Taro T

Fair enough.

To the top paragraph, if the staffers are there for a couple decades but the Congress Critter they work for can only be there for 6 years max, then they will know the lobbyists a lot better than their boss will and they will be even more involved in actually crafting the legislation their bosses sponsor and eventually vote on. If the Congress critter is daily hearing from his staff a certain message, that will resonate with many of them. And, different circumstances but analogous to a point, look at how hard it's been for 45 to root out the Ciaramellas from the Executive branch. When Congress faces the same sort of limits on tenure that the President faces, they'll face similar issues, IMHO. To the lower paragraph, my point must not have been clear. Wasn't saying the Reps would be working to help the Senators, was saying they'd be working to BECOME the Senators. And the best way for them to make names for themselves in the limited time they have to do so is to get the big bucks lobbyists supporting them and getting them in contact with "the right people." Which just screams out as an opportunity for corruption IMHO.

And, again, adding term limits cuts down on the ability for elected officials to be corrupt in theory. We agree there. But it increases the power the career staffers end up wielding and the staffers are only beholden to their boss, not the electorate. My expectation is we'd see things get even worse in that regard. And term limits might backfire on another front as well, they might also raise the stakes for members of the House especially in the big states as there will be an order of magnitude more of them vying to hold one of their state's 2 Senate seats as that is the next step for them and they can no longer abide their time in the House.

Well, any Superbowl w/ the Cheatriots involved is a stinker by definition, so ... Seahawks Denver was awful. The one w/ Chicago was awful. That's what, 10 this century just ottomh.

The only GOOD ad was the Jeep ad. There were a handful of others that weren't awful, but for the most part they generally were awful. Shockingly, the game was actually good. Had it been a typical stinker of a game, the whole night would've been a loss. (Usually the commercials save the evening; this time the game did it.)

It would reduce the ability of ELECTED officials to enrich themselves. Unelected staffers gain even more power as it won't take long for all of them to be in Washington longer than their bosses that we send there. Absolutely support the concept of term limits, but haven't heard a proposal yet that doesn't create more problems than it solves.

Now that the UK left, do they have to redo their flag with 1 less star?

Ah, yup. Was only looking at it from the perspective of not letting 45 gloat in his SotU speech. But, the D's end up w/ a small victory 2fer on this one. Gee, not remotely sleazy there.

Don't believe you are correct on that, but it is possible. But Clinton and her sycophants have only themselves to blame for that if you are right. Because if the polls hadn't all been cooked to make her coronation look inevitable, that craven coward Comey never would've had the balls to announce that at the time. He, like everybody else, was sure she'd win, so announcing the e-mail investigation when he did would allow her and her allies to sweep it under the rug were the Republicans to have held the House and try to investigate that matter themselves. His expediency may have cost her though that is highly debatable, but it wasn't nearly as harmful to her as her prior 24 years in the public eye which the deplorable comment clearly confirmed - she is a horrible, spiteful, selfish person who only cares about herself and POSSIBLY Chelsea; and rather than look out for the little guy like the D's all try to claim they do, she clearly looks down on them. Why anybody would want to vote for that is truly puzzling. Obviously a lot of people did vote for her, but she so clearly doesn't give a darn, it just becomes hard to see how they buy into her.

Unless the Senate flips, it will go down as one of the dumbest political plays ever. If it flips, she was crazy like a fox. Thing is, IMHO, she did realize this would blow up in all their faces, but she got backed into it by the far left part of her party. That, or when it started to come out that Biden was in the cross hairs, the deeply entrenched members of her party who've gotten wealthy on Congress critter salaries had their 'if he's coming for Biden, who's next? We've gotta protect our phony baloney jobs, gentlemen' moment and decided to throw the bullet-less gun at him to see if they could get lucky. Maybe the combination of both plus whatever illness she seems to be suffering from got the better of her.

Hunter Biden, fresh after getting kicked out of the Navy for being a coke head, was a name that would add legitimacy? How? Most companies get rid of board members when something like that happens. Burisma went out and hired him after that. Now, if a cokehead can't add legitimacy to a company, what might he bring to that company if he is related to very influential people?

They're typically called brownies.

Not ignoring you. Haven't had a chance to read the article yet, and likely won't tonight. Will respond after reading it.

Except that is an almost comic book level of review of what happened. Though it sets a bad precedent (not that the impeachment process to date hasn't been setting all sorts of bad precedents which will bite whoever's is the next President to have a House led by the other party) as 2 of these 3 potential witnesses didn't testify previously, am perfectly fine with Bolton testifying, provided we also get the whistleblower testifying and IG Atkinson testifying. Get this all out in the open and under oath. Would expect that won't go the way the D's want/ expect but am willing to let the chips fall where they may.

Don't worry. Pretty sure that'll be argument #1 in the 1st installment of "Impeachment the Series: Episode 2 - Abuse of Power Part Deux."

So, you wanted to see both 43 and 44 impeached as well, right? Or should Presidents only be impeached when they stop short of war and end up "at the brink of war?"

Wrong again, Tibs. What the Articles of Impeachment allege have not been close to proven, so 45 should not be removed from office at present. Has he done anything wrong? Of course. Your unasked question: has he done anything impeachable? Haven't seen any credible accusations yet, but am sure the D's will come up with some new accusations. Doubt those will be any more credible than their prior ones. And, of course Presidents shouldn't be able to extort countries for their own personal interests. Which would seem to be the question you meant to ask but didn't. But, as you are not a serious poster, really doubt that you'll get a reply to whatever your next feeble attempt at a gotcha moment happens to be.

How do you reconcile these 2 views? To the comment bolded above, yes, I've seen the timeline. But based on what you've now posted, am 99% certain that you don't. And if you don't know the sequence of events nor even the actions of the various parties involved, how can you possibly "know the truth" or even make a straight faced claim that you care about the truth? You come across as the least informed poster on this entire board, which is quite a feat in itself, and then have the temerity to claim that the truth doesn't matter to others. Pot, meet kettle. (Sheesh, and all this time it seemed people were calling you a pot head for your proclivities. Hadn't noticed the double entendre that also works until just now.)

Did they announce an investigation into the Bidens before getting the aid released?

It is interesting that issues that are dear to your are the right to life and conditions in Honduras. IMHO, 45 has done more for those issues (though still not enough) than any other President since at least Reagan. Just a couple of readily brought to mind examples: 45 was the 1st President ever to speak at the March for Life and the border wall that you dislike is being proposed and implemented in no small part to thwart human traffickers preying on the poor from Latin America. Which brings back my earlier question: who will do more to effectively support (through actions, not words) issues that you hold dear than 45 has done & will do?

Not looking to pile on, but am very curious about the bolded. What were you expecting Trump to be/ do as President prior to his election and what did you get that was different from that to make you now not only regret that vote but believe he should be removed from office on the basis of the 2 Articles of Impeachment? Because for me, the path has been the exact opposite. Couldn't stand / accept the crudity &/or carnival Barker that he'd shown himself to be in 25-30 years of being in the spotlight and refused to vote for him even though I expected that Hillary Clinton would be a far worse President than any we'd had before. So, voted for a write in candidate for the 1st time ever. (Living in a state that Hill was likely to carry by at least 3MM votes made that easier, but the fact is there was no way to justify at that time voting for him.) Now, since he was elected, though we've been told nearly daily for 3 years that we'd be seeing new wars started, there have been no new ones and the existing ones aren't escalating. Though we were told the economy would go to ####, employment is at all time highs, inflation is low, and the market is doing well. We were told he's a racist, but he champions prison reform and has essentially doubled federal support to historically black colleges and universities. Though we've been told he hates the rest of the world, he's pushed through 2 major trade deals. Though we've been told he hates NATO, we're still in it and our European allies are coming closer to meeting their commitments to it. ISIS and Iran have faced major setbacks as have human trafficers. That's just a portion of the positives of his record. Still really dislike his tone / tenor in his tweets, but should the economy still be good in November and we still find ourselves in no new wars, can't see how not to vote for him. (And consider myself more of a conservative / libertarian than a Republican.) But as a Republican yourself, who do you expect to get more of the agenda implemented than 45?

Thought he might put Skinner with Eichel, but it's pretty clear that he wants Skinner and Johansson together. Which, in fairness, was a very good pairing early in the season before Johansson tailed off (probably due to an undisclosed injury and a few games prior to Sobotka's injury). While Frolik isn't a 2nd liner, he's better than Vlad and that line should be effective. Agree that improving the 2nd line should be a priority. Would prefer it to be a priority now rather than the off-season. Would really like to see a guy that could be an effective 2C for 2 years brought in, so he could slide to 3C when/should Mittelstadt or Cozens be ready to take that role from the new guy. That, and a goalie to team w/Ullmark need to be priorities 1 & 1A this off-season. (Without going crazy on the G, as if they end up w/ a really good one then they lose Ullmark to Seattle rather than their 4th D-man.) Also, based on this morning's line combos, it looks like Girgensons will get another chance with Rrinhart and Eichel while Vesey slides to Lazar's line.

In practice yesterday, Skinner-Johansson-Frolik were a line. (Don't recall which reporter said that.) So, it is very likely, barring a setback that is what they run with tomorrow. The Sabres are the source for the Olofsson injury being week to week. And Sobotka and Thompson, who both had surgery, are officially listed as indefinite. Thompson is out until next season. Sobotka likely won't be back either though he's hoping to play again this season.

UT's got a big annual rivalry game w/ OU. Which does kind of color that decision/ opinion. Q: Why doesn't Texas fall into the Gulf of Mexico? A: Because Oklahoma sucks.

Didn't read the article, but was the reasoning because: he's a fictional lawyer, Jewish, small with boyish features, and stayed onstage for several hours with a couple of intermissions?