On a spectacular autumn day.
Put aside the question whether the academic joke, financial catastrophe (UD thanks John for the link), and criminal bacchanalia university football represents makes it a terrific fit with American higher education. Put aside the fact that multiple high schools are unable to field a team because so few guys (thanks for the link, Charlie) are stupid enough to take part. Put aside the ritual militarization of high school games, with fights and gunshots becoming a structural part of the fun. (As Ravi, one of my readers, puts it, we’re heading toward “open carry on the gridiron.”)
Look merely at one professional team, the Raiders, which recently boasted the Three Violent and Insane Stooges (all were rapidly suspended or dumped or whatever).
UD doesn’t get it. If you really want to watch an insane obese male lumber about destroying everything in his path, you’ve already got the President.
[Vontaze] Burfict’s troubling pattern of behavior stretches back to high school. He was the top high-school recruit at his position in the country. Recruiting site 247 Sports listed Burfict as the 11th best prospect in the country and one of the 250 best prospects in the history of high school football; he still ranks as the 39th best player to ever come out of the talent-rich state of California. But Burfict received few elite-level college scholarship offers, and he ended up at Arizona State, a third-rate program. The best of the best had heard all about Burfict’s reputation: he had serious anger issues, the story went. One by one they chose to pass.
Luckily for Elizabeth Warren supporters (UD is one of them), no one around here is conscious.
The charge is that the old gal is still so hot she attracted a strapping twelve year old (no – double that – a 24 year old) Marine to her bed – news that UD welcomes (I mean, would welcome… It’s … to use Trubu’s favorite word, bullshit), since old gals like UD love to hear about smokin hot old gals. Unfortunately, in this particular case, Warren will turn out not to share Trubu’s predilection for extremely young flesh.
This is good.
Between calling Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) a panoply of Trumpish insults (and for the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to be held for treason), engaging in his usual hatred of the press, talking about Mike Pompeo’s intimate undergarments, and quite obviously scaring the shit out of Finnish President Sauli Niinisto—who looked like he was the very unwilling star of an ISIS hostage video—Trump spent the day rapidly decompensating, and it was a hideous spectacle. All the Maximum Leader pronunciamentos won’t change the reality that Donald John Trump, 45th president of the United States, has lost his shit.
In private, Republicans are in the deepest despair of the Trump era. They’ve got that hang-dog, dick-in-the-dirt fatalism of men destined to die in a meaningless battle in a pointless war.
Americans by a 45%-38% plurality now support a vote by the House of Representatives to impeach President Trump, a USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds, as allegations continue to swirl around an embattled White House.
By a similar margin, 44%-35%, those surveyed say the Senate, which would then be charged with holding a trial of the president, should convict Trump and remove him from office.
(Background here.) And he does a great job of evoking the game that dominates American university life.
You’re in the heat of battle. Your mindset is kill or be killed. Because the offensive linemen are still coming at you. You’re in war. You’re supposed to be able to be violent sometimes and other times you’re supposed to just be able to take your foot off the gas like that. That is hard, my friend.
I feel for this guy. Do I think he should be fined? Yes. Do I think he should be kicked outta the league? No. I think it is absolutely dead wrong. This guy has handled himself like a pro. And yes, he is a violent mother f’er and I love the way he plays the game of football.
Can’t think of a more appropriate setting for this activity than a university.
Family values, al-Hawl.
Pas mal. Keep it coming.
… Charles Grassley. Feast your eyes. Three pages of praise for his stewardship of our tax dollars. UD‘s a deep blue Democrat who deeply admires this conservative Republican for taking seriously his charge to disrupt the theft of federal funds wherever it occurs.
Grassley is a true throwback: a midwestern scold with just the sort of moral backbone a Senator needs to do the right thing in the Ukraine mess. UD‘s totally not surprised, therefore, that he has rebuked Trubu and his minions over their, er, unusual reading of the whistle blower laws. Good on you, Chuck, and may there be more where you come from.
[S]upport for impeachment and removal has risen 11 points to 46% among independents and 8 points to 14% among Republicans.
Don’t worry. No one in the country can pick him out of the crowd.
Here’s their hero’s page, their big man on campus, the pride of ASU. How do you get a hero’s page at ASU?
Burfict was … benched during his time with Arizona State after several penalties for illegal hits. One of those hits essentially cost the team a game against Stanford in 2010 after an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty gave them a first down inside the 10-yard line. Stanford then scored what would be the game winning touchdown.
They’ve kept the page up through his recent attempt to decapitate another player, and through all fourteen of his suspensions from NFL play. An icon of the American university! He kicks the shit out of other people’s brains; he’s just about the dirtiest player ever, a violent wingnut; but they worshipped him at ASU and he’ll be back in the professional game (How do you get to be team captain in professional football? Be Vontaze Burfict!) after this latest suspension cuz man can he hit. They want him to keep at it until he succeeds in decapitating someone. Then, with reluctance, they’ll hand him over to the American justice system.
Helluva game, football, and, as always, a terrific look for our universities.
[Vontaze] Burfict is simply out of control. When he was at Arizona State, he racked up 22 personal fouls in 37 games, and saw his draft stock slide in part because of his volatility.
ASU’s hero! Read his hero page!