Benjamin Franklin

Yay another "We're better off without Hillary" post.

What's the joke? That we get 50 posts a day celebrating that Cersei lost? Or do you think it's more like we elected Joffrey? I could see that.

I recognize that the expansion of exec powers is a problem and addressing that would be great. So far I see no evidence of any change on this front. Only the possibility of party gridlock to block the president in two years. And even if we somehow rebalance the exec, legislative, and judicial powers, I still see Trump as an awful president who is bad for the country.

So you don't think we live in Game of Thrones? Thanks Hodor.

What blows my mind is the never ending glee with which a majority of this board still celebrates that Hillary lost, while ignoring the !@#$ed state of our president. I get it. Cersei Lannister lost. But we elected Aegon Targaryan.

He had 70 receptions each of the last two years. For the vet minimum, how can that hurt? If Jones wins the No. 2 spot, great. If not, Boldin is an awesome No. 2 for this team.

So many nominations for teams who didn't make the playoffs. You guys are nuts. The Stadium holds 10,000 fewer people now and the teams stink. Most games I go to these days, the crowd is not even disrupting the other team's offense. If the Bills get good, I believe the fans can still be loud but there's no comparison to the early 90s noise. None.

Remember that the stadium used to hold 10,000 more people, and the team was better. It was a lot louder in the 90s. I notice it every time I go. Which game was the loudest? None really stand out to me. The Comeback game was NOT crazy loud because so many people left.

Pinker's tome speaks for itself, many people's confirmation bias notwithstanding. He has a TedTalk but it's incomplete. And if you want other charts that show many other aspects of our world improving, this is a good link. "The sky is falling" makes for good headlines and water-cooler talk. It's a lot less sexy to appreciate how amazing it is what we've accomplished. More to work on, no doubt. But it's important to keep our reactions in check when we see bad news and a bad story.

So is GM. Remember TARP? Get it while you can. In 30 years, you'll call your pod-vehicle ALA Uber and travel to any destination. Won't have need to own a car. That shift may happen even sooner. Once the autonomous vehicles are fully set (5-10 years) the follow-on is the end of individual auto ownership. It can't happen soon enough.

How about his sworn testimony? It wasn't the BJ that got Slick Willy in legal trouble. I actually want Sessions to stay in office. He seems like a guy who's not a Trump sycophant and god knows we need guys like that. Hopefully this doesn't stick. It will be telling to see how Donny reacts. By the way, I'd like to see someone explain Trump's position on Russia under oath. Good luck speaking the truth...how would you even know it was unless you were standing in the changing winds of his mind at that second.

The whole meme of Boyst's post is often repeated but seldom researched. The never-ending access to media and our human bent to alight on the negative (probably being alert to danger kept us alive at one point) feeds the narative that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. It's what every generation ad infinitem says about the successive ones. And yet, violence has declined dramatically over the course of human history. Like...not a little...but a lot. And our reaction to a story like this is a lot different than it would have been 300 years ago when brutalizing our fellow man was common and 500 years ago when we killed each other in huge numbers in the names of gods and 1000 years ago when genocide and mass rape were not condemned but expected. Try out The Better Angels of Our Nature for a look at some cold facts and also historical perspective on how far we've come every time you see one of these "We're doomed" people postulating about how horrible we all are. And if you don't believe me, here's one notable person's take, "If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this — the most inspiring book I've ever read," Bill Gates.

He's a grown up. That's for sure. But we will see what he can do. Not a lot for him to work with.

That won't help him, and I mean no discredit to him. You can't communicate for someone with no (or a constantly changing) message. It won't be Scaramucci's fault, but there's no way he can keep this admin on point. None. I don't hold any love for Spicer but mostly, I just feel badly for the guy. His position was hopeless. My advice for anyone in that role would be: Try to keep your reputation.

No harder job than communications in this White House. Spicer's book will be fun.

For a guy with plenty of bad ideas to complement the good ones, this was a bad one. Rewriting a Comstitution every 20 years is a cute idea for a quaint little island government.

He's worse than I thought he'd be. I thought some of his crew would coral him and he'd be lazier, so we'd have a vacant tweeter in chief. Instead he's actually trying to lead, which is a tragedy, since he's so awful at it. Weekend-at-Bernies Bernie would be better. Give me the empty suit over Trump.

Spicer, Conway, and the White House retard translators are busy this week.

I am right. But I also doubt whether enough of the moderates can band together and put their political futures on the cutting block for the country. I do think if they had enough bodies and a good social media campaign that took the case to America, America would listen. At some point the extreme voices will lose.

Somewhere there are Ds and Rs on Capitol Hill discussing how to work together to make a better bill. It's happening. It's just a matter of whether those souls can get a big enough group to hold a press conference and shove it up their leadership's butt. Would take brass ones and a breakaway group of 30 Congressmen. Not easy but American needs those people to come forward. There's no way every elected D thinks that Pelosi and Schumer speak for them. No chance.

My guess is it's going to be a vote to repeal by end of 2019, and a promise to replace by then. That way the Reps can say they repealed the ACA and punt the replacement bill until after the midterms. It's the cowardly thing to do. So that's how it's likely to happen.

Of course. But what's done is done. Now move forward. Blaming Hillary and Obama and Bush accomplishes nada to move us forward.

Showing ID is infringing on the right? Get a grip. I have to show ID in a million situations and I'd be happy to do it when voting, as should anyone. I've said here before that this is an easy thing to roll out. You put enforcement in place in say 4 years. Every election between now and 4 years, you ask for the ID and people who don't have it can still vote but they get told that in 2019 on, no more voting without ID. That way voters get a warning so no one is surprised. Such a simple idea. The "infringe on the voting right" argument is absurd. Really.

The good news for them is that they are never wrong. Any position they take is sometimes right.

Trump now says "inaction is not an option" a day after "let it fail." It's like Daffy Duck is president. Rabbit season. Duck season. Rabbit season Rabbit season. Look I tell you it's duck season and that's final. Blam!