ctt8410 said:

Fair enough. Sounds like your expectations are higher than mine. I agree the schedule is a disaster and Konkol’s politician answers about it don’t give me hope that it will improve in the future. Despite what they say publicly, it’s not currently a program acting like it aspires to at-large bids. But for a team that won 15 games last year and lost its best player, I thought they looked good.

We knew interior defense/rebounding would be a major weakness and it doesn’t help that skinny Reed kinda stinks right now. But we turned them over and did a nice job of converting those into points. On offense, it’s hard to complain about much outside of Carrington’s shot selection and everything McWright does.

But presumably Willis will play more than 18 minutes and Odom more than 21 in competitive games. And while Garcia isn’t a savior, his size is what this team desperately needs. After the exhibition game, I didn’t see a path to 20 wins. Now I do. Whether that’s an actual accomplishment is up to the reader, I suppose.

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ctt8410 said:

“I saw it somewhere at some point and haven’t bothered to look” should be the tagline of this board and explains so much.

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TulsaRulzOSUdrools said:

I will be quite a butthead to the professional athlete PJ haggerty if he shows up at the Reynolds center. This is not a child or student this is an adult with a professional contract that embarrassed us. He deserves special treatment.

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TulsaRulzOSUdrools said:

You're right ? We should have let Israel completely level Ramala and take the West Bank. It is some pretty sick what has taken place there. Bibi has no plan.

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TulsaRulzOSUdrools said:

You're right ? We should have let Israel completely level Ramala and take the West Bank. It is some pretty sick what has taken place there. Bibi has no plan.

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lawpoke87 said:

lol. I can’t remember a bigger economic miscalculation than not recognizing the inflationary pressures and then attempting to dismiss them as transitory. Injecting amother trillion dollars into a system already experiencing labor and material shortages was brilliant. When a dumb real estate attorney can see it but the leaders of our country can’t we have a serious problem with those running our economic policy. At least Yellen finally admitted the error I suppose.

Foreign policy under Biden was a disaster as well but that’s a much longer discussion. Explains his 40% approval rating when it comes to foreign policy I suppose.

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astonmartin708 said:

Uh… Reed was a starter? Lol

McWright didn’t just play in scrub time either (and he has 2 years of previous observation)

I didn’t just mean to criticize. Odom, Barnes, Archie, and Willis have been awesome. I will feel a lot better when we get Garcia back and he is in game shape. I feel like this team could potentially have 20 wins with a healthy Garcia and the 4 I mentioned playing 24-28 mpg. Also glad to see Amadi on the floor. Smikle continues to be in front of where I anticipated.

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TulsaRulzOSUdrools said:

We have crossed so many supposed red lines by Putin. The Russians are so full of junk in their supposed red lines. The have no response.

Ukraine has held off the Russians with the most part with weak help. They lost lots of ground while the republicans doddled around and bent over to lord Donald.

The Europeans have woken up that we are propably not in on the Future. America is showing signs of abandoning the world stage under Trump and the rest of the world knows it.

If we don't have the stomach for a fight with no American lives on the line against Putin, Xi knows we have no stomach for a fight over Taiwan. None. Zero. We have zero credibility.

Trump doesn't care about the outcome for Ukrainians, europe, nato or the European Union. He thinks it is some kind of zero sum game with the Americans not being able to play with the Russians. He would prefer to be able for himself to have access to Moscow hotel investments that give the Ukrainians freedom or what that could mean for American investments and what it represents for future. It is some sick stuff.

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Chris Harmon said:

I'm not a Trump fan at all, but I did live through is first presidency. Democracy didn't end. So I guess that's what I'm basing it on.

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Chris Harmon said:

Of course it was concerning. I didn't like it, but our legal system does allow a process of challenging election results, and once his legal team exhausted those avenues, it was pretty much done. After that, he wasn't claiming he was still president or that Biden wasn't the president. And I don't like that he was still mentioning four years later that he thinks it was stolen from him, but everyone's entitled to their opinion I guess. I wish he'd keep that opinion to himself.

The January 6th riot was foolish and ridiculous, but I was never concerned that the group of people involved was somehow going to overthrow the government.

To answer your question. No, I don't personally fear that democracy in our country is at risk. I just don't see a basis for it, regardless of who won the election. Our Constitution instituted the proper checks and balances to keep any one person or one branch of government to be too powerful.

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HuffyCane said:

Good post. I would only add that the 25th amendment is the product of the Cold War. A time when we were hyper focused on national unity and all in agreement that the President should be hyper vigilant every second of his term on the defense of the country.

We appear to have lapsed into a malaise where it really isn’t important to project strength and unity from the Oval Office. America, including our leaders in Congress, seems quite comfortable not knowing who the hell is in charge as long as Social Security checks get mailed.

So since the 25th Amendment requires the Cabinet to initiate removal, and they will all potentially lose their jobs if they do, as will around 3,000 of their subordinates who will remain in politics and hate them for the rest of their careers, it appears going forward that unless a President is frequently totally incapacitated, but only temporarily, as Ike was, the 25th is a dormant clause now. Which is alarming.

Because it begs the question of whether Biden was totally incapacitated at times as Wilson was, and we never knew it.

I’m very curious to see if the dam ever breaks and we get a tell all book alleging the extent of his dementia and when it became obvious. It was a federal crime to hide it if it was hidden. I suspect we will have to wait until the statute of limitations runs before we know what really went on.

But as most people who have gone through this with loved ones know, the bottom can fall out in days or weeks for some folks, not slow decline over years.

Which might be more troubling, if the plan in advance was to elect him then have him resign if the bottom truly did fall out after it was too late to change.

I was watching an ex Obama advisor raging on Thursday that Biden was the worst President in history. His only goal was to stop Donald Trump. And Biden claimed he was the only one who could do it. And ultimately he was the cause of Trump’s return. He had one job and let his ego get in the way was the argument. Not sure I agree with that, but I found the melt entertaining.

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