Rov_Scam
1d ago
At first I thought the Gaetz nomination was some kind of play to take the heat off some of the more controversial nominees he actually wanted to get in. GOP senators only have so much political capital to expend on blocking Trump picks, and if all of that capital and attention goes toward Gaetz then it can't be spent on other nominees. That requires him to actually stand for nomination, though. No one's going to waste a vote to keep Pam Bondi out of the cabinet, so the attention will now focus on Pete Hesgeth and Tulsi Gabbard. Gaetz's personal scandals have gotten more press in the past week than they did when they were current news, and it would only get worse when all the salacious details were revealed during confirmation hearings. Gaetz may be loyal, but asking him to endure that kind of humiliation with no shot of being confirmed is more than even Trump can ask. That's one possible explanation. The more likely explanation is that Trump has no political sense and just picks people he likes, regardless of their experience or policy positions.
As a further point, can we just leave it at 3D Chess? That was the original expression, and it's become cliche to try to put a further exclamation point on it by increasing the number or specifying that it's underwater or changing the game from chess to something else. There's no legitimate difference between 3D Chess and 7D Underwater Backgammon insofar as the point that's trying to be made. I always thought it was a dumb expression to begin with but it has its uses. Modifying it only serves to draw more attention to the expression than to what you're actually trying to describe. It's like people who think that adding the number of sheets to the wind signifies an additional degree of drunkenness. The only (and I repeat only) time this ever worked was in the title of the Tom Waits song Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen).
Rov_Scam
1d ago
My understanding is that Gaetz discussed his nomination with the offices of four Senators—Collins, Murkowski, McConnell, and new Utah Senator John Curtis—and was basically told that there was absolutely no way any could be persuaded to vote for his confirmation. After discussing the matter with Trump, he was told to get out now, as Trump doesn't like losing.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
It's not a plea bargain, but a non-prosecution agreement. Whether or not jeopardy attaches is irrelevant because the court didn't overturn the conviction on double jeopardy grounds. The court ruled that, as a matter of public policy, prosecutors have to honor non-prosecution agreements once the defendants have performed their end of the bargain. They note Santobello, where a defendant had struck a plea deal where he agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a favorable sentencing recommendation. He plead guilty, but the prosecutor asked for the max and got it. The basic premise is that if the defendant gives something of value in reliance of getting something from the prosecutor, the prosecutor can't reneg.
Here, Smollett agreet to forfeit his bond in exchange for the charges being dropped. He forfeited the bond, and a nolle pross was entered. Cosby gave up his right to Fifth Amendment protections, Smollett gave up cash. You may think that one is more valuable than the other, and that dropping the charges for $10,000 wasn't justified, but that's irrelevant—deals like this don't work if you allow the court to second guess whether they were worth it or not.
the prosecution cutting a (corrupt) deal to drop the charges without the court's involvement doesn't cut it.
The court's involvement has nothing to do with it. The deal is between the defendant and the prosecutor, not the defendant and the judge. In Santobello, the problem was that the prosecutor didn't make the promised recommendation, not that the judge didn't impose the desired sentence. Santobello plead guilty on reliance of the prosecutor's promise, but the judge can typically impose whatever sentence he wants to. There are compelling reasons I won't get into here why this rarely ever happens (and why if a judge has a problem with a plea deal he'll usually give the defendant the opportunity to withdraw the plea), but it is technically permissible.
More specifically, in the case of dropped charges where no guilty plea is involved, the prosecutor doesn't offer a dismissal with prejudice because this isn't within the prosecutor's power. Prosecutors can't dismiss cases; judges can. Technically they could file an unopposed motion and a judge could sign off on it but they don't do this because they've never had to before, and because it gums up the system when you have to wait 2 months for a judge's signature. And I don't even know if this would work because the practice isn't customary and until some custom develops around it the judge's default is always going to be to dismiss without prejudice. I've been an attorney for over 10 years and I've never seen a judge dismiss anything with prejudice. I've heard of a few cases, but these are either criminal cases that involved constitutional violations so dire that the judge wasn't confident the prosecutor could ever make a case, and one civil case where the pro se plaintiff was obviously nuts and the judge didn't want to deal with it anymore.
And won't cut it in future cases when the political element isn't included.
Future cases are one of the reasons the case went the way it did. The opinion is pretty clear on this. There are various diversionary programs where defendants are given the opportunity to have their cases dropped if they complete them. They get nolle prossed and if they flunk the charges are pursued and if they pass they stay nolle prossed. It would be perverse to suggest that someone would participate in such a program and be prosecuted anyway after successful completion. Some of these programs have high success rates saying that prosecutors aren't bound by these deals would put them in jeopardy.
the prosecution cutting a (corrupt) deal to drop the charges
What's corrupt about the deal? Do you have evidence that Smollett paid a kickback to the prosecutor in exchange for lenience? Or is just that you don't like the politics that you assume was behind the decision?
Rov_Scam
2d ago
But, we're starting to see fans catch on: the league achieves parity over time by making it impossible to keep a great team together. Instead teams go all in for a championship run, then rebuild. The result is more teams than ever aren't even really trying to be good at football, and fans tune out.
It's still better than the alternative, though. In 35 years as a Pirates fan I've experienced exactly 6 playoff appearances (1990–1992, 2013–2015), one winning season where they didn't make the playoffs (2018), and a handful more that were worth paying attention to at some point (1997, 2003 (April only), 2005 (Early June only), 2011, 2012, 2016, 2023, 2024). The rest were all over before they even started. Yet I watched anyway, hoping something would happen, hoping they'd turn the corner. Prior to their 2013 playoff appearance I made a list of all the little things we'd suffered through as Pirates fans over the course of 20 losing seasons. I put together an all-time 20 years of losing commemorative team, full of players who personified 20 years of losing. I'm accused of my family of either being insincere or an idiot for continuing to pay attention. Mostly, though, no one cares. The Pirates continue to exist primarily as an inexpensive pro-sports option for families. Kids watch until they are old enough to understand that the team sucks and isn't worth watching.
Winning does not rectify this. Every time the team appears to be having a decent season, there's a loud chorus warning that the success is ephemeral; don't get used to it. During their string of winning seasons in 2013–2015, people still said that the best we could hope for was a few winning seasons per decade. Even if the team won the World Series, all we'd hear about is that it's a fluke, like the Marlins, and that Nutting would soon sell off the team, like the Marlins. Granted, Bob Nutting is part of the problem, but if the league were actually concerned about parity and had a structure akin to the NFL, there would at least be some incentive for him to try to have a winning team.
The thing about NFL rebuilds is that they're at least short enough that they're fun to watch in real time. Granted, as a Steelers fan my team will never rebuild (or at least never admit to it), but there was always a reason to watch. Will Mitch Trubisky perform better than geriatric Ben? Is Kenny Pickett the answer? How will Russ and Justin do? Will the defense be enough to compensate for an anemic offense? Elsewhere, no one expected the Commanders to turn it around as quickly as they did. No one expected the Bengals to do the same a few years earlier. The Patriots suck, but there's reason for optimism. I'd much rather have this than a league where every decade there are like 5 good teams, a few teams that will occasionally make the playoffs, and a hige raft of incompetents.
Look at the NFL in the '70s. The Steelers, Dolphins, Raiders, Cowboys, Vikings, Rams, and maybe Redskins were good. Then you had teams like the Colts, Broncos, Browns, and Oilers that were kind of good, sometimes. Then you had everyone else, who largely spent the decade in obscurity. the New York Giants did not make a single playoff appearance between 1964 and 1980. The Jets didn't make one between 1970 and 1980. The Patriots made 6 total playoff appearances (AFL included) between their inception in 1960 and the introduction of the salary cap in 1994. As I mentioned in my post below, the Steelers made the playoffs once in their first 40 years in the league.
A better example may be the NHL during the Dead Puck Era. You had New Jersey, Detroit, Colorado, Dallas, and maybe Philadelphia as legitimate cup contenders. The Sabres almost wone won but that was due to Hasek more than anything else. Even teams like the Penguins who consistently made the playoffs were never expected to do much. Look at the rosters and those teams were stacked. The other playoff regulars had a few stars but got thin quickly, and a bunch of teams had nobody. This is a big reason why Gary Bettman takes so much heat over expansion; everyone points to how long it took to get hockey going in the new markets, but most of the time those markets had very little to root for.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
the McBride situation aside, these bills are nothing more than performative measures meant to publicly express disgust with the idea of trans people in general. They do nothing to actually keep trans people out of whatever bathroom you're trying to keep them out of, excepting whatever mild deterrent effect comes out of making something technically illegal. What would it take to successfully prosecute such a case? Suppose a woman sees someone she suspects is a trans-woman in a public restroom. What can she do? The first option would be to alert the staff, who may or may not care to do anything about it. Eventually, the police will have to be called by someone. Assuming the police arrive and the suspected man is still on the premises, to what extent does a person have to look masculine enough for it to constitute probable cause for arrest?
You might argue that the officer could ask them to produce ID, and if the sex was listed as male this would give them probable cause (states with bathroom bills generally require the sex on ID to match that of the birth certificate). While the cop may have a valid argument that he had the requisite reasonable suspicion necessary to require identification, identification in this context is limited to providing a correct name, address, and date of birth; producing a government-issued ID is not required. At this point, there's no probable cause to arrest. There's no probable cause to get a warrant for a medical examination.
The only option at this point would be to run the name and dob through various government databases to determine if the sex listed in the records matches that of the bathroom they were in. But nobody is doing this. And even if they did, it isn't necessarily dispositive, since the person could have been born in a state that allows amended birth certificates. Given that police can't just look at people's genitals based on a complaint alone, actually enforcing such a law would be burdensome to the point that it's unenforceable absent some extraordinary circumstance. Even the state officials supporting these bills, when asked about enforcement, admit that they have no clue.
If the trans community were smart, they'd stop complaining about these bills and shrug them off. Red state legislators know that the bills are unenforceable, but they pass them anyway. I think their motivations are partially sincere, but partially cynical—trans issues are an electoral loser, and passing these laws induces their opponents to take unpopular positions. If the trans community simply announced that they had no intention of complying because the state couldn't do anything about it anyway, it would put increasing pressure on the government to actually attempt enforcement. there would likely be few prosecutions, if only due to a dearth of complaints, but one can imagine a situation where the only arrests of note are of normal women who are mistakenly believed to be trans. This would result in a PR disaster that doesn't require any Democrats to take unpopular positions.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
It's also dependent on the level of interaction. Passing to a friend or coworker is going to be harder than passing to someone they interact with as a bank teller or cashier. In the context of public restrooms, this would be the easiest place to pass, in that they're only spending a few seconds dealing with strangers who probably aren't paying them much attention.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
The advantage of Facebook messenger is that it allows you to send private messages to people you either don't know or don't know well enough to have their phone number, enhanced by the fact that the large user base makes it pretty easy to find people. This was at least the case ten years ago when practically everyone of a certain age was on Facebook and used it regularly, and when you'd get a friend request from practically everyone you met. Now it seems like most people, especially younger people, either don't have profiles or don't look at them. I seldom look at mine, and it seems like most of my friends who used to post frequently have slowed down over the past several years. So these days it doesn't work as well as it used to because there's less likelihood that you'll even be able to find someone on Facebook, and even if you can there's a decent chance they won't see the message.
SMS is horrible for group messaging. You can't take yourself out of a group, and you can't edit the recipients without starting a whole new message. You also can't type longer messages efficiently since you don't have a real keyboard. It's fine for certain things but ongoing group texts about nothing in particular should really be on another app. I was able to switch a couple of mine over to Discord and it's been a 100% improvement. I'd like to get my ski group on there but that's going to be a tough sell.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
It was an open secret before the season even started that they'd be extending Wilson's contract if he had a good season, so barring any catastrophe, I'd expect something in the 2 year range.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
That's not the purpose of her testimony. The crux of the defense case is obviously going to be the medical expert, but you can't just have them testify out of the clear blue; you need to lay a foundation. She's going to testify to basic background information, her personal medical history, family history, the events leading up to the pregnancy, the course of the pregnancy, and obviously the specific conversations with the defendant that led up to the abortion. Her discussions with the doctor get his statements about his opinion on medical necessity into evidence without having the defendant testify. Her testimony about not wanting to lose the baby is relevant in that it decreases the likelihood that it was an elective procedure—women who want the child do not typically get abortions.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
What grounds would the judge have for excluding the testimony? To answer your question, it would almost certainly mean the case gets overturned on appeal.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
Of course, most doctors won't read the opinion. Instead, they'll get their information from rags like ProPublica so you might well be right.
No. They'll get their information from their insurers and from the legal departments at the hospitals where they're employed, and I guarantee you that the attorneys involved aren't basing their advice on Pro Publica articles. The doctor in the Cox case wanted to perform an abortion, but was told by the hospital administration that they would only allow it if there was a court order. The doctors are directly consulting with sophisticated parties who can't tell them what the law is, exactly, and they're asking the courts to grant permission ahead of time to avoid potential criminal liability.
But... assuming that doctors do read the SCOTX opinion, the rule is that as long as any reasonable doctor agrees that an abortion complies with the restrictions of the law, the doctors are in the clear. That sounds like a pretty lax standard to me? As in, as long as the defendants are able to produce any medical authority in good standing that agrees with them, they're in the clear.
That is explicitly not what the opinion says. To wit:
Though the statute affords physicians discretion, it requires more than a doctor’s mere subjective belief. By requiring the doctor to exercise “reasonable medical judgment,” the Legislature determined that the medical judgment involved must meet an objective standard. Dr. Karsan asserted that she has a “good faith belief” that Ms. Cox meets the exception’s requirements. Certainly, a doctor cannot exercise “reasonable medical judgment” if she does not hold her judgment in good faith. But the statute requires that judgment be a “reasonable medical” judgment...
The standard is objective and not subjective. We don't make a determination that the doctor herself is "reasonable" and then defer to her judgment. We don't ask the doctor to point to some outside authority supporting her decision and back off so long as she can provide one. The bojective standard requires the jury to place themselves in the shoes of a hypothetical "reasonable doctor" and determine if the defendant's actions were in line with what this fictional doctor would do. When the court continues the quote above to say that
Dr. Karsan has not asserted that her “good faith belief” about Ms. Cox’s condition meets that standard
They are simply stating that Dr. Karsan did not use the appropriate test. They are not saying that Dr. Karsan's actions would have met the test. What this effectively means is that the legal reality of whether an abortion falls within an exception is something that can only be determined by a court, after the fact. Doctors can make educated guesses about edge cases, but simply stating that they believed the abortion was necessary, or believed their actions were reasonable, or believed the exception applied, or can support their conclusions with 500 citations to the medical literature is ultimately irrelevant, because these subjective beliefs do not, in and of themselves, make the doctor's actions objectively reasonable.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
Do you seriously believe that the court would have ruled differently if the doctor had simply used different language in the motion? That all this case boils down to is semantics?
Rov_Scam
4d ago
The only way Trump is ending this war is if he forces Ukraine into a settlement that is essentially a capitulation to Russian demands, and I don't see that happening. There's no incentive for Ukraine to give up territory without some kind of Western security guarantee (lest Putin decides to pick up where he left off at a later date), and there's no way Russia willingly accedes to Ukraine being part of any Western alliance. Furthermore, Trump didn't show anything in his first term to suggest that he's the master dealmaker he makes himself out to be. He shook hands with Kim Jong Un on television but this did nothing other than alienate South Korea. The North kept on ramping up their nuclear program like nothing happened. The Abraham Accords were a nice story but those were a UAE proposal, and it's hard to see what they accomplished in terms of Middle Eastern peace. And the Afghanistan deal was a disaster. To be clear, the US had to pull out, deal or no, but there was no real attempt at ending the civil war or even setting a schedule for withdrawal. All he got in return were some vague promises to not fire on US troops before a certain date. He couldn't even get them to agree to stay out of Kabul until the withdrawal was complete. Then there's the matter of the Iran deal which he claimed to be able to renegotiate, though all he really did was pull out of it, and I'm not aware of any attempt he made at diplomacy.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
A pro-life jury wouldn't be enough in a case like this; you'd need a jury who is actively gunning for the doctor. I don't think you appreciate what it would actually take to secure a conviction. The only witnesses testifying for the prosecution would be whatever bureaucrat decided a crime had been committed based on a review of the paperwork and a medical expert who would testify that the life of the mother wasn't in danger. the defense has their own expert to counter the prosecution. They also have the mother, who will tearfully testify about how excited her and her husband were when they got pregnant and how sick she got at the hospital and how terminating the pregnancy was the hardest decision of her life and how the defendant is a hero, etc. The facts imply that the treating physician was of the opinion that the abortion was medically necessary.
I'm a litigator, and I deal in medical issues; juries are not going to sympathize with pencil pushers who never met the woman let alone examined her. What you're asking them to do is overrule the judgment of a treating physician over the objection of an expert. At this point, the best the prosecution can hope for is a hung jury. And this is all before you even have to worry about jury selection. If the prosecution directly asks prospective jurors about abortion then all they're doing is poisoning the jury pool by dredging up opinions on a sensitive topic. And for what? You aren't getting anyone booted for cause without disqualifying the entire jury pool, so you're just looking for places to waste your peremptories. The goal shouldn't be to get a pro-life jury, because you're not getting one. The goal in jury selection should be to use relevant proxies to weed out anyone who is rabidly pro-choice.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
I'm honestly surprised nobody has challenged it yet. The trial would be a three ring circus akin to the Scopes trial, and Paxton would have to deal with the reality of it being difficult to get a conviction in the kind of urban county where the law is likely to be tested. I think the reason that hasn't been done yet is because testing the law is ultimately an exercise in futility. The defense is likely to rely more on the exceptions than call for full-throated jury nullification, and the response to any acquittal would be the legislature specifically barring an individual exception. Or they could just do nothing and make the prosecution itself a deterrent. Kevorkian was acquitted when he was using his suicide machine or whatever it was and there were legitimate legal arguments to be made that his actions weren't criminal. When he started injecting patients directly and relying on moral arguments instead of legal ones, he got convicted.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
You'd have a lawsuit but it wouldn't necessarily be an easy one to win, or even settle. Malpractice claims are negligence claims, and to prevail on a negligence claim you have to prove that the defendant breached a reasonableness standard. You're going to have a hard time arguing that the defendant breached that standard if they can show they had a reasonable belief that treating the wound was illegal. Even if you win, what happens? The Plaintiff gets a settlement, the insurance company pays it, and your rates go up. It's not an ideal situation, but it's better than being prosecuted.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
The biggest problem with the medical exceptions is that there is no confidence among the medical community that any medical abortion won't be investigated and prosecuted. Ken Paxton has already demonstrated that he's willing to challenge a TRO and threaten hospitals with prosecution and other penalties if he doesn't think a particular abortion is covered by the exception. If option A means potential prosecution and option B means a possible hike in malpractice insurance premiums, option B wins every time. You never want to put yourself in a position where the only thing standing between you and a lengthy prison term is whether you and a tribunal have the same understanding of "imminent" or whatever. The upshot is that the only time doctors and hospitals are comfortable using the medical exception is when the woman is on her deathbed, and you end up hearing stories about bad situations that are made worse by delayed action.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
Well, it's finally happened. The Steelers have a team that is winning. This may seem like a strange thing to say about a team that hasn't had a losing season in 20 years and has made the playoffs 3 seasons out of the last 5, but in a city where anything short of a Super Bowl appearance is considered a disappointment, saying you have a "winning team" mid-season doesn't mean so much that the wins outnumber the losses as it means that the team looks like they may actually contend for a championship. To understand how we got here, though, we need to recap Steelers History.
1933–1968: The Dark Ages
The team technically existed, but they were perennial losers. In their first 35 years of existence they had one playoff appearance that resulted in a 21–0 loss. Art Rooney would later achieve mythical status as the league's saint and one of the last surviving patriarchs from the early days, but for most of his time running the team he was seen as incompetent and cheap. "Same Old Steelers" was a common refrain, and Rooney had a habit of trading all his draft picks and prospects for washed up vets. Their level of success was comparable to that of the modern-day Browns. This was not a celebrated team.
1969–1971: Transition
Art Rooney cedes day-to-day operations of the team to his son, Dan, who immediately begins the only true rebuild in the team's history. Bill Austin is out at head coach and Chuck Noll is in. The rest of the team is slowly transitioned out in favor of new blood; the only pre-Noll players to have any serious roll in the team's future success were linebacker Andy Russell and center Ray Mansfield (Rocky Bleier was drafted in 1968 but didn't play much his rookie year and spent two years out of the league during which he was seriously injured in Vietnam, so I don't really count him as pre-Noll). 1970 saw the addition of Terry Bradshaw and Mel Blount. 1971 added Jack Ham, Dwight White, Ernie Holmes, and Mike Wagner. The team still sucked, but things were looking up.
1972–1979: The Steel Curtain Era
In 1972, the Steelers had their first winning season in a decade and made their first playoff appearance since 1947, where they slugged it out with the Raiders and lost the lead late. When it looked like all hope was lost, rookie Franco Harris missed his blocking assignment and ended up in perfect position to catch a deflected pass on a last-ditch play that had completely blown up, scoring a touchdown and handing the team their first playoff win ever. They would go on to win 4 Super Bowls in 6 years and cement themselves as the first dynasty of the modern NFL.
1980–1991: The Lost Years
Following a Super Bowl victory in January, hopes were high for the 1980 season. The team would end up finishing 9–7 and missing the playoffs for the first time since 1971. The following decade would see them win a couple division titles and even make a conference championship game, but the players from the dynasty era were beginning to retire, and they didn't do a great job of replacing them (the most notable blunder being passing on Dan Marino in 1983). Center Mike Webster, the last remaining player to win a Super Bowl with the team, would leave following the disastrous 1988 season. By this point the team was rudderless, and while they made the playoffs in 1989 due to a miraculous QB performance, it was from Bubby Brister. By 1991 the team seemed to have a good young core, but Noll knew he wasn't the man to lead them anymore.
1992–1996: Blitzburgh
Bill Cowher took over and immediately decided that offense didn't matter. Most defense-oriented coaches take a "ground and pound" approach but this usually assumes they have a good running back. The Steelers never had a true bell cow for most of that time but somehow managed to put up decent offensive numbers with Neil O'Donnell at QB, Yancey Thigpen as top WR, and RB by committee. The defense was consistently stifling. 1992 and 1993 were marked by routing playoff losses against good teams. In 1994 they should have gone to the Super Bowl but blew the AFC Championship game against an inferior Chargers team. In 1995 they would make the Super Bowl, but they were clearly outclassed by Dallas, O'Donnell's inexplicable interceptions notwithstanding. In 1996 they would change things up a bit by letting the Jets overpay O'Donnell and trading for Jerome Bettis (giving them a dynamite ground attack), but they'd end up getting blown out by New England during the mostly-forgotten Bledsoe era.
1997–2003: Kordell Stewart
Kordell Stewart was a second round pick in the 1995 draft whose athleticism allowed him to play as a QB/WR/RB/TE/KR/PR, giving him the nickname "Slash". Heading into 1997 without a quarterback, the decision was made to give Stewart the starting job. This was a bold move at the time, as it was before Michael Vick and Steve McNair legitimized the dual-threat quarterback. He led the team to the AFC Championship game his first season as starter, but he was mishandled by OCs who treated him like a pocket passer, and would be subject to repeated benching, booing, and rumors that he was gay. In 2001 he finally got an OC who knew what to do with him, and they returned to the playoffs and the AFC Championship, but a slow start in 2002 led to him being benched for the final time in favor of Tommy Maddox. Maddox was a feel-good comeback story of a guy who worked his way back into the league after playing arena football and being XFL MVP, and he led the team back to the playoffs, but the wheels came off in 2003, when they finished 6–10. They snatched up Ben Roethlisberger when he was unexpectedly available the following spring.
2004–2011: The Classic Ben Era
Ben was supposed spend a year learning from Tommy Maddox and Charlie Batch and ease into the lineup. Then Batch had surgery in August and was out for the season. Then, in the second game of the season, Maddox would blow out his elbow, forcing the rookie into the game. He'd lead the team to a 15–1 record and another AFC Championship game appearance that year, and win the Super Bowl the following season in what was supposed to be the Colts' year. They started 2006 with a hangover and finished the season 8–8, at which point Cowher bowed out. Mike Tomlin was then hired and took the team straight to the playoffs, then to another Super Bowl Championship. Following another disappointing hangoverish season, the team was back in the Super Bowl, though they lost this time. After losing in the first round of the playoffs to a Tebow-led Broncos team the following season, it was clear that an era had ended. Hines Ward, Troy Polomalu, Ryan Clark, and Ike Taylor were all past their prime, but a new crop of youngsters was on the way.
2012–2017: The Killer Bs
Ben, Brown, and Bell. This is the point where the team seemed to go off the rails. Steelers Football was traditionally smashmouth, 3 yards and a cloud of Bus, all-defense, and played by stand-up guys you could admire. Now it was high octane, left lane hammer down offense and questionable defense played by guys with huge egos and questionable character. They'd have a string of playoff appearances between 2014 and 2017, but it would result in few wins, and only one AFC Championship game appearance. It was largely considered a disappointment, but this is the last time the Steelers were supposed to be good. From here on out we'll take it year by year.
2018: Days of Our Steelers. Bell decides to hold out for the entire season to avoid playing on the franchise tag. The Steelers had made him a long-term offer, but he though the should be the highest paid running back in the league, and draw a double salary since he was also used quite a bit in the passing game. The holdout ended up wrecking his career. Toward the end of the season, Antonio Brown began exhibiting the bizarre behavior he's since become famous for when he was benched after getting into an argument with Ben. Meanwhile, the team had squandered a good start by blowing close games. Luckily, Ben showed veteran leadership by blaming everyone else on the team for poor play. They missed the playoffs due to a tiebreaker.
2019: Ben gets injured in Week 2 and everyone writes off the season. Mason Rudolph makes an admirable showing before he, too, is injured, and replaced by some guy named Duck Hodges who does good for a week before displaying why he was unemployed 2 weeks prior. Mason can't get it together and the season implodes.
2020: The Steelers get off to a hot start that absolutely nobody expects to last. They fade down the stretch and lose to Cleveland in embarrassing fashion in the first round of the playoffs.
2021: Ben decides he's too old to bend down and get under center and insists on playing out of shotgun while sitting on a stool in the backfield. the rest of the team is either too young to know what they're doing or too old to be able to do it anymore, and while they're able to get a few good wins and beat bad teams, they get smoked by anyone who's actually good. They sneak into the playoffs, but Mahomes and Company boat race them in the wild card round.
2022: The Steelers are rebuilding, but the Rooneys will never admit it. They pick up Mitch Trubisky to replace Ben in the short term and draft Kenny Pickett in the first round. After winning the first game in bizarre fashion, Trubisky is terrible and is benched in favor of Pickett, who performs better but not that much better. Still, bad Steeler football is better than most other teams when they're good, and they probably make the playoffs if Pickett isn't concussed and Trubisky doesn't throw numerous interceptions against the Tyler Huntley-led Ravens.
2023: Kenny Pickett is the starter going into the season. The entire year revolves around the Matt Canada controversy. Pickett and the offense play poorly overall but they still have a good record. The mantra is that if they had merely average quarterback production they'd be able to compete. Then Canada is fired, Pickett has a good game, and then is promptly injured. Trubisky plays horribly and is benched for Mason again, who plays well enough to convince some people that he's the solution and if only he'd been given a chance. Kenny Pickett recovers but they keep Mason in and he mopes about it. They make the playoffs and get smoked by the Bills, just as everyone expected they would.
That brings us to this year, when Justin Fields starts and gives us the average quarterback play that we've craved for so long. Some people think he earned the starting job and shouldn't be pulled whenever Russ is healthy. Then Russ comes in after six weeks and plays better than any quarterback since Ben. Mike Tomlin admits that the ability to make such bold moves is why he's highly compensated.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
The problem with Gaetz is that, if you're gunning for people, insubordination isn't even the determining factor, since who suffers the consequences of prosecution isn't within the control of the Justice Department. He can order an investigation, and his subordinates can comply, but if they recommend against prosecution, he has the dilemma of believing them and dropping the matter or forging ahead anyway. He doesn't have the sufficient prosecutorial experience to even know if he's being bulshitted or not. So if he says he wants X to be indicted and the US Attorney comes back and says there isn't enough evidence, he's in a bit of a bind. He can fire whoever was in charge, but that doesn't really solve the problem — if there really wasn't enough evidence and the subordinate was being honest, he's just fired a good prosecutor for no reason.
But suppose he says he wants the prosecution to go forward anyway, and the subordinate complies. Now it's out of the hands of the DOJ entirely. The grand jury can refuse to indict. If he gets an indictment, the judge can dismiss the charges. If the case goes to trial, the jury could acquit. And in all of these cases Gaetz, as the public face of the department, is going to be the one left holding the bag. If Gaetz fails to serve up the necessary convictions, I don't see any scenario where Trump just gives him a pass; he's going to be publicly blamed and fired. If he believes his subordinates are loyal and takes their recommendations to heart and declines to pursue prosecution, he's going to be fired and publicly branded a member of the deep state.
This tendency to scapegoat is a large part of what makes Trump such an ineffective administrator. He promises his constituents certain things regardless of whether there is any realistic chance of accomplishing them. When his department heads explain they aren't magicians, or that his proposals are really bad ideas, he gets pissed and blames them. He expects loyalty but doesn't give any in return. If you expect people to deliver the impossible, competent subordinates will tell you why it can't work, and firing them and publicly castigating them for not plowing ahead anyway won't change that. Sycophants will attempt to achieve your goals, but since loyalty is their only asset, they'll bungle them. Trump's image among his base is nearly Christ-like, so he's never going to be the problem among his own "bosses". The only people who can survive in such a system are savvy political operators like Bill Barr who have the ability work Trump and pretend they're achieving his goals and gain enough of his trust that they can talk him out of truly stupid ideas.
Gaetz has neither the political savvy nor the requisite experience for the job. He's made alienating other politicians his life's work, and his legal experience is limited to three years he spent working on pennyante cases 15 years ago. He's bounf to make a hash out of anything Trump wants him to accomplish, and his loyalty isn't going to save him. Even if he somehow gets confirmed, I don't see his tenure lasting very long unless he can pull some rabbits out of hats.
Rov_Scam
8d ago
It depends on how you define hysteria. Most left-leaning people in my neck of the woods were pretty much done worrying about COVID as soon as they were fully vaccinated. There was still some residual level of concern, which I will agree largely ended with Omicron, but by Memorial Day 2021 very few people were doing anything beyond possibly masking up in busy areas.
Rov_Scam
8d ago
As someone who was in high school during the height of the nu-metal era, I feel I may have some insight into this. I should preface my thoughts by saying that my friends and I mostly listened to classic rock, what was then described as "adult alternative" (i.e. the mellower indie rock they play on NPR affiliates). I was also in the throes of addiction at this time, where I would spent what little money I made cashiering at the local grocery store on CD boxed sets with titles like "John Coltrane: The Complete Prestige Sessions 1956–1958" that contain 16 discs and cost over 200 dollars. So I wasn't much for nu-metal.
Anyway, I had written a long piece about the musical culture war circa 1999, but deleted it, after I realized that such a lengthy exposition would only set oneself up for disappointment, as Woodstock '99 played very little role in it. Dr. Laura had been warning listeners that their kids would become mentally ill if they let them listen to Eminem, but by far the biggest concern was Marilyn Manson. He'd been vilified by the religious right since he became popular and had recently been implicated in the Columbine shootings. In an era where concerns about what music your kids are listening to was much greater than it is now, nu-metal was never really in the crosshairs.
The disaster of Woodstock '99 was big news, and Limp Bizkit's set was certainly part of that. But it was only part of a larger whole. There was also the intense heat and inadequate shade, poor sanitation, contaminated water, price gouging, lack of security, vandalism, assault, arson, rampant drug use, and sexual misconduct. All had been going on well before Limp Bizkit took the stage, but while other performers either ignored the mayhem or actively discouraged it, Fred Durst actively tried to fire the crowd up further. When later asked to account for his actions, Durst disclaimed responsibility and pretended he had no idea that anything was wrong. This was a ridiculous assertion; anyone watching the videos could tell that this wasn't a normal concert, and he'd repeatedly ignored event staff who told him to calm things down or at least shut up. Limp Bizkit's set was the climax of the story, but it wasn't the whole story.
Nu-metal itself took none of the blame, and it didn't suffer commercially. It would be another 2 years before the genre even peaked in popularity and went into decline. Class played no part in it; all these bands were mainstream. I have no recollection of anyone disparaging nu-metal as a gene. I don't remember Pitchfork ever crapping on nu-metal in particular. It wasn't something they ordinarily reviewed, and most of their derision was reserved for what they perceived as faux authenticity. Limp Bizkit is certainly hated, though it doesn't seem like their behavior at Woodstock '99 plays into this much. The backlash stems more from the fact that Fred Durst quickly became a caricature of himself, and that their music seemed unserious, deliberately aiming at an audience of 14-year-old boys whose only requirement was that the music be heavy enough to irritate their parents and have plenty of swearing.
That being said, this derision doesn't extend to nu-metal as a whole. Bands like Godsmack and Papa Roach are mostly just forgotten about. Most people's tastes mellow as they get older, and the true metalheads aren't going to fetishize something so mainstream, so there's little reason to revisit nu-metal other than for nostalgia purposes. Mainstream hard rock in general tends to go through phases where seminal bands are eventually replaced by derivative ones, before a new generation restarts the cycle. So the 70s had Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, etc. but by the end of the decade it was Styx and Foreigner. The new generation in the 80s was Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Van Halen, but by decade's end it was all the generic hair metal bands. Then grunge totally wiped them off the map in the '90s, but by the early 2000s you had Linkin Park and Incubus, bands that were obviously milking grunge for whatever it had left. Nu-metal wasn't exactly part of this, but it was too mainstream to have the credibility of metal, and it nonetheless became associated with the era when hard rock began to stagnate. Eventually the Strokes and the White Stripes came along and left all the nu-metal bands holding the bag. That's just how it goes sometimes. I wouldn't read too much into it on a culture war level.
Rov_Scam
8d ago
Is this legal? At this point it's not an "auction" anymore but a free handing over of the property to whatever grift the trustee desires.
The trustee has an obligation to protect the interests of the debtor and the creditors. Usually this means accepting the highest bid, but that's not always the case. Since some of the plaintiffs were willing to share the proceeds of the sale with other creditors, who would have otherwise gotten less, this is the deal that provides the most benefit to the creditors. The debtor's interest isn't really in play here, since there's no chance the money raised in the asset sale will exceed the total debt. The trustee has discretion in the matter, and the only way a court would force the sale to another bidder is if there was clear abuse of this discretion.
My sister-in-law is a PA, and I'm friends with several others. I have no idea what you mean from the suggestion that PA's have lower status than any of these other people. Maybe because some people confuse them with medical assistants, but people who don't know the difference aren't among those whose opinions I care about. A lot of them end up being PAs not because they couldn't cut it as doctors, but because doctors themselves warned them against med school. The option is going to school for 4 years after college, spend another 4 years working ridiculous hours for poverty wages, and finally get to be a real doctor some time in your 30s. At this point you're in so much debt that the higher salary only allows for the kind of lifestyle a normal college grad would have, not that it matters anyway, because you're still spending all your time at work.
And who is exactly looking down on PAs anyway? I'm a lawyer. I don't know what you do exactly, except that it's in finance, but unless you're in senior management I'm going to go ahead and pull rank here. I don't sit in some sad fucking cubicle or worse, some trendy-looking open office. I have a private office—an actual private one, not one of those manager offices with the window or frosted glass door that's expected to be open unless you're on the phone or discussing something sensitive—that's almost large enough to include a sofa and has sports memorabilia and custom photo prints on the walls and a large picture window with a view of a forest. I have my own secretary, and an army of paralegals will stop what they're doing if they're needed. If I need something printed I call someone else and have them bring it to me. I get printouts of most things because my work space cannot be limited to two screens. I have a bookshelf full of binders I prepare for each case (I'd have someone do this for me, but I don't trust them to not fuck it up). I have people send emails on my behalf, and people stop by my office with stuff for me to sign. I don't do anything that could be conceivably described as "real work". 90% of my job is drafting informal memos that aren't assigned by a superior or even directed to anyone in particular but are simply placed in the file for my own edification and so there's a record of my thoughts in case another attorney needs to look at the case. Most of my actual time is spent looking through documents and pacing my office thinking about things so I can make a decision. The only supervision I deal with is case assignments and who is covering depositions and court appearances, if there's a scheduling issue there. I don't deal with project managers assigning me work and emailing me every five minutes.
Beyond work, I live in a 3-bedroom house in an upscale area that's filled with toys I use on the weekends pursuing expensive hobbies. So please tell me who exactly I'm supposed to be looking down on. A guy who runs a crane in a steel mill? A video editor? The owner of a dog grooming business? A low-level financial analyst for a large company? A schoolteacher? A mechanical engineer? An audiologist? A registered nurse? A college professor? An accountant who does asset valuations? The guy you call before you dig? A middle manager for the IRS? The guy who works for a large bank who's described his job to me several times and I still don't know what he does? These are all friends of mine, and I could go on, but this gives you an idea of what my social circle looks like. There are no doctors or lawyers I regularly see socially, though my cousin is a Worker's Compensation attorney. I don't know anyone, even among lawyers, who engages in the kind of ostentatious spending that's meant to signal status. I know people who are really into things like craft beer, but that doesn't correlate with income. I personally drink High Life and Coors Banquet as my regular quash. I don't think PAs are below me. And I'm not one of those unrealistic egalitarians who think that I'm everyone's equal; I wouldn't date a girl who worked at McDonalds (or, realistically, one who didn't have a professional job), but that's about as far as it goes for most people. I don't ask what people do for a living before I decide if I'm going to be friends with them.
There are no gradations of lawyers in the US. Once you pass the bar you're allowed to handle anything any client is willing to give you. You might not exactly be qualified to do so, but all the ethical canons say about that is that you have to familiarize yourself with the relevant law. Medicine, by contrast, has actual board certified specialties that require specific training.
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