Mr.TaterSalad

When there will be better QBs in next years draft, Bryce Young and CJ Stroud, there is just no need to trade draft capital to get a (perceived) lesser QB in this year's draft. I'd hate to lose a 2nd round pick just to move up for someone inconsistent like Malik Willis or Sam Howell or a one year wonder like Kenny Pickett.

His second round pick doesn't look like a complete waste of space. So by drafting Onwuzurike and him having thus far looked like a football player and not a dud, he's a step ahead of Quinn. It's great to see everyone has been a contributor, even if being a a generationally bad team forced everyone into playing time.

Yep! Not only did people on the right call them crisis actors, I saw this meme being WIDLEY shared on social media in the aftermath of several different mass shootings.

Life throws things at you and it gives you choices. How could I sit there and watch my dad lose his home and literally live off of government-sponsored programs and still go on about the very programs keeping him subsisting. The other thing that was really important for me was getting outside the echo chamber of libertarian/right wing media and the group think that comes along with any ideology or form of indoctrination. The echo chamber effect hurts people on both sides of the aisle and cuts through all political ideologies to be sure. That said, the amount of misinformation, disinformation, straight up lies, and meaningless anecdotes that seem to get spread in the right wing/far right echo chambers seems to be far worse and far more damaging to the individuals exposed to it than those on on the left/far left. Getting out of the echo chamber and allowing myself to gather news and information from a new host of sources, allowing myself to go out there in the real world and see how others live, those were important for my own personal growth and ability to make different choices. When you watch Fox News/OAN every single night, read Breitbart articles, and listen to right wing talk radio all day you aren't doing your own research and information gathering, you are merely regurgitating what you heard or saw that day without any critical thinking involved. The same can be said if you sit around and watch MSNBC, Vice News, read the New York Times, and listen to Pod Save America. The key difference that even though these news sources (MSNBC, NYT, Vice, Pod) may get details incorrect from time to time or offer a slanted opinion on something, they aren't outright lying or manufacturing a story to drum up fear or fake outrage. I'm somewhat of a unique case in that I did escape the right wing/libertarian echo chamber. Thanks to years of Republican misinformation, Trump, Fox News, right wing talk radio, social media, attacks on academia and school teachers, cuts to public education, and a lack of critical think skills being taught in schools many will be unable to escape. It's a phenomenon that is dragging this entire country down. On a global scale you've seen entire countries like Belarus, Hungry, Russia, and Poland across Eastern Europe get drug into the same far right vortex.

Remember when right-wing media and Republicans mocked the kids that survived the Parkland school shooting.

Let me tell a family story before I dive into answering the rest of your question. In the picture above is my mom's brother, my uncle. My uncle suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. He is 64 now and has had the diagnosis since he was discharged from the Army at age 22. He was in and out of psych hospitals and on and off medication for a period of approx. 25 years between the late 1970's and around the year 2001. In 2001 my mom's dad, my grandfather passed away, and ever since then something clicked in my uncles mind and he's been better about taking his medication, he's received injectable medication once a month, and has been a responsible member of society, living his best life. For the 20 years prior to 2001, his life was a mess. The only reason he wasn't homeless during that time period is because he had VA benefits from the Army that gave him money to subsist and because people like my mother, chased every mental health professional and social worker in the State of Michigan around to ensure her brother had a place to live. When he was doing ok and on his medication he'd go stay at my grandfather's house. When he was off his medication and in a state of paranoia or delusion or having an episode, he'd have to get kicked out of the house because he'd get angry, aggressive, belligerent, unstable, and violent. He threatened suicide on a couple of different occasions and also threatened violence against others in his family living in my grandfather's household, most notably my grandfather himself, his older sister who lived there and his younger brother who lived there. He used to pace the hallways at night with a baseball bat, knife, lead pipe, whatever he could get his hands on, forcing my family to have to barricade their doors at night time just to hide from him. Guess what, like a bunch of irresponsible morons, my grandfather, grandmother, and aunt who all lived over at the house owned guns. A house full of people ranging from a child with my aunts son on up to my grandparents owned guns with a mentally ill and unstable person living with them. One day, back in the mid-1980s, while my one of my mom's other sisters was up visiting from the Atlanta area, my uncle had a violent episode at my grandfather's house right in front of everyone living their, including my visiting aunt. He came up from the basement, where his temporary room was at, and had a double barrel shotgun in his hand. Right in front of my grandfather, grandmother, and my mom's two sisters, he racked that shotgun and started cackling with laughter. He looked over at my mom's sister (the one visiting from Atlanta) and said to her "I'm not going to shoot anyone, but I bet I scared you all didn't I." Thank god he didn't shoot anyone. But in the wake of that incident and many like it that families and people all across our country have had to deal with, why in the hell was a gun allowed to be unlocked, much less in the home, where a mentally ill person lived? Now onto your question, what Australia did in 1996 is what needs to be done here in America. We need a gun buyback program. But since you asked the question and said without doing a gun ban/buyback as Australia did, you need rigorous background checks, red flag laws, and mental health screenings among other things to prevent mass shootings from happening. I'll go through this one by one though. Longer, tougher background checks that include a social media sweep First, we need longer background checks. I mean background checks that take weeks to complete and are inspected by multiple individuals, not just a guy behind the counter at a gun store. Law enforcement and legal experts should review each and every background check. The check needs to be long enough in length so that an adequate professional has had the time to run a full and complete investigation into your past. That includes a sweep of your social media and online postings, which should be required to be reviewed. Any criminal past that comes up on your record that involved violence or violent behavior should prohibit you from owning that gun. Any social media posts that are deemed threatening or violent in any nature should also prohibit you from owning a gun. Additionally, if you want to own a gun, every single person listed at your residence should have to go through a background check and if anyone living at your home address has a criminal background that involves a violent past, that would prohibit you from being a licensed gun owner. As well, if someone new moves into your domicile, they are required to have a background check and if they fail the background check, you would be forced to turn your guns over or have that person leave and no longer live at the residence. Those individuals social media should also be required to be swept and if their social media contains violent or threatening posts, again, either you give up your guns or they must leave the residence and no longer live there. Registration requirements and criminal liability Every gun you own should have to be registered to you directly and you should have to be fingerprinted at the time of purchase. If that gun gets used in a crime, by someone other than the owner, than the owner of that gun should also be held criminally liable. If the gun was stolen than it needs to be reported to proper law enforcement agencies as stolen. Failing to do so would make you liable in that person's crime as well. Mental health evaluations Everyone living in your residence as a gun owner, including you, should be required to take a comprehensive mental health evaluation from a licensed mental healthcare doctor or professional. If you have a son or daughter or someone at your residence who has a brain health issue related to mental illness, you would be prohibited from buying and owning a gun. Adam Lanza, who shot up Sandy Hook Elementary, had a diagnosable mental illness, Asperger's Syndrome, as well as suffering from anxiety and depression. His mother was reckless and irresponsible with her guns and as a result, 28 people lost their lives that day in Newtown at Sandy Hook. Adam Lanza, Ethan Crumbley, my mom's schizophrenic brother, and many others like them should not be living in homes with such ease of access to guns. Requirement for gun safes with combination or key locks and locks on all guns Guns stored in a home should be required to be locked up in a combination or key safe where only one to two persons have access to that safe. If your gun is used in a crime than law enforcement would have the right to inspect your home and see what, if any, gun safes there are in the home. They would also be able to look at any and all gun locks. Any gun not currently in use should be required to have a lock on it at all times, without exception. If someone breaks into your home, well then, you're going to have to get the lock off your gun first. Again, as with the safe issue, if you are found to have guns not under a lock at your home, you will be held criminally liable for your negligence.

Thanks! The other thing for me too, is even though I had voted Republican in the past (ie Ron Paul and also McCain in 08) I could neve side with the crazier elements of the Republican Party. I'm not the least bit religious so the Christian Conservatives and their need to regulate behavior so it falls inline with their religious beliefs was always a turn off for me. The Tea Party was a turn off too as I never bought into their idea that Obama was a Muslim terrorist from Kenya. I also saw the Tea Party folks as phony libertarians who were only against the government when it suits them. Look no further than Rand Paul who spent several years in the Senate railing against disaster relief funding, only to come begging for it hat in hand when tornados hit Kentucky. All the craziness of the religious right and Tea Party finally gave way to a President who matched their values. For years the George Bush's, Dick Armey's, Tom Delay's, William F. Buckley's, and George Will's ran the party from a political and intellectual perspective. They've gotten overrun now and Donald Trump, along with the likes of Lauren Bobert, Louie Gomert, Mark Meadows, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Dan Bongino, are the culmination of their radicalization and conspiracy-laden mindset. We're only lucky that Trump and his cohorts are as big a clods and feckless as they are. Someone with Trump's selfishness and narcissism, who could effectively govern and run an organization, would be far more dangerous to this country than Trump himself. I'm glad as a former libertarian, as I'm sure you are too as a former Republican/conservative, to be standing on the right side of history against the Trump movement. Standing in support of our democratic institutions and freedom from authoritarianism.

Libertarians would allow children and adult workers alike to be chained to factory floors and workshops. That doesn't mean every libertarian supports that kind of behavior or practice, but when you strip away child labor laws like they want to do and like the Big L Libertarian Party wants to do, that's what you would get. Libertarianism, were it put into practice, would return us to the days of the Robber Barons of the late 19th century/early 20th century from an economic stand point. It would also mean the return of Jim Crow era of segregation and racial/ethnic politics. Separate but equal would be perfectly acceptable to a libertarian so as long as it preserves states rights and doesn't interfere in the ability of others to carry out their personal liberty, which includes being a racist and displaying bigotry.

I passed through that phase of my life. When I was in college and after graduation I went through my Ron Paul/libertarian phase. For me it was about 07-2013ish. I was a big Ron Paul fan back in 2008 and 2012 and voted for him in both primaries. I still respect the guy for his honesty, opposition to the Iraq War, opposition to the Patriot Act/domestic spying, and a few other issues I agree with him on. I've read all the libertarian authors and political commentators too from Ayn Rand to Fredrich Hayek to Ludwig Von Miss to Milton Friedman to Murray Rothbard. I used to read all the think tank publications too like Cato, Mises Institute, Reason Magazine, and Heartland. What got me off the libertarian wagon though was related to what happened to my dad. When he lost his house to foreclosure during the recession and when he came clean to be about being joke broke, I couldn't sit there and continue railing against the very social programs and safety nets that were keeping him subsisting (Social Security, Medicare, and VA Assistance). Government money was the only thing keeping food on my dad's table, clothes on his back, and giving him the medical care/prescriptions he needed to live. How could I be so strident against the very social welfare that was keeping him alive and was keeping him from not having to live with my sister or I? The other thing that really worked for me is that I left the vortex of libertarian media and the libertarian echo chambers online and in research. Instead of sitting there sifting through Reason Magazine articles and Cato research all day I forced myself to listen to other points of view, hear out other people (most notably my own mother whose always been a progressive), watch other sources for my daily news, research opposing view points, and just take a cruise around Metro Detroit to see how others outside of the middle class enclaves of Canton Michigan actually live. The thing about libertarianism is, when you leave no checks and balances in place, when you strip away all regulations and you rely solely on the nature of others to do good in a situation, you create chaos and destruction. What libertarianism doesn't or refuses to account for in the bad nature of others. That bad and unethical behaviors like callousness, greed, manipulation, selfishness do exists and without proper controls placed on those behaviors, they will run roughshod over people all in the name of self interest. Whether that self interest is that of a company trying to maximize its profits or someone refusing to look out and take care of their fellow human being. Libertarianism in some cases makes false assumptions that people will naturally do good because it is in their own self interest to do so. In other instances, like Ayn Rand and her sociopathic theory of objectivism, doing good for others or caring for those around you matters not. In Rand's case, only looking out for yourself and treating yourself as the king above all else, breeds a degree of selfishness and greed that is downright destructive to people and the planet. Besides, who wants to live in a world where you're stepping over bodies and walking around a burning planet all so you can maximize your own gratification and self interests for a short amount of time. Life is about far more than that and there is a certain nobility and positive impact you get to make in life by being a caring, compassionate, kind, selfless human being.

That headline "more interested in attacking Trump" is something else. He insighted the insurrection to happen in the first place. Who the hell else are they supposed to investigate for insighting an insurrection?

Amen Liz!!!!! I am watching Rachel Maddow right now and heard Liz Cheney reading texts from Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade, and others. All these Benedict Arnold Fox News hosts new what a serious situation the insurrection was when it happened and then went on air on Fox later to downplay the gravity of the situation or blame it on others (ANTIFA) who had nothing to do with it.

Also, if you supported the January 6th Insurrection in any way or excused the behavior of people trying to stop the certification a democratic election then go piss right off crying about rigging elections. People literally stormed the capital to hang the Vice President of the United States and stop the certification of free and fair democratic elections. If you don't condemn that than you most assuredly don't get to pull words like rigged out of your ass to describe a piece of legislation you might or might not have read through.

Here's the full summery of HR 1 as well as the full language of the bill. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1 HR 1 will rig elections? HUH? Where do you get this stuff at? I read through the language of the bill a couple of months back and I missed the part where it would rig elections. You can also dive into the meat and potatoes of what's in the For the People Act/HR 1 here from the Brennan Center report on the legislation. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/annotated-guide-people-act-2021

Saving us from what? Universal Pre-K? Paid Family Leave? Combating Climate change? Oh nooooooo, we might enact Paid Family Leave like most other first world, democratic countries already have.

The NDP's Jagmeet Singh is the real deal/ It's too bad his chances of being Prime Minster ever run into the negatives and less than territories. Of course, he's as left as you can get, but a real solid, honest guy for the people.

The line about we will teach the poor dumb farm boys they should stick to slopping hogs. Pretentiously awesome!

Not Michigan, but the Georgia Tech glee club did a mockery of Georgia's fight song (Glory Glory to Old Georgia) only singing To Hell With Georgia. Gold!

Plymouth-Canton-Salem High School on Lockdown After Possible Threat DAMNIT!!! Here we are again with this. Plymouth-Canton is where I graduated from HS. I certainly hope everything is ok over there and that this was a precautionary measure, not an actual incident.

Logic and reasoning are whatever Trump supporters and their god Donald Trump say it is. Trump is the Jimmy Swaggert of Presidents. They give Trump their unending love, affection, and of course a nice donation of $100 or more. In exchange they get, well, a red hat and a grift instead of a prayer cloth and a grift. And for any of them to go blubbering on about being a troll or how they get treated by other people when their guy displays the most repugnant behavior is really rich. Cry me a river.

Don't forget wearing a thin blue line t-shirt and then supporting people who literally tried killing police officers during an insurrection.

Being a patriot means whatever Trump supporters say it means in the moment. Forget trying to overturn the results of a democratic election, a real patriot knows the election was stolen because reasons and evidence which they can't produce at this moment in time.

I've seen your posts here and assume you voted for Trump in 2020 and 2016. If you voted for Biden in 2020 and Hillary in 2016 then I'll sincerely and honestly apologize to you. If you voted for Trump than I'll tell you to suck it up snowflake like we were all told for the past four years. I've been told no less than half a dozen times "F*** My Feelings" by Trump supporters. It wasn't Hillary or Biden who mocked disabled people, woman, POWs, Gold Star Families, etc. It wasn't Hillary or Biden who went around hurling insults at people or using profanity in public or on social media. It wasn't Hillary or Biden who went around making racist and xenophobic remarks. It wasn't Hillary or Biden who went around talking about jailing reporters and changing libel laws to be able to sue the free press. It wasn't Hillary or Biden who lead an insurrection and tried to overturn the results of a democratic election and it wasn't their supporters who tried to execute members of Congress and hang the Vice President of the United States. The vulgarity, coarseness and crassness of American politics existed before Donald Trump. The difference is, it wasn't the President of the United States who was a vulgar, crass, racist (well maybe Nixon was). Not only did we live through four years of the President acting that way, he encouraged his supporters to act the same way. If you don't like the way I'm acting towards you and you did vote for Trump, then you should take a look in the mirror and reflect long and hard on the last four years and what many people had to go through in this country as a result of the President's words, actions, and uncouth behavior.

That Twitter page is a great follow. Apparently Fox News ran this on one of their segments. This is literally Trump to a T.

I'm calling timeout on this one because we should have been a Championship team last year, stupid UCLA.