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QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 05:12 PM) He has managed to put the coal industry on the path to extinction without congressional approval. Signing statements, executive orders and directions given to unelected agency officials to steer 'policy' can do an awful lot. Congress gave the EPA the power to regulate those things.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 05:17 PM) Leaving aside the obvious here - like the fact that this is pure idociy, etc. - from a political point of view, this is the GOP commiting Hari Kari. The schism keeps getting wider within that party. But what is really stunning about it to me, is that the Tea Party crowd is actually just a couple dozen house reps and a few Senators. And all the data tells us their influence is waning. Yet the GOP establishment still continues to cave to them. This whole thing where the GOP feels that you have to stay hyper-conservative in order to survive primaries is a mostly unfounded paranoia. The fear is not placed in much reality. And as they keep going down this "No I'M More Conservative!!!" route, they are continuing to marginalize themselves as a party. They continue to kowtow to a minority of their own party, continue to refuse any attempt at working across the aisle, and continue to find more and more extreme politicians for office. This cannot end well. They either become a regional party with no real power, or they change course to become a little more moderate and reasonable, or they split in two. Anyone want to guess which will happen? I honestly don't know. The whole thing is sad to me. I've always been an independent, but I voted GOP more than Dem until a few years ago. Maybe not in national primaries, but Dick Lugar going down and McConnell's polling seems to indicate they are rational here. They need to perform these crazy destructive acts just to prove how much they hate socialism/Obama/democrats because if you work with em you work for em!

This isn't even as bad as the debt ceiling fight in 2 weeks.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 30, 2013 -> 11:25 PM) Verducci effect has been disproved dozens of times now. The article says as much.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Sep 30, 2013 -> 11:06 PM) It's a complete joke that Handzus is the #2 center going into a season, but what else is new. I don't know why we root for this team!

Just a reminder that there are more than enough votes to pass a clean CR in house and senate. This is not a Congress issue, this is a Republican issue.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 30, 2013 -> 06:37 PM) Brees can throw 4 TDs to Jimmy Graham then, and throw for 300. And Sproles can catch 5 balls for 30 yards. Now we both win. Ha, I'm in same boat.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 30, 2013 -> 04:16 PM) I saw a headline on facebook about them investigating the idea that someone intentionally drove an empty train into this train? There was initial rumors on this but as far as I know now, they believe this to be a mechanical issue.

I was always rooting for Blaine Gabbert to put it together but man this is just terrible. Clearly he must be executing in practice for them to keep going back to him. I think he's mentally just shot now. The only way he could pass for 400 yards is if he played the bears d. I was always worried about him and pressure. He got spooked so easily with the slightest breakdown, and I thought that was the #1 thing to look for out of college. Haven't watched enough to see if that's the case here, but obviously having the Jaguars whiz offensive coaches couldn't have helped.

The economy may not have blinked but it certainly didn't accelerate the way many expected it to prior. But that's ok, 7.8% unemployment is acceptable.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 13, 2011 -> 04:14 PM) Can't fault Meckler for making this statements, he's sticking with his economic philosophy there. And there's something that he's hit on there, about private companies benefiting from deepening the port but the cost being spread across the entire country. For as much as I've been over-the-top mocking laissez faire lately, you do need to examine public works projects to see if its simply corporatism or crony capitalism taking advantage of taxpayer dollars to enrich themselves vs. something that is actually largely beneficial to the population at large. Think of cities using eminent domain to seize property and sell it to private condo developers versus necessary infrastructure improvement that, yeah, will certainly benefit some private companies/individuals disproportionately but will help the overall economic growth and opportunities for everyone. There have been a lot of studies on why public works cost so much in US vs. comparable projects in Europe. It's kind of insane and near intractible. Kudos to a city that can break that. But yeah, the classic dumb "privatization" maneuver is to lease out a city owned parking lot to a private company to run/get all revenue from. Either utilize it or sell it. You aren't making anything more efficient doing that.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Sep 30, 2013 -> 04:04 PM) I still think Shea McClellin is a OLB in a 3-4. Where he can be more athletic. Drop into coverage and do that kind of stuff. I wouldn't be shocked if the Bears trade him in the off season. You just aren't going to get much back for him. 4-5 round pick. I'd be shocked if we got more than a 6th round pick.

God I love Noah. http://my.chicagotribune.com/#story/ct-spt...icago-20130928/

this isn't exact to illinois mind you: http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthpolicy/calculator/ But looks like you could be at about $350/mo for 2 person household.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ Sep 26, 2013 -> 04:19 PM) Boldin is held really high in my league for whatever reason and I thought I'd sell high on him but didn't expect such a great deal to come up. Amendola is also held high in my league as everyone in the group chat was saying it was fair because he'll come back next week and put up big numbers with Brady. I just think this isn't Amendola's last injury for the year. I do not necessarily like Roddy White and Larry Fitz was who I wanted but I still see value either way. I am sure all of the Roddy White owners would agree that he should have just sat a couple weeks and let his ankle heal. Until he has a breakout game I am not considering starting him. Well, meanwhile my trade went through. Gave up - Ryan Mathews Received - Roddy White Relying on my horrible group of receivers of Dwayne Bowe, TY Hilton and Tavon Austin (actually been pretty good in ppr).

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Sep 26, 2013 -> 03:36 PM) I may have asked this question before but is everyone eligible for the Obamacare or just people that aren't offered insurance through their employer? Both my wife's and my job offer insurance but we really don't like it. The state exchanges are open to you. There are some great resources where you can calculate how much a silver plan would be for you and your wife. Whether your current plan will be a better deal depends on your income level.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Sep 26, 2013 -> 03:43 PM) "Doesn't this just indenture people to their employer?" Yea, but it like totally doesn't mean to. The intent was not to, but it does. That makes sense on my planet LOL as opposed to WHAT BASELINE? Now? This will make the individual market more affordable for the majority of uninsured people. As it continues to grow it will become even more affordable. This just nonsense.

judging by how many posters in this thread keep forgetting the subsidies part of it, yes, he did a poor job of selling it. Plus negativity bias

I feel like I don't even remember what it's like to have Rose on the team. I wouldn't mind sitting Noah until Christmas to help with his foot come playoffs, though you can't really plan for anything with Plantar Fasciitis.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ Sep 26, 2013 -> 06:53 AM) I made a trade. Danny Amendola and Anquan Boldin for Roddy White and Larry Fitzgerald I think I won considering one guy called collusion aha Oh man, I can't believe someone would take that deal. What was that, like their second and third round picks for people probably in 9-10 rounds for you?

QUOTE (Jake @ Sep 25, 2013 -> 09:11 PM) President Obama saw how important this law can be (and will be) to the future of the USA and thus bent over very far backwards to try to get it passed with bipartisan support. Unfortunately, he had no idea that the only attempts at cooperation by the right were going to be disingenuous (such as them having basically promoted the current law until Obama capitulated, at which point they no longer liked it). Likewise, he had no idea that this great degree of capitulation would still cause the moderates and other members of competitive districts to lose in the mid-terms. I have a feeling the Dem leadership would have approached things much differently with hindsight, by enacting either a single-payer system or at least implementing the public option. There is another, not often spoken about aspect to this law: voter registration. Per federal law, Obamacare exchanges and other providers must give citizens the opportunity to register to vote (ala DMVs). I believe this is a huge, unspoken aspect to the Republican opposition to this law. This makes voter registration much easier for a lot of folks that are currently struggling to get registered and thus not turning out. These people will also presumably like having healthcare and will vote to keep/enhance the institutions that provide them with healthcare. The current Republican establishment hates when people vote and they really hate it when people like a government service. Unlike voter ID and other voter-suppressive movements from the right, there is no good way to talk openly about the aforementioned issue. They can't complain that people can register to vote, because that is the process that helps to prevent the fraud they are so worried about. There have been a few cries about identity theft, but these haven't been picked up by mainstream voices because they don't make sense. I followed the health care bill closer than any legislation in my lifetime. The single payer option would not have had 30 votes, let alone 50, and while the public option may have had 50, they needed all 60 votes. This is the bill that could get passed. And all of the "why didn't they think of this stuff" that's out there now, well, it didn't have the support. This bill wasn't perfect, but the better options people throw out couldn't have gotten passed. Even as I make fun of them for the dumber parts of the bill to lower the cost, they probably needed those to get the senators from Nebraska and Arkansas on board. And 2010 saw major losses in the house, who actually did vote for a bill with the public option, which obviously was not included when reconciled.

I'm pretty sure I sported a Chris Widger sig for a while.

QUOTE (Brian @ Sep 25, 2013 -> 05:53 PM) Yeah. It's very poorly made. Expected more from Sofia Coppola. Not really a fan of hers anyway, so not sure why I had high hopes. Hahaha, not sure why this made me laugh. That girl from Winnetka was insufferable. Shocking!

Republicans didn't care about that they weren't going to vote for anything, so Dems protected themselves from "too expensive" sniping by coming up with a bizarre round number to say it wouldn't be more expensive then so had a bunch of mechanisms to raise revenue that weren't really important in terms of fixing health care but important to go below the magic round number of CBO scoring.

Oh god bling ring was so bad I turned it off.