Rov_Scam
19hr ago
The last time I went to a doctor's office there was a young, thin black guy alone at the front desk. It was not horseshoe shaped.
Rov_Scam
19hr ago
When people ask me what kind of law I practice and I don't want to tell them I just say I mostly do Third Amendment stuff. Then they proceeded to tell me about whatever child custody or bogus medmal issue their brother in law is dealing with despite my repeated assertions that I know nothing about either of those things.
Rov_Scam
23hr ago
The New Jersey law would strip the second lien, but it wouldn't absolve the debtor of the requirement to pay the note. The creditor could sue the debtor for nonpayment and get a recorded judgment, which would allow them to garnish wages, levy bank accounts, and, yes, attach a judgment lien to the debtor's property. While it sounds like they get their mortgage back, this is more of a consolation prize, because in any foreclosure action they would be junior to any real mortgages, including ones that were recorded after the judgment lien. They would also be junior to any mechanic's liens. Effectively, they're now at the bottom of the list. If the debtor receives a bankruptcy discharge at any point in this process, it would eliminate their obligation to pay anything. The only exception would be if the creditor obtained a judgment and recorded a judgment lien against the property before the creditor filed. Then the lien would remain, though the personal obligation would be extinguished and they couldn't continue any other collection activities.
I apologize because it's only now that I'm wrapping my head around what you guys were talking about; before I was just trying to give some general background on how bankruptcies work. Suppose the house is worth $400,000. Mortgage 1 is $200,000 and Mortgage 2 is $100,000. Under the NJ law, Mortgagor 1 initiates a foreclosure action with an upset price of $200,000. Per the law, the owner exercises his right of first refusal and buys the house at the upset price, stripping Mortgage 2. Mortgagor 2 now has a note worth $100,000 but no security interest in the property. Mortgagor 2 then sues the owner for nonpayment of the note, but the owner files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy before judgment is entered, staying the suit. There are no other liens on the property at this point, and the owner's only debt is the $100,000 he owes to Mortgagor 2. After applying the exemption, the trustee has $336,850 available to distribute to unsecured creditors, which easily covers the $100,000 owed to Mortgagor 2. The property is sold for $400,000, $100,000 of which goes to Mortgagor 2, $100,000 goes to the trustee's commission, and $200,000 of which goes back to the owner. Maybe this counts as "abusing the system" in a strict technical sense, but like most such abuses, you'd have to be really stupid to think you're getting one over on anyone.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
I think you have that backwards. I'll never understand why libertarians and others persist in the belief that the civil court system is a kind of frictionless plane. Granted, if you have an actual dispute to resolve, it's indispensable and better than a lot of alternatives I've heard proposed, but if you can pass regulations to cut lawsuits off at the pass, you should. Imagine you want to build a cement plant. You have two options:
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Build it and hope that nobody complains. You have nothing to go by ahead of time. If someone doesn't like what you're doing, or thinks it's too noisy, or complains about dust, you can pay your attorneys to spend several years litigating the definition of "reasonable" to a jury that is probably going to have more people sympathetic to noise and dust complaints than it does people who own industrial plants. Repeat this situation for every use that anyone could find remotely objectionable, which is any use you can think of. Be prepared to suspend your operations throughout the duration of the suit. Be prepared for the court to rule you have to shut down permanently, or pay ongoing damages in an amount that makes it economically unfeasible to continue.
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Look at the municipalities ordinances for zoning and noise and dust abatement. Make sure you comply with the ordinances and obtain formal exemptions if you can't. If nearby homeowners want to litigate, they can do so before you've spent any serious money, and they won't be suing you so much as they will the municipality that granted the exemption. If the use is allowed by right and you are complying with the regulations, it's going to be a tough row to hoe for the plaintiffs.
These days, almost every private nuisance action I've seen has been based on independent studies showing that the defendants violated a municipal regulation that the governing body has failed to enforce; the arguments boil down to whether or not a standard was violated. The system you'd prefer is a system where both parties have to argue their version of what the standards should be. Maybe ya jury is convinced that 90 dB at the property line is an unreasonable amount of noise. We know nothing about whether 85 is okay or not. Actually, we know nothing about whether 90 is okay in another case because a different jury might see things differently, or maybe the guy suing is a huge asshole and they all agree that he deserves to live next to a hog rendering facility.
Which brings me to my second point, which is that zoning regulations were not an outgrowth of common law nuisance, at least not as we'd recognize nuisance today. Traditional common law nuisance laws, i.e. things actionable under an Assize of Nuisance, almost exclusively related to water runoff and land support. The idea was that nuisance was a counterpart to trespass; where in trespass I damage your land by entering onto it, in nuisance I do something on my own land that causes your land to be damaged. The distinction between the two was always fuzzy and by the 19th century they were all trespasses and nuisance was practically a dead letter. The doctrine as we know it today to apply to noises, smells, and the like was part of a 20th century revival that went hand in hand with the development of zoning regulations. Courts and municipal governments were looking for way to mitigate the negative effects of development, and these were two of the things they came up with.
This is why I'm not sure what you're talking about when you act like nuisance has something to do with "rights" while rent control doesn't. All rent control legislation—which coincidentally arose around the same time as zoning legislation and the modern conception of nuisance—does is create a right of a tenant to not be charged rents in excess of a specified maximum. It's no different than any other right a tenant has, whether derived from statute or common law. And if you think that there's something about common law rights that make them superior to statutory rights, keep in mind that the right to sell your property was created by statute.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
Looping in @The_Nybbler since he's party to this discussion.
I did bankruptcy law fora couple years so I can outline how the process typically works. It's worth pointing out at the beginning the difference between unsecured and secured debts. Unsecured debts, like credit card debt or personal loans, are secured only by the borrower's promise to pay. If the borrower defaults, the lender can attempt to collect the debt, sue and obtain a judgment, and attempt to enforce that judgment through various mechanisms provided by the law. A secured debt includes an additional element where the borrower pledges specific property that the creditor can seize in the event of nonpayment. When a creditor initiates a court action to seize property for payment of debts, state law establishes who gets priority when it comes to payment. Generally speaking the earlier recorded interests get priority, but various policy considerations make this a bit more complicated (for example, taxes and HOA fees almost always get top priority regardless of when they were accrued). Chapter 7 bankruptcy extinguishes the personal obligation to pay, but it does not extinguish security interests. To that extent, the liquidation of the bankruptcy estate is only concerned with assets that can be liquidated to pay unsecured creditors. Additionally, one of the policy goals of bankruptcy is to give the debtor a fresh start, not to leave him destitute, so certain small amounts of assets can be exempted from liquidation as set forth by law.
With that out of the way, let's look at a typical Chapter 7 scenario: Debtor owns a home worth $300,000, subject to a first mortgage with a balance of $200,000 and a HOLC with a balance of $50,000, leaving the debtor $50,000 in equity. The mortgages are current and the property is not in foreclosure. Debtor also has $50,000 in unsecured credit card debt, and no other assets worth mentioning. If the available exemption is $63,150, then it covers the debtor's $50,000 in equity. The trustee classifies the case as "no asset" and the credit card companies get nothing, and the debtor is not required to pay them. As for the mortgages, the debtor is no longer personally obligated to pay them, but they still secure the property, meaning that if the debtor doesn't continue to pay them after the discharge then the bank can foreclose. The practical effect of the discharge, however, means that foreclosure is the only remedy available to them; if the foreclosure sale does not cover the loan, they can't pursue the debtor individually.
When you talk about "triggering a sale", keep in mind that sales are never "triggered" in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy; sale of an asset is wholly within the discretion of the trustee. The more important thing to keep in mind—and I'm not sure if you were insinuating this but I want to make it clear just in case—is that secured creditors play little to no role in the bankruptcy process. The most obvious interaction I can think of is that mortgage payments will be rolled in with Chapter 13 payments, but they won't be reduced like other debts might be. The other one is that if there are any pending or potential foreclosure actions they will automatically be stayed upon filing. This is of little consequence in a Chapter 7 because the stay will be lifted upon discharge, which only takes a few months, and if the bank is impatient they will almost always get the stay lifted if they ask the court. The only consequential involvement of secured creditors in the bankruptcy process is when a debtor in mortgage arrears files Chapter 13, which allows him to repay the arrears under the payment plan.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
Soule's accusations came in 2019, and Avellone's in 2020. The Johnny Depp allegations became public during his 2016 divorce but disappeared from the headlines for years and didn't become a major part of public discourse until the 2022 defamation trial. I bring these dates up because your post implied that MeToo petered out because of a raft of similar claims that people stopped taking seriously. MeToo took off with the Weinstein accusations in November 2017 and continued apace until the following summer, during which they slowly petered out, with the Asia Argento and Les Moonves allegations being the last major ones. The Ansari thing came out in January of 2018, and while it sort of fits the pattern you describe and was controversial at the time, even among ardent MeToo supporters, it didn't have much of an effect on the momentum of the movement as a whole.
Because the GOP is understood to be on the "man" side of gender politics, which allows for presumption of innocence (not just legally, but socially and professionally). If he was a Democrat, he would've been dropped like a hot potato.
There was always a sort of motte and bailey going on with the Kavanaugh case, at least insofar as it was discussed by Kavanaugh's defenders. There were also political considerations involved that swamped the whole thing, and I'll state for the record that neither side covered itself in glory throughout the affair. For some background, Ford privately reported what she remembered to Diane Feinstein, who was the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in July, amid speculation that Kavanaugh was on Trump's short list to replace Kennedy. Feinstein kept this information to herself until Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings were nearing conclusion in September, which required them to be extended for some time while the claims were investigated. The Republicans may be broadly described as on the "pro-man" side of the argument, but I don't think they defended Kavanaugh purely based on ideology but through political necessity. Had Feinstein quietly informed the White House and the rest of the committee of the potential scandal, there's a good chance that Kavanaugh isn't named, nobody asks any questions, and nobody has ever heard of Christine Blasey Ford. By timing the revelations when she did, Feinstein ensured that the administration couldn't pull the nomination without causing the Supreme Court to start the fall term short one conservative justice, which would have benefited Democrats.
To make matters worse, there wasn't really even time to adequately investigate the allegations. Which is why I also disagree with your characterization that their position was one of a presumption of innocence, as that implies merely a presumption, not a conclusion. The GOP and most conservative commentators did not take the position that the matter should be investigated and adjudicated, but that the accusations should be discounted on their face. "Believe all women" may not be a tenable policy, but neither is "assume all women are lying for personal or political gain". Whatever problems there were with Ford's story, it was difficult to conclude that they were fabricated out of whole cloth; she had made the accusations privately on several occasions beginning in 2012, and it would be ridiculous to assume that it was all part of some long-term setup as if she had a crystal ball and knew that he'd be nominated for the Supreme Court one day. In their hast to confirm Kavanaugh before the first Monday in October, the administration tried to limit the Senate investigation as much as possible, and when several senators said they would only vote for confirmation if Kavanaugh was cleared by an FBI investigation, the administration micromanaged the investigation in an attempt to limit its scope and conclude it quickly.
MeToo was an ambient enforcement of social pressure to listen and believe countless stories with varying levels of believability. We have to just accept that misconduct allegations could surface at any point and we should take every one of them very seriously, but never seriously ask critical questions.
Of course we have to take them seriously. The entire movement was based on the idea that, despite awareness campaigns and legal protections dating from at least the 1980s, this kind of behavior was still disturbingly common and still not taken seriously. None of the big names that came out of MeToo—Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey, Mario Battali, etc.—have been exonerated, and I haven't heard any suggestion that the accusations against them were fabricated. There simply isn't any evidence that a lot of people were getting railroaded or that nobody was asking serious questions. To the extent that most of this was controversial, it was cases like Ansari's where there was no factual dispute over what happened, just whether it was appropriate. This is why I don't understand the blowback from it, which largely suggests that none of these claims are credible and that we should just ignore them, because even subjecting the accused to an investigation would be too much of a punishment. What basically happened in the end was that women came out and said that something was true, that this kind of behavior wasn't being taken seriously enough, and conservative opponents came out and told them that they had no desire to take it seriously. That's what it all boils down to.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
You're confusing MeToo with the campus rape allegations. I'm not aware of single MeToo incident that involved a single individual making accusations about an isolated instance of sexual misconduct that happened decades ago. The closest was Brett Kavanaugh, but even that isn't a great instance because it was a presumed attempted rape and it didn't prevent his Supreme Court confirmation. The New York Times did a postmortem in the fall of 2018 documenting over 200 incidents, the overwhelming majority of which involved some kind of workplace harassment. The perpetrators often admitted the accusations or at least to some kind of vague wrongdoing "I apologize for any inappropriate behavior...", and most of the cases involved multiple accusers, witnesses, or some other kind of corroboration.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
Your first paragraph certainly describe how is should pan out, or at least how the Maine Democratic Party should try to play it if they have any semblance of competence, even if the list of potential replacements looks more like the waiver wire than a murderer's row. As for whether the replacement can beat Collins, it's a tall order, but Polymarket certainly regards it as a possibility, as the odds were never in Collins's favor. I tend to reserve judgment on these things though. As to whether the candidate will be forgotten after a loss, I don't know why you think anyone would bring it up again, since most losing candidates are relegated to the toilet of history once the concession speech is over. For the same reason, I don't understand the obsession that erupted over the whole DNC 2024 postmortem. The people criticizing the DNC over this aren't doing because they have a genuine desire to see Democratic candidates perform better in the future, but because they want to see the party officially berate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. This might have its uses as a piece of political theater, but the idea that any lessons learned would apply to future elections is absurd.
Generally speaking, when it comes to party politics, people seem to have a notion that it's like a hockey team, where the coaches and GM all get together and look at the draft board and the free agent market and pick players to slot in on their team. What's happening in Maine now and what happened nationally in 2024 is similar to that, but it's a rare exception to the normal course of business. Donald Trump does not have the power he currently has because the RNC brain trust was looking to change direction. Joe Crowley didn't get bounced from his House seat because the New York Democratic Committee felt that a young Latina socialist would be a better fit for the Bronx.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
She was the CEO of a homeless nonprofit before she was in Congress, so I don't know if that job can be considered a sinecure. It also pays less than she made in Congress, and Low Angeles isn't exactly a low cost of living area. If she were at a think tank or doing speaking tours I could see your point, but not this.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
It's hard to call it a hookup after they've been dating for a while. There's also really complicated feelings when it comes to people you know and trusted up to the point where they did something terrible. Women stay in abusive relationships all the time, and people regularly allow themselves to be taken advantage of by family members. If she knew the guy for two years and he hadn't done anything similar prior to that time, it's probably easier for her to view him as a decent guy who had a bad night as opposed to someone who should go to jail. It's not that different than having a brother who stole $10,000 from you to feed his gambling habit. You may disown him and never want to talk to him again, but that doesn't mean you're going to report him to the police and participate in a criminal investigation.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
Carroll may have won a civil verdict, but it didn't seem to have much effect on Trump politically. It's only a good comparison if Platner gets elected and his accuser gets a payout.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
Fetterman also wasn't running for Senate as a political newcomer. He was more prominent as the mayor of Braddock than he had any right to be, and the biggest skeleton in his closet, the incident where he chased a guy with a shotgun, happened after he was already in the public eye. It was on the news at the time, but didn't affect any of his subsequent runs for mayor, or his failed 2016 Senate campaign, or his 2018 election for Lieutenant Governor. Platner's entire life prior to 2025 was a mystery as far as the public was concerned, and there were red flags from the very beginning that he might have a checkered past.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
I have a half-baked theory on why brands fail like this. In theory, there's nothing wrong with a mass-market brand providing offerings for as much of the market as possible. I think the problem is that you have to commit to a certain minimum standard of quality for something you're willing to put your name on. For example, Specialized is one of the most respected bike brands in the US, and their line ranges from the Sirrus 1.0, a hybrid/commuter bike retailing at $699 to performance road bikes with carbon everything topping out at over $12,000. They are, along with Trek and Giant, one of the Big Three American bike companies, yet their actual market share is vanishingly small. Add up sales of the Big Three, plus close peers like Scott and Cannondale, plus boutique brands like Ibis, Pivot, and Revel, plus direct to consumer brands like Canyon and YT, plus imported brands, plus every other brand that I could possibly recommend that anyone buy, and it all totals up to about 30% of the total market. The remaining 70% are being sold at department stores like Wal-Mart and mass-market sporting goods stores like Dick's, and are being purchased by a non-discriminating public who doesn't want a lecture from a bike snob about why they need to spend $700 at minimum for what they essentially see as a children's toy.
In other words, while the reputable brands try to appeal to as many market segments as possible, they don't make junk. A Sirrus 1.0 isn't going to have the best components on it, but it's going to be reliable and will be worth maintaining. The department store bike is going to be built with extreme cost-cutting measures and is likely to malfunction relatively quickly, at which point the unsuspecting customer is faced with a repair bill that amounts to a significant percentage of the bikes cost and a warning from the mechanic that it's likely to fail again in short order. Yet the market for this stuff is huge, as most bikes (and guitars too, I imagine) are bought as part of a temporary enthusiasm that may or may not stick. A good bike is useless to someone who never rides it, much as a good guitar is useless to someone who doesn't know how to play it. It would be really easy for a reputable bike brand to stretch the bottom of their line to include junk that's sold at sporting goods stores and purchased by an ill-informed public who believes they're getting a better value than some no-name brand because they "heard Trek was good".
The reason why they don't do this is because when you get into extreme cost cutting territory, the profit margins become razor thin. This isn't a problem if the business model of the entire brand revolves around thin margins, but the bike companies are currently structured to be able to make money on well-heeled enthusiasts dropping several thousand dollars on higher margin items. If this customer base stops trusting the brand because they see it when they go grocery shopping, it turns into a race to the bottom where low-end sales become increasingly central to their business. This is basically what happened with GT and Diamondback, two reputable brands that got sold and the new owners tried to stretch into the low end. Those in the know knew that they still made good bikes, but new riders who instinctively knew that department store brands were junk didn't even consider them when looking to make their first serious purchase, and the retailers who carried the low-end models didn't carry the high-end ones, making them hard to find. I found this out myself when I was considering a GT that got good reviews. GT was sold at Dick's, but of course not that one, but they couldn't even order one for me, because big box stores don't operate like bike shops. I'd have to go to a GT authorized dealer to buy one, but of course there weren't any around me, because what independent bike shop owner in their right mind would try to compete with Dick's?
I think whether a brand is susceptible to this depends on which end of the market existed first. Prior to the 1970s, bikes were considered children's toys in the United States, and there wasn't much call for domestic companies to produce high-end models. When this market emerged in the 1970s, companies like Trek and Specialized filled the gap in the high end of the market, and while they would eventually grow to a wide range of models at different price points, they knew they never had a chance of competing with the Schwinns and Huffys of the world so they didn't try. Electric guitars were in the opposite situation; musical instruments were always known for being expensive, and in the early 1950s the few manufacturers making electric guitars were making them for the higher end of the market and thus able to charge prices commensurate with their quality. When rock took off in the 1960s and every kid wanted a guitar under the Christmas tree, CBS had to deal with the reality that most parents would balk at the cost of an instrument the kid would get frustrated with in a couple months, and their parents would choose some budget brand. It's easy to say in retrospect that they shouldn't have cut corners, but it's hard to make that decision in 1967 when sales are exploding and the bean counters at headquarters tell you you'll sell 10,000 more units next year f you can knock $20 off the price tag. And then 20 years later the older, good versions of your product have become iconic and the product practically markets itself, except you aren't going to sell that many models similar to the one Hendrix had if they all cost $3,000.
By the same token, they don't want to completely deprecate the brand, so they allowed the situation to become ridiculous. By all rights, Fender should offer their flagship Stratocaster and similar iconic models like the Telecaster in one mid- or high-range base model with 4 or 5 upgraded price points. Say the Stratocaster 100, which retails for $1800, up to the 400, which retails for $2400, or something along those lines. Or better yet, just sell one Srat for $2400 and be done with it. If they want to sell less expensive models then come up with model names and use those, with similar price points. And don't sell any junk; you aren't competing with the guitars Estaban sells on TV, so don't try. Instead they offer 94 models (literally) of Stratocaster ranging in price from a $250 Squier up to a $3500 Jeff Beck 1965 Signature Edition or whatever, and you can't tell which Stratocasters are good and which ones are bad based on the sub-models alone unless you really know guitars, and then they make things even more confusing by changing specs year by year so that you need to also look at the spec sheets to know that this year's version is selling at the same price as last year's but has inferior electronics, or something along those lines. It's just an example of doing things that make sense in the short term but metastasize into something unmanageable when compounded over several decades.
Rov_Scam
7d ago
Agreed 100%. Someone complained not long ago about referring to court cases by one word names, and the mods said that this was fine because it's a typical way of citing them, which I can understand if it's Brown v. Board or some other landmark decision that every educated person is familiar with, at least in the United States. The problem is when people assume that cases that were big news in their hobby horse communities are similarly well known everywhere else, and they're referenced without any context. So someone says "The argument that you're making doesn't square with what the court said in Vinoverski, and the reader is wondering what they hell the poster is talking about. Meanwhile Google gives a dozen cases with that name, and even giving the full case name is just shorthand for saying "you can look this up yourself". I'd prefer that people would instead say something more like "The argument you're making doesn't square with what the court said in Vinoverski v. Sullivan, in which the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that municipalities could regulate short term rentals under the zoning code (I made that case up so don't go looking for it).
Rov_Scam
7d ago
Every time I see a smart person come up with an idea of how to make a better dating app, what they're really describing is how to create a dating app that will only appeal to other like-minded smart people. The problem is that, in order to stay in business, dating apps rely on unintelligent slobs forking over money because they think that they'll get more action by paying a third party. (While I have noticed certain odd behavior, I don't have enough to go on to chalk it up to anything other than coincidence.) Do you really think that most people are going to be willing to take a survey about every person they talk to? We already live in a world where the most trivial of commercial interactions requires a customer satisfaction survey, and ratings on these things are like eBay seller ratings in which anything less than 4.8/5 is considered a red flag. So even in the absence of bad faith everyone gives straight 5s to all normal people just to avoid tanking their ranking.
Beyond that, why the hell would anyone want to have text conversations with people for a day who they'll likely never talk to again? And then do homework about it? If I want to have a conversation with a random person I might not see again, I'll go to a bar like a normal person, thank you very much.
Rov_Scam
10d ago
With Shapiro: Yes, it's totally intentional and yes, he knows what he's doing. Let's look at his options:
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He can enthusiastically participate in, as you say, a gesture reaching across the aisle. There's no political reason for him to do this. His entire political career thus far has been defined by his refusal to get involved in counterproductive culture war arguments that only serve to alienate some segment of the electorate. The result of this is that the only people who actively dislike the guy are rabid MAGA who aren't going to vote for a Democrat if it's the second coming of Christ. Given that the chances that this expo or whatever it is not being about the glorification of Trump were always somewhere around 0%, enthusiastic participation would only serve to alienate member s of his own party. Trump is currently in the process of committing political suicide nationally while enforcing strict loyalty among those left in his tent, so there's nothing to be gained by jumping on a sinking ship. Any reaching across the aisle that Shapiro does is going to be towards Republicans in Harrisburg, and is going to involve things that are actually important, such that he appears to be the reasonable one and any criticism of him is further evidence of MAGA incompetence.
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He can inform VisitPA, or the Chamber of Commerce, or whoever else fairly early that the state will not be participating but they are free to put an exhibit together at their own expense. This is the neutral option, the one that Illinois and New York chose, and the one that PA ostensibly chose. If he had done this months ago then this wouldn't be a story at all.
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He can refuse to participate entirely on the basis that this is an inappropriate politicization of the 4th. This wins him some resistance points among Democrats but has the downside of making him look like a typical culture warrior.
Let's be clear that the Democratic Party, and Shapiro by extension, benefits from this whole thing flopping as hard as possible. I don't want to get into the whole history of the thing, but it's obvious to everyone that the whole Freedom 250 thing is a poorly-planned politicization meant to glorify the current administration, and there's no greater evidence of that than the fact that even Republicans seem reluctant to actually attend, and that even the states that enthusiastically participated only managed to send underwhelming exhibits. Shapiro's little stunt allows him to contribute to the flop while being able to deny responsibility.
If anyone remembers anything about this a year from now, it's not going to be that Shapiro waited until the last minute so that the Chamber of Commerce wouldn't be able to get any exhibitors together in time, but that the exhibition flopped period. In the meantime, people like Stacy Garrity will reflexively make statements about how the state's lack of participation in an event that's an obvious overpoliticized dud is somehow an affront to core American values, making them look like asses, and Shapiro doesn't even have to respond because he already offered a bullshit explanation and pressing him on it further only makes it look like your taking it too seriously, if it doesn't already look that way. Also, never mind the fact that Garrity and her ilk aren't idle bystanders but active participants in state government and had plenty of time (well, four months at least) to at least inquire about what PA planned on doing, though I'd excuse them if, like the rest of us, the first time they heard about this state fair was when the musical guests announced they were dropping out.
As for the reflecting pool, it certainly is being vandalized, though I highly doubt that its woes are due to vandalism, if you can even call it that. I am by no means an expert on this, but I painted in high school, and we would spend more time prepping the surface than actually painting it. A proper refurbish of the pool would have required it to be cleaned and patched thoroughly, and allowed to properly dry (including tarping the "dry" surface to see if any water in the soil is penetrating the bottom and condensing on the tarp, which would need to be addressed separately). It would also require the entire filtration system to be cleaned and disinfected thoroughly before the new bubbler was installed.
Doing it this way would take several months to complete. Trump instead wanted it done in one to two weeks and got results commensurate with that timeline. I have no doubt that there are so-called vandals who are grabbing loose pieces of the coating and pulling it off. There may also be people cutting it. But the only reason they are able to do this is because the coating didn't bond to the surface properly. Suggesting that people are cutting it with a utility knife and peeling off sheets doesn't make sense to anyone who has ever painted anything before, or dealt with a spray-on truck bed liner, or a garage floor polymer coating. If these things are able to be peeled like that, it's usually from something like rust or water penetrating from the rear. It can also because the surface wasn't prepared properly and the coating was applied over top of dirt or grease that isn't bonded to the underlying surface and will prevent the coating from properly adhering. It looks like that is what happened here, and the media coverage caused curious onlookers to start picking at it, who then became a convenient scapegoat for the administration's incompetence.
Rov_Scam
15d ago
A few years ago my Swiftie cousin's boyfriend sent out a group text asking if anyone wanted to go to Taylor Swift trivia at a local brewery. I was the only guy who showed up and when he asked me why I said"you had me at brewery". I could understand not wanting to go out to watch a game you had no interest in under normal circumstances, but I can't see doing that if I'm out of town for a wedding, especially if the alternative is hanging out in the hotel or worse, going shopping with the ladies.
Rov_Scam
16d ago
It's only important because California allows it. While there are always going to be people who miss the deadline, if you tell people they only have to have it postmarked by a certain date, there will be people who view that as the date to get it in the mail. If you change the date, I imagine a good number of people, if not the vast majority of them, will observe the new date. In 2020 there was some uncertainty over the status of late-arriving ballots in Pennsylvania, but it ended up not being much of an issue since there were so few of them, and there would probably have been even fewer if there was clear guidance that ballots should be mailed by a certain date to ensure that they were received on time.
Rov_Scam
16d ago
If you need a top 3 pick to land a championship caliber quarterback then I wouldn't worry about drafting one at all, because the only teams capable of being that bad aren't winning a championship any time soon. The Steelers haven't had fewer than 5 wins since Chuck Noll's inaugural season, and they're too competent to get that bad again organically. Deliberately tanking, as some people have suggested, would require them to tear the team down to the studs, at which point they'd get their quarterback but still need to find the rest of the team.
Willis has always looked good on paper, but his NFL sample size is too limited to spend any serious money on him. Sure, he's getting the same money as Rodgers, but Rodgers is a known quantity on a one year deal, not a project on a 3 year deal (though I believe only one is guaranteed). If the Steelers think they can compete this year (and they're better on paper than last year, when they won the division), then they weren't going to spend starter money on a dice roll who was only going to ride the bench if Rodgers came back. If they want to take that chance they have two guys on the roster who can do it for peanuts. The Dolphins are in the middle of a rebuild and can afford to take a chance like that. You need to keep in mind that guys like Mason Rudolph and Mike White look good in small sample sizes. Hell, Duck Hodges briefly looked like a competent game manager. Then the opposition gets enough film on the guy and realize how limited his bag of tricks is and put together a defensive strategy that he's incapable of responding to. Not saying that's Willis, but we simply don't know yet.
It’s just they need to take bigger variance risks to find a QB.
Mitch Trubisky, Justin Fields, and Kenny Pickett were all high variance risks, they just weren't risky because the team had little to lose. And when they didn't work out people still bitched about it. Paying one of these guys 22 million a year would up the risk factor but wouldn't make them smarter. Letting Allar, Howard, and Rudolph would have been a high variance risk, and one they would have been willing to take if Rodgers didn't come back, but there's no point in criticizing the Rodgers deal because any of these guys could still theoretically be the starter if they do well in camp and Rodgers loses it.
Rov_Scam
17d ago
I don't think the Steelers would have taken Sorsby, and I don't understand why you think he would be the answer at QB. If he were some superstar, maybe, but he was projected as a third round pick if he had decided to enter the draft this year, which puts him in the same league as Allar and Mason Rudolph. The problem I have with Willis is that the guy made 3 starts in 2 years and everyone started acting like he had potential that he hadn't shown at all when he was in Tennessee. It's almost as like he had such a reputation for being bad that when he came in and wasn't terrible everyone was impressed and subsequently overrated him.
And they refuse to be bad enough to get a top 5 pick where you can land a great prospect.
Cleveland, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Carolina, Arizona, both New York teams, Tennessee, and until recently, Detroit and Buffalo have all been consistently terrible long enough to draft several top prospects, with nothing to show for it. Even New England, who rebounded relatively quickly after the Brady era, took two tries to get it right. The last time, technically speaking, that a team sucked and drafted a top QB prospect who won a Super Bowl for them was, well, the Steelers, when they won with Roethlisberger in 2009. If you loosen this definition a bit you can bump it up a few years to 2012, though Eli Manning was technically acquired via trade. Going back to the Super Bowl winners since then:
- 2025: Sam Darnold, acquired via free agency
- 2024: Jalen Hurts, drafted second round
- 2023: Patrick Mahomes, drafted tenth but Chiefs traded up from 27
- 2022: Patrick Mahomes
- 2021: Matthew Stafford, trade
- 2020: Tom Brady, free agent
- 2019: Patrick Mahomes
- 2018: Tom Brady, sixth round
- 2017: Nick Foles, free agent
- 2016: Tom Brady
- 2015: Peyton Manning, free agent
- 2014: Tom Brady
- 2013: Russell Wilson, third round
- 2012: Joe Flacco, 18th (Ravens traded down from 8)
If you include Super Bowl losers than you're going to find a lot more guys from the top of the draft, but that's besides the point. Teams can easily acquire their starter via trade, free agency, through lower round selections, or through trading up. While we're here, let's look at QBs drafted in the top 10 during that period, excluding the past couple years:
- 2012 #1 Andrew Luck, Ind.: Good QB, decent amount of team success, no SB appearance
- 2012 #3 RGIII, Wash.: Good rookie season, made playoffs, got injured and was never the same
- 2012 #8 Ryan Tannehill, Mia.: Decent QB, did not lead to team success
- 2014 #3 Blake Bortles, Jax.: Bad QB, made playoffs once on team with good defense
- 2015 #1 Jameis Winston, TB: Mediocre QB, threw a lot of picks, no winning seasons or playoff appearances
- 2015 #2 Marcus Mariota, Tenn.: Decent backup, did not lead to any team success
- 2016 #1 Jared Goff, LAR: Good QB, SB appearance, did not last on original team
- 2016 #2 Carson Wentz, Phil.: Doesn't count because the Eagles traded the Browns a boatload of picks to move up from 15.
- 2017 #2 Mitchell Trubisky, Chi.: Made playoffs but still a bust
- 2018 #1 Baker Mayfield, Cle.: Good QB who got a bad rap
- 2018 #3 Sam Darnold, NYJ: Was a bust until seven years into his career when he did unexpectedly well as a backup on his fourth NFL team. Did not solve any problems for the Jets.
- 2018 #7 Josh Allen, Buf.: Doesn't count because Buffalo had the #21 pick and executed a complicated series of trades to be able to take him
- 2018 #10 Josh Rosen, Ariz.: Bust
- 2019 #1 Kyler Murray, Ariz.: Did not lead to team success
- 2019 #6 Daniel Jones, NYG: Did not lead to sustained team success
- 2020 #1 Joe Burrow, Cin.: One of the best QBs in the league, made SB, did not lead to consistent team success
- 2020 #5 Tua Tagovialoa, Mia.: Did not lead to consistent team success
- 2020 #6 Justin Herbert, LAC: Good QB, Did not lead to consistent team success
- 2021 #1 Trevor Lawrence, Jax: Did not lead to consistent team success
- 2021 #2 Zach Wilson, NYJ: Bust
- 2021 #3 Trey Lance, San Fran.: Doesn't count due to trade but bust anyway
Of the 21 guys on this list, only 5 (Goff, Luck, Allen, Burrow, and Herbert) would be obvious improvements over what the Steelers had the past several years. Tannehill and Mayfield are maybes. Anyone else would be a bust in Pittsburgh. I can only imagine what Steelers fans would say if we got a top pick and spent it on a guy like Tua or Zach Wilson. But the best examples for comparison are the Bengals and Chargers. Bengals first. It's a really easy comparison to make since they play in the same division. In the six years since Burrow has been in the league, the Steelers have finished ahead of the Bengals 4 times while the Bengals have bested the Steelers only twice. We can put an asterisk next to 2020 since Burrow was a rookie, but even in the contemporary era of complaining about the Steelers it's still a 3–2 advantage. And the Steelers have done better lately as well, with Cincy having missed the playoffs for three seasons and counting. This is not a team that is in a better position than the Steelers.
The Chargers, though, are an even better comparison, because they're an example of a similarly situated team that did absolutely everything people said the Steelers should have been doing over that period. They were a team that was good on paper but managed to disappoint with a lot of flukey close losses, and they unepectedly ended up with a low draft pick. With Rivers exiting, they spent it on a QB who lived up to the hype, and eventually dumped their coach as well. They have a good young QB, a decent core, and a hip young offensive-minded coach. They proceed to make the playoffs three out of the next six seasons, losing in the first round every time. Two of those appearances come after firing the hip young coach and replacing him with an old guy who believes in team defense and running the ball. It's not too hard to imagine an alternate universe where the Chargers have a decent 2019 and, following Ben's injury and the loss of the killer Bs, the team finishes 5–11 and management decides that with a guy like Herbert available it's time for a rebuild. Tomlin is let go, Ben throws a tantrum and gets sold for scrap (he is about the same age as Rivers), and they hire an "innovative" wunderkind as head coach. In 2020, 7–9 is an improvement, 9–8 in 2021 is even better, and in 2022 they actually have a winning season and make the playoffs, and though they lose in the first round, they're improving, and this is what progress looks like. Until they have another 5 win season the following year and they hire a Tomlin clone to get the team back on track an consistently have 10 or 11 win seasons and early playoff exits. And everyone talks about how they really righted the ship.
This is what pisses me off about the constant bitching about the Steelers of the past 5 or 6 years. Yes, is disappointing when you make the playoffs 5 out of 6 years and get blown out in the first round every time. But it's better when making the playoffs at all is considered an improvement.
Rov_Scam
17d ago
It could mean a lot of things. I'm not arguing that betting on your own team is the same morally as betting against it, just that it isn't some benign activity that we shouldn't worry about.
Rov_Scam
17d ago
It's fairly straightforward. If a normal guy goes for a walk and sees something unusual he either writes it off as nothing to worry about or tells someone about it, in which case he's just some guy who saw something and probably didn't know what he was looking at. If a scientist sees something unusual and it has nothing to do with what they're studying they write it off and ignore it. If a Navy pilot sees something he can't identify he has to file an official report because it might be enemy aircraft or something and it gets put in a file that's invariably classified for obvious reasons. The result is is that there's a small trove of documents that play right into the hands of people who are convinced that aliens exist and there's a huge government conspiracy to cover it up.
I don't understand the people who are claiming that McConnell is secretly dead, because hiding something like that wouldn't make sense. Bashear has no power to appoint a replacement, and one would think that the inconvenience of running an election for a guy to serve less than six months would be preferable for the seat being effectively vacant.
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