoned Nixon because there was no one who even thought that Nixon would have lifetime immunity for any involvement in criminal activity while he was president. So they are making it up. How is this different from the "liberal justices just made up the right to privacy (and, in turn, abortion) which is found nowhere in the constitution?" Answer: it isn't. This article states the argument in greater detail: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/27/supreme-court-trump-immunity-00154744 Read the conclusion before you snap back "oh, so I guess you're fine with Dobbs." No, I'm not. The article (and I) just think that the idea that Supreme Court justices are just some kind of rabbinical interpreters of the words of the constitution without imposing their own ideas of what is necessary for what they've called "ordered liberty" is nonsense. There is no such thing, and this case proves it.