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  • July 11, 2019 at 6:05 am in reply to: tweets … 7/9 thru 7/11 (Rams/Chiefs win espys best game of the year) #102833
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    July 11, 2019 at 5:34 am in reply to: Gurley, July thread … including 7/9 audio #102832
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    Rams RB Gurley on knee: ‘we’re going to find out’

    https://www.yahoo.com/sports/rams-rb-gurley-knee-were-152250631.html

    Todd Gurley sounds like he’s running on borrowed time.

    The Los Angeles Rams’ primary ballcarrier said Tuesday he isn’t certain how his arthritic knee will hold up over the long haul. An “arthritic component” in his knee became problematic in the playoffs last season, when the team attempted to manage his workload on the fly.

    “I’m just like, hey, we’re going to find out in training camp, you know? Once training camp comes, you’ve got the preseason, but you don’t have a lot in preseason,” Gurley told NFL Network.

    Gurley said the lingering issue won’t cause him to change his playing style. However, NFL Network’s Terrell Davis, who retired in his prime because of knee issues, said the joint will eventually wear out.

    The Rams drafted Darrell Henderson in the third round and matched an offer sheet to retain restricted free agent Malcolm Brown. Both will get more use as Gurley eases into the season.

    “For me, I’ve been doing this my whole life, so it would be so hard for me to even try to change my style of play. That’s not even me,” Gurley said. “I don’t even know how to describe my game. I’m just going to keep doing what I can do until I can’t do it no more. That’s why we play this sport. But I’ve been feeling good. I’m definitely not going to change anything. I’m going to come with that same mindset like third and 1, fourth and 1, I’m gonna try to go get it. So I’m just excited. I know it’s always been a lot of talk going on this whole offseason, so it’s just like, hey, it’s the offseason. That’s what everything is supposed to be about: speculation and reporting. Once the season comes, you gonna see what happens.”

    Rams head coach Sean McVay continuously downplayed the severity of Gurley’s knee issue and described it as a load management concern, not an injury concern.

    Gurley turns 25 in August but the 2015 first-round pick already has 1,139 touches (1,042 rushing attempts) and suffered a torn ACL as a junior at Georgia.

    In early May, Gurley shook off questions about whether his knee condition was degenerative, saying “all I can focus on is how I’m doing right now.”

    July 11, 2019 at 3:36 am in reply to: Gurley, July thread … including 7/9 audio #102831
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    July 11, 2019 at 3:23 am in reply to: another reason to hate the Mountain #102830
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    Enh. He’s just a zombie. So zombies like the Vikings. Well yay for them.

    Rams, in contrast, have Robert Patrick as a devoted fan, yes I refer to the guy who played the T-1000 in Terminator 2.

    Yeah like anyone could beat that.

    July 11, 2019 at 3:19 am in reply to: Donald #102829
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    Monson: Donald Is NFL’s Best Player – And It Isn’t Close
    Aaron Donald has won back-to-back NFL Defensive Player of the Year awards, and he’s a safe bet to make it three in a row

    https://cbssportsradio.radio.com/articles/pff-analyst-aaron-donald-nfls-best-player-and-it-isnt-close

    Aaron Donald has won back-to-back NFL Defensive Player of the Year awards, and he’s a safe bet to make it three in a row.

    “He is the best player in the NFL, period, and I don’t think it’s particularly close to the next best guy,” Pro Football Focus analyst Sam Monson said on The DA Show. “When you slice all of our numbers, if you look at total pressure, pressure rate, win rate as a pass rusher, average depth of tackle – almost anything you look at – Aaron Donald is off on his own and an outlier from the rest of the NFL, in the same way J.J. Watt was when Watt was at his peak before he got struck with all those injuries. It’s incredible Donald is that far ahead of anybody else.”

    Donald was NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2014 and has been a first-team All-Pro every year since. He led the NFL with 20.5 sacks last season to go with four forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries.

    “Aaron Donald is incredible,” Monson said. “We’ve only see two players notch over 100 total pressures since PFF has been grading (2006), and Donald just became the second one this (past) season. Fletcher Cox had a phenomenal year as an interior pass rusher. He was head and shoulders above any other interior player on the D-Line, and almost nobody noticed because Donald was just that much better than Fletcher Cox.

    “So I think you can list a bunch of other candidates that could conceivably have Defensive Player of the Year kind of seasons,” Monson continued. “But the idea that any of them is more likely to do it than Aaron Donald is just absurd.”

    July 10, 2019 at 10:53 pm in reply to: the Wire #102828
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    The Writing Makes it Different

    The Writing Makes it Different

    Overall, the main element of The Wire that makes the first four and a half seasons of the show so enjoyable to watch is the writing. The characters wouldn’t be the ones we know; our favorite scenes wouldn’t be as memorable. Everything would be different if the writing was any different or if the writers were different. Sure, the audience might have appreciated some of those changes, but it would not have been The Wire with those modifications.

    If anyone else had tried to write a scene with only variations of the word fuck, it would not have come across the same way or been as successful as it was. Life lessons about hierarchies and power from the scenes with D’Angelo and some of the drug runners may not have become a favorite scene for many viewers. Would those scenes still have been in the show if someone else wrote the scripts? Possibly. Would they have worked as well? Most likely not.

    The way this show is written allows for these scenes to be written. The Wire is not a typical episodic style television show. In an interview with Nick Hornby from Believer magazine, The Wire creator and writer David Simon said that the show “pursues the form of the modern, multi-POV novel.” In shows that are written episode-by-episode, each episode has a self contained story, with the exception of cliffhanger endings and “to be continued” endings.

    With the setup it has, The Wire is an ever-repeating to be continued marathon of episodes, from the season premiere to the season finale. Each of the investigations was not solved in one episode, and the show showed every side of each story it told. For example, the mayoral race started in season three when Thomas Carcetti and the other candidates told people that they were going to make a run, and it continued into season four when they ran their campaigns and were voted for in the primaries.

    Despite the positives and uniqueness of the narrative structure of The Wire, the ratings were poor, despite the show receiving high reviews. While there are many reasons for that, including the story structure itself, one of those reasons is how different the viewing experience is from other television shows. Because of the story structure, viewers have to watch every episode in order or risk missing information that carries through the rest of the season, or even the rest of the series.

    In his interview with Hornby, David Simon talked about another reason why The Wire differed from other television shows and didn’t get higher ratings. Simon said that a lot of television “providing catharsis and redemption and the triumph of character” and that The Wire differs because it is “a drama in which postmodern institutions trump individuality and morality and justice.”

    Unlike other shows, The Wire doesn’t always show that the characters can overcome problems. Many of the investigations are dependents on how the higher ups in the police force want them to be solved. In season four, Kima and Freamon transfers from the Major Crimes Unit when a new major, Lieutenant Marimow, is put in charge of the Unit and wants feet on the ground quick arrests of perps instead of the high profile targets. He shuts down the wire tapping that Freamon is working on. Kima is put onto an investigation off the murder of a witness when the Homicide heads are told to slow the investigation down until after the election. This shows how they viewed the institutions as more important than the individuals.

    Despite these challenges in viewing The Wire, the rewards of enjoying this television show is worth any difficulty that watching it may have. The writing tells the story in a creative way and gives it a different structure, which makes it unlike other shows. Other shows in the same genre follow the same pattern. The Wire doesn’t and offers a fresh take on the police drama. These challenges and fresh look make the show worth watching all the way through.

    July 10, 2019 at 5:01 pm in reply to: the one-shot tweets thread (diff'rent stuff, funny angry interesting) #102825
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    July 10, 2019 at 12:36 pm in reply to: training camp preview, starting w/ "4 questions facing Rams ahead of camp" #102822
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    RAMS FANTASY PREVIEW

    Nick Mensio

    https://www.rotoworld.com/article/team-previews/rams-fantasy-preview

    Total Offense: 6,738 (2nd)
    Offensive Touchdowns: 55 (3rd)
    Offensive Plays: 1060 (4th)
    Pass Attempts + Sacks: 601 (14th)
    Rush Attempts: 459 (8th)
    Unaccounted for Targets: 11 (32nd)
    Unaccounted for Carries: 50 (21st)

    Coaching Staff

    Embarking on his third season as the Rams’ head coach, Sean McVay’s offense jumped from 10th to second in total yards last season and averaged three more points per game (32.9) after leading the league with a 29.9 mark in 2017. Only the Chiefs scored more points a year ago. Due to all of the success, McVay’s staff keeps getting raided by other teams looking for head coaches. Last offseason, the Titans and Raiders poached OC Matt LaFleur and QBs coach Greg Olson to run their respective offenses. And this year, it was QBs coach Zac Taylor who landed the head-coaching job for the Bengals. This is why it’s extremely important to have a head coach who calls his own plays like McVay does in L.A. The churning of the coaching staff doesn’t affect gameday operations as much as it would some other clubs. On the defensive side, DC Wade Phillips’ units have been leaky but have shown a bend-but-don’t-break resolve and played extremely well to end last season against the Saints and Patriots, even if the Rams lost the Super Bowl. Phillips continues to adapt to the new game despite his advanced age.

    Passing Game

    QB: Jared Goff, Blake Bortles
    WR: Brandin Cooks, Josh Reynolds
    WR: Robert Woods, KhaDarel Hodge
    WR: Cooper Kupp, Mike Thomas
    TE: Gerald Everett, Tyler Higbee

    Another year removed from Jeff Fisher and a second under McVay, Goff took a big step forward in 2018, finishing fourth in yards (4,688) and sixth (32) in passing touchdowns while also raising his completion percentage to 64.9. Goff’s splits under pressure are troublesome, and the same is true for his home vs. road production, but there’s no question Goff is capable of winning and posting big-time numbers when he has the talent he does around him in L.A. Goff was the overall QB7 last year and 10th in fantasy points per game. The Rams lost a couple key offensive linemen in LG Rodger Saffold and C John Sullivan, replacing them with two inexperienced bodies, but Kupp is coming back from a torn ACL after missing half of last season. Kupp is huge for Goff both on third downs and in the scoring area. And with Kupp, Cooks, and Woods, the Rams have one of the best receiving trios in the sport. Goff has his doubters, but he could theoretically build on his already-awesome 2018. He’s been more than fine as a QB1 for fantasy and someone with which owners can win. He’s also playing for a second contract with just two years left on his current deal. McVay said Goff will be extended.

    Acquired from the Patriots last year, Cooks’ first season with the Rams was a monumental success. He was four catches away from a career high with 80 grabs and set a new career best with 1,204 yards while scoring five times. Cooks finished just outside the top 12 as the WR13 in PPR leagues. Kupp’s return could affect Cooks’ target share, but this is an offense that can very easily support three wideouts when it barely uses its tight ends. The Rams would have to take multiple steps back for one reason or another for Cooks to not have another big year. Cooks somehow is still just 25 years old and won’t turn 26 until after Week 1.

    Woods elevated his game multiple levels in 2018, bagging his first career 1,000-yard season with an 86-1,219-6 line, setting career bests across the board. He’s one of the most underappreciated wideouts in the league and is someone who is willing to do all the little things and the dirty work to be a great real-life player. Woods is a willing blocker and makes the tough catches in tight areas. His massive season was good enough for the WR10 finish in PPR formats. He just turned 27 in April and is very much in the prime of his career. Like Cooks, Woods shouldn’t be affected much, if at all, by Kupp’s return from ACL surgery. Reynolds simply will be phased back to the Rams’ No. 4 wideout and first in line if there’s any injury. Woods is as solid as they come as a fantasy WR2 with sneaky WR1 upside. Woods is currently being drafted as the WR17, which could again be viewed as a bargain by season’s end.

    Kupp is the lone question mark in this passing offense. He started 2018 absolutely red-hot, compiling a 30-438-5 line over the first five weeks only to sprain his MCL and miss a couple contests. Kupp returned but later tore his ACL, seeing his season end with 40-566-6 through eight games. He was obviously on pace to be a third 1,000-yard wideout for L.A. who scored double-digit touchdowns. At the time of his injury, Kupp was pacing the Rams in red-zone targets as someone Goff leaned on heavily anytime the team was in the scoring area. Kupp did some individual drills this spring, suggesting he could gain clearance early this summer. Kupp should firmly be in the back end of the WR2 conversation as long as his rehab goes smoothly.

    The tight end position simply hasn’t been a focus since McVay took over. Everett improved on his 2017 rookie season but still failed to top 50 yards in any of his 16 regular-season games and scored all three of his touchdowns in a two-game November stretch. Everett has talent, but he simply gets lost in the shuffle when there are bigger mouths to feed ahead of him. He’ll surely pop for a big game here or there, but those will be wholly unpredictable. Higbee had almost an identical 2018 as he had in 2017, seeing his catches go from 25 to 24, yards 295 to 292, and touchdowns one to two. He’s obviously not a fantasy option and is more of the inline blocker.

    Running Game

    RB: Todd Gurley, Darrell Henderson, Malcolm Brown
    OL (L-R): Andrew Whitworth, Joseph Noteboom, Brian Allen, Austin Blythe, Rob Havenstein

    Gurley is obviously the big question mark for the Rams. The unquestioned best running back in the league the first 10 weeks of last season, something happened injury-wise in the shootout with the Chiefs in Week 11. Despite a combined 105 points between the two teams, Gurley totaled 94 scoreless yards on 15 touches. Gurley rebounded the following week in Detroit for 165 yards and two touchdowns on 26 touches. But it was mostly downhill thereafter with Gurley sitting the final two games of the season. Something is going on with his knee, but the exact details remain mostly unknown. His trainer admitted Gurley is dealing with an arthritic condition in his surgically-repaired knee. The Rams have done their best to prepare for any potential Gurley absence, matching the Lions’ two-year offer sheet to Brown and then taking Henderson with a third-round pick. All reports have suggested the Rams plan to scale back Gurley’s workload in 2019. However, even a more lightly-used Gurley can be an elite fantasy weapon. This doesn’t necessarily spell doom for his outlook. Gurley’s upside is unmatched in McVay’s offense; the floor is the concern. Everything laid out makes Gurley more of a second- or third-round fantasy selection rather than the No. 1 overall pick he’d been sans knee concerns.

    The No. 2 running back job will be one to watch very carefully this preseason. Most across the industry are simply assuming Henderson wins the job, and that’s evidenced by his skyrocketing average draft position (ADP) that has worked its way into the sixth round as the RB32. That’s extremely rich for someone who may not even be the sure direct backup to Gurley. And even if Henderson wins that job, it’s no sure thing Gurley will have his touches dialed back. But if Gurley does end up getting hurt and Henderson is the No. 2, then the upside is obviously there. It’s a risk-reward selection, and one that I’m not particularly willing to take right now. I’d much — MUCH — rather take the 14th-round stab at Brown. It’s a far more palatable price.

    The Rams were lucky Whitworth decided to delay retirement and come back for another season because they watched longtime LG Rodger Saffold leave for a big-money deal with the Titans. Saffold was one of the best guards in the league last season, grading out as Pro Football Focus’ No. 5 left guard, checking in at No. 3 as a run blocker. Noteboom was a third-round pick in 2018 and played 78 snaps as a rookie. He’s a college left tackle being asked to step in at guard. Meanwhile, Allen was selected in the fourth round a year ago and played 36 snaps in year one. This is a very inexperienced duo. It’s a line that looks worse on paper, but the coaching staff has worked wonders with former UDFA Blythe and turned Havenstein into a top-end right tackle. OL coach Aaron Kromer is one of the best in the sport. It could work out seamlessly.

    Win Total

    The Rams’ win total sits at 10.5 in most spots with a decently-sized fee on the over (-140), which makes sense considering the Rams have won 11 and 13 games in McVay’s two seasons. L.A. obviously lost Saffold on offense, but that unit remains largely the exact same outside of Gurley’s questionable health. On defense, the team let Ndamukong Suh and Lamarcus Joyner walk as free agents and cut ILB Mark Barron. They added Clay Matthews and Eric Weddle. The division has gotten better with Arizona’s infusion of offensive talent and San Francisco’s return to health. At best, the Rams’ strength of schedule is neutral. They open at Carolina, vs. New Orleans, and at Cleveland. That’s a tough three-game set to start with, but the Rams have to be considered NFC favorites heading into training camp. Over 10.5 is the better bet.

    July 10, 2019 at 12:20 pm in reply to: tweets … 7/9 thru 7/11 (Rams/Chiefs win espys best game of the year) #102821
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    July 10, 2019 at 3:13 am in reply to: Gurley, July thread … including 7/9 audio #102819
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    July 10, 2019 at 3:10 am in reply to: Gurley, July thread … including 7/9 audio #102818
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    July 10, 2019 at 2:57 am in reply to: tweets … 7/9 thru 7/11 (Rams/Chiefs win espys best game of the year) #102817
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    July 10, 2019 at 2:54 am in reply to: tweets … 7/9 thru 7/11 (Rams/Chiefs win espys best game of the year) #102816
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    July 10, 2019 at 1:42 am in reply to: Rams 2nd pick, Darrell Henderson, RB #102815
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    July 10, 2019 at 1:29 am in reply to: the one-shot tweets thread (diff'rent stuff, funny angry interesting) #102813
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    July 9, 2019 at 8:37 pm in reply to: tweets … 7/9 thru 7/11 (Rams/Chiefs win espys best game of the year) #102809
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    July 9, 2019 at 6:58 pm in reply to: tweets … 7/9 thru 7/11 (Rams/Chiefs win espys best game of the year) #102808
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    Daniel Jeremiah@MoveTheSticks
    My top 5 Candidates for DEF Player of the Year
    1) Myles Garrett
    2) Aaron Donald
    3) Von Miller
    4) Khalil Mack
    5) Derwin James

    Sam Monson@PFF_Sam
    Anybody over Aaron Donald is crazy.

    Not that they can’t, but the idea that probability says they WILL is nuts, cos it requires an all time great season given the bar being set by Donald right now

    DPOY is Donald’s award to lose. I’m not saying someone else can’t win it, but anyone else at the top of a list of candidates is just not playing the odds.

    July 9, 2019 at 2:46 pm in reply to: around the league tweets (7/6 thru ?) #102804
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    wv wrote:

    Kuechly? Ha. Aaron Donald would have made the tackle in the backfield.

    Before the handoff.

    So it would actually have counted as a sack.

    .

    July 9, 2019 at 2:45 pm in reply to: tweets … 7/9 thru 7/11 (Rams/Chiefs win espys best game of the year) #102803
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    July 9, 2019 at 10:56 am in reply to: around the league tweets (7/6 thru ?) #102794
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    July 9, 2019 at 10:47 am in reply to: informal poll…name your favorite non-Rams qbs from league history #102792
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    Zooey wrote:

    Steve Young.

    You’re kidding right?

    No one likes Steve Young.

    .

    July 9, 2019 at 10:38 am in reply to: OL talk #102791
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    from PFF: NFL offensive line rankings: All 32 teams’ units entering 2019

    https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/pro-nfl-offensive-line-rankings-all-32-teams-units-entering-2019

    …

    13. LOS ANGELES RAMS
    PROJECTED STARTING LINEUP:
    Left Tackle: Andrew Whitworth
    Left Guard: Bobby Evans
    Center: Brian Allen
    Right Guard: Austin Blythe
    Right Tackle: Rob Havenstein

    Either rookie Bobby Evans or 2018 third-rounder Joseph Noteboom will step in for Rodger Saffold at guard, and 2018 fourth-rounder Brian Allen is expected to replace longtime veteran John Sullivan at center. None of the three youngsters have played significant snaps in the NFL, but all of them earned high marks at the collegiate level. Noteboom earned a 77.0 overall grade and a 91.6 pass-blocking grade in his last year with TCU, and Allen earned 81.0-plus overall grades in each of his last three seasons at Michigan State. Evans, a third-round pick in this year’s draft, earned a 72.3 overall grade at left tackle in 2018 and an 86.2 overall grade at right tackle in 2017.

    There’s much less to worry about with the Rams’ returning starters. Tackles Rob Havenstein and Andrew Whitworth are two of the best in the game right now, and guard Austin Blythe earned a career-high 71.0 overall grade this past season that he should build off in 2019.

    July 9, 2019 at 10:34 am in reply to: the one-shot tweets thread (diff'rent stuff, funny angry interesting) #102790
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    July 9, 2019 at 9:30 am in reply to: strength & conditioning coach Rath … trial … update: back with team #102789
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    Defense attorney makes opening statements in trial of Los Angeles Rams’ strength coach

    https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/local/communities/moorpark/2019/07/08/los-angeles-rams-coach-ted-rath-accused-sexual-battery-defense-opening-statements/1662504001/

    Certain factors at play, including medical ones, will show a Los Angeles Rams coach accused of sexual battery was not able to form the necessary criminal intent to commit the alleged offenses, the coach’s defense attorney said Monday.

    The other factors are the medication he was taking after a stroke-related event and the alcohol he consumed the night of the alleged incident, said Vicki Podberesky, one of Ted Rath’s defense attorneys.

    “…And that will lead you to the only one conclusion, and that’s that Ted Rath is not guilty,” Podberesky said.

    She made the remarks to jurors in her opening statement as Rath’s trial continued in Ventura County Superior Court.

    Rath has pleaded not guilty to three counts of misdemeanor sexual battery in connection with an alleged June 2018 incident reported at a Moorpark home. Rath, the strength and conditioning coach for the football team headquartered in the Conejo Valley, is on a leave of absence while his case is ongoing.

    Senior Deputy District Attorney Erik Nasarenko gave his opening statement Friday, telling jurors the Moorpark woman, who was 33 at the time, was asleep in her bed when she was awakened to hands on her buttocks.

    The woman, who sleeps in the nude, claims the hands moved to her stomach and then her genitalia. When she rolled over she allegedly saw Rath by her bed, Nasarenko said.

    Rath and his wife had met up with the woman and her husband at a charity event on June 15, 2018. Afterwards, they went out to a local bar then returned to the woman’s house to keep the party going. Rath’s wife did not go there with them, Nasarenko said.

    Other friends and neighbors would meet there, too, he said.

    Podberesky said jurors needed to know what happened during an incident on May 7, 2018, to fully understand. That’s when Rath suffered a stroke-related event while at work and was rushed to Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, Podberesky said.

    In a meeting that day, he felt as though he was nauseous, he couldn’t talk, his vision was blurry and he couldn’t concentrate, Podberesky said. And she said jurors would hear all of those things from Rath himself.

    “He’s gonna testify in this case,” Podberesky said.

    Rath spent a few days in the hospital and lost 14 pounds, Podberesky said. He then spent the next several weeks at home recovering before heading out to a charity event on June 15, 2018.

    “It’s the first event he’s had any real significant amount of alcohol” since the May 2018 episode, Podberesky said. Since then he had been taking aspirin and Lipitor, she said.

    But Podberesky said Rath suffered another kind of episode. He felt a “sensation” and woke up the next day feeling confused and achy. His memory of the night was not all there, she said.

    During testimony, the woman’s husband said they called authorities to report the incident a few days later, but first told a few friends, including one who was at the house the night the alleged incident occurred.

    The trial is scheduled to continue Tuesday.

    July 9, 2019 at 4:04 am in reply to: a thread on systematic economic inequality #102788
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    Sorry ‘Washington Post’—Bernie Sanders Is Right About Economic Inequality
    The senator should not be taking heat for using “numbers that add up” to make a point about economic injustice.

    John Nichols

    https://www.thenation.com/article/washington-post-bernie-sanders-2020/

    Bernie Sanders has, for a very long time, been complaining about economic inequality in America. He has made it a theme of his speeches, his books, his congressional service and his presidential campaigning. During last week’s second Democratic presidential debate, no one was surprised when the senator from Vermont declared, “We have a new vision for America. And at a time when we have three people in this country owning more wealth than the bottom half of America, while 500,000 people are sleeping out on the streets today, we think it is time for change, real change.”

    This is where Sanders, a democratic socialist who has sometimes been accused of focusing too intensely on economic issues, is coming from. Voters can agree or disagree with the vision. But it is hard to disagree with the basic premise of the argument, which is based on facts and figures.

    Unless, apparently, you are a fact-checker for The Washington Post.

    Then, you can dismiss the argument that Sanders is making as “not especially meaningful.” That’s what the Post’s Glenn Kessler and his team did in an otherwise useful fact-checking of the second night of Democratic debating. Here’s how the complaint was presented:

    “Three people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of America”—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) This snappy talking point is based on numbers that add up, but it’s also a question of comparing apples to oranges. Sanders is drawing on a 2017 report from the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies, which said that three billionaires—Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos (who owns The Washington Post) and Warren Buffett—had total wealth of $248.5 billion, compared to $245 billion for the bottom 160 million of the United States. The wealth of the three men has gone up even more since then.

    But people in the bottom half have essentially no wealth, as debts cancel out whatever assets they might have. So the comparison is not especially meaningful.

    Kessler’s an experienced reporter who ably covered the State Department during the Bush-Cheney years and then wrote a fine book on the era, The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy. I’m not inclined to gripe about him or his colleagues as much as I am concerned the general failure of major media outlets to “get” the discussion of burgeoning economic inequality in America. Presidential candidates such as Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren know exactly what they are talking about when they raise this issue. They were on top of the story long before most of the media. Yet, they are often treated as if they are promoting dubious theories—even when they slather their statements in data.

    Case in point: the complaint about Sanders. The senator, we are informed, delivered a “snappy talking point,” which, despite the condescending tone of the assessment, is what candidates are expected to do in debates. The point was based on what are acknowledged to be “numbers that add up.” If anything, Sanders was circumspect in his assertion. As a savvy Post analyst, Christopher Ingraham. recently noted—in an article headlined, “Income inequality is rising so fast our data can’t keep up”—“Increases in wages at the top are outpacing economists’ ability to measure them.” With that said, however, Ingraham explained in February that “the available data paints a clear picture of broadening disparities between top earners and everyone else.”

    Around the same time, Ingraham ably examined research by University of California at Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman, which determined that “U.S. wealth concentration seems to have returned to levels last seen during the Roaring Twenties.”

    The concentration of wealth worries Sanders, as it does a lot of Americans—many of them Democrats, but also more than a few Republicans; many of them democratic socialists, but even some of the same rich people referenced by the senator. (As a column published last year by the Post explained, “The pope has deplored it. It’s shifted Chinese economic goals and helped fuel populist political movements around the world. Even some of the world’s billionaires fear what might happen if it continues to rise.”)

    So what made this particular presidential contender’s debate statement so meaningless? We are informed that the problem with what Sanders said is that a staggeringly high percentage of Americans have “essentially no wealth.” While three very rich people have stockpiled hundreds of billions of apples and oranges (or, if we are going to be precise, the resources to buy all the fruit and housing and education and health care and luxury goods they could ever want), roughly 150,000,000 Americans are having a hard time accumulating apples, oranges, and the money to send their kids to college and pay their insurance premiums and deductibles.

    That, of course, is the point that Sanders has been making. Far from being meaningless, it goes to the very heart of a discussion that the Post’s news and opinion columns suggest must be addressed. It is by comparing the numbers, which add up, which are so scant for the many and so great for the few, that Sanders, Warren, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan, Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and a growing number of political leaders have led millions of Americans to understand that “inequality” is another word for “injustice.” And this injustice is meaningful for all of society.

    July 9, 2019 at 3:55 am in reply to: signs, comics, memes, & other visual aids #102787
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    July 9, 2019 at 3:50 am in reply to: the one-shot tweets thread (diff'rent stuff, funny angry interesting) #102786
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    Meet the Press@MeetThePress
    There is literally no Democrat who … is Joe Biden’s age, who was active in the ’70s and ’80s, who would not have these problems. Bill Clinton … talked about William Fulbright being his mentor,” @jonahNRO says about the pushback on Biden working w/ segregationists #MTP

    John Nichols@NicholsUprising
    If I’m not mistaken, @BernieSanders, who I believe is a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, was active in the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s, serving as the mayor of his state’s largest city, seeking state and federal office, and does not have these problems.

    July 8, 2019 at 10:21 pm in reply to: Donald #102781
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    July 8, 2019 at 10:17 pm in reply to: tweets & other bits … 7/5 thru 7/8 … (including a good VB Q&A) #102780
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    July 8, 2019 at 10:02 pm in reply to: tweets & other bits … 7/5 thru 7/8 … (including a good VB Q&A) #102779
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    Blaine Grisak@bxgrisak_SID
    Rams TE @BrookerRomello said pre-draft that the most difficult player that he faced last season was @dakota_allen40 and now they’re on the same team. Will be rooting for them both.

    Cameron DaSilva@camdasilva
    Some of y’all are out here acting like Todd Gurley’s leg is just going to fall off in Week 3
    Arthritis is bad but he isn’t suddenly going to become a 500-yard backup RB

    Mike Winchell@mrmikewinch
    Hard to believe Cooks is still that young. Think of all he’s accomplished already.

    Cameron DaSilva@camdasilva
    He has four 1,000-yard seasons, has made two Super Bowls and played four three different teams.

    And he’s only 25.

    ==

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