The Frankish Reich

On this much we agree. It is a spectrum, a sliding scale, whatever you want to call it. Working hypothesis: extremes on the Introvert-Extrovert scale don't make for successful presidencies. (exception that proves the rule: Clinton, an extreme extrovert, who I think had a generally successful presidency)

Jeb Bush, Mike Dukakis, Barack Obama (a more complicated case, but read up on him; he was always much more of an introvert), Hillary Clinton, Al Gore ... just some over the past decades who immediately come to mind. I would guess that introverts actually dominate politics. They are the policy wonks who start off as legislative aides and try to work their way up into their boss's offices. They learn skills for dealing with people that emulate the natural, glad-handing extroverts. For every true extrovert like Biden in the Senate there are probably a dozen Michael Bennets. I will agree that presidential elections greatly favor extroverts, particularly in modern times. I'm not sure this is a good thing. You beat me to it. Nixon of course is a prime example of an introvert who made it to the top office. JFK? Umm, that strikes me more as one of those extroverts who likes to pretend that he enjoys quiet time with a book if the woman he was trying to seduce at the moment thought that made him more attractive ...

I hate to give the source any credit, but ... he may have a point here. Even if not "on the spectrum," we're probably dealing with an introvert. Which is not at all a bad thing. But that introvert needs to get past not one, but two of the biggest loudmouth extroverts on the planet in Trump and then Biden ...

My daughter tells me that Hailee Steinfeld single-handedly ruined the sequels to Pitch Perfect. Just don't ruin Josh too. That's all I ask.

I was blissfully unaware of this National Donut Day, here is ridiculously fitness crazed Colorado. I promise to do my part to publicize it, starting with my first dozen shortly.

I just said it - focusing on how he says his name is a stupid story. But Ron could make it go away instantly, just like I said he should. He won't, or can't. And so it'll get traction until he does. And guess what? The "attack" may have come from the left, but it's gonna be waged from the man trying to outflank him on the right. Kind of like "I don't know about Lyin' Ted, but a lot of people are saying his father was in a picture with Oswald ..."

From the introduction to a fairly recent reprinting of the Book of Johan, Micah, and Nahum: "Adam, Cain and Noah find God punitive but soothed by the smell of burnt flesh, mostly animal." That sums it up.

Yes! He is. That's why this strikes a nerve. Look, who couldn't make a compelling campaign launch video out of the real story? From his wiki page - it's an All-American success story! Smart kid, athlete, went to the best schools, actual athlete (implicit contrast: Trump) could've made a mint in private practice but felt the calling to serve in the military (implicit contrast: Trump military avoidance). Given one of the most sensitive national security assignments you could have. But instead he wants to snap at reporters who bring attention to his Italian heritage? DeSantis was born in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Karen DeSantis (née Rogers) and Ronald Daniel DeSantis. His middle name, Dion, extols the singer Dion DiMucci.[4] His mother's family name, Rogers, was chosen by her grandfather upon immigrating from Italy.[5][6][7] All of DeSantis's great-grandparents immigrated from Southern Italy[nb 1] during the Italian diaspora.[13] His parents and grandparents were born and grew up in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio.[4] DeSantis's mother worked as a nurse and his father installed Nielsen TV-rating boxes.[14] They met while attending Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio, during the 1970s and moved to Jacksonville, Florida, during that decade.[15] His family then moved to Orlando, Florida, before relocating when he was six years old to the city of Dunedin in Florida's Tampa Bay area.[16] His only sibling, younger sister Christina, died in 2015 at age 30 from a pulmonary embolism.[17][18][19] He was a member of the Dunedin National team that made it to the 1991 Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.[20][21] DeSantis attended Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School and Dunedin High School, graduating in 1997.[14] After high school, DeSantis studied history at Yale University. He was captain of Yale's varsity baseball team and joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.[21][22] He was an outfielder on that team; as a senior in 2001, he had the team's best batting average at .336.[23][24][25][26] While attending Yale he worked a variety of jobs, including as an electrician's assistant and a coach at a baseball camp.[14] DeSantis graduated from Yale in 2001 with a B.A., magna ***** laude.[27] After Yale, he taught history and coached for a year at Darlington School in Georgia.[28] He subsequently attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 2005 with a Juris Doctor, ***** laude.

Which is why his defensiveness is so weird. It isn't happenstance - his staff clearly tried to shift the "official" pronunciation from DEEsantis to DUHsantis. Nothing like that in politics is happenstance. Feel free not to take some football fan forum poster's free advice, Ron, but for your benefit: Relaunch. Now. Tell your family's rags-to-riches immigrant story. If there isn't a rags-to-riches story, make one up. Kid about how different parts of your family say it different ways. Emphasize how there's nothing more "American" than that kind of thing. Turn an admittedly stupid criticism into an asset. Who exactly is running your campaign?

For people wondering about my posts trying to manufacture a defense for Trump on the classified documents investigation ... it looks like new Trump buddy, old Epstein buddy Alan Dershowitz is thinking along the same lines: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jun/1/did-trump-declassify-documents-criminal-indictment/ I do take issue with this: "Theoretically, there could be evidence that Mr. Trump told an associate that he was taking classified material with him, knowing it was still classified. It is extremely unlikely, however, that any such evidence exists." Theoretically, Alan? The reports we just read yesterday involve exactly that type of evidence! Trump is allegedly on tape saying "I have a document about our Iran defense strategy, but I can't talk to you about that because it's still classified." Other than that, a solid article.

I don't care how he pronounces his name. All "ethnic" in America names are to some extent Americanized. As I understand it, his family name wouldn't be said "Deesantis" in Italian since that would be spelled DiSantis. It would be more like "Daysantis." So why does this get traction? Because he seems hypersensitive about it! Instead of celebrating his Italian-American background, he seems just a little bit embarrassed by it, like he's a little too immigrant-adjacent. That's what trying to appeal to the new Republican base does to you ...

At my age, I'm very conservative with investments .... I do think this AI thing really is a big deal, but it's for me to watch, not participate in.

No, I mean shifting heavily toward boring old fixed-income investments like treasuries and CDs of different maturities. Right now a safe 5% return doesn't seem that appealing when inflation has been running at 7-9%. But if there's deflation, suddenly that becomes a fantastic return. https://www.wsj.com/articles/black-swan-debt-ceiling-mark-spitznagel-nassim-nicholas-taleb-18bb38f1?mod=hp_featst_pos4 And ... uh oh. Nassim Taleb and friends are ready for the next market collapse. Ready to make billions of it, that is. My prediction: commercial real estate is a bubble ready (actually, overdue) to burst, and it will carry other sectors down with it.

LOOK AT ME IGNORING YOU!

I suspect many grandfathers don't eagerly invite their illegitimate-from-a-hooker-hookup grandchild to be in their family Christmas photos.

Off topic, but Mueller really appeared to be losing it by the time of his testimony (and likely during the investigation itself). Let's stop entrusting key governmental functions to the elderly.

Don't tell that to our Q Anon devotees! Again: "I didn't know I had them in my garage" is different from "I have it right here, but I can't show it to you because it's still classified." Imagine the distinction between the ordinary defense of "I bought it from a pawn shop and the guy assured me it was legit" and "yeah, I bought it from a guy who told me he just boosted it from Walmart."

One other comment: this is why there's such a thing as White House Counsel! If you think you have the right to take any document with you (and thereby declassify it by operation of law), you ask your counsel whether that's a defensible position. But when you alienate everyone around you, including your Counsel, well, then you do stupid and illegal things.

That requires a legal conclusion. This hasn't been litigated in the courts, so right now we can only say "it depends on what the courts say." My points: - Trump (assuming the tapes are correctly characterized) himself thinks they REMAINED CLASSIFIED despite the fact that he (knowingly? we think so) took them out of the Office while still President. That is why he apparently said something like "I'd love to talk about this in greater detail, but the documents (and information therein) remain classified," coupled with regret that he DID NOT declassify them when he had the authority to do so - there is still an argument that it doesn't matter what Trump thought he was or wasn't doing, that even if he THOUGHT they remained classified, the ACT of knowingly taking them out of a secured classified facility and into his personal position while he was still President had the legal effect of declassifying them. My takeaways: - these tapes, if correctly characterized, change the legal landscape. It's an admission by Trump that he recognizes (as he understands it) that the document/information remained classified long after his departure from office. That takes away his public defense ("I was the President, I could and did declassify, no special magic words required") - it leaves him with two weaker defenses: (1) even though I believe I had the inherent right to declassify anything I wanted to, THESE particular documents (but maybe not others?) were removed through carelessness, not intentionally (remember, the prosecutor would have to prove a specific violation based on specific documents/information). This argument may be very weak on the facts, particularly since his public statements are fair game with respect to knowledge/intent. (2) even though he THOUGHT he may have removed still-classified information, that belief was incorrect as a matter of law, since his knowing removal of the document in question effectively declassified it as a matter of law. This puts his lawyers in a difficult position. Notice that Defense (1) is incompatible with Defense (2). Defense (1) is based on lack of actual knowledge that this document was removed while still classified. (the Hillary defense). Defense (2) REQUIRES his knowledge - his knowing decision - to remove the document while he was still President and thereby declassify it as a matter of law. So a fairly weak case just became a much stronger case. See my comment above. Comey was clear that the investigation did not show knowledge/intent to remove/post classified information and that the case therefore involved carelessness (in law, gross negligence) and that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a criminal case on those facts. Trump is now found to have been recognizing that he had still-classified documents in his possession as late as summer 2001 (at least 6 months after losing the job).

This is an argument Trump has lost repeatedly before the courts. It involves confusion between "the President" and "the Presidency." Trump invoked Executive Privilege in an attempt to kill discovery of various documents. The courts said Executive Privilege belongs to "the Executive," as in the current holder of the Executive power (the White House, acting through the duly-appointed President Biden). Since the Biden White House wasn't invoking the privilege, a former office-holder couldn't rely on it. So ... if the tapes really say what reports say they do, they're very interesting because Trump treats the information in the documents as STILL CLASSIFIED. In other words, he says something like "I'd love to go into detail about that, but I didn't declassify the documents when I was President, and I can't do that anymore now that I'm not President, so I just can't discuss the contents." [It is important to remember here that, as anyone who has had a clearance knows, it's not just the document itself that is classified. It is also the contents of the document. For example, if you look at or discuss classified information in a SCIF, you cannot take notes about the discussion; if you do, those notes are destroyed (e.g., shredded in a shredder qualified for classified that turns paper into something close to powder) in the SCIF. You also cannot talk to other people about what was in the document unless they too have the required clearance level and a need to know. EVERYONE who is given a clearance has to take the course, every year. NO ONE should have any doubt about what the restrictions are] So that's why I added an additional wrinkle to my proposed Trump defense that goes like this: - I THOUGHT the documents were still classified - But in reality, I had effectively declassified them by taking them out of the White House while I was still President For those of you wondering, "Is this really a defense that I was too dumb to realize what I was and wasn't doing?" The answer is: Yes. That is the defense. -

That's because the biblical purists/evolution deniers have a different explanation: that dinosaurs never existed. That a crafty, prank-prone God put "dinosaur" skeletons on the earth for some reason only a God can understand. Exactly. That's what they think, or pretend to think.

PFF check: - consistently at least mediocre (scores in the 60s), occasionally rated in the solid starter category (70s) - compare Spencer Brown: one of the worst-rated RTs last year. And Quessenberry, who showed a major decline last year. Sounds like a useful addition, possible contributor this season. YMMV.

And for me the true shocker: on the key, publicized points - slowing the growth of spending a bit, adding some work requirements for certain continuing benefits - the contents of the deal actually seem reasonable. Will wonders never cease?

Now that I've had a few (more) months to reflect on the Leslie Frazier Defense Era: - He is a fantastic defensive coordinator. He built an excellent defense, and did it in a way that adapts to changes in offensive philosophies/personnel. - Remember that old Billy Beane/Moneyball line? "My [crap] doesn't work in the playoffs." That's the self-realization that Frazier hasn't had yet. In other words: first you gotta win the regular season to make the playoffs, and (ideally) get a bye week or even home field. We all know that points allowed correlates strongly (but imperfectly) with wins. And Frazier built a deep, well-disciplined defense that was able to deliver the regular season wins despite injuries that would have destroyed many teams: losing your best (arguably elite) CB in White, losing your elite S in Hyde, losing Von, watching as several key draft picks (AJ, Boogie) failed to develop as hoped, etc, etc. That's a real accomplishment. A lot of defenses would have collapsed in the regular season under those circumstances. - But what gets you to 12 or 13 wins in the regular season against teams both good and bad (Jets, Pats, Dolphins 6 times a year for the last couple years doesn't hurt your record) doesn't necessarily work against elite teams (Chiefs, Bengals) in a one-game playoff. So maybe defenses built to bend but not break, or built for depth rather than around a couple true star performers just aren't the best thing for the latter situation. Maybe his crap doesn't work in the playoffs? Is that fixable? For Billy Beane, it wasn't. Having really good/deep starting pitching (the early 2000s super rotation of Hudson-Mulder-Zito) was great in the regular season. They all provided huge numbers of way above average innings. But none of them was Peak Roger Clemens or John Smoltz - the guys who will absolutely shut down the other team's lineup 2 or 3 times in a short playoff series. They were built to win the Best Record, Regular-Season Division. Not a one-game playoff. The Von Miller acquisition was in recognition of that fact. It almost worked until it didn't.

A very well-reasoned and nice comment, Deek, until the last line ... ... Agreed. I don't like the guy who did it. And I don't think the legal theory I outlined will (or should) prevail. From what I know so far, he violated the law (and damaged national security for selfish, self-aggrandizing reasons). I'm trying to be fair, saying that there is a legal theory (look up "Unitary Executive") under which a prosecution could be found unconstitutional. I think that's a misreading of the constitution as it would apply to the facts as I understand them in this case. But it is a plausible defense. I'm just very skeptical of the legal merits of that defense.