Logic

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/russia-mcfarland-flynn-trump-emails.html When President Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in February, White House officials portrayed him as a renegade who had acted independently in his discussions with a Russian official during the presidential transition and then lied to his colleagues about the interactions. But emails among top transition officials, provided or described to The New York Times, suggest that Mr. Flynn was far from a rogue actor. In fact, the emails, coupled with interviews and court documents filed on Friday, showed that Mr. Flynn was in close touch with other senior members of the Trump transition team both before and after he spoke with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, about American sanctions against Russia.

So far, some of the things in the bill that seem, Oh, I don't know, what's the word? Ridiculous (I saw this posted elsewhere and had to dig through the herculean bill itself to find them, but alas). The tax bill: has an abortion law reclassifying life at conception, has a clause to drill oil in Alaska’s arctic wildlife preserve, and pulled the mandate for the ACA. So, yeah...Not sure what place any of that has in a TAX BILL.

Just as I will continue to laugh at the use of False Equivalence and Whataboutism to justify corrupt governmental chicanery.

Fair enough, Rhino. I will do just that. I am still wading through it myself, but will happily post some talking points that upset me. First, though, with regard to the other portion of my question: Do you feel the process that took place last night was reasonable, defensible, "regular order"?

Funny, that's exactly what I asked for in my original post in this thread. That someone defend the tax bill and the process that went into passing it. Has yet to happen, other than "but what about the other guys?!"

I guess I missed the part where dems had lobbyists writing last minute, hand written amendments to the ACA in the wee hours of the morning. I also must have misremembered the fact that the ACA was subject to a near-record 25 consecutive days of debate on the floor. The democrats ABSOLUTELY employed some underhanded tactics with regard to the ACA, but nowhere NEAR the level of what the GOP pulled last night. Furthermore, an endless chorus of Whataboutism and insistence on a False Equivalency does not equal a legitimate defense. I still have yet to hear a valid reason why anyone should be okay with this scam of a process.

Yeah, I mean...of what value would it be for senators to actually get a chance to read a bill before voting on it?

The wild card with the Giants is that we don't know what the coaching situation will be there next year and whether or not said coach (I'm guessing it won't be McAdoo) will want to do with Eli Manning. That said, it's probably safe to assume the Giants and Browns both draft QBs. It's in the best interests of Bills fans to hope the 49ers get a top 3 pick, because they seem like prime partners to trade down, given their acquisition of Jimmy G.

Dude just can't stop incriminating himself.

Okay, if you say so. But is the information that I provided, via that website, incorrect?

I am all for drafting a QB at all costs (including an epic trade-up) IF the Bills believe there's a franchise guy sitting there. Why? Well, I don't disagree for a moment that the Bills have many needs, but it's really simple in the end: The NFL is a quarterback's league. You either have one -- and your team is a perennial contender for 10+ years -- or you don't, and you hope to get in on a Wild Card every couple of years. During the drought, the Bills have -- at time -- had good defenses, good running games, good skill players, good linemen....the one constant is no franchise QB. This has to end at all costs. If the team AROUND said QB isn't ideal in year 1, it's okay. We've got to get the guy in the building, and we aren't likely to have a better opportunity to do so than next year, given all of our draft capital. QB or bust 2018!

Hmmmm, according to Snopes.com: "...the ACA was debated in three House committees and two Senate committees, and subject to hours of bipartisan debate that allowed for the introduction of amendments. Peterson told us in an e-mail that he 'can’t recall any major piece of legislation that was completely devoid of public forums of any kind, and that were crafted outside of the normal committee and subcommittee structure to this extent'. Compare that to the absolute travesty that took place last night, where a last-minute 479 page amendment written by lobbyists in illegible pen was handed in and everyone was given 1 hour to read it. Not even close. Anyone else? Oh, and: In June and July 2009, with Democrats in charge, the Senate health committee spent nearly 60 hours over 13 days marking up the bill that became the Affordable Care Act. That September and October, the Senate Finance Committee worked on the legislation for eight days — its longest markup in two decades. It considered more than 130 amendments and held 79 roll-call votes. The full Senate debated the health care bill for 25 straight days before passing it on Dec. 24, 2009. Aside from that, is your only argument in support of the bill a good bit of "Whataboutism"? Always point the finger elsewhere rather than defending the conduct of your guys.

I would really love for anybody -- anybody at all -- to explain to me how what happened with this tax bill last night was okay. The last minute hand-written additions, the fact that many of said additions were literally being written by lobbyists, the fact that no one had any real time to read or debate this bill, the fact that even the people voting FOR it didn't know what was in it, the fact that it does cartoon-villain things like give tax breaks to private jet owners...This whole process was absolutely vile and a complete attack on common sense and democracy. "The party of fiscal responsibility". Sure.

https://qz.com/1144480/mike-flynns-guilty-plea-muellers-investigation-into-trumps-russia-ties-and-everything-else-you-need-to-know/ Everything you need to know about Mike Flynn’s guilty plea Mueller threw the kitchen sink at Manafort and Gates, with 12 criminal charges against them, but Flynn has just one. That’s because Mueller wants to bludgeon Manafort and Gates into cooperating, while Flynn has already been doing so. To get this kind of light deal, Flynn would probably have had to offer highly damaging information about other people in last year’s presidential campaign, writes University of New Hampshire law professor and former public defender Seth Abramson (Abramson’s Twitter account is a must-read for those following the probe and heavily informs this piece). What’s more, that information has to be onsomeone higher “up the food chain” in the organization. For someone of Flynn’s seniority, there are very few people who fit that bill. President Trump and vice-president Mike Pence are two of them. Whether Trump’s son-in-law and right hand man Jared Kushner is a big enough fish could be open to interpretation. Abramson argues that Flynn could only have got this very easy deal by offering incriminating information on Trump or Pence. The first early sign that he’s done just that is ABC’s report that Flynn will testify that Trump “directed him to make contact with the Russians.”

I say it's a big deal because Flynn is going to be testifying against the sitting president directly. It's the biggest development in the Russia probe thus far.

Former National Security Advisor accepts plea deal with Russia probe and plans to cooperate by testifying against the sitting president....and the Trumpies in here are STILL trying to paint a picture of "crazed, conspiracy loving leftists!" and "nothing to see here!". For those who AREN'T completely unwilling and unable to accept the idea that maybe there's something TO all this smoke, here's a well reasoned thread written by an intelligent and sane person that explains this all very clearly. This IS a big deal, it IS significant, it IS historic, and it IS ridiculous that the usual suspects on here are still trying to paint it as a nothing burger. **** is getting real.

Haven't read all the way through this thread, but... Everyone agrees Dareus was valuable in terms of stopping the run. That doesn't change the fact that he is a one-dimensional player getting about 30--40% of the snaps per week, and it was unwise and unsustainable for the Bills to continue to pay his bloated contracted for those contributions, ESPECIALLY considering that he is one run-in with the law away from a long suspension and doesn't have a work ethic.

Lots of great stuff in here. Right on the money. Too much to copy and paste all the good quotes, so I only picked one. Check the article out, though. Worth your time. https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/11/18/week-11-preview-bills-tyrod-taylor-nathan-peterman-jerry-jones-roger-goodell-case-keenum-teddy-bridgewater "I like Taylor, I’m hopeful for the Bills, and I’m bummed it didn’t work out. In short, for a flawed team, what Taylor brought wasn’t good enough, and he really hadn’t shown any signs that a drastic improvement was on the way. Are the Bills better off with Nathan Peterman under center? We have no idea yet. But they made the change because they wanted something different. This team was speeding toward the edge of the cliff, and sometimes you just gotta turn the wheel and hope for the best."

It's not the Manafort indictment that has so many people's attention regarding collusion, in my opinion. It's the Papadapolous guilty plea. https://www.vox.com/world/2017/10/30/16570826/george-papadopoulos-russia-trump-mueller According to the special counsel’s statement of the offense, Papadopoulos joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 as a foreign policy adviser. That month, he met with a Kremlin-linked professor in London who also introduced him to a woman possibly close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. When the FBI interviewed Papadopoulos as part of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the document says, he lied to FBI agents. Papadopoulos was arrested on July 27 and pleaded guilty, and a special counsel document dated October 5 says he agreed to plead guilty. However, special counsel Robert Mueller asked the court to keep all of that secret until now because, in Mueller’s words, the “[d]efendant has indicated that he is willing to cooperate with the government in its ongoing investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”

Too early to say. White and Milano look like keepers. I have faith that Dawkins, at the very worst, will be an excellent guard. So that would be three quality players. We won't know how the draft stacks up completely until Vallejo and Peterman get playing time.

Yes, I was a member of the BBMB. I have no idea what other nonsense you're talking about. And for those keeping score: Donald Jr. Kushner Manafort Sessions Papadopoulos Flynn That's the list of people who met with Russians and lied about it. Keep laughing it all off as a hoax, though. Meanwhile, Manafort was just indicted for Conspiracy against the United States. But again, keep downplaying everything.

So Trump's campaign chairman turning himself into the FBI because -- among other things-- he was an unregistered agent of a foreign government, and Papadapolous now cooperating with the Mueller investigation after being forced to accept a plea because he had a meeting with a Russian official to receive damning information about Hillary Clinton, all while the commander in chief throws panic hissy fits on Twitter...those things aren't a big deal, eh? Sure, right, nothing to see here. Keep laughing it off. MAGA!

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/adam-gase-says-hes-fed-up-and-done-compromising-with-unprepared-dolphins/ There isn't necessarily just one problem the Miami Dolphins need to address after their embarrassing 40-0 loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night. Head coach Adam Gase made that clear in a tangent of a press conference on Friday, where he addressed a litany of issues with the Dolphins and repeatedly remarked how "fed up" he is with his team, according to Hal Habib of the Palm Beach Post.

A reporter on twitter (Sal?) mentioned that Seantrel Henderson was lined up to the left of Cordy Glenn on a few plays. I believe that -- after some self evaluation during the bye week, in which the coaching staff realized both the success of last year's unbalanced lines and the current dearth of healthy Bills receivers -- the Bills will try to get the running game on track agains the Bucs using 22 and 13 personnel and some extra tackle Jumbo formations. Cover 1 recently tweeted a link to Jim Schwartz talking about how difficult it is to defend against 22 and 13 personnel, how hard it is to keep gap integrity. Given the vulnerability in run defense that the Buccaneers present and the lack of #85 and #87 on the field, I expect the ol' ground 'n' pound this week. Shady tops 100 yards rushing for the first time since week 1. Bank it.

You should always, ALWAYS wait until at least a quarterback's SECOND season to declare whether or not he is any good. Even that often isn't enough time. Once the book is out on a QB and the league learns his tendencies, THAT'S when you can declare whether or not he's any good. Saying Watson is better than Tyrod right now, or that Watson is definitely going to be a good NFL quarterback, are foolhardy statements. Both statements MAY turn out to be true in time, but are not true yet. Oh, and for what it's worth, I wanted the Bills to draft Watson. Tre'davious White looks like a stud and I'm glad he's a Bill, but I'd have rather had Watson. Time will till if you and I were right or not, but to say we know already is silly.