The Frankish Reich

I'll note that the US Attorney told he judge that Ray Epps is not, and has never been, a confidential informant for the U.S. government. That is not something a U.S. Attorney says cavalierly. It is a clear statement - one that could get you disbarred if it is shown to be false. Did Ray Epps get squishy and start volunteering information to law enforcement (particularly after the events)? Possibly. I don't know, and that's outside the scope of the U.S. Attorney's representation. But in federal law enforcement you either are or aren't a confidential informant. He wasn't. Period.

I am proud to be you Deep State commenter. By that I mean a person who is committed to the Rule of Law, not Men. The January 6 rioters thought they'd never pay the price. They either bought Trump's bs that he would be declared the victor, or they thought that they were sufficiently anonymous such that it was impossible for the feds to find and prosecute them. They were wrong on both counts. 1,000 successful prosecutions. An incredibly complex, time-consuming investigation, matching photos to profiles, using tips from responsible citizens, and (yes) reading stupid social media posts in which people bragged about committing crimes. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jan-6-arrests-new-accusations-surface-in-latest-prosecutions/ Here's a sadly not unrepresentative case: https://apnews.com/article/capitol-riot-assault-tennessee-flagpole-police-sentencing-378d427e81bf5691b403579eac3bc0e0 After other rioters attacked police with objects such as crutches and a hockey stick, Padilla launched a flagpole toward officers, hitting one of them in the head, prosecutors said in court records. Prosecutors say he then lied under oath on the witness stand about it, claiming he was trying to hit another rioter. A day after the riot, Padilla wrote on social media that he was “proud” of his actions, adding: “It’s guns next, that’s the only way,” prosecutors said. Prosecutors also pointed to several of Padilla’s social media comments calling for a revolution ahead of Jan. 6. “We’ve gotta do it on the 6th or never at all. We have to take over the Capitol Building, immediately pass acts dissolving the current Legislative body, and fill the places with uncompromising Patriots from among those of us there,” Padilla wrote in one post in late December 2020. Padilla’s lawyer told the judge that his client, a U.S. Army veteran, “regrets ever having gone to the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.” Padilla’s lawyer said the man has lived an “exemplary life” despite a “troubled upbringing,” which included a stint of homelessness, and that his actions on Jan. 6 were “not typical of his life pattern.” All our future basement would-be insurrectionists (including those here) will think twice before taking up their flagpoles and other arms to try to thwart the peaceful transfer of power. This is a truly amazing and commendable investigative and prosecution effort by the dedicated men, women, and nonbinary professionals in the FBI, other law enforcement agencies, and the Department of Justice lawyers. Thank God we have them.

Honestly, someone scored a 280 on the reading comprehension section.

Moronic comment. I linked to an article in the mainstream media about how the entire human smuggling system is commercialized and out of control. I like that it got a tee-hee from B-Man, who shares your total lack of reading comprehension. He is still decrying the end of Biden monthly welfare payments to families and the attendant rise in child poverty.

Is abortion the killing of a human life? I guess your position should then be no abortion at any time, period. If you're good with 6 weeks, then obviously you think that a 6 week old fetus is not a human life. If you're good with 15 weeks in the case of rape or *****, then I guess you think a 15 week old fetus is a human life, but it's kind of an ill-conceived human life that we really ought to kill. At least the Catholic Church is consistent: life from the moment of conception, no exceptions to outlawing abortion. New style anti-abortion folks are all over the place.

Lovely to see you're among the Proudly Ignorant. ELON EFFIN MUSK - the wealthiest man in the world since Bezos dumped his wife - just said the "legacy media" is "ignoring" the border crisis. I pointed out that the legacy-est of all legal media just did a long, expensive, thorough report on the commercialization of human smuggling that is driving this crisis. So: - his comment was stupid and ignorant, and "it's too expensive" is certainly not an excuse for him (maybe for Chris Farley it is ... do you have a GoFundMe?) - Chris Farley's retort - "nobody reads the NY Times, we get our news from social media" is even more beside the point since Musk's "point" (if there was one) was about Legacy Media ignoring a story. That is the nature of discourse on the Trumpist right. Willful ignorance. Talking points meant to inflame ("the mainstream media hasn't even reported on this!"). Or links to articles that make the exact opposite point of what these people think they're making - look back at the one where one of our posters cited a secondhand report about "child poverty going up." That was about how the end of earned income tax credit (welfare) payments raised that child poverty rate. In other words, the exact opposite of what the poster thought it was arguing, that somehow Biden policies have failed. How social media makes us stupid, Exhibit 1,011.

Is there any basis at all for saying that Boasberg was the "pre-selected judge?" Cases are assigned randomly or by a "wheel" (next in line) in federal district courts. There is no basis given for this "pre-selected judge" comment. I guess they'd be happier if it had been assigned to Judge Chutkan? Judge Beryl Howell? Stupid, ill-informed commentary meant to inflame the stupid and ill-informed.

I guess Elon Musk can't afford the $1/week online NYT subscription. "Free media that most use" = you get what you pay for. It is a damn good story in the NYT - very well reported, and provides a lot of support for the position that illegal immigration has turned into an industry supported by cartels with actual government (Colombia/Panama, etc) involvement/approval. In other words, the captain of the mainstream media is supporting your talking points, but I guess you'll wait for Pizzagate Jack to link to it with an 80 word tweet? No problem. I'll do the hard googling for you and Elon. Here's Fox News (Fox News is still ok with you guys, right? I mean, you can uncover your eyes and actually look at that one?) re-reporting what the NY Times initially reported. Free media! Maybe even Mainstream Media!! And this is the most damning report I've seen on the entire situation. https://www.foxnews.com/world/colombian-elected-officials-charging-millions-packages-guide-migrants-toward-us-border-report-says Local politicians have reportedly been charging big bucks per month to help shepherd migrants through a section of the jungle between Colombia and Panama known as the Darien Gap, moving what is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of people so far this year north toward the U.S.-Mexico border. The New York Times reported Thursday that instead of clandestine human traffickers skirting authorities, politicians, prominent businessmen and elected leaders in Columbia have openly been charging millions of dollars a month on packages promising to transport migrants through the Darien Gap. This is despite the Biden administration and the governments of Columbia and Panama vowing earlier this year to curb the massive migration pattern through that area. "We have organized everything: the boatmen, the guides, the bag carriers," Darwin Garcia, an elected community board member and former town councilman in Acandi, a Colombian municipality at the entrance to the jungle, told the Times.

We'll see. Dropping all the way to overall pick 144 in this QB obsessed draft world tells me something. There was no team willing to take a flyer on him with even a 2nd/3rd/4th round pick. Malik Willis, Matt Corral, Bailey Zappe were off the board ahead of him. I think the Commanders did the right thing giving him the starting job, because there is a chance he'll develop into a good starter. But everyone seemed to agree that his ceiling is limited, hence the draft status. But I am intrigued by the "vegetarian except for chicken" thing. Not even fish? Turkey? Quail? I demand an explanation!

Yep. And looking at his game logs, as that 2019 Kyle Allen season went on: - he followed up that incredible 4 TD performance with a few mediocre performances in a row. - his first really poor game came in his 6th overall start (3 INTs, a passer rating of about 30) - he rebounded and was mostly serviceable the rest of that starting season, but with only one more objectively good game and with a couple of absolute clunkers The one thing that never happened through the rest of his career: another great game like that first "meaningful game" start with the 4 TDs.

I don't see this one happening. I'm not saying it shouldn't - an actual dedicated high-speed rail line along the east coast would be great - but I don't see us getting out of the current situation where big infrastructure projects stall everywhere they're proposed. This is an American political problem. I agree. Not "EV only" or the end of the ICE engine. I think those mandates will be cut back and we'll see more hybrids and generally better vehicles that overall are far more fuel efficient, with EVs being a big part of that.

Totally forgot about him too.

Right. My cautionary tale about overrating early QB performances hits a little closer to home. Kyle Allen. First start of 2019: 19-26, 4 TDs, 0 INT, QB rating 144.4. Carolina wins 38-20. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/panthers-at-cardinals-final-score-kyle-allen-throws-four-touchdowns-as-carolina-earns-first-win-of-2019/ Allen was phenomenal in just his second career start (his first in a "meaningful" game). Allen finished 19-for-26 for 261 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions for an 144.4 passer rating, an incredible performance with Newton out (high ankle sprain). The Panthers had an excellent game plan for Allen, starting him out with short throws before offensive coordinator Norv Turner dialed up the playbook with some downfield throws, allowing his playmakers to take over. Olsen looked like his Pro Bowl self and McCaffrey finished with 188 total yards. I remember joking here: "Wrong Josh? Who cares? We got the Wrong Allen!" And then he settled in to being a perfectly adequate backup quality NFL QB. Howell's path may be different (better). But it probably won't.

True. I would gladly swap my career earnings with his, agents, taxes, and all ...

Looking just at what he was guaranteed in his various contracts, it looks like he made about $40 million as an NFL player from 2014-22. So I wouldn't be too worried about his post-NFL career opportunities. That's a nice career, good luck to him.

Nothing really surprising, other than a lot of folks somehow saw him as the answer at MLB. Like a veteran baseball player signing a minor league contract in spring training with the idea that he'll be added to the roster by April 30 or be given his release. Bernard has been better than expected, and probably Kirksey was told he just wasn't in McD's plans for 2023.

Wow. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by anything now, but somehow Trump's boundless selfishness and casual cruelty still has the capacity to shock.

That's Trump. Most other politicians feel the need to at least somewhat rationalize/explain their changes in core positions. Trump moved from being "very pro choice" c. 2000 to America's leading pro-life/anti-abortion champion c. 2016. Fools like Ron DeSantis thought they'd outflank him on the pro-life side. Now that Trump (through his Supreme Court appointments, abetted by Mitch McConnell's chicanery) got Roe overturned, he'd be out there with the almost total abortion ban in Florida. What could go wrong? He forgot that he's dealing with an opponent with absolutely no qualms, no need to even pretend that his positions are consistent. Trump gets the everlasting support of a lot of anti-abortion types for finally getting Roe off the books, but he's not about to let himself get stuck with an unpopular general election position.

In related news: Rupert Murdoch officially standing down as Chair of Fox and News Corp. His son Lachlan (I think he'd like to be known as "the smart one" but it's relative) is taking over. And old Rupert, not known for sugar coating it, has been quoted as calling Sean Hannity "######ed." (EDIT: the "R" word that refers to someone developmentally disabled - apparently his word, not mine)

Hey, TuckerSuckers: Am I mistaken, or has he featured two know Groomers - Andrew Tate and Russell Brand - as his very special guests? Groomer!

Ron is young, and obviously has political talent. His mistake (for someone as ambitious as he is) was to go for it this year rather than waiting (hoping) for Trump to lose again and finally be out of his way. That also forced him to concentrate on silliness like the anti-woke stuff instead of actual concrete policy accomplishments. Young man in a hurry = damaged.

Another one of those idiotic "why is this being ignored in the mainstream media" stories that ignores the fact that it is plastered all over the mainstream media. Here's a really good one from last week from (gasp!) the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/world/americas/migrant-business-darien-gap.html I get that posters here wouldn't ever read the "mainstream media." They like their news filtered through astute observers like Julie Kelly and Pizzagate Jack. But Elon Musk is posting similar stupidity. Is he now a Pizzagate Jack follower?

It'll be an interesting campaign post-mortem. DeSantis decided that Trump was done. What losing candidate since Adlai Stevenson (Nixon? But there was a gap there) gets a second chance? Plus it ended about as badly as any living presidency in history. So why not run as Trump 2.0, a younger and less damaged version? That should rocket you to the top of the Republican Primary field, then you can tack to the center for the general. All well and good until Donald threw his hat back into the ring and we found out that yeah, there is a Cult of Trump and it is personal, not policy based. So what to do? Well, there's that whole Rest of the Field polling somewhere between 2 and 10 percent. You could try to emerge as the leading anti-Trump candidate, then hope that Trump implodes (still could happen, but very unlikely). But he's been unwilling to do that. So you have a Trump sycophant running against the master himself. Who needs that? Turn out a solid 10 percent need or want that. Toast.

These things are, of course, kind of general and sometimes not that reliable. But having lived and worked with people from various regions of the US, I think there's definitely something here.

The headline says it all. Stick a fork in him; he's done. https://scholars.unh.edu/survey_center_polls/762/ "Trump Leads, DeSantis Crashes in NH GOP Primary 9/20/2023" (2023).