Motorin'

Curtis Samuel could replace Brown and McKenzie.

Exactly, free agency will most likely address 2-3 needs, and the draft strategy will totally depend on FA. I wouldn't be shocked if we draft 2 IOL and a RT.

Is he any relation to Tiny Tim?

Absolutely! If you're going to do a Bills redraft and you end up with Andy Dalton as your franchise QB you are doing it wrong. You don't give up your 2005 1st round pick to move up for JP Losman, and Aaron Rodgers is the Bills QB for the last 16 years... Sheesh, what the hell is this guy thinking?

I could tell about a number of my work initiatives aimed at increasing opportunities for black youth to be introduced to the real estate market and obtain real world job mentorship. But it was actually because of those initiatives that I learned the history of economic discrimination against black people for most of the 20th century. So I would answer your question by saying that I don't think most any of us an individuals are responsible for making direct reparations for the systematic economic attack on black people during slavery, Jim Crow and the 20th and 21st century. I do think the federal, state and local governments, as well as specific corporations who denied credit and the ability to build equity to black people for 100 years after slavery are responsible for making amends of some kind. For actual harm done. I don't pretend to be able to offer up all of the solutions. I think it is extremely telling that there has never been the public will to even study how much damage was caused until this year. And I think that gets at the origin of your question, that is, an underlying belief that if the country were to try to repair the damage, you and I as individuals without person culpability would be held guilty and punished for crimes we did not committ. I reject that notion. Our government, and the corporations who inflicted actual harm can attempt to repair the damage without you or I needing to be blamed or punished. I would go so far as to say the only reason "white guilt" exists is because the nation has refused to consider what might be entailed in repairing the damage. Is the attempt not a worthy goal in an of itself?

I thought he played well against the Ravens and hoped he was going to play against KC. But yeah, he's definitely in consideration.

I appreciate the post. I think we both agree that more needs to be done to make lasting amends, and that our country will be stronger if we are able to.

The Senate made the apology bill non-binding and added this disclaimer: (2) DISCLAIMER- Nothing in this resolution-- (A) authorizes or supports any claim against the United States; or (B) serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States.

Let me be clear. If companies can find people to work for free that should be their right! No one "deserves" a wage for their labor. Furthermore, if you actually work for a living you're probably poor and stupid, and you deserve nothing!

If Beane can find a partner, I could see trading back for a 2nd and 3rd, and Newsome being one of the two 2nd rounders.

He's a late comer to the position. Just played 2 years at LB. But in 24 games he had over 200 tackles, 12.5 sacks and 2 INT's. Haven't watched him, but his highlights show that he's a playmaker against top competition.

You're probably right. There has never been and probably never will be the desire amoungst a majority of white Americans to repair the damage inflicted upon black people. It's pretty much the Irish Catholic method of dealing with child abuse. Suck it up and pretend it never happened. And if you talk about it, you are the problem. Carry on Fr. O'Malley.

The problem is that the collective "we" have never had this discussion. Germany paid reparations to Israel for 70 years after WWII for the Holocaust. The US has never even apologized for slavery, Jim Crow and redlining.

Excellent post. While the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in US law, many Southern states reconstituted slavery through vagrancy laws that made it illegal for black people to be in public without a job. Unemployed black man were then mass encacerted and sold to companies for slave labor. The companies would pay the state the "vagrancy" fine over a period of years while putting the black prisoner to work in the field or mines. This second wave of US slavery continued through the 1940's.

Slavery of black Americans persisted for 80 years after the Civil War.

Cram it right up grannies ass! - EnRon

I think it all depends on how healthy he is. He certainly could, if he isn't too physically shot. I just don't know what to expect.

True, but Reggie White had 29 sacks in the previous 2 seasons before moving to GB, and had started 16 out of 16 games for the previous 5 seasons. There were no signs of injury or performance dips in his entire career. He only missed 1 game and 3 starts in his 6 years in GB, and had 16 sacks in his last season with GB at the age of 37. There is only 1 Reggie White.

The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ I've been meaning to read this article for a long while. Finally did yesterday after this announcement... There is a long, detailed history which grounds the conclusions he arrives at below. If anyone is serious about discussion of race in America, you simply cannot dismiss this. "Perhaps after a serious discussion and debate—the kind that HR 40 proposes—we may find that the country can never fully repay African Americans. But we stand to discover much about ourselves in such a discussion—and that is perhaps what scares us. The idea of reparations is frightening not simply because we might lack the ability to pay. The idea of reparations threatens something much deeper—America’s heritage, history, and standing in the world. The early American economy was built on slave labor. The Capitol and the White House were built by slaves. President James K. Polk traded slaves from the Oval Office. The laments about “black pathology,” the criticism of black family structures by pundits and intellectuals, ring hollow in a country whose existence was predicated on the torture of black fathers, on the rape of black mothers, on the sale of black children. An honest assessment of America’s relationship to the black family reveals the country to be not its nurturer but its destroyer. And this destruction did not end with slavery. Discriminatory laws joined the equal burden of citizenship to unequal distribution of its bounty. These laws reached their apex in the mid-20th century, when the federal government—through housing policies—engineered the wealth gap, which remains with us to this day. When we think of white supremacy, we picture colored only signs, but we should picture pirate flags. On some level, we have always grasped this... We invoke the words of Jefferson and Lincoln because they say something about our legacy and our traditions. We do this because we recognize our links to the past—at least when they flatter us. But black history does not flatter American democracy; it chastens it. The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter. Black nationalists have always perceived something unmentionable about America that integrationists dare not acknowledge—that white supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it. And so we must imagine a new country. Reparations—by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences—is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. The recovering alcoholic may well have to live with his illness for the rest of his life. But at least he is not living a drunken lie. Reparations beckons us to reject the intoxication of hubris and see America as it is—the work of fallible humans. Won’t reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already divided. The wealth gap merely puts a number on something we feel but cannot say—that American prosperity was ill-gotten and selective in its distribution. What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt. What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history."

Just like the Dot Com Bust. E-commerce, that will never work! But seriously, internet speed and software development was about 10 years behind the desire to shift sales online. Another way to look at it, it took an entire floor to house a main frame computer with 10KB storage capacity 60 years ago. Now our phone can hold TB's. Solar and battery power will advance rapidly with investment. It's not the only energy of the future, but I wouldn't bet against it.

Or you could move to Canada, or England, or France, or NYS... The ironic part is that you're paying a mutli-national corporation that is probably owned in part by Chinese shell companies, so a portion of the profits are taken in by the Chinese government. As a small business owner myself, there are massive parts of the economy I do not think the government has any business in. Where I do think government owned companies have a role is in areas of public interest and critical infrastructure. I think it's much wiser that our power plants and natural resources are owned by our state and local governments than companies based out of London or Paris and owned by shell companies all over the globe.

I'm not trying to convince anyone of government bureaucracy. TVA isn't a government agency. It is a corporation that is owned by the federal government. So there's nothing wrong with them creating employee incentives. That's how companies operate. That's also why the TVA can pay their CEO a competitive salary. He isn't a government official. Leave it to the Trump admin to claim that the TVA's CEO salary was being paid by tax payer dollars. The TVA pays the federal government millions a year in equity, and pays employees out of the revenue they generate.

I wonder if the guys telling us we'll need to eat our dogs if we adopt socialist polices think the Niagra Falls power plant should be owned by foreign companies like NationalGrid, or if they're ok with it being owned by NY State.

The New Deal started a number of federal initiatives. The Tennesee Valley Authority is a great example. The TVA provides power to about 10 million people. They generate over 10 billion I revenue and over 1 billion in net profits per year. They have paid back all of the Federal money invested in it. They pay the federal government equity payments, and reinvest the remaining profits into their infrastructure upkeep and in regional economic development, job creation, business loans ect. They are more reliable than Pepco or ComEd, have lower rates, and turn a profit for both the government and region. You and I both pay companies owned by Excelon, who is in business to generate profits for their investors. When it comes to public utilities that benefit all citizens, I would much rather pay less per month to a government owned corporation and have the revenue inturn reinvested in my local region while reducing my federal tax burden.

You get your electricity from a federally regulated public utility. The power grid that spans the the Eastern half of the US which shares power across state lines is run by the Regional Transmission Organization enacted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. So you might be getting your power from the plants that Excelon / Pepco owns. But they may be buying that power through the federal RTO when they can't meet their demand. It is true that over 70% of the power generated currently in the US is generated by corporations. But there are energy producers that are owned and operated by federal, state and local government, as well as co-op owned. Texas has opted out of the Federal Interstate RTO grid. So when they can't meet their demand they can't buy power from another source. And they have also chosen not to meet federal winterization standards, which would have prevented their current shortage. They are down 30% production in coal, gas and nuclear this week because they chose not to winterize. Wind is also down 30% due to lack of winterization, while solar is up 100%. But if they participated in the interstate grid they wouldn't be without power at all this week. In any event, read up on Roosevelt's New Deal sometime and let me know how much of the country the federal government is responsible for providing the electrical grid to.