Some funny stuff here ...

Again, a thorough breakdown of everything we learned this week from practice and interviews ...

Saul Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals that most people cannot grasp large numbers, and thus most of the voting public is innumerate and effectively mathematically illiterate (ie PanamaSteve):

“The moment one gets into the area of $25 million and above, let alone a billion, the listener is completely out of touch, no longer really interested, because the figures have gone above his experience and almost are meaningless. Millions of Americans do not know how many million dollars make up a billion.” (ie PanamaSteve)…

This post has great faith in you. Nonetheless, for a little perspective:

• $1 million dollars: Roughly the average annual salary of a mid-range long snapper in the NFL.
• $1 billion dollars: Roughly the estimated value of an average-quality National Hockey League franchise.
• $1 trillion dollars: Roughly the gross domestic product, or total value of all goods and services produced in a year, in the state of Florida.

Got it? For shorthand, a million’s a guy, a billion’s a sports franchise, and a trillion’s a big and populous state.

I am looking for 4 tickets together to the SC / Utah game. I will be taking a good friend and his son, along with my SC roommate, and I'm looking for good seats. Has anyone been in the Club seats and is it worth the extra money? Also, if anyone has tickets to unload, please let me know. Thanks!

Does MarShawn Lloyd remind you of anyone and what's his ceiling of potential?

"Yeah, he’s, he’s a good player. We liked his tape a lot when he chose to get in the portal, we were aware of him when he came out of high school. He’s a little – I’m trying to think of somebody I’ve had that I can compare him to. He reminds me of a few of the running backs that we had back at Texas Tech. He’s not an incredibly obviously tall guy, but he’s compact. (TV PEOPLE DON’T KNOW HOW TO MUTE THEMSELVES)

(lincoln laughs) "Alright. Um, boy, I gotta try to stay focused after that. So yeah, explosive. Really, really explosive. The kind of compact explosiveness really, really shows with him. He’s a little faster I think than a few of the guys we’ve had. A couple of times he’s been able to get the ball to the edge and really, really go. SO far, he’s off to a good start. I do think he’s got a high ceiling, he can still get a whole, whole lot better. We’re really working to – he carries the ball well, he’s starting to get more comfortable with our schemes and find his patience, which with fast guys, that’s typically, it’s kind of the double-edged sword, you kind of gotta know when to use it. So he’s gaining that and I think the other parts of his game, as a receiver, a pass protector, all that are coming along so we’re really working hard to develop the entire player. I do think he’s got a high ceiling. I think he can be a high, high level back if he continues to grow."

Where have you seen Brenden's biggest improvement?

"I would say route running, he’s a very confident route running right now and his routes are more consistent. He, last year, we thought he was pretty raw coming in and last year, he got to the point where a lot of his reps were really good, but there was too much kind of variety, too much like, man, great route here and the next one just OK. Whether you’re the coach, whether a coach, play caller, whether you’re the quarterback, when you have guys where sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s not, it’s hard to know, like, which one am I relying on. I thought he started to grab some consistency at the end of the year and I think with that our confidence level has gone up in him and he’s just built on it. I told you before, he’s a great practice player, he practices really, really hard, all the time and because of that, he just gets better and better so yeah, I think he’s confident, I think he’s playing really consistent, fast and he’s been very reliable in terms of being where he’s supposed to be all the time and with that, our confidence has grown and he’s making a lot of really good plays."

What stands out about the relationship between Zachariah and Zion branch, and how is Zion developing?

"Yeah, for sure. On their closeness, they’ve got a unique, a very special relationship. You can tell. I’ve had guys that are brothers and this and that and they’re close, but these guys are brothers and also best friends. You can just tell. They are very supportive of one another. They’re kind of always in each other’s ear. If one of them doesn’t make a play, the other one’s there pushing them or encouraging them or if one of them makes a play, the other one’s the most excited on the field for them. They are really, really tight. When they get matched up in practice against one another, it’s competitive, I'd say respectfully competitive. I’d probably stir it a little bit more, like if Zion beats him in a one-on-one, I’ve a couple times, made reference to their next Thanksgiving meal and how Zion’s going to be telling the whole family how he just dominated him on the last rep so we have some fun. I’ve messed with Zach some, he drops a ball, runs a bad route, like that's alright, I’ll get Zion over here to do it, don’t worry about it. We have some fun on the field with that. Yeah, for them, you can tell they are like each other’s biggest fan and biggest supporter and probably inspiration so extremely close.

"And then to Zion, yeah, I think we’ve got a handful of guys that are kind of right on that threshold of being able to play more and more, enough that they're in the two-deep right now, not close enough yet that they’re a regular rotation guy, just kind of right in that middle spot and that’s where Zion is right now today. Is he far away from being a guy that you would put in every game? No. And he’s obviously had a role for us on special teams for us as well, but I think defensively, not far off. Like a lot of young guys, battling for the consistency. Similar to the comment about Brenden Rice earlier, his good is really, really good. He’s had some fantastic, physical plays, plays on the ball, just had to get a little bit more consistent within his job and as you do that, the trust level goes up and their opportunities increase. So he’s gaining on it. It’s not a matter of if, it is truly the matter of, it’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of time until it does and he’s gotta keep working hard to close the gap, which he will."

Interviews today are Josh Henson, Caleb Williams, Justin Dedich, Tahj Washington, and Brenden Rice.

Some notes from our viewing period:
- Calen Bullock was returning punts during the warm-up portion of practice so that interesting.
- Majority of our viewing period the linebackers, cornerbacks, and safeties were working primarily on pass coverage. Usually we only see their basic practice drills.
- The linebackers went against some freshman lineman during block shedding drills and the one rep that caught my eye was not a good one. Eric Gentry was driven back about 5 yards going against freshman Micah Banuelos. Hopefully that was just one bad rep because that is a horrible look.

Come on guys, he had 5 TD’s last night. Completed 65% of his passes and 322 yard passing! You guys are getting a little out of hand with your expectations! You guys would cut off a nut to have next years starting QB to have 1 game like this next year!!

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman wants to forgive all school lunch debt

Along with Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Peter Welch, the rising Democratic star introduced a life-changing bill that would cancel student lunch debt across America.

Astonishingly, there are 30 million children in the United States — the wealthiest nation in the history of the world — who cannot afford their school meals. As a result, they're forced into debt that adds up to a staggering $262 MILLION a year. The bill would direct the United States Department of Agriculture to pay for all debts owed to school for lunch or breakfast programs.

Unfortunately, it faces an uphill battle in the GOP-controlled House, which really should tell you all you need to know about the utterly mercenary and depraved Republican Party.

But now, it's not just Shapley claiming that. The House Ways and Means Committee has an email from Assistant United States Attorney Lesley Wolfsaying that any reference to "Political Figure 1" (Joe Biden) in the search warrant had to be removed.

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This sounds encouraging:

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I had gotten the sense from conversations I had that there was still hope for Bronny to play this season. We'll see how it progresses.

FBI refuses to release documents in probe into possible nationwide voter registration fraud​

The FBI took over a 2020 probe into voter registration fraud that began in Michigan but has denied a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the investigation, citing an exemption in that law regarding ongoing investigations.

According to the dozens of pages of police reports from the Muskegon Police Department and Michigan State Police, a firm called GBI Strategies was under scrutiny as an organization central to alleged voter registration fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The matter was initially investigated by city and state authorities before the FBI took over.

Contacts between local law enforcement and the FBI continued into 2022 but there is no evidence of what happened after that in the memos obtained by Just the News through requests made under Michigan's own Freedom of Information Act.

Last week, the FBI denied a Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts request from Just the News regarding records from the investigation into GBI Strategies.

The request sought “copies of all reports, documents, and records about GBI Strategies, including all communication and correspondence regarding investigations of GBI Strategies with Michigan government officials, city and state law enforcement agencies in Michigan, and all other state government officials and law enforcement agencies involved in investigations of GBI Strategies.”

The FBI’s response partially reads: “The material you requested is located in an investigative file which is exempt from disclosure.”

Tuberville: ‘Our military is not an equal opportunity employer’​

Despite reality, GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville declared, “Don’t give me this stuff about equal opportunity, because that’s not what this military is about.”


Sept. 27, 2023, 9:37 AM CDT
By Steve Benen

Broadly speaking, Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s troubled career on Capitol Hill has been defined by two serious problems. The first, of course, has been the Alabama Republican’s willingness to undermine his own country’s military by imposing a blockade on efficient confirmation of military nominees.

The second has to do with race: Tuberville has disputed the racism of white nationalists and presented an unsubtle argument that “inner city” school teachers are lazy and possibly illiterate.

Once in a while, however, the far-right senator’s problems intersect. Bloomberg reported:

US Senator Tommy Tuberville said he objected to efforts by a top military official to recruit and promote racial minorities in the armed forces, saying equal opportunity threatens military readiness. “Let me tell you something. Our military is not an equal opportunity employer,” the Alabama Republican said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power” Tuesday.

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No, really, that’s what he said.

As part of the same interview, Tuberville said he opposed Air Force Gen. Charles Brown Jr.’s nomination to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because, as the senator put it, the general has “some woke policies.” Asked for an example, the Alabaman said he’d heard Brown say “some things” about “race and things that he wanted to mix into the military.”

This was in apparent reference to the general noting that only 2% of Air Force pilots are Black, and recommending that the Air Force explore ways to add more diversity to the ranks.

This, evidently, led the senator to reject Brown’s nomination, though he was confirmed anyway.

But it was Tuberville’s latest comments about the military that seemed hard to believe. The Republican not only said the United States military “is not an equal opportunity employer,” as part of the same interview, he added, “Don’t give me this stuff about equal opportunity, because that’s not what this military is about.”

It’s entirely possible that Tuberville has no idea what “equal opportunity” means — the coach-turned-politician is still rather new to public service and federal policymaking, and he’s been confused about the details of his own tactics — but Bloomberg’s report added:

The US military has had an equal opportunity policy since 1948, when President Harry Truman signed an executive order desegregating the military and guaranteeing “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.” That order, 16 years before passage of the Civil Rights Act, was a significant force in the desegregation of US society.

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It’s worth noting from time to time that Senate Republicans thought it’d be a good idea to let Tuberville serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee. It’s hardly outlandish to think members should have a new conversation about whether it’s time to revisit this committee assignment.

For his part, Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina told Bloomberg Television that Tuberville is “the worst of the worst.”

As for the future of his blockade, the Alabaman appeared on Newsmax last night and said, “I’m not changing my mind; I’m not hurting readiness.” Actual U.S. military leaders keep trying to explain that he is, in reality, doing real harm to the armed forces, but Tuberville has apparently convinced himself that they’re wrong and he’s right.

In the same interview, the GOP senator boasted anew, “In terms of wokeness in the military, I singlehandedly am going to fight this by not letting admirals and generals be able to be promoted.”

There’s been some talk on Capitol Hill about how best to circumvent Tuberville’s holds in the interest of national security. Don’t be too surprised if those discussions start picking up steam in the coming days and weeks.

Trump Doesn’t Have Enough Cash to Pay Huge Fraud Damages: Michael Cohen​

LIQUIDITY CRISIS

William Vaillancourt​

Updated Sep. 26, 2023 11:13PM EDT / Published Sep. 26, 2023 11:11PM EDT

Trump’s former lawyer said on CNN that Tuesday’s legal developments have “long been in the wait.”

CNN
Michael Cohen, who alleged during a 2019 congressional hearing that his former boss, Donald Trump, inflated his assets to obtain favorable tax breaks, predicted that Trump will end up on the hook for much more than what New York Attorney General Letitia James is asking for in her fraud case against him.

That case went into overdrive Tuesday when a judge ruled that Trump, his executives, and his heirs were liable for “persistent and repeated fraud.”

During an interview on CNN Tuesday night, Cohen said the news “has long been in the wait.” While James is seeking a $250 million penalty, Cohen predicted on The Source that Trump will ultimately have to pay at least $600 million when taking into account “interest and penalty.” Cohen also claimed that Trump “does not have that liquid cash available in order to pay that off.” When asked by anchor Kaitlan Collins whether Trump is able to pay that amount, Cohen simply replied, “No.”

With brutal court ruling, Trump’s legal troubles reach new heights​

Donald Trump has now been caught overseeing a fraudulent charity, a fraudulent "university," and a business that repeatedly committed fraud.


Sept. 27, 2023, 7:00 AM CDT
By Steve Benen

Donald Trump’s “university” proved to be a fraudulent operation, and during his White House tenure, the Republican was required to pay $25 million to his former “students” — a first-of-its-kind payment for a sitting American president.

Also while in office, Trump’s charitable foundation proved to be a fraudulent operation, which was forced to close its doors, and which led to a $2 million judgment after the evidence showed he repeatedly misused the ostensible charity for his own interests.

Completing the trifecta, a New York judge ruled that Trump’s business also committed repeated acts of fraud over the course of several years. NBC News summarized the findings this way:

According to the ruling, which allows the civil trial to begin next week, Trump lied to banks and insurers by both overvaluing and undervaluing his assets when it was to his benefit while exaggerating his net worth to the tune of billions of dollars. In his 35-page ruling, Judge Arthur Engoron said Trump continually lied on his financial statements and was able to get favorable loan terms and lower insurance premiums as a result. Trump’s legal arguments defending the statements are based in “a fantasy world, not the real world,” Engoron wrote.

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The report added that the ruling “would dissolve numerous limited liability companies, or LLCs, associated with Trump, including the Trump Organization LLC, an entity that’s been used to expand the Trump brand through use of his name.”

This seems like a good time to pause and take stock of the scope of the former president’s legal troubles.

Trump’s business, charitable foundation, and “university” were all found to have committed fraud.

Trump is facing federal criminal charges over his alleged post-defeat crimes.

Trump is facing federal criminal charges over his classified documents scandal.

Trump is facing criminal charges in New York over his hush-money-to-a-porn-star scandal.

Trump is facing criminal charges in Georgia over his alleged post-defeat crimes.

Trump was held liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, and a judge recently concluded that the former president, for all intents and purposes, “‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”

Trump is also facing several civil lawsuits filed by police officers injured during the Jan. 6 attack.

Despite all of this, the former president is the frontrunner for the Republican Party’s 2024 nomination, leading his next closest rival by roughly 40 points.

A look at how five-stars in the 2021 class are performing:

Fox Ignores Its Own Interview That Destroys Ukraine-Biden Conspiracy​

SEE NO EVIL

Justin Baragona​

Senior Media Reporter
Published Sep. 27, 2023 11:57AM EDT

Fox News​

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade’s interview with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, which largely demolishes a conspiracy theory at the center of the GOP’s impeachment case against President Joe Biden, has been completely ignored by the network.

During the sitdown, which aired on Saturday night, Poroshenko dismissed ex-Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokin as a “completely crazy person” who didn’t utter a “single word of truth” and “played [a] very dirty game.” This was in response to Shokin telling Kilmeade last month that “Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma” and accusing Biden of corruption. While Fox News devoted nearly three hours of airtime and 50 segments to discussing the Shokin interview, the right-wing channel has buried Poroshenko’s denouncement of Shokin’s allegations, despite the attention it received from mainstream media outlets.

According to Media Matters for America, the Poroshenko interview hasn’t been mentioned once on Fox since it aired, even though Kilmeade is a co-host of the three-hour morning show Fox & Friends, which spent 20 minutes on the Shokin interview.

amazing - during a Fox News interview w/ Brian Kilmeade, former president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko denounces Victor Shokin, who plays as a leading role in Kilmeade's conspiracy theories, as a "completely crazy person" & says "there's something wrong with him" as Kilmeade melts pic.twitter.com/MXedG1FmrB
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 25, 2023

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Trump Goes Off the Rails in Response to Devastating Fraud Ruling​

AJ McDougall​

Breaking News Reporter
Updated Sep. 26, 2023 9:54PM EDT / Published Sep. 26, 2023 7:53PM EDT

Scott Morgan/Reuters​

A judge ruled that Donald Trump and members of his inner circle were liable for fraud thanks to their efforts to systematically inflate property values while constructing his family’s real estate empire—and naturally, the former president is less than happy about the decision.

On Truth Social, Trump railed against the “new, un-American depths” to which the “radical attack” against him had sunk. Calling the judge “DERANGED” and New York Attorney General Letitia James “completely biased and corrupt,” Trump observed that the decision was “a terrible reminder that the Radical Left Democrats will stop at nothing in trying to prevent me, and the American people, from winning the 2024 Presidential Election.”

Mid-rant, Trump took an abrupt detour to grouse about the fact that the judge valued Mar-a-Lago at $18 million, “when in actuality, it could be worth almost 100 times that amount.” He followed up with another post incorrectly asserting that violent crime in New York is at “record levels,” adding: “Can you imagine ruling against me for having done business perfectly, and yet letting people go on a rampage on the sidewalks of New York?”

Following Tuesday night's bombshell report from Congressional investigators that Dr. Anthony Fauci was smuggled into CIA headquarters "without a record of entry" where he "participated in the analysis to "influence" the Agency's" Covid-19 investigation," it's worth revisiting claims made by former EcoHealth Alliance scientist, Andrew Huff,about the CIA's alleged connections to EcoHealth and Covid-19.

Hunter Biden used his Dad's Delaware home where classified documents were found strewn about the garage to receive more than $250,000 in Chinese wire transfers, according to the House Oversight Committee.

Trump’s fear of automatic voter registration boils down to a fear of democracy​

The former president is blasting the RNC for holding debates instead of getting on board with new election lies.


Sept. 27, 2023, 5:00 AM CDT
By Zeeshan Aleem, MSNBC Opinion Writer/Editor

Another day, another screed from the GOP’s leading White House hopeful about how democracy is such a drag.

Former President Donald Trump ranted Monday on Truth Social, his social media platform, that Pennsylvania’s recent adoption of automatic voter registration, or AVR, was “unconstitutional” and “a disaster for the Election of Republicans, including your favorite President, ME!” In the same post, Trump complained that the Republican National Committee should focus on suing the state over the policy instead of hosting “meaningless” presidential debates that he refuses to attend. That diatribe came a couple days after an all-caps-lock post about how “Obama and his radical left thugs” were behind the policy and how it was a “scam” designed to “steal Pennsylvania again.”

As usual, Trump’s messaging is brimming with lies.

As usual, Trump’s messaging is brimming with lies: The many desperate lawsuits after the 2020 elections produced no evidence of impropriety in vote-counting in Pennsylvania. Former President Barack Obama has nothing to do with Pennsylvania’s new policy. AVR, which exists in some form in 23 states and Washington, D.C., isn’t unconstitutional. And voter registration is not only not a scam but probably one of the most scam-proof ways imaginable to establish registration.

Pennsylvania’s AVR policy, which went into effect last week, automatically enrolls people when they’re at the DMV — exactly the time when people are required to have substantial proof of their identities. “Residents of our Commonwealth already provide proof of identity, residency, age and citizenship at the DMV — all the information required to register to vote — so it makes good sense to streamline that process with voter registration,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a statement.

This isn’t, as Republicans often fear-monger about, a policy that lowers the threshold for proving one’s identity when voting. The process confirms a voter’s identity as rigorously as any other, and it simply makes it easier for people to vote. In Pennsylvania, about 1.7 million people who are eligible to vote aren’t registered, and visits to the DMV are prime opportunities to get them into the system.



To Trump — and the Republican Party more broadly — the idea of a fully enfranchised citizenry is a threat. Making voting more accessible and smoother allows for increased voter participation, and given that an outsize proportion of low-resource voters skew Democratic, that potentially benefits Democrats more than Republicans. But some experts are skeptical that AVR will necessarily benefit Democrats in elections. Both red states and blue states have passed AVR policies, and in certain purple states the benefits to either party could be toss-ups. A study in Oregon published by the Center for American Progress found that demographics that tend to swing Democratic and Republican benefited from the state's AVR policy. The real reason to support AVR is to support little-d democracy in a country that makes voting far too difficult.

That Trump also complained that the RNC is daring to hold a presidential primary debate while he faces the crisis of Pennsylvania’s daring to make it easier to vote is yet another sign of his disdain for the democratic process. Yes, he’s the dominant GOP front-runner, and at this rate he’s extremely likely to secure the presidential nomination again. But Trump thinks the party machinery should pivot away from frivolities like debating the policy issues of the day and devote itself instead to supporting his next Big Lie.

In a proper democracy, no party or politician would fear AVR — it would be seen as a sensible, secure practice to encourage civic participation. But we don’t live in a proper democracy. And Trump’s fear of automatic voter registration boils down to a fear of democracy itself.