Tracker

Don't bet the farm on that. Cowgary is a much better likelihood.

Here in the U.S., the task of investigating what happened with the pandemic has fallen to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which has kept a pretty low profile these last few months. But on Tuesday they took the testimony of Dr. Deborah Birx, Trump's COVID-19 coordinator. According to the New York Times, Brix reiterated her earlier shocking claim that at least 130,000 lives were unnecessarily lost because the administration refused to do everything it could to ensure the nation followed the public health recommendations to mitigate the spread of the disease. But in her testimony this week she also said that as the pandemic wore on into the summer and fall, the administration became distracted by the presidential campaign and pretty much lost interest in the crisis. In other words, a lot of people died so that Donald Trump could get elected. When asked if she felt Trump did everything he could to save lives, Brix replied, "no." She also complained about the malign influence of Dr. Scott Atlas, the radiologist who caught Trump's eye on Fox News and was brought in to push the idea that the country should seek "herd immunity," just as Bolsonaro had tried to do in Brazil. She testified that Atlas even brought to the White House the three physicians who later authored the "Great Barrington Declaration," which called for deliberately hastening herd immunity. A crime against humanity: Dr. Deborah Brix admits Trump's campaign distracted from COVID response | Salon.com

New video of pro-Trump lawyer is 'completely damning': legal expert Conservative Claremont Institute lawyer John Eastman made an "incredibly damning" admission in a new video, a former federal prosecutor explained on CNN on Wednesday. "The House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection expected to hand down another subpoena today, this time for John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who worked with former President Trump's legal team," CNN's Erica Hill reported. "The committee says Eastman tried to convince then Vice President Pence that he could overturn — overturn — the election results which, of course, Pence could not, legally, and ultimately decided not to do," CNN's Jim Scuitto said. "But now, in a conversation, caught-on-camera by a Democratic activist posing as a Trump supporter, Eastman admits — admits — on tape that was indeed the plan." EXCLUSIVE: Author of Jan 6 coup memo John Eastman told us Mike Pence didn't take his solid legal advice & overturn… https://t.co/zOPsRyRJs8 — Lauren Windsor (@Lauren Windsor) 1635283625.0 CNN

Every time you think America couldn't get any more insane.....

History's Lessons Beyond all the critical details of who did what and when, there were deeper historical forces at play, suggesting that Donald Trump's urge for a political coup that would return him to power may be far from over. For the past 100 years, empires in decline have been roiled by coup attempts that sometimes have overturned constitutional orders. As their military reverses accumulate, their privileged economic position erodes, and social tensions mount, a succession of societies in the grip of a traumatic loss of global power have suffered coups, successful or not, including Great Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, the Soviet Union, and now the United States. Britain's plot was a bit fantastical. Amid the painful, protracted dissolution of their empire, Conservative leaders plotted with top generals in 1968 to oust leftist Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson by capturing Heathrow airport, seizing the BBC and Buckingham Palace, and putting Lord Mountbatten in power as acting prime minister. Britain's parliamentary tradition simply proved too strong, however, and key principals in the plot quickly backed out. In April 1974, while Portugal was fighting and losing three bitter anticolonial wars in Africa, a Lisbon radio station played the country's entry in that year's Eurovision Song Contest ("After the Farewell") just minutes before midnight on an evening that had been agreed upon. It was the signal to the military and their supporters to overthrow the entrenched conservative government of that moment, a success which became known as the "Carnation Revolution." However, the parallels between January 6th and the fall of France's Fourth Republic in the late 1950s are perhaps the most telling. After liberating Paris from Nazi occupation in August 1944, General Charles de Gaulle headed an interim government for 18 months. He then quit in a dispute with the left, launching him into a decade of political intrigue against the new Fourth Republic, whose liberal constitution he despised. By the mid-1950s, France was reeling from its recent defeat in Indochina, while the struggle against Muslim revolutionaries in its Algerian colony in North Africa turned ever more brutal, marked as it was by scandals over the widespread French use of torture. Amid that crisis of empire, an anti-elite, anti-intellectual, antisemitic politician named Pierre Poujade launched a populist movement that sent 56 members to parliament in 1956, including Jean-Marie Le Pen, later founder of the far-right National Front. Meanwhile, a cabal of politicians and military commanders plotted a coup to return General de Gaulle to power, thinking he alone could save Algeria for France. After an army junta seized control of Algiers, the capital of that colony, in May 1958, paratroopers stationed there were sent to capture the French island of Corsica and to prepare to seize Paris should the legislature fail to install de Gaulle as prime minister. As the country trembled on the brink of a coup, de Gaulle made his dramatic entry into Paris where he accepted the National Assembly's offer to form a government, conditional upon the approval of a presidential-style constitution for a Fifth Republic. But when de Gaulle subsequently accepted the inevitability of Algeria's independence, four top generals launched an abortive coup against him and then formed what they called the Secret Army Organization, or OAS. It would carry out terror attacks over the next four years, with 12,000 victims, while staging three unsuccessful assassination attempts against de Gaulle before its militants were killed or captured. I've witnessed a coup attempt before — and history bodes poorly for America's future - Alternet.org

A third round pick=functionally nothing. If there is a clause upgrading the pick depending on performance, then, not so bad.

Gotta pretend to throw the rednecks a bone every now and then.

I was in Ikea a couple of months ago and saw a display marked "Toilet brushes guaranteed to do the job", so I bought one to try, After a week of using it though, I went back to Charmin.

FoFum?

Every team will looking to raid the Bomber roster. As cream rises to the top, it gets skimmed off.

FIFY.

I think we can safely rule the RedBlacks out as contenders in the East. The Argos ought to be better than they are, considering the talent they started the season with, but they have struggled at QB, just like the Tabbies and Larks.

Agreed, but I do not think that will save his butt after next year. Whatever it takes to be a successful HC, he ain't got it.

In 1954, a popular uprising took place in Puerto Rico in an attempt to gain independence from the US which ran Puerto Rico as a colony. It was in part an armed uprising which was quickly put down by massive US military presence and the organizers received sentences of 40-45 years in jail. This ought to be a good precedent for the January 6th insurgents.

Jan. 6 organizers say they held “dozens” of planning meetings with House Republicans: report. Rep. Paul Gosar offered rally organizers "blanket pardons," according to two planners cooperating with Congress White House officials and multiple House Republicans participated in planning meetings with organizers of the Jan. 6 pro-Trump rallies that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol, two of the organizers told Rolling Stone. Two people involved in the planning of the rallies who have shared information with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack told Rolling Stone they had participated in "dozens" of planning briefings ahead of the rallies. "I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically," one organizer told the outlet. "I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs." Other lawmakers who participated in the discussions included Reps. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz; Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.; Mo Brooks, R-Ala.; Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.; Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C.; and Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, according to the report. Greene, Boebert and Cawthorn were all newly-elected members, sworn in only a few days before the events of Jan. 6. "We would talk to Boebert's team, Cawthorn's team, Gosar's team like back to back to back to back," the organizer told Rolling Stone, adding that Gosar even floated "blanket pardons" in a separate investigation to urge them to organizer the rallies. "Our impression was that it was a done deal, that he'd spoken to the president about it in the Oval … in a meeting about pardons and that our names came up," the organizer said. "They were working on submitting the paperwork and getting members of the House Freedom Caucus to sign on as a show of support." Jan. 6 organizers say they held “dozens” of planning meetings with House Republicans: report | Salon.com

'Call your lawyer': Legal experts weigh in on bombshell report naming Republicans involved in Jan. 6 Legal experts including a Harvard professor and a top election and voting rights law attorney are weighing in on Sunday night's bombshell report from Rolling Stone naming members of Congress and the Trump administration who were involved in the planning and organizing of the January 6 rally and/or "Trump's efforts to overturn his election loss," according to two of the planners of the "Stop the Steal" rally. Rolling Stone reports "planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump's efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent." Those named in the Rolling Stone report as allegedly being involved include Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and these members of Congress or their staffers: Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX). Harvard professor, CNN Analyst, Grip Mobility CEO, well-known national security expert and former Obama Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem says clearly: "Mark Meadows, just three words: call your lawyer." 'Call your lawyer': Legal experts weigh in on bombshell report naming Republicans involved in Jan. 6 - Alternet.org

If memory serves, Slack had about one half of a good knee and while a fierce competitor, he was brittle as heck.

As soon as Reinbold was hired as HC and GM, the alarm bells went off in my head. That was an awful lot of responsibility for someone who had never done either before. Hufnagel did it as good as it could be done, but that was an anomaly. The people Reinbold brought in were very inadequate except for one linebacker.

And did the Blue not draft another promising RB still in school ?

Not as much fun to watch, though.

LaPolice seems like a decent enough person but he appears to be very limited in his adaptability. He keeps using the same approaches again and again even though it is obvious they are not working well.

Sometimes I wonder how good an HC Reinbold would have been if there had been a good GM to find and/or trade for good players- particularly a good QB.