The Frankish Reich

Correct. A draft pick backup QB is a depreciating asset UNLESS the starter gets injured and he plays really well over the course of at least 4 games or so. (Think Brock Purdy if he’d been a high pick.) So you would be gambling on Allen getting hurt, Hooker stepping in (which he probably couldn’t do until next season) and playing well, and then turning Pick 27 in 2023 into, say, Pick 15 (none of the best dozen or so teams will be looking for a QB) in 2025. And by then Hooker would only be under team control for 2-3 more years, so that would depress his trade value. So let’s summarize: - minimal value for Pick 27 over the next two years in exchange for slightly better value come 2025 - and that slightly better value only comes if Allen gets hurt in at least one of the next two years Sounds like a great plan! Can’t believe I didn’t see it before given that it’s so obvious now.

Lauren Boebert disagrees. https://www.westword.com/news/lauren-boebert-son-car-wreck-injured-friend-16586981 Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to the New Trailer Trash Republican Party and one of its rising stars. Like mother, like son. On September 17, 2022, Representative Lauren Boebert's eldest son, Tyler, was issued a "careless driving causing bodily injury" ticket in connection with a late-night car crash in which he flipped his father's SUV into a Garfield County creekbed. Noble D'Amato, a nineteen-year-old friend of Tyler's who was riding shotgun, wound up hospitalized with multiple concussions and a severely lacerated hand. "I still have problems with my hand," D'Amato says. "My thumb almost got cut off. It prevented me from getting a welding job, because I can't hold a TIG torch anymore. I'm a personal-care provider now." **** Records show that Lauren Boebert, who was first elected to Congress in 2020 and fought off Adam Frisch in the 3rd Congressional District House race last November, has received a summons or been arrested at least four times in the past decade. The 2016 careless driving incident resulted in her being tossed in jail for approximately 100 minutes for failing to appear in court, according to the Denver Post. A plea deal later led to the careless driving charge being dropped and only the unsafe-vehicle charge stuck, according to records. Boebert's record also includes a charge of disorderly conduct for verbal altercations and dog code violations related to the alleged harassment of a neighbor and her dogs. Jayson, meanwhile, was charged in 2004 for public indecency and lewd exposure for showing his penis to two women at the Fireside Lane bowling alley in Rifle.

Umm, no. I suggest you read up on what is now called classical liberalism. Because you just got a D- on this “discuss the origins of liberal thought in political theory” assignment. Chat GPT would do a lot better.

Meanwhile: Disney 2, DeSantis 1, Bottom of the 5th.

Interesting that the "Murdochs" of Succession all jetted off to Lake Placid for one of those Men Who Rule the World meetings. You know the kind of meeting: Davos, Aspen Institute, all those things are resident Right Wing Conspiracy Theorists claim to despise. Not to mention the weirdly homoerotic men-only Bohemian Grove retreat Thomas, Crow, and various other billionaires have gone on. They used a Lake Placid setting as a stand-in for Aspen, but still - art imitating life imitating art.

If you're saying some QB needy team will make us a great offer for Pick 27, well, that would certainly be nice. But its quite a different thing to say we should pick Hooker ourselves at 27, hoping that some other team will come out of the woodwork and all of a sudden offer great value for him. I would assume that if some other team really likes him, they'll be on the phone with Beane trying to make that trade for Pick 27.

For those who watch Succession (recommended!): "wealthy benefactor" Harlan Crow = Conor Roy.

Makes a fool out of me too. I'm no fan of his wife's political activities, which seem: (1) insane; (2) ridiculously ill-advised given her husband's job. But I have defended him as a Justice based on his adherence to a particular view of the law (even though its not my view) - an steadfast adherence that sometimes has led him to split ranks with the standard Republican position. And I also believed his thing about loving the common man's RVing, Walmart parking vacations instead of the wining and dining his colleagues get when they go to Europe to "teach" a summer class for 6 weeks. So much for the Last of The Regular Guys in Washington meme.

Well, I don't know if every single one is, but there sure are a lot. When I was a kid in a Catholic High School, they invited this guy to come talk to us about his mission rescuing NYC street kids: https://nypost.com/2018/09/13/this-nyc-priests-dramatic-downfall-was-just-the-beginning-of-perv-priest-scandals/ My friends and I joked about how he seemed like a perv. Oh.

Hendon Hooker: 25 years old Sam Darnold: 25 years old

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/matthew-kacsmaryk-mifepristone-medication-abortion-supreme-court.html It is probably impossible to count how many errors, exaggerations, and lies Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee, put in his decision. The judge appears to have largely copied and pasted the briefs filed by the anti-abortion group that filed the suit, the Alliance Defending Freedom, rephrasing their arguments as his own analysis. (This was predictable—Kacsmaryk himself is a staunch anti-abortion activist—and might be why ADF handpicked him specifically to hear the case for them.) His decision repeats the ridiculous and objectively false conspiracy theory about mifepristone—that the FDA illegally rushed its approval in 2000 at the behest of former President Bill Clinton, the pharmaceutical industry, and population control advocates. Kacsmaryk flyspecked the FDA’s assessment of the drug, concluding that its studies were insufficient and that the agency “acquiesced to the pressure to increase access to chemical abortion at the expense of women’s safety.” And he claimed that he had authority to revisit an FDA approval that occurred 23 years ago because the agency happens to have changed rules around the dispensation of the drug several times since. This is all completely absurd, an outrageous abuse of power that no judge has ever even attempted before. Challenges to agency actions have a six-year statute of limitations. That means plaintiffs get a full six years to file a lawsuit, after which point they’ve waited too long. It has, just to reiterate, been more than two decades since the FDA approved mifepristone. Kascmaryk ignored that limitation in his quest to block the drug because, he insisted, the agency hadn’t responded quickly enough to citizen petitions opposing the drug. That is not the law. Mark Joseph Stern is a journalist with a law degree. He sometimes overdoes it, but I read the decision itself and I gotta say: his summary nails it. This is one of the most poorly reasoned, purely result-oriented decisions I've ever seen. The Republicans are now beating the Democrats at their own game: filing lawsuits in federal district courts where they can get a favorable judge. But its even worse now since they can game their lawsuits by filing in a location where there is just one judge on the bench - Amarillo, Texas. That's right. A single anti-abortion Trump appointed judge in Amarillo, Texas is now running abortion policy nationwide. Obviously we need to change the rule: this decision should, at most, apply to this judge's district in Texas.

Chan Gailey as OC would make this offense historically great.

There is no such thing as "The Commissioner." There are 6 Commissioners, 3 from each party. Guess which party this guy is from. There is no such thing as a "key member." There are 6 Commissioners. You could call the Chairwoman a "key member" but that's not this guy. This is the kind of crap people cite here. A poorly researched article, grossly misunderstood by a poorly informed reader.

Game 17. Bears playing for draft position, meaning "we want to lose." Bears Nation turns its lonely eyes to Nathan Peterman. And Peterman delivers! He plays conservatively, not obviously looking like they're trying to throw the game, but certainly not trying to win the game. Mission Accomplished. That's why coaches like him.

Tyreek just turned 29. So allow me to interpret: “I will be 32 after the 2025 season, and it’s unlikely that a receiver who depends on speed and quickness will still be a valuable commodity at that age.”

This is pretty shocking. I mean, I’m very familiar with the Washington Elite Way Of Accepting Favors, but to not disclose these super high-end travel gifts is …pretty shocking. (Said by a guy who has been required to do annual financial disclosures himself. No way anyone would be confused about whether these trips needed to be disclosed)

Agreed. It is basically uncontested (at least in all the pronouncements from Trump and his team) that he did falsify records. I’ll repeat my take: - this prosecution is unwise for many reasons - nonetheless, it is pretty clear that Trump violated NY law - whether it is chargeable as a felony based on campaign finance laws depends on unresolved issues of NY criminal law and on issues of federal supremacy (also an open issue) - whether it is chargeable as a felony based on anticipated NY state tax fraud depends on issues of fact that will be difficult to prove - there is a difference between an ill advised prosecution (this one) and an unfair prosecution

You mean I misunderstood the many Republicans who now say they are advocating for a nationwide federal abortion ban? Maybe if they’d stick to their old line - “but it’s an issue for the people of each state to decide!” - you’d have a point. But it turns out that whole states rights thing was bs, no?

You are playing a bizarre semantic game here. Let’s say OJ needs money (again). Let’s say someone pays him $10 million and he gives a detailed interview about exactly how he killed Ron and Nicole. I think 99.99% of us would say “he committed a horrific crime” notwithstanding the fact that he was acquitted by a jury and can never again be put on trial for that.

Dershowitz, for many reasons, has been marginalized. Did the Epstein thing drive him toward Trump? Or did his marginalization from the academic world do it? Who knows. Unpopular opinion: I think he still has it (the legal chops) as evidenced by the rather clever arguments he made at the impeachment hearings. Those weren’t popular arguments (they had kind of a “he’s a scoundrel but it’s not an impeachable offense” tone), but to my ears they were pretty well thought out. Kind of what Trump needs now. Politically, Trump understands his fanboys - “I could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and they’d still vote for me” - so is there really any downside to admitting his proclivity for hookers, err “adult film performers?” Admit you’re a creep but argue that there’s no chargeable criminal offense here. Yes! When you talk about so-and-so “committing a crime,” do you add the caveat “provided he’s arrested and charged before the statute of limitations runs”? Those are two different things. There’s a lot of people who committed crimes - even admitted they committed crimes - and then avoided criminal consequences because of a statute of limitations, illegal search and seizure, etc. Think Bill Cosby.

Yes, I am a lawyer. And yes, I understand this strategy very well: - get the felony charges dismissed - that leaves the DA with nothing since he can’t fall back on misdemeanor charges. Easier said than done! They alleged a nexus to campaign finance violations (a shaky theory on legal grounds, given that federal election law may be found to be exclusive here), but also a nexus to planned (apparently NOT claimed) NYS tax violations (shaky on factual grounds, although if proved the legal theory is fine). BUT you’re missing my point: no one is even arguing that he didn’t commit the misdemeanor offenses. It’s just that they’re not chargeable. That’s kind of different than “I did nothing illegal.”

Of course a crime took place. It doesn’t even appear that Trump’s defense team is going to argue that the falsification of business records didn’t happen. They’re already arguing that these were misdemeanor offenses and that the statute of limitations has long run on them (typically 2 years under NY law). Now as to whether they are provable as felonies? That’s a good (and open) question. As to whether the DA ought to be charging them at all? Even a better question. But that’s not the same thing as being innocent of all wrongdoing or lawbreaking.

1. The Ravens GM is clever. Maybe too clever. Lamar is stuck. No other team wants to go all-in on a contract offer that the Ravens could match if it’s team-friendly (you then have to start the QB search from scratch, having p’d off the incumbent), or that will cost 2 first rounders plus a ridiculously player-friendly guaranteed contract. Maybe too clever because they may get to keep an unmotivated Lamar. Do they really want that? 2. Lamar would be better off if he’d sexually harassed multiple massage therapists, not to the point of criminal liability, but to the point where he is not welcome in polite society. (Polite society does not include Cleveland) This is where we are as a culture.

Where's Barron these days?

Off topic, but maybe there’s one tiny thing we can all agree on? I have a kid in college in another state. Here in Colorado it’s all mail/drop-off ballot voting. I checked: she’s authorized to vote in Colorado. I also checked her college’s state: she’s authorized to vote there too. This isn’t a federal election so it’s no big deal. But when it is a federal election, what’s to stop her from voting twice? I’m a lawyer (I mention this only because I ought to be able to understand the laws here), but I honestly can’t figure out where she’s supposed to vote and where she’s not allowed to vote. I think (I’m not sure) that she’s gotta choose just one, but does that apply to local elections too? I mean, some municipalities let non-US citizens vote, so who knows? How about a little clarity in the law here.