Is instead of being able to celebrate another incredible game by Caleb Williams we are having to dissect and contemplate how are defense almost had another Tulane level meltdown. We literally have a generational talent in Caleb Williams and it is so infuriating that our defense sucks so bad. Crap this makes me so upset, I want to scream. We have now looked shaky on defense the majority of our games and it is frightening that we havent even played the top teams yet. It looks like we lack some conditioning and couple that with shaky coaching and yikes this season can easily go to hell once we get into the teeth of the schedule. Damn I am pissed.

Opinion

Republicans (rightly) panic. Good luck finding a viable alternative.​

By Jennifer Rubin
Columnist|Follow
October 1, 2023 at 7:45 a.m. EDT



The media obsession with finding fault with President Biden or fanning “but he’s too old” chatter (worse: “But he wears sneakers”) not only renders a disservice to voters facing an existential threat to democracy but also misses the real “they should be panicked” storyline: Republicans’ growing realization that the MAGA cult cannot be weaned from a candidate who might well be convicted in one or more criminal cases by Election Day 2024.

CBS News’s Robert Costa tweeted before the debate Wednesday: “Lots of angst tonight among my top GOP sources about this debate. Donors concerned. Flurry of texts. Questions about where this race goes from here. They wonder: Can anybody have a breakout moment? Meanwhile, Trump all but ignores the scene and shrugs off his indictments.”
Well, no one had a breakout moment.

Nervous Republicans are reduced to pleading with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to enter the race, but there’s no sign yet he would or, if he did, that he forcefully would attack former president Donald Trump or that others would drop out. In a Post Opinions essay on Thursday, Costa reported on a planned gathering of insiders next month. “It is the latest slapdash scheme in a long search for a standard-bearer and a portrait of the powerlessness so many Republicans feel as Trump plows ahead, shrugging off criminal indictments and outrage over rhetoric they fear is growing dark and dangerous.”

If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. In 2015, establishment Republicans never came up with an effective means of shoving Trump out of the way or finding a viable alternative. One Post headline: “Plan A for GOP donors: Wait for Trump to fall. (There is no Plan B.).”

Those pesky voters, inflamed by right-wing media and encouraged by desperate Republicans masquerading as populists, don’t seem to be interested in the views of establishment Republicans.

This is what comes from Republicans sleepwalking through the past seven years and refusing to dump Trump when multiple opportunities arose (e.g., the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, the second impeachment, the first or second or third or fourth indictment). It’s what comes from accommodating his tantrums, including provoking a government shutdown while running an impeachment inquiry (the first hearing of which was characterized by a number of Republicans as a disaster) even Republicans’ go-to legal hack Jonathan Turley threw cold water on. It’s what comes from placing hope in a Florida governor who is extreme, unlikeable and untested on the national stage.

In consistently normalizing Trump, refusing to debunk his lies and avoiding scrutiny of his abominable record (e.g., no coronavirus inoculation plan, a devastating recession, no border solution, no infrastructure deal, a horribly damaged national image), most Republicans, including the ones now panicked, effectively discouraged any competent, competitive and cogent alternative from jumping into the race.

Republicans are left with a putative standard-bearer who is increasingly incoherent (e.g. electric vehicles that zap you in water, windmills that kill whales, Jeb Bush’s Iraq War) and whose streak of legal losses suggest his criminal trials are far more formidable than his supporters imagine. The alternative is a list of challengers so hapless and unlikeable that the debates have come to resemble the “Star Wars” bar scene.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) suggested the Great Society was worse than slavery (revealing the MAGA movement’s desperation to rewrite history and reclaim victimhood for Whites); Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed the role of worst underperformer; and Nikki Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, spoke for millions when she told Vivek Ramaswamy, “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber.” None (not even Haley, who is the liveliest of the bunch) seems remotely willing or capable of taking on Trump with the most effective argument: He’s a fraud and a political and legal loser.

There might be no deus ex machina to save Republicans. Some Republicans are hoping Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp will enter the race. But there is no sign he’s pulling together a team. Moreover, the appetite for a governor who has expressly debunked Trump’s election lies might not find favor with the Republican primary electorate.

No wonder some GOP donors and right-wing hacks in the punditocracy are supporting No Labels, which promises to put a third-party candidate on the ballot. It might be the only way to divide the anti-Trump vote and allow Trump to squeeze into office. But then they and the rest of the country would be stuck with an unhinged, vengeful, incoherent, dangerous neo-fascist president. And deep down, I suspect not even they fancy that outcome.

Truth be told, there might be no solution to the GOP’s quandary. And that — not Vice President Harris, not Biden’s age, not premature polls and not pointless debates — should be the election campaign story. Instead, the media — like too many in the GOP base — pretend this is a competitive primary. Maybe the last debate debacle will convince them otherwise.

Trump wrote to-do lists for assistant on White House documents marked classified: Sources​

Molly Michael told investigators about the documents, according to sources.

ByKatherine Faulders, Mike Levine, and Alexander Mallin
September 18, 2023, 3:12 PM


One of former President Donald Trump's long-time assistants told federal investigators that Trump repeatedly wrote to-do lists for her on documents from the White House that were marked classified, according to sources familiar with her statements.

As described to ABC News, the aide, Molly Michael, told investigators that -- more than once -- she received requests or taskings from Trump that were written on the back of notecards, and she later recognized those notecards as sensitive White House materials -- with visible classification markings -- used to brief Trump while he was still in office about phone calls with foreign leaders or other international-related matters.

The notecards with classification markings were at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate when FBI agents searched the property on Aug. 8, 2022 -- but the materials were not taken by the FBI, according to sources familiar with what Michael told investigators.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/top-trump...-key-individual-classified/story?id=100452600
When Michael, who was not present for the search, returned to Mar-a-Lago the next day to clean up her office space, she found the documents underneath a drawer organizer and helped transfer them to the FBI that same day, sources told ABC News.

The sources said Michael also told federal investigators that last year she grew increasingly concerned with how Trump handled recurring requests from the National Archives for the return of all government documents being kept in boxes at Mar-a-Lago -- and she felt that Trump's claims about it at the time would be easy to disprove, according to the sources.

Sources said that after Trump heard the FBI wanted to interview Michael last year, Trump allegedly told her, "You don't know anything about the boxes."

It's unclear exactly what he meant by that.

Trump pleaded not guilty in June to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation's defense capabilities, and took steps to thwart the government's efforts to get the documents back. Trump has denied all charges and denounced the probe as a political witch hunt.

As ABC News previously reported, Michael is believed to be the person identified in special counsel Jack Smith's indictment as "Trump Employee 2," described in the indictment as someone who handled many of Trump's White House-era boxes at Mar-a-Lago and who provided Trump with photos of those boxes that were then included in the indictment.

Michael's statements to investigators, described to ABC News by sources, shed further light on the breadth of evidence that Smith has amassed to support his case against Trump.

A Trump spokesperson said that what ABC News was told -- through what the spokesperson called "illegal leaks" -- lacks "proper context and relevant information," and that "President Trump did nothing wrong, has always insisted on truth and transparency, and acted in a proper manner, according to the law."

A representative for Michael declined to comment to ABC News. The FBI also declined to comment.

'Easily' disproven​

In 2018, Michael became Trump's executive assistant in the White House, and she continued to work for him when Trump left office. But she resigned last year, in the wake of Trump's alleged refusal to comply with the federal requests and the FBI's subsequent search of Mar-a-Lago.


Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at the Monument Leaders Rally hosted by the South Dakota Republican Party, Sept. 8, 2023, in Rapid City, S.D.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Speaking to federal investigators, Michael recounted how, by late 2021, as many as 90 boxes of materials from Trump's time as president were moved into a basement storage room at Mar-a-Lago, and how -- as pressure from the National Archives mounted -- she and Trump aide Walt Nauta would bring boxes to Trump's residence for him to review.

Trump eventually agreed to turn over 15 boxes of materials, which Michael told investigators she viewed as a positive sign, sources told ABC News.

But then, according to what she told investigators, around the same time that the National Archives found nearly 200 classified documents in the 15 boxes and referred the matter to the FBI, Trump began to seem more reluctant to cooperate with the agency, and he asked Michael to help spread a message that no more boxes existed, sources said she recounted.

That's when Michael became concerned, knowing that scores more boxes were in the storage room, sources said. And as Trump continued to claim that there were no more boxes, Michael even pointed out to him that many people, including maintenance workers, knew otherwise because they had all seen that there were many more than 15 boxes, sources said she told investigators.

Smith's indictment against Trump alleges that Trump asked one of his attorneys at the time, "Wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here?"

Speaking later with investigators, Michael said she believed early on that claims of no more boxes from Trump were "easily" disproven, and she believed Trump knew they were false because he knew the contents of those boxes better than anyone else -- and because he had previously seen a photograph of the storage room with all 90 or so boxes in it, ABC News was told.

The Justice Department was apparently just as skeptical.

​

Hee Hee.

If my man does not cover the onside kick, WE LOSE….
simple as that.

Will set school records against our defense. Every game...some unknown emerges as "the best ever" against our D. What will 2 of the best QB's in college this year do to us??

Federal judge blocks Big Pharma attempt to halt Medicare's historic drug price negotiation championed by President Biden

After decades of Republican-backed obstruction, Medicare finally gained the power to negotiate drug prices last year — thanks to President Biden's historic Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — but profit-soaked industry groups and obscenely wealthy drug makers sued to forestall the program, arguing that it was unconstitutional to infringe on their rights to continue bilking Americans for tens of billions of dollars year after year. A federal judge on Friday slapped down their most recent disingenuous legal attempt to thwart price negotiations in a huge win for common sense and human decency. Elections matter, folks!

---

California governor signs law to bolster eviction protections for renters

Democratic Gov. and perennial adult in the room Gavin Newsom signed a badly needed new law bolstering eviction protections for renters and closing a loophole that allowed asshole landlords to circumvent the state’s rent cap, which was established to rein in runaway rent prices. The new law also allows the attorney general, local government, and renters to sue dirtbag landlords for wrongful evictions and illegal rent increases.

Fox News hosts snap on air, lose their shit over Taylor Swift in epic meltdowns

A gaggle of fearmongering morons tasked with telling breathless Fox viewers precisely what to hate next in America collectively lost their shit over — why not — Taylor Swift for...dating an NFL player and saying a curse word on TV? Seriously. Who listens to these people? Probably none of Swift's 273 MILLION Instagram followers, for starters.

Watch this and then I dare you to watch the whole commentary following. It nails it!

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Kevin McCarthy sets up GOP showdown after his Saturday surrender

After entering the weekend without a clear path to keep the federal government open, a badly weakened Speaker McCarthy called his own bluff and sided with marginally less fascist Republicans and sensible Democrats to avert a catastrophic shutdown, opening the door to an imminent no-confidence vote by radical, right-wing toddlers cosplaying as lawmakers in his own caucus.

Will Kevin survive? Who cares. The Republican Party is clearly incapable of governing, no matter which goon holds the gavel.

With just hours to spare, House Republicans and Democrats on Saturday struck a surprise deal to fund the government for another 45 days and avert a shutdown that would have inflicted economic pain on millions of American families. The GOP-drafted funding bill includes billions in disaster aid but none of the new Ukraine aid Democrats had pushed for.

McCarthy’s decision to pass a continuing resolution with Democratic votes doesn’t bode well for his political future, given that conservative bomb-thrower Rep. Matt Gaetz has been threatening for weeks to call a vote on McCarthy’s speakership if he brought a CR to the floor. All eyes are now on Gaetz to see if he will follow through with his threat.

While the countdown clock to a government shutdown loomed over America’s head all week, House Republicans added an embarrassing chapter to the Biden impeachment saga with their first hearing Thursday. Those proceedings featured six hours of muddled, scattershot, and baseless conspiracy theories, united opposition from Democrats, comically ill-prepared witnesses, and grumbling from within Republican ranks at a missed opportunity.

It was also a very bad week for twice-impeached, quadruple-indicted former president Trump, who kicked off the week by almost accidentally committing (another) a felony during a campaign stop in South Carolina.

He followed that up by posting a morally reprehensible death threat against the most senior military official in the U.S. Department of Defense, retiring Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley. Amid that fallout,

Opinion​

​

If anyone should be worried about Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce, it’s Trump​

By Rick Reilly
Contributing columnist
September 29, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT




I know it’s a little confusing. I know some of you are against it. But if you just think about it, the megamerger of football god Travis Kelce and pop goddess Taylor Swift — “K-Tay,” as I call them (patent pending) — actually makes a lot of sense.

They both love earrings, love to dance at work and can bring a stadium of 75,000 people to its feet.

They’re both 33, blue-eyed- and have perfect Colgate smiles. When they hurt, they “shake it off.” They both love catchy things — he, footballs; she, tunes.

They’re both at the top of their games and at the top of the tax brackets (although Travis’s $30 million looks a little puny next to Tay Tay’s $740 million.)

With one big difference: Kelce’s goal every year is to go to the Super Bowl (he’s won two) and Swift’s goal is not to go. She reportedly turned down NFL offers to do both the 2023 and 2024 halftime shows. As a make-good, she just handed the league tens of millions of new fans.

Both of these performers are absolutely indispensable to their teams. Kelce is football’s best tight end, and when he’s not in Kansas City’s lineup — as happened with the Chiefs’ opening loss to Detroit — their Superman quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, suddenly looked like the dry cleaners lost his cape. She’s the centerpiece of the 117-performance, 90-truck, record-smashing worldwide Eras Tour that would screech to a stop without her.

Before Swift turned up last Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium with Kelce’s mom, the only place Swifties and NFL maniacs might cross paths would be at the DMV. But now that glitter and goal posts have collided, here’s a little of what each side should know about the other.

Kelce: If this 6-5, 250-pound tight end keeps it up, he could go down as the greatest player at his position to ever put on a chinstrap. Kelce already has the most receiving yards in a season by a tight end, the most touchdowns in the playoffs by a tight end, and he’s the first person to ever wear a suit that looked like it’d been in an explosion at a Benjamin Moore factory.

Swift: She’s a 5-10 hit-monster in crystal-studded Louboutins. She has the most No. 1 albums by any woman in history, is about to break the record for the biggest-grossing concert tour ever and owns the record for crumpling famous boyfriends.

Oh, and the day after the breakup, she’ll have a No. 1 song out about it. There’s been Harry Styles (“I Knew You Were Trouble”), Joe Jonas (“Better Than Revenge”) and John Mayer (“Dear John”). I’ve already written her breakup song for Kelce. Here’s how it goes …

We just can’t fix this
A mess that can’t be mopped
You may have perfect hands
But this time you got dropped

Kelce is not exactly a wallflower. He’s the only man I know who’s dated women from all 50 states. That was the premise of a 2016 reality show called “Catching Kelce.” He wound up choosing Kentucky, though that needs an asterisk, since Guam, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia were cruelly excluded.

I love when universes collide like this in America: Marilyn Monroe (film) and Joe DiMaggio (baseball), Lindsey Vonn (skiing) and Tiger Woods (golf), Madonna (pop music) and Dennis Rodman (bridal wear).

Okay, none of those worked out, but this one has a chance because Taylor’s favorite number is 13 (she sometimes paints it on her hand) and Travis’s is 87 (his jersey), and that equals 100.

Besides, I want K-Tay to stick for one very good reason: They’re both loathed by right-wingers. She, for openly standing up against Donald Trump and for abortion rights. He, for appearing in coronavirus vaccine ads and taking a knee during the national anthem, the highest-profile White NFL player to do so.

In fact, if anybody should be worried about K-Tay, it’s Trump. These two have fan bases that are huge and devoted. Just from Swift attending that single Chiefs game, Kelce’s merchandise sales jumped 400 percent. Swift put out one Instagram story last week urging her fans to register to vote, Vote.org reported, and participation on the site jumped 1,226 percent in the next hour.

Between X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and Facebook, she has around 450 million followers (Kelce has “only” about 5 million). What if they decided a fun couples thing to do would be to … I don’t know … save democracy? K-Tay could stir up voters, from homecoming queens to assisted-living grandpas, from Castro Street to Wall Street, and rock polling places the way they rock stadiums.

That might be something even Trump couldn’t shake off.

Another rough week for most of our GTSers. This one wasn't nearly as bad as ASU or a Grinch defense, but there were some ugly scores out there. Overall, a few pickers were wise enough to fade the Grinch D and put up some pretty good results. @cramwetzel led the way and gets his second win of the year (this one solo) with a 3 point variance, just barely edging out @prime88 who had a 4 pointer. @Larr212121 , @remc and @HI50trojan rounded out the top 5 as the only other ones in single digits. Things escalated from there pretty quickly. @Kylerkeener had the most entertaining guess of the year with a 6-3 final score and a solid write up. Unfortunately we are all dumber for having read it, I award him no points, and may God have mercy on his soul.

As for the season standings, we are still very early with 2 drops out of 5 factoring in, but things are starting to shape up a little bit now. @cramwetzel jumps to the top with his second win, followed by @remc and perennial powerhouse @Jack53 .

Next week should be a big spread again, so expect more fireworks. Who has the guts to guess Zona putting up a 50 spot??

Bryson Shaw with an impassioned defense of Alex Grinch, which he also did last year.

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On the brighter side….

Duke 14-13
4:00 4th

Duke has the ball driving near FG range…..

I did see some whiffs and a missed tackle or 2 but he played good ball today. 13 tck, 2 TFL, 1 PBU

Is averaging 2.3 yards per carry VS Cal.
Go figure!!

UGA aint all that this year…..

What do you guys think. Riley's offenses at Oklahoma were some of the best but could never win the big game. Watching the game this morning was painfull in many ways. I guess I should take away the positive that we just won two road games in hostile environments. This defense really worries me is all I'm saying. The offense is doing a great job.

FIRE Everybody!
LOL.

Net Rushing Yards:

vs. TCU - 55
vs. Neb - 58
vs. Colorado State - 70
vs. Oregon - 40

Anyone believe Grinch's defense can hold the Buffs to less than 100 yards rushing??

Thank you, Donald! You and Vladi have quite a thing going

Whacha got?