The Frankish Reich

But not Stroud. And maybe not Caleb Williams. And maybe even not Aaron Rodgers? (we forgot about him really fast, which is kind of ok with me) Really? The guy who played with broken ribs?

I just checked ... Ertz had 5 more catches than Knox last year. Which says a lot more about Knox than it does about the continued value of Ertz.

We need to sucker them into putting all their eggs into the 2024-2026 basket. Then we'll be ready to pounce in 2027 when they're in salary cap hell.

I think that was the fatal flaw. The 40 or even the 35 on a touchback would encourage kicking for returns. As it stands, they may have managed to take a boring play and make it even more boring.

First game of the season and it already looks like the new kickoff rule is a bust. Both the Ravens and Chiefs - well coached teams that clearly value analytics - are more than happy to take the touchback every time. It would need to come out to the 40 to make them take the risk.

I like to think that even if my parents had split up when I was a kid, even if my mom had been a drug addict who'd been arrested multiple times, even if I kept being kicked from school to school, even if my dad had an AR-15 that he left out and available to me, even if I'd lacked the moral upbringing I got from my parents and my (Catholic) schooling, that I would never have grabbed that gun and taken it to school when I was 14 and I felt that my life wasn't worth anything. I like to think that. But deep down I don't know.

I have no reason to doubt that Silver's model is the best model he could come up with. And yes, my gut agrees with his projections, because the electoral college advantage is tough to overcome. On another point, I don't see why anyone is underestimating Kamala as a debate performer. She did well in he prior debates, including against Pence. She is no pushover. And Trump is gonna Trump, which some people will always like, but more will always dislike.

And who is calling for a return to traditional family values? The guy who pulls an Irish Ben Roethlisberger.

Kid's family history is horrible and depressing. Mom - educated, on the way to a good middle class life - gets addicted to meth. Just arrested (again) recently. Kids apparently live with the father. I suppose he was trying, but not succeeding. Something about him just getting evicted and moving the kid to a new school. JD Vance would say it's wonderful that this couple had 3 kids. Yeah, right. I say they should have had zero, since after yesterday we're at net gain of one child, and that's before adjusting for the fact that the shooter will spend his life in jail.

Bigly

I'll sum it up in 3 words: Supply Side Economics.

So the FBI knocks on your door and tells you that your kid is posting things about school shootings. You say o.k., thanks, and then tell your kid that the FBI is a joke. And just like the last kid's parents, you add "next time, don't get caught." Haha. Part of the problem.

Russia does not have great influence over our politics. Thank God for that. It has consistently done one thing - a thing that carries over from Putin's Soviet KGB days: it works to cause dissension and distrust in America and the American system of government. All the fools quoting their James Lindsay about communist tactics to undermine the United States somehow forget that the one unreformed Soviet communist is Comrade V. Putin.

Keep fighting for that traditional "family unit," Conor, you unmarried man (engaged for ... 4 years!) who has his security guards stand sentry at the toilet so he can bang some random chick ....

Elon has a plan, and that plan is called Surrender! Re-do elections in eastern Ukraine, the region where all Ukrainian loyalists have been killed or pushed out. In other words, allow remaining Russian-affiliated people to vote for annexation. Give up Crimea. Reward the first Russian aggression. Ukraine remains neutral. In other words, Ukraine remains forever a puppet state of Russia. Call it South Belarus. It takes a genius to come up with that. Almost as if he is simply reiterating Putin's terms.

I don't know if you have kids. If you do, imagine this: the FBI contacts you - the frickin FBI - saying your kid has been posting threats online, including about shooting up a school. You tell the FBI you do have guns for hunting. You: 1. Do nothing. Keep your AR accessible to the kid. Lots of kids make idle threats. Guns is good. 2. Secure your guns. Keep an eye on your kid to make sure he only has access when you are with him. Maybe I'm in the minority in thinking that a visit from the FBI is kind of a big deal that requires a very serious intervention ...

Be a dad? Keep your guns locked up/properly stored?

I'm guessing the parents (or at least the dad; seems like this is a broken family?) will get charged. Think about it: has information from the FBI that his kid has been making online threats. Allows kid access to his AR-15. Dad of the Year. Disturbed kid + Moronic Gun Nut Parent = 4 more dead at school. You can't stop a 14 year old?

I notice Benny Johnson has continued his inane tweeting as if nothing has happened. This is the best summary of what Russia was up to. NOTE: no denials from any of the "pundits" mentioned! They are taking the position that they were helpless dupes. A good article, based on a close reading of the indictment itself. Read it; you will come away with the clear conclusion that these guys (well, 2 guys, one girl) are either dumb as dirt or that they were trying like hell to avoid the obvious here. REMINDER: these are the people our Trumpies here often cut-and-paste from. You know, the reliable Russian-funded alt-media that is so superior to the MSM. https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/09/04/don-jrs-online-buddies-allegedly-demand-5-million-from-russian-shell-companies-to-say-nice-things-about-his-daddy/ To prove the FARA charge — one you’d only need to prove if Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva showed up in the US for arrest — you’d need to prove that the two RT people succeeded in influencing US politics, and deliberately hid that they were doing so on behalf of a Russian entity. And RT is sufficient — you wouldn’t need to show that RT was paid by the Russian government. So you have to show how they worked through cut-outs, the two people who run Tenet media and through them the influencers like Tim Pool and Benny Johnson who got duped. And that requires you showing how RT set up fake personas, including a fake funder named Eduard Grigoriann, as a front to use to convince Pool and Johnson this was all legit, so that after one of them — I believe this is Pool — asked for more information about whom he’d be working with, they would have ready answers. One of the other figureheads — either Johnson or Dave Rubin — complained about this fake funder (FBI mocks them all because they keep spelling his name wrong), because he used woke language: Commentator-1 had “a problem with the profile we sent over, specifically the reference to ‘social justice.” I think it may be because that’s usually a term used by liberals, but we’re trying to create a conservative network.” That led to a Zoom meeting that the persona, Grigoriann may have missed, because they ***** up the time difference between Paris and Moscow. At approximately 8:58 a.m. Central Time that day, “Eduard Grigoriann” replied to his earlier email: “I am there guys.” The time, in fact, was 3:58 p.m. in Paris — but it was 4:58 p.m. in Moscow. Approximately two minutes later, “Eduard Grigoriann” performed a Google search for “time in Paris.” “Eduard Grigoriann” them replied to his email, in part: “Sorry, wrong hour. Didn’t sync the calendar.” There’s some real clown show stuff in this. But it didn’t matter for Pool and whichever one is Commentator-1, because they signed contracts worth almost $5 million a year or $100,000 per non-exclusive video.

Q. Why would Russia (through RT, Russian state-controlled media) want to fund these American "patriot" self-appointed pundits? Putin is not an idiot. What was in it for him? To ask the question is to answer it.

And now Oregon, where nearly 1 in 10 kids "benefits" from a measles vaccine exemption. https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/09/record-measles-outbreak-in-oregon-blamed-on-vaccine-exemptions/

Amazing, I say! Congressman from Silicon Valley district opposes taxing billionaires on unrecognized gains.

Now we know the official Russian position on who is authorized to call himself a Command Sergeant Major.

READERS PROVIDE CONTEXT: Benny Johnson is a Russian asset.

Benny Johnson, useful idiot. Often quoted right here! So if he's a useful idiot, what are his re-tweeters/posters? A level below idiot, but I'm not sure what there's a word for that. EDIT: I just thought of a word for it. Ol' Tarheel!