I am beyond caring anything about the Trump voter.

Part of his base is racist. Period. They may not wear white hoods but they have racist inclinations. Not all of them. But it’s there. They are ruled by fear of becoming the minority. That has nothing to do with government corruption. They’ll take that as long as it’s THEIR guy and he’s keeping the brown people out. I couldn’t care less about them.

Part of them are conspiracy nuts. They’ve been primed to see this deep state stuff forever, through talk radio and webcasts like Infowars. They were all in on Obama’s birth certificate and pizzagate and you name it.

And they too, do not care about government corruption as long as it’s THEIR guy.

Trump is the most corrupt politician in history. They aren’t voting for any swamp draining.

Some are evangelicals just wanting to overturn abortion. These people care about one issue and could care very little about anything else. Trump is giving them their judges. Good enough.

His money supporters want deregulation. That’s all. He’s getting it done.

There is a slice who liked his NAFTA scorn or his talk about not being as involved in foreign countries. Okay–but he simply increased military spending. Just renegotiating a trade deal in meaningless without environmental protections(his plan there is to make our own environmental regulations non-existent instead of bring others to our standards) or labor issues and we know he hates unions anyway.

So I don’t care what their “reasons” were. They need to be ignored and beaten by a majority in places where it matters. The Democrats suck at politics. They need a REALLY bad opponent to win—-and they have one now. And we have to wonder if it’s still enough.

The majority of Americans voted for Clinton. The majority voted for Gore. So what? They have to win state houses. They have to win governor races. They have to win the electoral college and not stupidly just skip states because you think you will win no matter what. The minority has more power than the majority. In less populated rural states they still get two senators.

Democrats have to run on filling the courts like the Republicans do because unfortunately Dems don’t seem to care about it. And it will bite us in the ass for decades now. Even if they pass progressive legislation it can be challenged and overturned. Dems need to put way more emphasis on these things. The Republicans are masters at it. They even have the Federalist Society pre-picking candidates. The Dems have nothing.

Trump and the Republicans are fortunate to be playing against the Washington Generals.

But the majority has to carry them through this anyway. Because this is way beyond lesser of two evils. This is an epic disaster.

Great news!

Here we go: Superbowl or Bust!

I am not at all comfortable about the Rams back-up QB situation. I’d probably keep Allen over Mannion at this point.

Mannion is so sloooow. And his accuracy is questionable at best. Hodge made him look good on that deep throw that was up for grabs basically, and he’s lucky that the Oakland defender stepped out of bounds on the other one. Even his shorter passes are off. He almost got one receiver killed leading him into a defender. Allen throws a better ball. He’s also more mobile. Mannion has had four years now and he doesn’t look better than this? Time to move on.

Noteboom has great potential but he isn’t there yet. He got away with an obvious hold on the 3rd and 4, and if he had to face better edge rushers there were occassions where the QB would have been killed. But the potential is there. You can see it. I’m very happy with this pick.

Franklin-Myers looks very promising. Again, he still has to get better. He missed reacting to a draw on a few occassions but I like what I see in him.

What happened to Justin Davis? Was he hurt? Why was Holley playing?

My very brightest spots:

Bryce Hager. He had a terrific game. He was really good iun coverage and pursuing the football and seems to have a nose for things.

Hodge. This kid is amazing. What a battler for the ball. He needs to work on his separation a bit but he battles for that football. I’m just not sure there is any room for him on the team.

John Kelly. The Rams just flat out hit on this pick. He should surpass Malcolm Brown on the depth chart. Exciting hard runner.

Micah Kiser. He was in on a lot of plays. He’s still learning but he can really be a nice piece of the linebacker depth.

Another note:

That was a crap call on Mixon. He did everything right IMO. If you call that then it’s hard to play football.

Lastly, it was noted by Lindsey Thiery that Mcvay may not play Goff or Gurley at all this pre-season. On one hand, I get it, I like it. On another, I do worry if they will be ready for opening day or if that may lead to a slow start. I think I’d play them at least a quarter next week. It’s a risk, yes. But if Rodgers and Brady can play, so can Goff. Still, I think McVay knows he doesn’t have a viable back-up and this team has a LOT of money invested in THIS year. He can’t blow that in pre-season.

Every time I go to a doctor visit I get an email to fill out a satisfaction survey. Now I know why.

By the way, I never fill them out.

“The dude abides.” The Big Lebowski.

wv wrote:

At any rate, what about the NATO thing. You seem to think russia is an aggressor — what about the NATO thing. Seems to me its the West thats the aggressor.

I remember reading about the missile defense systems awhile ago and I thought the same thing: Is this a good idea? Was it necessary? It does seem to be a poke at them. And it clearly pisses them off. I’m open to questioning that. But even IF that happened, I don’t expect Putin would suddenly shake our hand. Putin’s #1 interest is the same as Trump’s: himself.

He has accumulated massive wealth–perhaps more than anyone. Having a boogeyman(however, justified) like the United States is good for him personally. And he seems to have ambitions of rebuilding the Soviet Union and clearly he will look for opportunities to invade other countries. He basically took part of the Ukraine, I mean–who knows?

But Putin is what Trump wants to be–an authoritarian ruler who answers to no one.

I can see Trump giving up intelligence assets in private.

Trump’s director of national intelligence said the digital infrastructure is under attack from Russia.

Russia is a threat to us on many levels. I’m not saying not to be more cordial with Russia, or to rattle sabres.

I want a better relationship but it has to be based on trust and Putin–a man who has people poisoned on foreign soil has shown no reason to trust him. None. Why should we trust him? What about Putin has ever suggested he is anything but a gangster?

But still–I DO want there to be a stable peaceful relationship with Russia. I don’t want WWIII.

Trump’s actions do nothing solid to further that peace beyond happy talk and handshakes. And Putin is laughing at him.

And when the backlash comes–and it will, because the next guy or gal will now have to prove they are tough on Russia. They may go out of their way to do that. And that will be a very scary time. And for that matter–Trump is an oddball. Maybe he goes nuts to PROVE he’s not soft on Russia and does something crazy(one reason I think we have to ride out his term without pushing too hard on him).

So, my opinion is first and foremost that Trump is not getting us closer to peace. It’s all talk and photo ops.

And he may in fact be a Russian asset.

I don’t know. But I don’t think Trump’s motivation is peace. It’s always about himself.

I think this is very disturbing for many reasons.

But the worst thing about this is that I think it pushes us CLOSER to military conflict with Russia. There is already a huge backlash coming and if it isn’t this congress, it will be the next president who will feel the need to be VERY tough on Russia to make up for this. This may even be an extreme reaction which will cause a bad reaction. And who knows where it goes from there.

Trump is moving the goalposts for what is acceptable by Russia. Putin will test that.

And then? Who knows? It won’t be good.

I swear if I ever see one of these Trump-supporting evangelicals standing outside an abortion clinic and crying about saving the “babies”I will walk up and laugh in their face. The Republicans have become a party of insane racists trying to do what they can to save the white race in this enclosed sort of white island. They are scared and ignorant little people buying into any propaganda that supports their inner racisim and using it as justification for all sorts of cruel behavior.

And why stop here?

It starts with children and moves on to dissenters.

This group can rationalize anything.

Fox News: “Yes, Democrats are being jailed but that’s the law of the land now and you have to obey the law.”

We aren’t that far from a nazi styled future.

One political party is damn near there.

Once you have the party to build from…

Hey Billy and Zooey, I wish you both the best of health.

Zooey, that’s really interesting to me. I had a hiatal hernia show up on a cat scan a few years back. I’ve been taking omeprazole for years. I try not to take it all the time but I probably take it more than I should. I talked to my doctor about it but he didn’t seem very concerned. He said they usually don’t do surgery unless there’s a problem. Well, reflux by itself does not seem to be a problem, as far as he’s concerned and in fact he didn’t think the hernia really contributed much to that which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me but whatever.

I don’t get spasms when I eat but sometimes I wake up with acid coming up in my throat and one time I sucked some of it into my lungs which set off a really bad asthma attack.

One way I can reduce acid is my diet–which is awful really. The pills help some. Years ago I had some sort of spasm there and was prescribed reglan(i think it was called)which helped the situation. But mainly for now–I should eat better–avoid certain foods(tomato based stuff, cokes), that really make it bad. I hope this works for you. It would be nice to know that the surgery is effective if I ever need it.

Good luck.

When Les Snead called and said: “Hey PA Ram, we’re thinking of trading our 23rd pick for Cooks, what do you think?”

I said: “I dunno, Les. I’m very concerned about offensive line depth, an edge rusher and the linebackers. Also–back-up QB could be an issue. Maybe we should work with what we’ve got for now at receiver. Is this a luxury that Sean simply MUST have?”

Les told me to go fuck myself and hung up.

So there’s that.

Hey–I hope it works but it just sort of “feels” like a luxury when I think they had real needs elsewhere.

On the other hand–I like this better than going after OBJ.

This is going to be very interesting.

Lol!

Ugh.

No….just…no.

I fear this can all blow up.

And bringing in OBJ is just too much. They are really tempting fate here.

I don’t know where all this money is coming from. I don’t see how you keep Beckam happy and still run the same type of offense. McVay was asked that today by Peter Schrager and his response was: “I expect to have a lot more snaps.”

Therefore–more snaps is more offensive plays…is more touches for everyone…is everyone is happy.

No.

I get “going for it” within your window.

I don’t feel good about this.

Also–what about the offensive line? Three old guys and two younger players. What about depth?

What about back-up quarterback? Are we putting all this on Mannion’s inexperience if the time comes?

If that line has one or two injuries–who cares if Beckam is on the team? They won’t be able to run or pass.

It’ll look real pretty on paper.

But if those guys get frustrated(Gurley and Beckam) it won’t be pretty anymore.

I’d rather have a well-rounded team.

I hope they trade down and draft a lot of offensive linemen.

But if they trade for Beckam that won’t happen–of course.

The Republicans get very upset when they can’t cheat.

This at least gives me a chance to vote someone I want and the vote may actually matter.