Mr.TaterSalad

Cutting Vaitai and finding a cheap replacement in the draft or via free agency is a smart move. We can match his production at half the price and I think he will be gone.

Inequality.Org: Ideology, Inequality, and the Safety Net

It isn't about Trump, it is about systemic racism and the systems of oppression that were created before Trump and compounded because of him and other bad political actors (including Democrats like Bill Clinton). When you have the kind of generational racism, bigotry, and oppression in this country that we have combined with the poverty people face down in America and our general hatred for helping others and giving people a handout when they are in need, you create a toxic environment that is ripe for the kinds of inner city violence we see in this country. Will TANF checks, housing vouchers, and Medicaid solve urban violence? No, not all at once and not immediately. But when you give people the types of public assistance that set them up for future economic equity and opportunities, you can begin to turn things around. When you put laws in place that push back on the structural racism and systems of oppression that we have had setup for generations in this country, you can begin to turn things around. When people have a fair economic opportunity and a means to get out of the despair they are in, you can turn things around. When you can mend broken homes and put family social structures in place that are supportive of applying yourself, working hard, getting a good education, treating yourself and others around you with compassion, dignity, and respect, will turn things around. Gutting social welfare programs instead of expanding opportunity safety nets, privatizing public schools, loosening gun laws, banning abortions, stifling economic opportunity, these aren't solutions that will help you climb out of the hole we are in. Better wrap around and support services intermixed with improved education, more economic opportunity, family support systems, gun control, these are tangible things that can work.

Let's set aside slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation for a minute and focus more on modern politics. If you do, you will still see that the United States is one of the least liberal countries of eastern/western democracies. We're barley even a democracy at this point. Beyond the fact that we have no universal healthcare we have elected leaders and their followers trying to gut social welfare programs at every turn and think society should be a survival of the fittest. They want, as Dr. King said, socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest of us. Beyond gutting social welfare, they want to strip away voting rights for people of color, immigrated people, and anyone who didn't vote for them. That's what January 6th was about. Not very welcoming to me. If you collect welfare in this country as a black woman you are called a "Welfare Queen" and derided as lazy and worthless for mooching off the system. As for the person who said that, Ronald Reagan, there is an almost divine like worship of that man and his policies in this country. Don't think Reagan was bad and unwelcoming enough, Bill Clinton called his bluff and did one better. He went out and not only had his racist Sista Soulja moment on national TV, but he proceeded to gut welfare and throw millions into extreme poverty all so he could win some race war to reclaim power for Democrats and himself. And then we come to the most heinous and criminal actor in modern day politics, that being Donald Trump. Trump and a large percentage of the population who voted for him wants these immigrated people to leave and "go back from where they came from." Trump's family separation policy wasn't exactly welcoming and neither are attempts to make English the official language or attempts to prohibit a n accurate teaching of history in America. All the people that routinely go around telling others to "go back to your own country" or "this is America, we speak English" don't seem welcoming to me. You mentioned the rise of far right parties in other countries. As opposed to what here? The Republican Party literally attempted an autocratic takeover of our electoral process and the White House. A lot of that was driven my resentment of people of color, immigrants and white people allegedly losing their standing and power in this country. We have a far right party like the ones in Europe you reference, it's called the Republican Party. For every Alexander Lukashenko, Marine Le Pen, Victor Orban, and Vladimir Putin in Europe we match them with Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert, Lauren Bobert, Sarah Palin, Gym Jordan, and on. We are off the fucking rails in this country. We aren't the welcoming country that we the Statute of Liberty says we are and we claim to be.

Canada and the US urban areas cannot be compared. Canada did not have segregation in the way the United States did. Separate, but equal, and Jim Crow-style oppression didn't exist in Canada on the scale it does here. Generations of racism, segregation, and oppression we inflicted on blacks and other persons of color is unmatched in Canada. Canada also doesn't have the level of poverty in their urban communities that we do in the States. Canada also doesn't have the problems with drug addition and substance abuse that we have in America. They also don't have a culture that celebrates guns more than people like we do. Canada also has far better public education systems in their urban areas with far fewer students coming from broken homes. The systems of oppressions that we setup here through slavery, Jim Crow, separate but equal laws, our arrest everyone policy on criminal justice, drug addiction, lack of mental healthcare, no universal healthcare, no preventative care, failing education systems, broken homes, don't exist at the scale they do in Canada. If we adopted preventative measures to fighting crime like early education, universal pre-k, parenting courses, substance abuse and recovery programs, drug decriminalization, better funded our public schools, mental healthcare programs, and other wrap around services, we could better stem the tide of urban violence. If we celebrated taking care of people and not guns, we could better stem the tide. Americans fucking hate helping people if it goes beyond opening a door for someone at a restaurant and they hate taking care of the collective and loving thigh neighbor. Our selfishness is second to none among the developed world and is only matched by our ignorance. We love the philosophies of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, objectivism, and individualism, even if we don't know who those people are. The American motto is if I pass a man on fire and I'm carrying a bucket of water with me, I have no moral obligation to pour it on him and put out the fire. The Statue of Liberty should really read forget your tired, forget your poor, forget your huddled masses, that's socialism. When we do help others or try to pass universal welfare programs (food assistance, healthcare, environmental protections, job/skills training, public education) the right and center of this country meltdown and start screaming about how we'll be turning into the USSR under Stalin or China under Mao as a result. They believe that AFDC, Obamacare, Medicare/Medicaid, Medicare For All, universal pre-k, Green New Deal or any other social welfare program are communist and socialist systems of oppressions. These are reasons why the Canadians and Swedes and Fins and Germans and Brits are all doing better than us and don't have the problems in urban communities we do with violence and drugs.

I don't want the Lions to burn a 1st through 4th round pick on a QB this year. However, if he's still there in the 5th round, I'd love to take a flyer out on the Ivy League QB from Brown EJ Perry. The Draft Network: EJ Perry Scouting Report

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy than Matt Patricia. What happened to that defensive guru?

I've hear a lot of people blame the $1,400 checks sent out as apart of the American Rescue Plan as the cause of inflation. I hear boobs like former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers saying that. I know you didn't mention it here and that's fair and fine. I just remind people that if Biden's $1,400 ARP stimulus caused inflation how bad would things have been if Trump had gotten the $2,000 checks he wanted to send out. I ask people who believe Biden's ARP checks caused inflation (not saying you do) if we would have gotten Zimbabwean levels of inflation if Trump had gotten his $2,000 stimulus checks passed.

SOL BABY! Now our Detroit Lions hold the longest active winless drought in the playoffs of any team in the NFL and one of the longest in professional sports in the US. What an honor to have.

I want the Bengals or Cardinals to win a Super Bowl so that I can continue laughing at the Ford's and their ineptitude. The more teams that finally get to or win a Super Bowl, the more we as a fanbase can shame the Ford's and criticize their terrible management. Don't get me wrong, I want this franchise to be one of those Super Bowl teams one day and win one in the worst way. The Ford's are the worst ownership group in sports and deserve all the criticism they earn.

I have a question for our conservative and Republican friends here. According to the Bank of England, the UK's central bank, inflation hit 5.1% in the month of December and is expected to rise to up to 6% by the spring. Do you blame Prime Minister Boris Johnson for that inflation just as you try to blame President Joe Biden here in the United States? What specific policies do you believe Boris Johnson implemented to cause that 5.1% inflation in the UK?

Brad Holmes and Steve Yzerman both figured out how rebuilds work. You have to bottom out and go down first to end up higher than you were before. The questions for Holmes now is can he break the 7-9/9-7 barrier of mediocrity that this team has been stuck up against before. With more draft capital and higher draft picks I feel confident that we're off to a good start from a player acquisition standpoint.

https://www.mediamatters.org/joe-rogan-experience/joe-rogan-wrapped-year-covid-19-misinformation-right-wing-myths-and-anti-trans Media Matters did a good job detailing a lot of the misinformation and lies that Rogan allows to be spread on his show or that he himself spreads. A good host would first off not peddle in lies and misinformation and would seek out the truth and would also be a fierce critic to those on their show that do spread misinformation.

MMA Interviewer Joe Rogan is a terrible host. He lets these conspiracy peddlers come on his show and he throws them softball questions and acts like he's so fascinated with all the bullshit they are spewing. Then, when someone like Zepps goes on his show and pushes back he's suddenly willing to question and push back.

I'll leave it be after this comment, but music and political activism have always been tied together, for better or for worse.

It's too bad the Beach Boys want to Make America Great Again too and played at a rally in support of Trump. I guess Brian Wilson and Al Jardine weren't happy about that, so there's that too.

Who the hell ever called it DTE Energy Music Theater anyways? It's always been Pine Knob. What was everyone's first concert at Pine Knob? Mine was Sharon, Lois, and Bram at a kid.

I hope Brit Hume tweets about why hasn't Trump been charged yet for tax evasion or election interference next.

I listened to his podcast where he was interviewing that woman who was a researcher on global civil wars. She basically called Trump an Ethnic Entrepreneur which I thought was appropriate. She drew comparisons between where we are at now thanks to Trump and where the new Serbia, the former Yugoslavia, was at under Slobodan Milosevic after the fall of the Iron Curtin. A frightening but accurate comparison to where we are heading. I'm not saying Trump is Milosevic, but the state of where we are at and the tactical ethnic approach that both Trump and Milosevic use is similar.

Right, combine that with higher prices everywhere and Biden and the Dems are doomed in 2022/24 if one or both don't turn around in a big way. It's a shame that we are on the brink of losing our democracy and people will vote Republican or stay, but that's what's going to happen if covid and inflation don't start falling.

That's what I was getting at to in my post. I think people felt that transmissions would be reduced if they got vaccinated, Covid would slow down, and normalcy would return as a result. Along with Covid still being prevalent, I think that's got people fatigued. The sense of normalcy hasn't returned like people thought it would.

He won 3 games and we've got people christening him like he's going to be Andy Reid because he took over play calling and won a few games. Look, I think there is no coach that could win with this roster. But let's pump the breaks on hyping him up like's an offensive genius or anything close. We went up to week 10 with people ready launch this guy out of a cannon and now he's suddenly he's a hero. If he hired Anthony Lynn than that failure is laid at his feet as a bad hire. If you hire the wrong coordinators and the team struggles as a result it's your fault for bringing that guy in.

Not that it matters, because the average voter will have zero recollection of it in the voting booth, but I would remind folks who want to blame the $1,400 stimulus checks that were apart of the ARP package that then President Trump in December of 2020 wanted to do $2,000 stimulus checks. So if Biden's $1,400 ARP checks caused all this inflation you have to think Trump's $2,000 checks would have caused Zimbabwean style hyperinflation. I just want to be fair and consistent, nothing more.

Covid is still going on and people naturally have Covid fatigue. The vaccines didn't give us a magic victory parade over Covid like some hoped and thought would happen. I think public health officials and the broader medical community created a false sense of hope that vaccinations would end the pandemic and stop people from getting Covid, even if it was never directly implied, I think a lot of people implicitly felt that way about getting a vax. Clearly they have not ended the pandemic. Inflation went up largely as a result of supply chain issues and a sudden rush in demand due to people having not spent a whole lot of money over the past year. It was also effected by tightening in the oil and gas market and the mass resignation of workers and the rise in wages that came with it. From publications I've read from the San Francisco Fed they said about .3% of inflation is attributed to the American Rescue Plan that Biden and the Democrats passed. So well some are hot to trot about blaming the ARP stimulus, I don't think it had as big an effect on inflation as partisan hacks want you to believe it did. The other problem for Biden is he and the Democrats bumbled their agenda and not only didn't get BBB passed, they looked like children fighting with each other all the while negotiating it. Democrats and the White House have done a terrible job messaging what's in BBB and an even worse job controlling their infighting during the negotiations. Combine that with the fact that nothing has passed yet, and it is certain to hurt the President's reputation along with all the aforementioned things. If inflation stays high through most of 2022 and doesn't start coming down in the next 4-6 months, if covid and these new antivirals don't start working better, and if some version of BBB with better messaging doesn't pass than the party and President are screwed.