Iuz the Evil

It’ll be interesting to see what can be accomplished in the lame duck session remaining. Probably the debt ceiling, maybe electoral college protections, maybe Manchin’s energy bill. There’s talk about attaching some desired legislative action to bills that have already passed the House (firearms regulation, DACA reform) but I think that’s a mistake. Probably would kill the items they want to pass, don’t see much incentive for the Republicans to play along and it’ll probably result in dead bills. They should, in my opinion, get as much as they can out of this before what’s likely a period of gridlock. Which won’t bother me much, at this point. Better than I’d hoped and maybe it’ll compel some compromise and civility. … Ha!

I think we need to start wanting the opposition party to, well, be better. Run better candidates. Not Walker, Oz, Trump. More moderation, less cult like behavior. While I’m wishing, why don’t we move towards civility while we are at it? And hey, what’s the lottery at now? Anyway, I too want to never see him run for office again. Trump is, exactly as you say, poison. He’s absolutely willing to put himself before the very institutions he swears to uphold. We need less of that in public service.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-considering-nato-article-4-activation-says-spokesman-2022-11-15/ Poland invoking article 4 is a very measured response. They hate Russia with the white hot passion of a thousand suns.

If the Republicans lost this election, rather than Democrats winning it, that isn’t necessarily a great position to be in moving forward. Very fickle electorate, and need to find some broadly popular positions moving forward or that’ll flip at some point. You cannot control the behavior of your political adversary, although you can benefit from it. You can control your own party behavior to a much greater extent. From a strategy perspective, I hope they’re focusing on what worked for Democratic candidates more than the media is.

It’s interesting to see so much focus on why Republicans lost, rather than why Democrats won, in their elections. I agree the number of egregious missteps by the GOP including their crazy push for broadly unpopular anti abortion legislation (terrible move) following the SCOTUS ruling and Donald Trump himself were bigly responsible for the Senate outcome. I also would hope the more crazy candidates were repudiated, but that’s turning out to be a mixed bag. Read an article that the Democrats this cycle focused on issues that resonated with peoples daily life while the Republicans focused on “stop the steal” type conspiracy theories and the cult of Trump personality. I would like to know more about the specifics of that, as it might help with planning for future cycles.

Actually, objectively yes. https://www.google.com/amp/s/sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/official-ncaa-recognizes-ucfs-national-championship-record-book-234835087.html I personally find the claim ludicrous, it is nevertheless recognized even as an outlier. They’re allowed to claim it, and do so. They do not require fan agreement. I’ll let this go for now, as it seems to be aggravating folks to the point where they are making irrelevant and ad hominem attacks on the relative strength of other teams related to this issue. The point remains, no power 5 conference champion who is undefeated has ever been passed over. Only non P5 undefeated teams have during the college playoff.

The point is not that they won either of those times, although both schools still claim that they did (and that UCF title is recognized by the NCAA), but rather that those scenarios represent the worst nightmare of the committee. They do not want ambiguity, and certainly don’t like the articles which arose both times questioning the legitimacy of LSU and Clemson’s titles. UCF got left out because they’re not a P5 conference, it’ll be unthinkable to pass up TCU if they win out. Would utterly undermine the legitimacy of their process, rendering it even more of a beauty pageant. If they lose a game, they’re done. Even as a conference champion, they won’t select TCU with a loss. If they win out it’ll tie their hands, with regard to selection. The committee cares about the appearance of the process, it’s really all they have. Edit: I looked it up, only five teams have been passed over for the playoff and they’ve NEVER passed over a p5 school with an unbeaten record. Coastal Carolina, UCF (twice), Western Michigan, San Jose State and Cincinnati.

Talk to UCF about that. Or USC. Both had rings, victory parades and hang a banner for a year they didn’t play in the title game. That’s just the last twenty years. People can talk crap about it, they’ll still claim it if they do go undefeated and get left out. Just like USC and UCF.

I think they’d be very hesitant to do that with an undefeated conference champion. That’ll potentially give you a split title (with an AP or other champion), and the committee is dead set against that. It’s almost impossible to conceive that they’d pass over undefeated in a P5 conference for a one loss non conference champion. They might as will just give up any pretense at that point games and records matter. They want to maintain that illusion at all costs. On the plus side, in that scenario, if TCU wins their bowl game they’ll hang a national champion banner in their stadium.

The SEC team that doesn’t even make the conference title is not likely to go in the event their up against an undefeated P5 conference champion. One loss? Sure. Of course, is prohibitively unlikely you have 4 undefeated conference champions at the end of the season…

If they win out, they’re in. No loss conference champion won’t be left out, but if they drop a game it’s all over.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/03/31/rise-in-political-violence-in-united-states-and-damage-to-our-democracy-pub-87584 This underscores my many, many earlier assertions that violence is unacceptable as a means of asserting political positions. Advocating violence is likewise unacceptable. It is a direct attack on our democracy and the rule of law.

TCU remains undefeated. OU needs one more win for bowl eligibility, which seems achievable. Today was a good progress day for the defense. (Thank God)

I tend to view representation for its own sake, without good writing or story, as just our latest societal efforts at tokenism. It’s also just bad business, hard to sell an inferior product. People mostly want to be entertained, and these media are industries designed for that. When they lose sight of that, or patronize their audience, it never seems to end well.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/politics/kevin-mccarthy-house-gop-ukraine-funding-blank-check/index.html Good. It’s nice to see them manage their own (for a change).

I want a more hopeful and optimistic DCU. When I’m hopeful, Gunn moves us in that direction. When I’m not it is mistakenly equating optimism and inspiration with comedy (admittedly easier to pull off).

That’s possible, I’m sure there’s plenty of funding not getting where it’s going right now for “reasons”. The MIC gets theirs no matter what. We do have plenty of evidence currently about the effectiveness of HIMARS and other newer generation weaponry though, so some of it is getting through. Maybe half? Less? I can live with that for the same reason I don’t get worked up around various climate change investments that fail to bear fruit. Price of progress and I care about the policy being advanced. I’d cheerfully endorse another $50 billion in aid. Russia is an aggressor state with nuclear weapons and sponsor of state terror. Basically the bogeyman that we’ve been making out middle eastern nations to be for decades, but for real. Thwarting their ambitions is imperative. While we bicker about internal politics, however important the subjects, they’re actually engaged in mass murder on an international scale. It’s my most important current international issue. Global warming is right up there, but that’s harder to solve with munitions. This plays to our strengths, so solve the problem already and give ‘em the tools to defend themselves. edit: and in todays “<expletive> around and find out” an Iranian colonel who was reportedly supplying drones to the Russians got assassinated. Guess the Israelis or we didn’t care for that. Can’t provide the link because graphic images. Here’s a different one: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rferl.org/amp/iran-death-irgc-colonel-raises-eyebrows/31882315.html Could be unrelated, lots of unrest in Iran right now.

Definitely some of that going on, reminds me of Lindbergh and other pro Fascism elements during WW2. I would not overestimate the devotion those folks have to Putin personally though, any foreign dictator will do. I believe Ergodan is their latest fetish, and while he’s playing this for personal gain and is certainly personally detestable, he’s on the side of NATO in this one. I don’t count on the Republican even in foreign intervention these days to pick the right side. I do expect the Democrats to do so, thereby affirming my choice to vote for them. The other guys have lost that.

I think direct boots on the ground military intervention is a terrible idea. This is an almost perfect opportunity for a proxy war, and the Ukrainians are not only willing they’re grateful for the opportunity. And I do not see any wavering in their resolution, nor has Russia given them any reason to show a lack of resolve (quite the contrary - targeting civilians, bombing infrastructure and engaging in terror tactics only makes the locals hate you more). I am thinking if we stop providing the conventional weaponry, the Ukrainians are likely to continue their resistance. Not sure why we think we’d get a vote on their national integrity, after all. But it’ll get a lot worse without Western backing for the defenders, and easier for Russia. No idea why we’d want that.

All of that, and Kentucky has Lockheed Martin, BAE, Northrop Grumman, and a Department of Defense hub. Mitch is all about military spending, this philosophically aligns with his decades long approach, and it’s certainly in our national security interest. I don’t see him bailing on that issue.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/shows/maddow/blog/rcna53666 Not entirely accurate, there’s definitely conflict in the GOP on that statement by McCarthy (notably from well known GOP asshat McConnell).

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/senate/3696451-gop-leaders-mcconnell-mccarthy-headed-for-collision-on-ukraine-aid/amp/ It would be more accurate to say one party is conflicted on continued aid. I agree the GOP is not to be trusted on this issue, but defunding Ukraine military aid is not an official position at this point for them. And by “we” I mean the Democratic Party, who I’m registered as a member of. Who are also beginning to waffle in their more wildly progressive membership. If both parties falter… well United States assistance would be pretty limited at that point. I obviously can’t count on the Republicans to fund anything but investigations into the role of Jewish Space Lasers around Kharkiv. Be nice if someone kept their resolve on this one.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/24/politics/congress-democrats-reaction-ukraine-strategy/index.html I hope that we maintain our resolve on this issue. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine and are guilty of numerous war crimes, many of which are too horrific to describe on this Board. They’ve terrorized and murdered, and are doing their level best to eradicate the very concept of a Ukrainian people. We do not have boots on the ground, this is money well spent for our National interest in my opinion. Putin will not stop at Ukraine, he’s resolute in the desire to recreate the USSR. This may be the biggest positive foreign policy accomplishment of this administration if they succeed in blunting those ambitions.

If TCU actually somehow goes undefeated and wins the Big XII, they are in the CFP. Zero chance an undefeated P5 conference champion gets left out, it is unimaginable. They drop a game, all bets are off.

That’s a dang shame…