The Frankish Reich

Why not? What better time than when you control the House? I have said that there ought to be Hunter Biden hearings. And I mean it. There is enough there to probe - publicly - what Joe knew and when he knew it.

Two particular regions. The Crimea counts too. Talk about silly - "the U.S. has gone back on its word?" Remember the post-Soviet agreement. Ukraine surrenders its Soviet nukes, the new Russian Federation agrees to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity. It is like the U.S. Government and the Native American nations, but the party reneging on its obligations is Russia.

So ... there are two possible reasons for why the House isn't planning all those promised hearings. 1. They are afraid they'd backfire. Hearings would simply amplify the ultra-right voices in the House that are, quite frankly, an embarrassment to the party. 2. They really don't have any kind of smoking gun to present. So ... yes, put up or shut up.

Almost certainly under Russian control. This is what I'm talking about - to these New Republicans freedom isn't worth any price at all. "Mr. Gorbachev, fortify this Wall and stay within your designated sphere of influence and we'll get along just fine."

Every day I am astounded by this new "Republican Party." It is like an old classic rock band that has lost all its original members, now touring as The New Ramones or something. So we will not sell weapons to a country if it could "escalate" a war. Does that apply if the de-escalation involves allowing the aggressor to simply win outright and then declare a peace? Does it apply to selling arms to Israel or Our Friends the Saudis and their never-ending proxy wars against Iran? Does it apply to South Korea? Maybe we should just let a Peace of The New Millennium to descend upon them under the leadership of their very strong, very shrewd leader. I guess I could understand some kind of Kissinger type justification, some geopolitical realpolitik defense of keeping out of certain conflicts that don't impact our direct interests. But this "we will bend over and take it" justification is to advocate for a weak America on the world stage. Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you "The New Republicans," not to be confused with any prior use of the term "Republican."

Republicans control the House. They can have hearings on whatever they want. Go for it. Or shut up about it.

Well, no. The adjective here simply reflects the idea that a right to privacy exists as a matter of constitutional law. It is not a statutory right that may be taken away by Congress; it is an inherent right, guaranteed by the constitution. And this is where the rubber meets the road. Do you believe the only rights a person may have are those that are expressly enumerated in the constitution? It is no sufficient to say, "but as a practical matter, no state is seriously proposing to ban birth control." The question is would a state have the constitutional authority to do that if the legislature were so inclined. Because if you answer "yes" to that question, you are necessarily rejecting the idea that the constitution protects some right (yes, an inherent right) to privacy. That implication - that there is no such thing - is clear in the Dobbs decision.

Hmm, let's check the scorecard, early 2021 vs. today: - obsession with manufactured epidemic of child sex trafficking? Check. - obsession with "deep state" conspiracies to thwart the will of the American people? Check - obsession with alleged and utterly unproven mass voter fraud? Check. Even a damn fool knows not to label themselves Q Anon anymore, given that time has shown that it was a colossal fraud perpetrated by father/son weirdos operating out of the south Pacific. But its adherents refuse to let go of the central idiotic beliefs that started the whole thing. So, yes, this is So Summer 2023.

So I take it you believe in gay conversion and support a complete abortion ban?

Good question, since he promises a pretty Bernie-ish agenda, including "aggressive action on climate change."

So let's say we have a purely technocratic military leadership. The question is this: "Is it more cost effective to grant 3 weeks leave to a pregnant soldier to travel to get an abortion, or to have that soldier unable to perform her duties for an extended period of time during late term pregnancy, childbirth, and post-childbirth?" To ask the question is to answer it. In one case your employee is out of commission for 3 weeks and you're out of pocket a bit of travel money; in the other case your employee is sidelined for months.

I have an in-law from deep red America who switched from Bud Light to Coors Light as his daily drinker. He had recently finally started to branch out, drinking a "local" microbrew. But then he found out that Anheuser Busch had bought out that microbrewery so that's out too. The amount of time people spend overthinking these things just boggles my mind.

A very quick statistical example of the type that Cowherd doesn't bother to do: - 49ers, last full year with Montana starting at QB: 3.8 yards per carry - 49ers, first full year with Young starting at QB: 4.8 yards per carry OK, so Steve Young himself averaged 7 yards per carry (500+ yards) in that season. So let's take his numbers out of the mix. - 49ers, first fill year with Young starting at QB, eliminating Young's stats: 4.4 yards per carry. Quick back-of-the-envelope guess: a running QB improves your RB production by about half a yard per carry. (I chose the old Niners because there was a great deal of continuity on offense there, other than at QB. Choose your own example, Cowherd. Or maybe stop trying to get an audience by being "controversial," by which I mean "stupid.")

I haven't looked at the numbers, but this strikes me as the dumbest of dumb Cowherd takes. A running (not scrambling and buying time; I'm talking about actual designed run plays and QB options) QB changes the basic advantage of the defense where you have 11 defenders trying to stop 10 offensive players in the run game. Think about how well we ran the ball with Tyrod at QB. Guys like Karlos Williams and Mike Gillislie were suddenly unstoppable, both getting almost 6 yards per carry in 2015. The confusion might be that some running QBs are exactly that: runners who play QB, which results in a one-dimensional offense, which allows defenses to stack the box to stop the run. Think Tebow. But with any running QB who can also throw, the answer is obvious: a running QB makes the run game more effective. Why on earth would it make it less effective?

Probably true. We do have to recognize that societal and law enforcement treatment of illicit drugs has changed drastically over the last decade. It used to be that someone trying to get a baggie of marijuana thru security would be routinely referred to the cops for arrest. Now it seems to be treated the same as a guy trying to bring an unopened bottle of water through TSA.

I agree. As a federal employee at various times, I'll note (as I reminded younger workers of many times over the years) that the public sector loan forgiveness is not something that my generation had. Basically it's a ten-year commitment, and I've known a lot of government employees who get over $100,000 of student loan debt discharged. In other words, all the kids complaining about their high debt burden? Check out all those government jobs going unfilled. The downside: you actually have to work. Your career as a budding film maker or full-time influencer may have to wait.

Charlie: the "People's House" is generally used to mean the House of Representatives. Not the White House. Someone needs to retake middle school civics. And no, this wouldn't be a new thing: https://consequence.net/2020/09/jimmy-carter-willie-nelson-weed-white-house/

But who on earth "liked" Bud Light to begin with? Crap old pre-Good Beer in America pisswater. It was ok as an "I just mowed the lawn on a hot summer day and I want a really cold beer that tastes kind of like water" way. But "like?" Someone somewhere actually liked it? I guess it shows how good their pre-woke marketing was, convincing Americans to pay a slight premium for a terrible product. Look, I agree in principle. But why does it always have to take a racist turn? Snow White kind of needs to be ... white ... but she always had black hair and there's no reason to criticize the casting of a hispanic actress. Now as for the 7 Dwarves ... don't actors with dwarfism need jobs? EDIT: Just saying that back in the day when I had to take a young daughter to every princess movie, watching certain hispanic actresses for 2 hours would've made that task just a little more tolerable ...

Correct. There are lots of reports showing that the government made the promised student loan forgiveness ridiculously difficult to obtain. Whether that policy (income based/public service based) loan forgiveness is a good one is a different question. But I see no legal/constitutional objections to what they're doing now.

No. As I understand it, this is a loosening of the controls on who qualifies for income-based/public-service based loan forgiveness. In other words, something people were promised when they took out the loan. So not the same thing.

I think they're pretty similar actually. Both supremely confident but with a kind of cornball midwestern way of playing it down. If Mahomes we'd drafted Mahomes a year earlier and Allen had somehow wound up on the Chiefs, I suspect our opinions of them would be the opposite.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/checked-by-reality-some-qanon-supporters-seek-a-way-out We'll be there for all of you when you have your moment of clarity.

You don't remember what savings account/CD rates were after COVID? My bank account was paying a laughable 0.1 percent. I have a CD that is now (thankfully) maturing that I bought when I got all excited that rates were rising again. 18 months, 2.55%. There's nothing "normal" about that. "Normal" over the last 40 years or so was on the order of 4% for short-term savings.

The entire "travel, restaurant and hospitality" sector has seen some of the biggest price increases. It's labor intensive, and labor costs have gone through the roof. I'm not trying to be the Monopoly man here, but ... broadly speaking these are still discretionary spending categories. 1 year CDs? About 5.5 percent. So like I said: if you owe money, not good. If you have money to save and don't like risk, good.

One man's higher loan rates are another man's higher savings rates. We tilted the economy toward ultra low rates through Federal Reserve intervention ever since 2008. Things are finally getting back to normal rates.