"When you’re in television for 18 years. That’s like a poll. That means people like you." - Donald Trump, on his endorsement of Dr. Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race

Path Of East Resistance

Russia has set the stage for a ruthless campaign to seize control of the eastern Donbas region, as its forces regroup from their failed attempt to brutalize the rest of the country into submission.

• Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky warned on Monday that tens of thousands of Russian troops were amassing for a renewed assault on eastern Ukraine, and the Pentagon has confirmed that hundreds of Russian military vehicles are en route to the Donbas in an eight-mile-long convoy. Roughly 13,400 civilians have fled eastern Ukraine since Friday, according to Ukrainian officials, with local leaders urging residents to flee while there’s still time.
  
• In an ominous sign about the next phase of the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin over the weekend appointed Gen. Alexander Dvornikov to oversee all operations in Ukraine, establishing a central commander of the invasion for the first time. Dvornikov earned himself the cheerful nickname of the “Butcher of Syria” by relentlessly targeting civilian neighborhoods and hospitals during the Syrian war, for which he was honored as a “hero of the Russian Federation.”
  
• Of course, we don’t need to look as far afield as Syria to get a sense of what could be in store for the Donbas region. The mayor of Mariupol said Monday that more than 10,000 civilians had been killed in Russia’s siege of the city, and warned that the death toll could surpass 20,000. A team of French experts has arrived in Ukraine to help investigate possible war crimes in formerly occupied areas, including the town of Bucha.
  

Meanwhile, Putin’s first sit-down with a Western leader since the start of the war didn’t produce a much sunnier outlook.

• Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said he’s “not particularly optimistic” about the next phase of the invasion after meeting with Putin in Moscow on Monday: “The offensive is being prepared with determination.” Nehammer said that he “addressed the serious war crimes in Bucha and other places and emphasized that all those responsible for them must be held accountable,” and raised the issue of humanitarian corridors to allow for the evacuation of civilians and delivery of aid.
  
• While Dvornikov (presumably) prepares to take a page from his Syrian playbook in the Donbas, Putin reportedly sees an opportunity to revive his own signature move. U.S. intelligence officials have assessed that Putin may use the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine as a pretext to order a new interference campaign in another American election, if you can believe it. It’s not entirely clear why he’d need a pretext when the frontrunner for the GOP nomination has straight up asked him to interfere, but we respect his commitment to the craft.
  

Russian and Ukrainian forces are gearing up for a major clash on more open, rural terrain that’s both familiar to the Russian military from a previous invasion and allows for shorter supply lines. The new phase of Russia’s assault might be limited to a smaller piece of Ukraine, but experts fear that it will be no less brutal.

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

Check out the latest episode of Offline! This week, the Co-Founder and former CEO of Twitter Ev Williams joins Jon Favreau to talk about Twitter’s early years, the company’s newest board member Elon Musk, and if Donald Trump should be allowed back on the site. New episodes of Offline drop every Sunday wherever you get your podcasts.

Under The Radar

The Saudi sovereign wealth fund led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman dumped $2 billion into Jared Kushner’s new private equity firm shortly after Kushner left the White House, even after its screening committee raised serious reservations. The committee’s objections included “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management,” an asset management fee that “seems excessive,” and firm operations that due diligence had found to be “unsatisfactory in all aspects.” But the full board overruled the panel, investing twice as much with Kushner’s firm as it gave to former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s new fund at around the same time. It’s hard to imagine a more obvious way for MBS to telegraph that he’s less interested in making money than in rewarding Kushner for the Trump administration’s lenient stance on murdering Washington Post journalists, and offering a bribe for other corrupt favors that Donald Trump could and would deliver if he returns to power.

What Else?

The January 6 committee has reportedly gathered enough evidence to send the Justice Department a criminal referral of disgraced former president Donald Trump, but members are divided on whether it’s worth the trouble to do so.
Supreme Court Wife and Coup Participant Ginni Thomas regularly lobbied the Trump administration to hire her far-right allies, including at a private lunch hosted by the Trumps at which Justice Clarence Thomas was present.
President Biden on Monday announced the nomination of former federal prosecutor Steve Dettelbach to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and touted a new Justice Department measure to crack down on ghost guns.
French President Emmanuel Macron will face far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in a presidential runoff election, setting up the 2017 replay that Europe has yearned for.
Pakistan’s parliament has selected the opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif as the country’s new interim prime minister, after ousting Imran Khan in a no-confidence vote over the weekend.
Philadelphia will reinstate its indoor mask mandate, becoming the first major U.S. city to do so. A fearless move by Health Commissioner Gritty.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has become the third Cabinet member to test positive for COVID in the wake of last weekend’s Gridiron dinner, which served up at least 67 infections. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who attended the dinner, has also tested positive.
An Iowa judge ruled that Democratic Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer can’t appear on the state’s June 7 primary ballot, in a special favor to the Wisconsin GOP. Finkenaur said she would appeal the decision to the Iowa Supreme Court.
Elon Musk has decided not to join the board of Twitter after all, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced on Sunday night — a reversal that frees him up to buy a larger share of the company.
Persistent supply chain issues could drive up car prices for longer than economists expected, potentially mucking up broader inflation predictions.
Britney Spears announced she’s pregnant, Bennifer is (are?) engaged, and your Motorola Razr just lit up with an invitation to go see Mean Girls in theaters.

Be Smarter

A Texas district attorney has moved to dismiss a murder charge against a woman in connection with a “self-induced abortion,” leaving unanswered a number of questions, including but not limited to, “what the actual fuck?” The 26-year-old Texas woman was arrested on Friday and held on $500,000 bail before being released on Saturday; a statement from the Starr County Sheriff’s Office said only that she was charged after “intentionally and knowingly causing the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.” It’s unclear whether she was accused of having the abortion herself or aiding one, or how far along her pregnancy might have been. It’s also unclear what law she allegedly violated: S.B. 8 and other Texas anti-abortion laws explicitly prohibit criminal homicide charges for pregnant women who have an abortion. Starr County District Attorney Gocha Allen Ramirez said in a statement that after reviewing the case, he concluded that the woman “cannot and should not be prosecuted for the allegation against her,” but commended the Sheriff’s Department for doing the right thing by investigating her. If and when the Supreme Court shivs Roe v. Wade, these arrests could become much more common, with considerably uglier outcomes.

What A Sponsor

People don’t always realize that physical symptoms like headaches, teeth-grinding and even digestive issues can be indicators of stress. And let’s not forget about doom scrolling, sleeping too little, sleeping too much, undereating and overeating.
Stress shows up in all kinds of ways. And in a world that’s telling you to do more, sleep less and grind all the time, here’s your reminder to take care of yourself, do less, and maybe try some therapy.
BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video, phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist, so you don’t have to see anyone on camera if you don’t want to. It’s much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can start communicating with your therapist in under 48 hours.
Give it a try and see why over 2 million people have used BetterHelp online therapy. This newsletter is sponsored by BetterHelp, and What A Day readers get 10% off their first month: https://BetterHelp.com/crooked.

Light At The End Of The Email

The Biden administration has launched a $1 billion program to support its goal of conserving 30 percent of the country’s lands and waters by 2030.
Here’s a great read about one Texas school district’s “liaison” for protecting homeless students, and the new federal grants that have allowed schools to expand their services.
Disney heir Charlee Disney has publicly come out as transgender and condemned Republicans’ wave of anti-LGBTQ+ bills. The Disney family has pledged to match up to $500,000 in donations to the Human Rights Campaign.
A Starbucks store in Brookline has become the first Massachusetts location to unionize, and the 18th unionized Starbucks in the country.

Enjoy

Terrible Maps on Twitter: "Railway map of Antarctica"

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First Official Tendie Newsletter
Family! Let’s start doing a Tendie rant/update every cycle. See a section you like? Let me know in the replies. NFA, DYOR, blah blah blah…
Legacy Markets: September 8th Great Wick (Down) CashBash called it babyyyyy! It happened…
Well SOMETHING happened. This might not be the GREAT wick down but it certainly qualifies as noteworthy. Legacy markets tend to coordinate these huge selloffs to burn all the people with long futures positions—this one was no different. One single candle wick hitting way down, thousands of degen traders getting riggity-rekt, millions in long positions liquidated across all markets. Oof.
I am 100% used to getting liquidated at this point. I’m not crying, you’re crying, can someone turn down the humidity please?
They (so vague and ominous, THEY) usually do one last big shake out/wick down before the real recovery so be careful making any kind of legacy plays right now. People are predicting bear market by Christmas, but I disagree. XRP is always a safe buy… shout out to some of these alt legacies not even listening to big bro Bitcoin and doing a little decoupling dance on their own in their corner of the party I SEE YOU SOL AND ADA AND XRP 🕺🏽 💃🏽
Care Bear Countdown: Tragedy and Loss Regardless of race, religion, color or creed, let’s take a moment to honor and respect those who were lost and those who suffered loss in the tragic events of 9/11.
I was in 8th grade when it happened. I was sitting down in homeroom and all the TV’s came on. The news flashed across the screen, classmates reactions ranged from confused to bewildered to the first tinges of “I think I’m witnessing a generation changing tragedy with huge gravity but I don’t know exactly how big yet”.
The school immediately canceled classes for the day. There was a VERY weird vibe in the hallways as everyone got ready to go home. Some people understood what happened. Some people were in shock. Some people started to cry and grieve immediately. Some people were callous and didn’t see what happened as a tragedy. Some people were just happy to have the day off. I took the short walk home and spent the day with my mom. She was quiet. I don’t really remember anything else about the day. But I’ll never forget.
Rest In Peace to all the fallen and their families.
Quick Routes:
Is The Hotel Food Hittin Today? No. Percentage of Hotel Quarantine Food Gone to Waste: 87% Lbs Gained: 0.9 HydroHomie: 2.5L of life juice consumed. Room Service Bill: One million Covids plus tax. Remaining Service Staff Tip Fund: 1000PHP. Long Liquidations: One 😩 Room: College Dorm Status. Towels: New. Chef: Forgets salt is a thing sometimes. Wife: Counting the days until she can go on a solo adventure without the kids, keeping close track of my room service bill so she can be sure to match it when the time comes 😅🥰 Life: Good. Mood: Optimistic. Smell: Acceptable. Twitter: Almost Verified. International Outreach: Learning Korean. R&D: NFT market analysis and strategic planning, building website and minty mechanics stuff Marketing Push: Upcoming… Getting out quick and flashy previews of the NFT art and the project details. Concise summary on new “Roadmap” details to blast on all channels. Everything in the recent AMA cut down to digestible bites. New Medium article to officially give a Q2-Q3 update.
Uncut Speculations:
the following sections are purely personal speculation, based on highly educated guesses, several shakes of an 8-ball, and a few darts. I like to believe we live in a mysterious world where the magical can happen everyday…
Chief Intelligence Officer? I’m pretty sure CashBash is secretly a high ranking CIA field agent, is actually 53 years old, has the highest level of security access at the agency and is currently onboarding all his departments into $BBYXRP under threat of termination. We pump our bags and we pump your bags.
Coach Buzz Lightyear? In addition to coaching championship little league gridiron, I’m 99.

The Data I keep track of in segments of week to week for some of my draftkings spread sheets. Opportunity is listed as how many routes they ran along with how many carries they got. The points is only accumulated in weeks that generated 10 touches, bc I never play RB's in draftkings not getting up to 10 touches.
​
The Main Sheet.
Total Points
1-4 is weeks 1-4
5-8 is weeks 5-8
Averages are the same
Opportunity which is Routes ran + Carries
Then the average run play, att, yards, ypa yards per attempt, yards after contact, tgt target, rec receptions,
Then DK 1-4, 5-8. 9-12, 13-17 are the actual stats for those games.
DK Week is how many DK points these teams were giving up to opposing RB's on an average and total points per game and you can see a lot of trends.
DK Z-Score is how much these teams basically played well or not to the average of that specific week.
Z-Score sheet is simply how much better a dude performed compared to his average to the week.
Why is this important? Well basically you want to play the most points relative to position. Example: Paying up for Derrick Henry in week 14 might not have been optimal because Miles Sanders, David Montgomery, Jonathan Taylor, and Kareem Hunt all scored within 10 points of him for a much cheaper cost.
It's a lot of data to digest, but again I will answer any questions I can.
Will start streaming soon to go over the superbowl and how I come up with some of my lineup builds.
Follow me TapeNeverLied on Twitter or JordanVanek1
Also Follow GridironRatings for my content as I write for them
Thank you and have a good one!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jCQwVE_aTMKcGJI9zYyBo76wKMR0VNxt1lwThOj1wv4/edit#gid=1821540951

The University of Hamilton offers many degrees.
Our primary economics degree is the "Bachelor of Advanced Economics". While we do have smaller, more basic degrees in economics, such as accounting, foreign business, or business management, the advanced economics degree is our leading, and hardest, degree.
https://my.uq.edu.au/programs-courses/program_list.html?acad_prog=2402&year=2020 this is the most similar degree that matches the advanced Economics degree.
Also, for clarification, alot of my degrees will be based of Australian ones, as they are what I know the most about!
The school of economics is headed by Professor Margaretta Hefton (4th year coordinator for the Advanced Economics degree)
The School of Science - Headed by Doctor Leon Gurston (Lecturer for the Anatomical science programs)
A Human Science degree is offered that studies the workings of the human body, both in a general science and a medical viewpoint.
https://www.qut.edu.au/courses/bachelor-of-biomedical-science?domestic
General science - obvious, just a study of science and the likes. No link will be provided as it's a fairly basic degree
Engineering - again, no link will be provided as this degree is a basic one, similar to most engineering degrees offered.
Sports science - https://www.cdu.edu.au/study/bachelor-exercise-and-sport-science-bess-2020?gclid=CjwKCAiAsIDxBRAsEiwAV76N8wjYxgDgCDUieMzZuJQtJGLVcjgsXDTrOwFAZx8aWQ7KAm67k_ToWRoCykEQAvD_BwE
A degree that focuses on the human body, but in an excercise aspect. Whereas Human Science focuses on the cells and physiology of the entire body, Sport science focuses on how the body moves and how it digests food and makes energy.
School of health - Headed by Doctor Simone Jules
We offer three different degrees for medicine.
The Postgraduate Physician degree focuses on general physician work, diagnosing and working as a general doctor. They don't perform any surgeries or procedures. This degree has majors in physiology and psychology, encompassing most professions within health that don't require procedure.
The Surgical Doctor degree focuses more on procedures and surgeries. It is a degree that allows a doctor to perform surgeries and other delicate procedures. It econompasses majors in fields such as Vaccine treatments, orthopedics, surgery, and other similar fields. Tis weird, but yah.
The third medical degree offered is the Combined Doctor of medicine which provides majors in all fields of medicine, allowing you to both treat and perform procedures, but as a less specialised doctor. It's the most popular degree out of the three.
Bachelor of Nursing - obviously our nursing degree is similar to modern nursing degrees in the basic teaching.
School of Law - Headed by Professor Brian Brickhouse
Providing basic degrees in criminal law, family law and other general law degrees, UH also offers a specialised 'Adapted Law' degree. This degree focuses on teachings of the post-world, and how certain laws, and judicial process have changed and how they should be operated.
We also offer an International Law degree, headed by primarily international lecturers, which teaches and focuses on the processes of other nations judicial system.
School of Art - Headed by Professor Rebecka Redtail
Not even gonna bother with these. Covers most art degrees, from film to journalism, from art to history
School of education - Heads by Professor Sean Hughs
Again, fairly straightforward. Degrees in primary education and infant education, as well as a new emphasis on the Bachelor of Secondary Education.
The University itself
Located on the outskirts of Hamilton, UH is a large campus that covers 1400 square kilometres. This is a very large campus, as each school is not directly connected, and has their own buildings and departments within them. Certain degrees overlap, and may have courses at different campuses. A free shuttle bus is used to move students between the campuses.
Campus Life itself is fairly fun, with many clubs and organisations across all campuses that students can join in on. One of the primary clubs is he Gridiron teams, which currently compete between campuses, but opportunities to compete between different colleges may arise!
As a final statement, we ask any and all nations that wish to send lecturers for our specific degrees, or any specific degrees they'd want us to implement. We are happy to learn and grow our campuses, as this is currently the largest - and one of the only - universities in the THTC.

I've been taking exhaustive notes on EA's Twitch stream revealing Madden Ultimate Team for Madden 20, but there is almost too much information to digest in one sitting. So here's a streamlined set of details you might like to know.

MUT Master: Pat Tillman

Pat Tillman returns to MUT as this year's MUT Master, and will be obtained and upgraded in much the same way as MUT Master Ryan Shazier was in MUT 19, with diminished requirements for passing yards and touchdowns and an increased requirement on tackles.
Tillman seems to be delivered at 70 OVR and max out at 90 OVR for now.

Level Master: Torry Holt

Torry Holt makes a clean sweep of MUT returnees in the MUT Master and Level Master roles, as the Rams receiver follows running backs LaDainian Tomlinson and Ricky Williams as the third Level Master. The tweak to the program this year? Fewer upgrade tokens, and bigger bumps for each one.
Holt appears to arrive at 70 OVR and max out at 90 OVR for now.

Ratings Stretch Comes to MUT With Lower OVRs

Tillman and Holt are two of just three players revealed thus far to reach 90 OVR, and are joined by Series 1 Master Von Miller, a 91 OVR player. Core Elites top out at 88 OVR, with Tom Brady, Aaron Donald, DeAndre Hopkins, Khalil Mack, Justin Tucker and Bobby Wagner comprising the sextet at that level, and subsidiary stats appear to be decreased to go along with them.
This is a major change from MUT 19, which put a 95 OVR MUT Master and a 94 OVR Team Diamonds Master on the table from launch.

Staggered Rollouts for Some MUT Features

When players dive into MUT this week, they will be able to get deep into Challenges -- which, because they can now be played with offline or online teammates, are no longer referred to as Solos by EA -- and H2H Seasons, among other modes. But Solo Battles and Weekend League will not be available during this week's EA Access period, instead arriving the week of July 29 (Solo Battles) and week of August 5 (Weekend League), respectively.
This should give players plenty of time to figure out Madden 20 and MUT within it before diving into the deep ends of MUT's most competitive modes.
In addition, the beloved House Rules mode that was introduced late in the MUT 19 cycle is set to return in August, per Stein.

Currency Overhauls Bring Trophies, Stars to Fore

MUT 19's fascination with in-game currencies seems to have led to more experimentation with currencies for MUT 20. Series Trophies are now a pooled currency much like Coins or Points instead of individual cards, and can be spent as such, while Stars awarded for completion of Challenges can now unlock rewards. Training, too, is now more usable in the Store.
And Tickets have bit the dust, with EA opting to have Coins serve as the barrier to entry for Draft and Salary Cap modes.

New and Old Programs and Challenges Return

• One of the primary programs available on launch in MUT 20 is Theme Builders, which appears to be arrayed around sequences of Challenges for all 32 NFL teams and reward NAT 86 OVR cards at the end of the year. That part of the program seems to crib plenty from the Team Leaders program from MUT 18; the Theme Diamonds portion sounds like it takes more inspiration from MUT 19's Team Diamonds, except that it might focus on fan-favorite cards, with Stein suggesting that Joe Jurevicius could be the Bucs' Theme Diamond.
• An NFL Epics program will allow players to play through the careers of some NFL stars, and includes 86 OVR Baker Mayfield and Deacon Jones cards as rewards.
• Journey will return, with the first edition of it taking players through the 100-year history of the NFL and rewarding an 88 OVR Michael Thomas for completion.
• Ultimate Trainers is the de facto replacement for MUT 19's beautifully structured Campaign solo sequence, and rewards a choice of five NAT 85 OVR players.
• The Team Captains program returns, with four new Captains (Dallas Clark, Ty Law, Herman Moore, and Ryan Shazier) taking the spots held in MUT 19 by Ray Lewis, Jerry Rice, Shannon Sharpe, and Michael Strahan. And this will be the only way players can get Shazier, who will not otherwise be in MUT 20; Clark, Law, and Moore will be around in some other form later on. (Hint: Pick Shaz.)

Preorder Content Available "No Later Than" August 2

For now, it seems that all of EA's advertised preorder content is coming not as the game becomes available through EA Access on Thursday, July 25, but a week later, on August 2, to coincide with the global launch of the full game. MUT designer Jake Stein suggests that that content might be pushed forward, but it's going to be a bit of a bummer to have to wait a week more to have the content players have paid for.

MUT Versions of X-Factor and Superstar Abilities Unveiled

The way that Madden 20's signature X-Factor and Superstar Abilities will interact with MUT was explained in (somewhat confusing) detail on the stream, with a new Gridiron Notes blog post doing plenty to demystify them. Put as simply as possible, players will unlock slots for these abilities as their OVR improves, and qualify for abilities based on archetype and hitting subsidiary ratings thresholds.
That blog post and the corresponding spreadsheet do plenty to lay this all out in great detail.

Hi Everyone,
​
Last week's Gridiron Notes are now live here:https://www.ea.com/games/madden-nfl/madden-nfl-20/news/gridiron-notes-rarity-power-training
​
Sorry for the delay, we had some issues with the publication process last week. Everything should be back to normal this week. The Gridiron Notes have important segments of the stream cut up into digestible highlights as well as a section where the team answers your questions. For your convenience I've posted the Q&A section below.
​
Thursday's stream will be discussing Competitive Game Modes (yes, that includes Leagues). We will have two designers on to talk about what's coming next season so make sure to tune in at 11 AM EST at https://www.twitch.tv/eamaddennfl

Community Questions

​
1. Will the auction house filter and general categorization of cards be improved?
We’ve received feedback on reducing complexity in many areas of the game, and have consolidated much of our content which should help reduce the raw number of different programs to filter through. As for power, there will not be a power filter at launch, but we will be monitoring the situation closely. That being said, higher-power players are not so rare that you would need to search through hundreds of items to find the max-power version.
​
2. If there are 4 variants for each card, and some cards are scheme selectable, could there be cards with up to 16 different variants?
In the case where a card is scheme-selectable, we would likely lock in the power. Selecting between the 10 power Smashmouth version you want versus the 40 power West Coast version is not a particularly fun or compelling choice.
3. According to the stream, events would require power to play. Does it mean that we won’t be able to play certain events if we don’t have the required power?
To clarify: the vast majority events will have a recommended power, not a locked power, which determines the OVR bonus you receive in an event. For a power-locked event, it might help to think of it like an event locked behind OVR. We traditionally use OVR-locked events to provide extra rewards for users who have built a powerful team.
One specific example from the upcoming season: A quest chain with a branching path. Path 1 has the normal stamina cost. Path 2 has a power requirement, and a reduced stamina cost. Both paths lead to the same point, so if you have a high-power team, you save a bit of stamina.
​
4. When it comes to posting trained players in the auction house, will they show in the auction house with their power that they are trained up to, or their base power?
Players on the auction house are always posted with their base power. If you post a player that HAS been trained, you'll be prompted to extract all of the training points prior to posting the card in exchange for a lesser amount of training points that can be re-invested in other players.
​
5. Will we be able to actually see how the boosts are effecting the stats of each player?
It will operate like the Overdrive Boosts in the current Season (so, no). We want to improve in-gameplay feedback on boosts, but we are not there yet. 11 players, each with 10+ boosted stats would be a lot to digest.
​
See you all on Thursday!
​
-HSD

Hey everyone! This week's Gridiron Notes are now live. Since I didn't make a stream summary, I highly recommend you check out the page to watch important segments of the stream (https://www.ea.com/games/madden-nfl/madden-nfl-20/news/gridiron-notes-rarity-power-training). If not, here's this week's Q&A section, along with my opinions in italicized text.
​
1. Will the auction house filter and general categorization of cards be improved?
We’ve received feedback on reducing complexity in many areas of the game, and have consolidated much of our content which should help reduce the raw number of different programs to filter through. As for power, there will not be a power filter at launch, but we will be monitoring the situation closely. That being said, higher-power players are not so rare that you would need to search through hundreds of items to find the max-power version. ...wtf? So they're going to "consolidate programs" which means less individual and unique promos, AND they're not going to make it easier to navigate this new overly complicated layer they've added in the form of rarity? I just lost a lot of confidence in MM20.
​
2. If there are 4 variants for each card, and some cards are scheme selectable, could there be cards with up to 16 different variants?
In the case where a card is scheme-selectable, we would likely lock in the power. Selecting between the 10 power Smashmouth version you want versus the 40 power West Coast version is not a particularly fun or compelling choice. So now scheme selectable players are going to be locked to one specific power. As long as they have comparable power to high-rarity cards this won't be an issue, but I don't see EA doing that honestly. You're probably going to have to run scheme selectable players with worse power ratings, or a mishmash of different schemes to obtain the highest power.
​
3. According to the stream, events would require power to play. Does it mean that we won’t be able to play certain events if we don’t have the required power?
To clarify: the vast majority events will have a recommended power, not a locked power, which determines the OVR bonus you receive in an event. For a power-locked event, it might help to think of it like an event locked behind OVR. We traditionally use OVR-locked events to provide extra rewards for users who have built a powerful team.
One specific example from the upcoming season: A quest chain with a branching path. Path 1 has the normal stamina cost. Path 2 has a power requirement, and a reduced stamina cost. Both paths lead to the same point, so if you have a high-power team, you save a bit of stamina. Good to hear there isn't going to be a complete lock on some events just because your power is too low. Also, the idea of giving benefits in event chains to higher power teams is cool, BUT ONLY IN MODERATION. This can't be another rich-get-richer thing.
​
4. When it comes to posting trained players in the auction house, will they show in the auction house with their power that they are trained up to, or their base power?
Players on the auction house are always posted with their base power. If you post a player that HAS been trained, you'll be prompted to extract all of the training points prior to posting the card in exchange for a lesser amount of training points that can be re-invested in other players. Fair enough I guess. I still think this is overcomplicated as hell.
​
5. Will we be able to actually see how the boosts are effecting the stats of each player?
It will operate like the Overdrive Boosts in the current Season (so, no). We want to improve in-gameplay feedback on boosts, but we are not there yet. 11 players, each with 10+ boosted stats would be a lot to digest. JUST TELL US WHAT STATS ARE BOOSTED! We don't need to get a bunch of pop-ups every damn time! We just want clarification!
​
Overall, I think this was an awful week when it comes to MM20 info. All of this just seems like a massive waste of valuable time to me. Power is just a second measurement of OVR that's totally unnecessary. This is pretty hard evidence that EA is hearing us, but they're not really listening. There are certain parts of the game that should be intricate and complex to provide more content for the player (like unique promos or limited-time gamemodes, for instance), but EA is instead choosing to over complicate the analytical side of the game, and they're doing it to something no one liked in the first place! Do you guys need new playtesters or GC's or something? What do we need to do to get this through?

You know the deal here: EA is streaming one of its "deep dives" on Madden 20, this one all about the new Superstar X-Factors feature of the game.
I'm trying to keep up and take notes here.
Gameplay director Clint Oldenburg was the primary source on this stream. and spoke mostly about X-Factor and Superstar Abilities.

X-Factors and Zone Abilities

• X-Factors belong to a "group of 50 players" who are "the elite of the league."
• X-Factors have Zone Abilities that can be earned (and countered) on occasion through gameplay.
• Bazooka is Patrick Mahomes's X-Factor ability; after completing in-game criteria (like a certain number of completions), he could throw the ball for up to 80 yards. Mahomes could lose that through a sack, a fumble, or an interception.
• Rack (RAC?) 'Em Up is RAC catchers' Zone Ability. Will make players more effective after RAC catches; could be countered by a user pick or a user catch knockout.
• First One Free is a running back Zone Ability that will give the back's next skill move "a very high chance" of producing a fakeout.
• Zone Abilities have "triggers and knockouts" in current EA parlance.
• Fearmonger is a pass-rush ability that increases a rusher's ability to pressure the quarterback from further distances or while engaged in a block.
• Clint: "We have redone how pressure from the pass rush affects our quarterback." Called it an "overhaul."

Superstars and Superstar Abilities

• Superstars are "fluid" and could change through the year.
• Superstar Abilities sound like standard, play-to-play ones.
• Superstar Abilities "are always available and can be used situationally."
• Escape Artist allows mobile quarterbacks "elite speed and agility behind the line of scrimmage."
• "We did a lot of work on QB contain" to counter Escape Artist.
• Fast Break is "the running version of Escape Artist" and applies on designed QB runs. Gives QB "immediate ball-carrier control."
• Slot-O-Matic (called Slot Machine in an April Game Informer article) allows receivers aligned in the slot to get "elite cuts" on routes and better catch chances on short routes (hitches, slants). Julian Edelman has Slot-O-Matic.
• Superstar Abilities "will be used in a unique way across all our modes." The means being discussed tonight are for "regs," which covers Play Now and Franchise; they will be deployed differently in Ultimate Team.
• Enforcer is a Superstar Ability for defenders that will not allow broken Hit Sticks. Bobby Wagner and Harrison Smith have this currently.
• "We've reworked how Hit Sticks work. There's more broken Hit Sticks globally." Weight and momentum factor into the Hit Stick success formula.
• Patrick Mahomes has Bazooka as X-Factor; Superstar Abilities (called Star Abilities on in-game graphic) include Dashing Deadeye, Red Zone Deadeye, Escape Artist, and No-Look Deadeye. Deadeye abilities grant perfect passing accuracy under certain conditions. Dashing is for on the run, Red Zone is for, uh, the Red Zone, and No-Look is for cross-body throws. All of those exclude High/Low throws and Under Pressure throws.
• No-Look Deadeye "is exclusive to Patrick Mahomes." Clint notes that this may seem odd to Madden 19 players who have dealt with Michael Vick making cross-body dimes happen for months, but promises that's been nerfed.
• Also, as one would expect, Mahomes will exclusively have the ability to throw true no-look passes in game as he did in an NFL game last fall.
• Superstar X-Factors "meant to bring authenticity to the game ... transcends what we've been able to do with ratings." Clint says that these abilites "decrease RNG" via in-game players doing exactly what Madden players expect.

Authenticity and Animations

• Senior designer Greg Heddlesten joins the stream to talk about authenticity and animation updates.
• "Paying off the authenticity outside of just the ability feature."
• Mo-cap footage of Patrick Mahomes and fellow mo-cap actors throwing that appears to show different ball trajectories, along with a few sequences of a virtual Mahomes throwing like he does, with true-to-life leg movements.
• Mo-cap footatge of actors throwing like Aaron Rodgers, too. "Kick-hip twist" and "wrist breakage" both mentioned. A few sequences of Rodgers's mannerisms in engine that look very authentic to some of his idiosyncrasies.
• Plenty of technical stuff about how animations are tagged to given players and chosen in game.
• Virtual Drew Brees also shown, with authentically compact (and trebuchet-ish) throwing motion and finger-licking stuff.
• "Rodgers is the fastest release quarterback in the game right now." Compared to Gunslinger in MUT right now. Other fast throwers include Baker Mayfield and Brees, per Heddlesten. (Mahomes is mentioned in the blog.)
• Authentic animations for Ben Roethlisberger, Tom Brady, Philip Rivers, too.

EA Tomfoolery

• Gibbs taunts Farls with a Starbucks cup, because we have at least four hours left on that gag.
• The survey for this Twitch stream is live.

Gridiron Notes Blog

Superstar Abilities are the New Red Chems

While all of this evening's stream was pretty good, and certainly a step up on depth from last week's look at Face of the Franchise and Franchise, the Gridiron Notes blog post on Superstar X-Factors is robust, to say the least.
First and foremost for MUT players: Superstar Abilities are replacing Chemistry Abilities -- which is to say that Superstar Abilities are the new red chems.

In Ultimate Team, Chemistry abilities are being replaced by the Superstar abilities, which will bring you more customization tools for your team. While more tools will be available in the toolbox for your players, there will be specific tradeoffs and choices that you’ll have to make strategically.
If you are a player who relies heavily on pre-play adjustments and hot routes, you’ll probably want to grab some pre-play abilities, whereas if you’re more into scrambling with your QB, you’ll be interested in equipping some mobile QB abilities – in most cases, you won’t be able to get them all on the same player.

No one was calling red chems "Chemistry Abilities," so that change isn't a big one, but the suite of Superstar Abilities replacing the red chems that players have come to know and love (or loathe) is big news, if perhaps expected news. And it sounds possible that there will be more Superstar Abilities than there are red chems, if I'm reading "more tools will be available" correctly.
Currently, there are 30 red chems available in Madden Ultimate Team 19.

Throwing Mechanics Overhaul

More generally, it sounds as though throwing mechanics have been given a significant overhaul in Madden 20.

A handful of the top NFL QBs will have their signature throwing animations in the game, and we plan to continue to add more signature animations in the future. We’ve also standardized the timing of all throwing animations in the game so that not only does the QB matter, but also the length of the pass – short passes for all QBs will be quicker than deep passes.

That handful of QBs with "signature throwing animations" may be literally six, as the three shown on stream (Brees, Mahomes, and Rodgers) and the other three mentioned by name on stream (Brady, Rivers, and Roethlisberger), but giving quarterbacks different release timings (and thus quicker or slower releases) is a key point of differentiation, one that the EA post discusses at length.

Packers QB Aaron Rodgers will have the fastest release in the game, followed closely by Browns QB Baker Mayfield and Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes. The timing from the start to the end of the passing animations for all QBs will scale down from the fastest passers based on their real-world performance. Short passes will always be faster than deep passes for all QBs, but deep passes for the elite players are still significantly faster than deep passes by lower-rated players.
While standardizing our pass animations, we tuned passing speeds and trajectory to get a little bit more air under the ball for all throw types. An important note here: in order to get a higher passing trajectory, the velocity of the passes had to decrease; this is a more authentic approach to passing trajectory in order to get the ball over “lurking” linebackers and allow you to fit the ball in between zones at a higher frequency. The 99 rating for Throw Power (THP) now equates to a throw speed of 55 MPH for bullet passes, which is down from 62 MPH in Madden NFL 19.

This ... is interesting, and generally makes me think that the new meta for Madden 20 might well be QBs with quick releases, as those releases could now be the difference between hitting receivers while open or for contested catches. Similarly, trajectory changes that make a Mahomes or a Rodgers throwing lasers more desirable than a Rivers floating his sidearm ducks could be game-changing and tip the scales in the MUT metagame back toward polished passers from runners who happen to also throw dots.
And that trajectory stuff helping to nerf lurking is coupled with another change mentioned later: Linebackers, or most of them, aren't going to have the same ability to take away passing lanes in Madden 20.

In addition to the throw-trajectory tuning mentioned previously, we have also made some changes with jumping interceptions over the middle vs. passing plays. Primarily, only defensive backs will be able to execute the athletic, jumping INTs in Madden NFL 20, while linebackers and defensive linemen will not be able to make acrobatic catches over the middle. If a user tries to intercept a pass with a one of these bigger defenders that he can’t reach, the player will trigger a catch animation, but he won’t reach the ball. However, we have picked out the best “ball-in-air” LBs and equipped them with a Superstar ability to allow them to get up in the air and make spectacular catches when applicable.

This sounds mostly good to me, because there are linebackers who ballhawk like safeties (Deion Jones, pre-injury Ryan Shazier, Alec Ogletree, Brian Urlacher), but granting that suite of acrobatic interceptions to every player who hit the necessary thresholds in Madden 19 essentially turned every linebacker into those ballhawks while also allowing them to have Secure Tackler or whatever other red chem.
The downside to this? It may well make the safeties-as-linebackers trend that has mostly infected high-level play a standard for the entire H2H ladder, if safeties are otherwise as good as linebackers at the other functions of LB play and the ability to sub in safeties at LB is preserved in some form of fashion. And given that that would accelerate the speed race at linebacker even more than it always is, I'm not sure nerfing leaping LBs is a move that will ultimately please the masses.
But the revamped pump-fake mechanics, something revealed without elaboration both in discussion of Roethlisberger's Superstar Ability in one Game Informer article and last week's stream, may also give QBs another tool to combat users.

You can now double tap a receiver icon to pump-fake to a specific receiver; or, use this as a throw-cancelling mechanic if you want to pull the ball down late if you change your mind. A well-timed pump-fake will be able to impact defensive players by forcing them to react, especially when equipped with the Sleight of Hand pump-fake Superstar ability on players like Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger. As a result, the Medium Pass mechanic has been returned to the “press and release” mechanic that was there prior to Madden NFL 16.

"Oh, man," lamented the one person playing Madden whose scheme revolved around the Touch Pass.
I don't know how exactly this is going to work, though I suspect it will be governed by a new Pump Fake rating for QBs or rolled into some other QB stat (Play Action being revamped to incorporate this wouldn't be bad). But Madden having an easy-to-execute, sometimes-beneficial pump fake like soccer and basketball games have shot fakes just makes sense, and the pump fake feature being simple rather than inscrutable is good.

Signature RB and Pass Rusher Animations

Signature animations won't just be limited to QBs, as EA notes that they will also apply to some runners and to some pass rushers.

For running backs, you’ll notice that Superstar players have their own set of special moves that only Superstars have access to, including Juke, Spin, Hurdle, Truck, and Stiff Arm, and even branching broken tackles out of the special moves. We’ve even scratched the surface with signature running styles on a few players: Cam Newton, Julian Edelman, Alvin Kamara, and Richard Sherman, and we hope to expand this in the future. Superstar pass rushers will have powerful and unique pass rush animations that will have a heavy impact on offensive game-planning due to the QB pressure these animations deliver.

This is long overdue, and has the potential to do big things, like differentiate Kamara or other shifty backs (Barry Sanders) from pure speed merchants or really enhance the value of a big-bodied runner. If Eddie George's stiff-arm is uniquely effective, or Marshawn Lynch trucks better than most, or Cam can run you over like a tight end, or Aaron Donald bulls into the backfield every fifth snap, that is meaningful diversity of gameplay that turns players with excellent ratings that get advantageous dice-rolls more often into players who play differently because of their true-to-life traits.
There are obviously balance concerns there, but I'd take a meta in which multiple different runners can do multiple different dangerous things over one in which everyone's worried about whether players have a high enough Spin rating to hit Spin and win.

Immersion and Quality Polish is EAese for "We Made Fixes to Core Gameplay That We Can't Sell as Back-of-the-Box Bullet Points"

The hue and cry from so, so many about Madden 19, even more than in previous years, has been "the gameplay is bad/broken/needs to be fixed." While those complaints are generally an array of different complaints rolled into one --and those complaints generally strike me, someone who has played Madden games since Madden 96 and believes that the gameplay has generally gotten better in a variety of ways over the years despite the introduction of bugs, as either nostalgia for players' favorite games of the past or generalized complaining for complaining's sake -- it is also fair to note that Madden 19 was significantly impacted by bugs at launch, introduced a crazy-making bug (the "fall forward" glitch) in the middle of the year, still has a dependence on animations that can infuriate players, and has been dominated for months by a metagame (mobile quarterbacks and a nerfed pass rush combining to make dropping back 15 yards and throwing to receivers turning back at the end of their routes entirely viable) that has a lot of pain points.
The idiotic conviction among many that EA hasn't heard that hue and cry, or doesn't care, is undercut by this blog post. The beginning of the post, seemingly entirely written by Oldenburg, is instructive.

For Madden NFL 20, we had a very clear focus by targeting three primary creative pillars, all driven by player feedback:
Make NFL Stars feel like Stars
Build Unique Playbooks and New NFL Strategy
Create more Immersive Moments and Deliver a Polished experience
Every in-game feature built for Madden NFL 20 is aligned with one of these pillars, while still being committed to delivering the most authentic, and the most fun Madden NFL experience that we possibly can.

The first two things are the back-of-the-box stuff (X-Factors! RPOs!) that you EA can market as new features, and the "create more immersive moments" bit ties into that. "Deliver a polished experience" is what you say as a game designer when you are frustrated by past work, but also sure that you can do better.
And a later paragraph backs this up, delving into the change to Madden's development that has now been mentioned more than once during this rollout.

Heading into Madden NFL 20, we have made a team-wide commitment to drive the core quality of the game, with a goal of significantly reducing the number of immersion breakers our fans experience. To back that up, we did something different during our production cycle for Madden NFL 20 – instead of waiting until we hit alpha to polish the game, we started doing “polish” weeks after every three weeks of production, or, in other words, had mini-alphas all year long. We also took a deep dive into finding places in our game where we could deliver more fun to the user per minute by reducing down-time where the player is just watching rather than playing. Below are some of the improvements that have come from our push for deeper immersion.

This sounds to me like Madden players who also happen to be Madden devs working to iron out what Madden players hate, and doing so as bugs arose rather than trying to exterminate colonies down the line. I don't know enough about Madden's code or the Frostbite engine to know whether that's actually a smarter approach to development than the prior one, and I also don't know whether it's actually effective, or just lip service.
But if one of the key frustrations with Frostbite is that it is unwieldy and illogical, something that has become the party line on EA's proprietary DICE-developed engine after the explosive Kotaku report on Anthem's many flaws, it stands to reason to me that taking smaller bites and chewing them fully is probably a better idea than gnawing away and dealing with dyspepsia late in the development cycle.
And it also stands to reason that this cycle, the third one working on Frostbite (Madden 18 transitioned the game from the previous Ignite engine) and the first one on Frostbite without a Rex Dickson- or Carlos Guerrero-level departure midway through the cycle, might produce EA Tiburon's best work on Frostbite yet.
Let's go back to what is actually below that "below" quoted ... above.

We’ve significantly shortened the amount of time spent showing gameplay before and after the play. What’s important to note here is both the game clock and play clock will naturally be accelerated regardless of your accelerated clock settings to account for the time that would normally tick off while players are getting aligned. When using Hurry-Up or No-Huddle, the accelerated clock will tick off the amount of time it would take for the player the furthest away to run and get aligned in his pre-play formation position. These changes have created a faster experience and more time spent on the sticks in each game session.

This is a simple and easy fix that caters to how most players (I'm guessing) play Madden, buttoning through things that are immersive to some but fluff to others. And I suspect a no-frills version of the game is what players who are putting hundreds of hours into Madden each year really want. So EA conceding that point to some degree instead of larding on a ton more presentation -- like the frequently-discussed idea of adding Tony Romo as a color commentator -- and marketing that as immersive? That's a win for the hardcore Madden player.

In today’s NFL, the pass rush has changed how the game is being played and is the direct counter to deep routes and great quarterback play. We are bringing a more balanced and powerful pass rush to our game globally to limit the amount of time allowed in the pocket, and it will be even more intense when playing against Superstar pass rushers. This is a significant creative change to the balance of the game and on average, this will force the offense to get the ball out quicker on passing plays without consistently having the time to wait for the second and third passing windows to open up.

This is important, and essential for this Madden because of the plague of Vick, Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, and so forth. And while there are balance concerns here, as EA's easiest way of turning up the heat for the pass rush probably means nerfing pass protections, it also bears noting that EA nerfed pass rush decisively and apparently irrevocably for Madden 19 when it nerfed the QB Contain function last fall, so an equally dramatic correction might well be in order.

The in-game feedback was streamlined to be more cohesive and informative, especially around notifications for X-Factor Abilities and user mechanics.

This probably doesn't matter much to diehards who ignore most in-game feedback unless it's telling them that Low Catch Rating is why their catches aren't happening as expected, but onboarding new players to a Madden that now has players with objectives and special abilities probably required tweaks here.

Putting pressure on the QB will be more impactful in Madden NFL 20, especially based on the ratings and Superstar abilities of the pass rusher and QB. You’ll see great pass rushers have a greater impact on QB passing accuracy when applying pressure, and you’ll see QBs who are great at throwing under pressure be more accurate. All of this information will be surfaced to the player via detailed in-game passing feedback text.

This matters because QBs missing throws, something that has happened in probably 99.8 percent of the football games that have ever occurred, must be part of Madden for it to have any claim to authenticity ... but players knowing why they're missing throws, rather than having to chalk it up to a Trait that they can't see or an Under Pressure stat that was poorly explained, is an important component to making that feel less like pure luck and more like skilled manipulation of the system.
(And it's worth mentioning again that the notes on High/Low, Under Pressure, and cross-body passes as distinct from ones a QB can get perfect accuracy on via Superstar Abilities suggest that EA might know that High Pass was overpowered this year.)
And even the notes that can be reduced to bullet points sound good.

• "Gang sacks" mean multiple defenders can now seamlessly add onto tackle animations when sacking the QB, which eliminates a weirdness.
• "Rushed get-up animations" that enable players who get knocked to the ground while the play is still live to hurry to get up off the field and be more aware of the game situation is a glorified bug fix, but one that should eliminate a lot of "What the hell is my dude DOING!?" clips.
• "We’ve put a significant amount of work in towards improving the transitions into and out of interactions, with a focus on making them more seamless, while also making the mechanics more responsive and user-friendly" sounds like jargon, but might well be the most important sentence in the whole damn blog post.
• "We removed Auto-Strafe from the game completely, both the functionality and the setting" takes out something that basically no one liked or used.
• "We removed different Game Speeds from the game, mainly due to the amount of very specific bugs it caused for our animation systems" is the same surgical removal of something unnecessary that will not be missed that also "doubles as a huge bug fix. (Remember Solo Battles at the very beginning of the year?)
• "Ball Hawk is now defaulted to ON for all skill levels. While it can still be toggled off via settings, having it off can lead to a number of frustration points for our users, so we decided it was not a good default option" is probably a stealth fix for Ball Hawk (and Heat Seeker) toggling on and off randomly, but also standardizes the game such that players who grew accustomed to Ball Hawk can jump to All-Madden without being surprised.

And, as a reminder, this is half of what EA has promised to reveal about gameplay in this Madden two months before its release. That's a lot of info to digest and a whole lot more transparency than even I, someone who believes pretty strongly in this EA Tiburon team's commitment to transparency, really expected.
Based on this, I am fully on board with Madden 20, and very much excited to hear what EA has to say about it going forward.

By Charles Dickens SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. IN THREE CHAPTERS. ———— CHAPTER I. His leaving it till called for. THE writer of these humble lines being a Waiter, and having come of a family of Waiters, and owning at the present time five brothers who are all waiters, and like- wise an only sister who is a waitress, would wish to offer a few words respecting his calling ; first having the pleasure of hereby in a friendly manner offering the Dedication of the same unto JOSEPH, much respected Head Waiter at the Slamjam Coffee-house, London, E. C., than which a individual more eminently deserving of the name of a man, or a more amenable honour to his own head and heart, whether considered in the light of a Waiter or regarded as a human being, do not exist. In case confusion should arise in the public mind (which it is open to confusion on many subjects) respect- ing what is mean or implied by the term of Waiter, the present humble lines would wish to offer an explanation. It may not be generally known that the person as goes out to wait is not a Waiter. It may not be generally known that the hand as is called in extra, at the Free- masons' Tavern, or the London, or the Albion, or other wise, is not a Waiter. Such hands may be took on for Public Dinners by the bushel (and you may know them by their breathing with difficulty when in attendance, and taking away the bottle ere yet it is half out) ; but such are not Waiters. For you cannot lay down the tailoring, or the shoemaking, or the brokering, or the green-grocering, or the pictorial periodicalling, or the second-hand wardrobe, or the small fancy businesses,—— you cannot lay down those lines of life at your will and pleasure by the half-day or evening, and take Waitering. You may suppose you can, but you cannot ; or you may go so far as you say you do, but you do not. Nor yet can you lay down the gentlemen's-service when stimulated by prolonged incompatibility on the part of Cooks (and here it may be remarked that Cooking and Incompati- bility will be mostly found united) and take up Waiter- ing. It has been ascertained that what a gentleman will sit meek under, at home, he will not bear out of doors, at the Slamjam or any similar establishment. Then, what is the inference to be drawn respecting true Wait- ering? You must be bred to it. You must be born to it. Would you know how born to it, Fair Reader,——if of the adorable sex? Then learn from the biographical experience of one that is a Waiter in the sixty-first year of his age. You were conveyed,——ere yet your dawning powers were otherwise developed than to harbour vacancy in your inside,——you were conveyed, by surreptitious means, into a pantry adjoining the Admiral Nelson, Civic and general Dining-rooms, there to receive by stealth that healthful sustenance which is the pride and boast of the British female constitution. Your mother was married to your father (himself a distant Waiter) in the profoundest secrecy; for a waitress known to be married would ruin the best of businesses,——it is the same as on the stage. Hence your being smuggled into the pantry, and that——to add to the infliction——by an un- willing grandmother. Under the combined influence of the smells of roast and boiled, and soup, and gas, and malt liquors, you partook of your earliest nourishment ; your unwilling grandmother sitting prepared to catch you when your mother was called and dropped you ; your grandmother's shawl ever ready to stifle your natural complainings ; your innocent mind surrounded by uncongenial cruets, dirty plates, dish-covers, and cold gravy ; your mother calling down the pipe for veals and porks, instead of soothing you with nursery rhymes. Under these untoward circumstances you were early weaned. Your unwilling grandmother, ever growing more unwilling as your food assimilated less, then con- tracted habits of shaking you till your system curdled, and your food would not assimilate at all. At length she was no longer spared, and could have been thank- fully spared much sooner. When your brothers began to appear in succession, your mother retired, left off her smart dressing (she had previously been a smart dresser) and her dark ringlets (which had previously been flow- ing), and haunted your father late of nights, lying in wait for him, through all weathers, up the shabby court which led to the back door of the Royal Old Dust-Bin (said to have been so named by George the Fourth), where your father was Head. But the Dust-Bin was going down then, and your father took but little,——ex- cepting from a liquid point of view. Your mother's object in those visits was of a housekeeping character, and you was set on to whistle your father out. Some- times he came out, but generally not. Come or not come, however, all that part of his existence which was unconnected with open Waitering was kept a close secret, and was acknowledged by your mother to be a close secret, and you and your mother flitted about the court, close secrets both of you, and would scarcely have confessed under torture that you knew your father, or that your father had any name than Dick (which wasn't his name, though he was never known by any other), or that he had kith or kin, or chick or child. Perhaps the attraction of this mystery, combined with your father's having a damp compartment to himself, behind a leaky cistern, at the Dust-Bin,——a sort of a cellar compartment, with a sink in it, and a smell, and a plate-rack, and a bottle-rack, and three windows that didn't match each other or anything else, and no daylight,——caused your young mind to feel convinced that you must grow up to be a Waiter too ; but you did feel convinced of it, and so did all your brothers, down to your sister. Every one of you felt convinced that you was born to the Waiter- ing. At this stage of your career, what was your feel- ings one day when your father came home to your mother in open broad daylight,——of itself an act of Mad- ness on the part of a waiter,——and took to his bed (leastwise your mother and family's bed), with the statement that his eyes were devilled kidneys. Physi- cians being in vain, your father expired, after repeating at intervals for a day and a night, when gleams of rea- son and old business fitfully illuminated his being. "Two and two is five. And three is sixpence." Interred in the parochial department of the neighbour- ing churchyard, and accompanied to the grave by as many waiters of long standing as could spare the morn- ing time from their soiled glasses (namely, one), your bereaved form was attired in a white neckankecher, and you was took on from motives of benevolence at The George and Gridiron, theatrical and supper. Here, sup- porting nature on what you found in the plates (which was as it happened, and but too often thoughtlessly im- mersed in mustard), and on what you found in the glasses (which rarely went beyond driblets and lemon), by night you dropped asleep standing, till you was cuffed awake, and by day was set to polishing every individual article in the coffee-room. Your couch being sawdust ; your counterpane being ashes of cigars. Here, frequently hiding a heavy heart under the smart tie of your white neckankecher (or, correctly speaking, lower down and more to the left), you picked up the rudiments of knowledge from an extra by the name of Bishops, and by calling plate-washer, and gradually elevating your mind with chalk on the back of the corner-box partition, until such time as you used the inkstand when it was out of hand, attained to manhood and to be the Waiter that you find yourself. I could wish here to offer a few respectful words on behalf of the calling so long the calling of myself and family, and the public interest in which is but too often very limited. We are not generally understood. No, we are not. Allowance enough is not made for us. For, say that we ever show a little drooping listlessness of spirits, or what might be termed indifference or apathy. Put it to yourself what would your own state of mind be, if you was one of an enormous family every member of which except you was always greedy, and in a hurry. Put it to yourself that you was regularly re- plete with animal food at the slack hours of one in the day and again at nine, P. M. and that the repleter you was, the more voracious all your fellow-creatures came in. Put it to yourself that it was your business, when your digestion was well on, to take a personal interest and sympathy in a hundred gentlemen fresh and fresh (say, for the sake of argument, only a hundred), whose imaginations was given up to grease and fat and gravy and melted butter, and abandoned to questioning you about cuts of this, and dishes of that,——each of 'em go- ing on as if him and you and the bill of fare was alone in the world. Then look what you are expected to know. You are never out, but they seem to think you regularly attend everywhere. " What's this, Christo- pher, that I hear about the smashed Excursion Train ?" ——" How are they doing at the Italian Opera, Christo- pher ?"——" Christopher, what are the real particulars of this business at the Yorkshire Bank ?" Similarly a ministry gives me more trouble than it gives the Queen. As to Lord Palmerston, the constant and wearing con- nection into which I have been brought with his lordship during the last few years is deserving of a pension. Then look at the Hypocrites we are made, and the lies (white, I hope) that are force upon us ! Why must a sedentary-pursuited Waiter be considered to be a judge of horse-flesh, and to have a most tremendous interest in horse-training and racing? Yet it would be half of our little incomes out of our pockets if we didn't take on to have those sporting tastes. It is the same (inconceivable why!) with Farming. Shooting, equally so. I am sure that so regular as the months of August, September, and October come round, I am ashamed of myself in my own private bosom for the way in which I make believe to care whether or not the grouse is strong on the wing, (much their wings, or drumsticks either, signifies to me, uncooked ? ) and whether the partridges is plentiful among the turnips, and whether the pheasants is shy or bold, or anything else you please to mention. Yet you may see me, or any other Waiter of my standing, holding on by the back of the box, and leaning over a gentleman with his purse out and his bill before him, discussing these points in a confidential tone of voice, as if my happiness in life entirely depended on 'em. I have mentioned our little incomes. Look at the most unreasonable point of all, and the point on which the greatest injustice is done us ! Whether it is owing to our always carrying so much change in our right-hand trousers-pocket, and so many half-pence in our coat tails, or whether it is human nature (which I were loth to believe), what is meant by the everlasting fable that Head Waiters is rich ? How did that fable get into cir- culation ? Who first put it about, and what are the facts to establish the unblushing statement ? Come forth, thou slanderer, and refer the public to the Wai- ter's will in Doctors' Commons supporting thy malignant hiss ! Yet this is so commonly dwelt upon——especially by the screws who give Waiters the least——that denial is vain ; and we are obliged, for our own credit's sake, to carry our heads as if we were going into a business, when of the two we are much more likely to go into a union. There was formerly a screw as frequented the Slamjam ere yet the present writer has quitted that establish- ment on a question of tea-ing his assistant staff out of his own pocket, which screw carried the taunt to its bit- terest heighth. Never soaring above threepence, and as often as not grovelling on the earth a penny lower, he yet represented the present writer as a large holder of Consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a Capitalist. He has been overheard to dilate to other customers on the allegation that the present writer put out thousands of pounds at interest in Distilleries and Breweries. " Well, Christopher," he would say (having grovelled his lowest on the earth, half a moment before), " looking out for a house to open, eh ? Can't find a business to be disposed of on a scale as is up to your resources, humph ?" To such a dizzy precipice of falsehood has this misrep- resentation taken wing, that the well-known and highly- respected OLD CHARLES, long eminent at the West Country Hotel, and by some considered the Father of the Waitering, found himself under the obligation to fall into it through so many years that his own wife (for he had an unbeknown old lady in that capacity towards himself) believed it ! And what was the consequence ? When he was borne to his grave on the shoulders of six picked Waiters, with six more for change, six more act- oing as pall-bearers, all keeping step in a pouring shower without a dry eye visible, and a concourse only inferior to Royalty, his pantry and lodgings was equally ransack- ed high and low for property, and none was found ! How could it be found, when, beyond his last monthly collection of walking sticks, umbrellas, and pocket- handkerchiefs (which happens to have been not yet disposed of, though he had ever been through life punc- tual in clearing off his collections by the month), there was no property existing ? Such, however, is the force of this universal libel, that the widow of Old Charles, at the present hour an inmate of the Almshouses of the Cork-cutters' Company, in Blue Anchor Road (iden- tified sitting at the door of one of 'em, in a clean cap and a Windsor arm-chair, only last Monday, expects John's hoarded wealth to be found hourly ! Nay, ere yet he had succumbed to the grisly dart, and when his portrait was was painted in oils life-size, by sub- scription of the frequenters of the West Country, to hang over the coffee-room chimney-piece, there were not wanting those who contended that what is termed the accessories of such portrait ought to be the Bank of Eng- land out of window, and a strong-box on the table. And but for the better-regulated minds contending for a bottle and screw and the attitude of drawing,——and carrying their point,——it would have been so handed down to pos- terity. I am now brought to the title of the present remarks. Having, I hope without offence to any quarter, offered such observations as I felt it my duty to offer, in a free country which has ever dominated the seas, on the gen eral subject, I will now proceed to wait on the particular question. At a momentous period of my life, when I was off so far as concerned notice given, with a House that shall be nameless,——for the question on which I took my depart- ing stand was a fixed charge for Waiters, and no house that commits itself to that eminently Un-English act of more than foolishness and baseness shall be advertised by me,——I repeat, at a momentous crisis, when I was off with a house too mean for mention, and not yet on with that to which I ever since had the honor of being attach- ed in the capacity of Head,* I was casting about what to do next. Then it were that proposals were made to me on behalf of my present establishment. Stipulations were necessary on my part, emendations were necessary in my part ; in the end, ratification on both sides, and I entered on a new career. We are a bed business, and a coffee-room business. We are not a general dining business, nor do we wish it. In consequence, when diners drop in, we know what to give 'em as will keep 'em away another time. We are a Private Room or Family business also ; but Coffee-Room principal. Me and the Directory and the Writing Ma- terials and centrer occupy a place to ourselves,——a place fended off up a step or two at the end of the Coffee-Room in what I call the good old-fashioned style. The good old-fashioned style is, that whatever you want, down to a wafer, you must be olely and solely dependent on the Head Waiter for. You must put yourself a new-born Child into his hands. There is no other way in which a business untinged with Continental Vice can be con- ducted (It were bootless to add that if languages is re- quired to be jabbered and English is not good enough, both families and gentlemen had better go somewhere else.) When I began to settle down in this right-principled and well-conducted House, I noticed under the bed in No. 24 B (which it is up a angle off the staircase, and usually put of upon the lowly-minded), a heap of things in a corner. I asked our Head Chambermaid in the course of the day,—— " What are them things in 24 B ?" To which she answered, with a careless air,—— " Somebody's Luggage." Regarding her with a eye not free from severity, I says,—— " Whose Luggage ?" Evading my eye, she replied,—— " Lor ! How should I know !" ——Being, it may be right to mention, a female of some pertness, though acquainted with her business. A Head Waiter must be either Head or Tail. He must be at one extremity or the other of the social scale. He cannot be at the waist of it, or anywhere else but the ex- tremities. It is for him to decide which of the extremi- ties. On the eventful occasion under consideration, I give Mrs. Pratchett so distinctly to understand my decision, that I broke her spirit as towards myself, then and there and for good. Let not inconsistency be suspected on ac- count of my mentioning Mrs. Pratchett as " Mrs.'" and having formerly remarked that a waitress must not be married. Readers are respectfully requested to notice that Mrs. Pratchett was not a waitress, but a chamber- maid. Now a chambermaid may be married ; If Head, generally is married,——or say so. It comes to the same thing as expressing what is customary. (N. B. Mr. Pratchett is in Australia, and his address there is "the Bush.") Having took Mrs. Pratchett down as many pegs as was essential to the future happiness of all parties, I re- quested her to explain herself. " For instance," I says, to give her a little encourage- ment, " who is Somebody ?" swers Pratchett, " that I haven't the faintest notion." But for the manner in which she settled her cap- strings, I should have doubted this ; but in respect of positiveness it was hardly to be discriminated from an affidavit. " Then you never saw him ? " I followed her up with. " Nor yet," said Mrs. Pratchett, shutting her eyes and making as if she had just took a pill of unusual circum- ference, which gave a remarkable force to her denial,—— " nor yet any servant in this house. All have been changed, Mr. Christopher, within five year, and Some- body left his Luggage here before then." Inquiry of Miss Martin yielded (in the language of the Bard of A. 1.) "confirmation strong." So it had really and truly happened. Miss Martin is the young lady at the bar as makes out our bills ; and though higher than I could wish considering her station, is perfectly well behaved. Further investigations led to the disclosure that there was a bill against this Luggage to the amount of two sixteen six. The Luggage had been lying under the bedstead in 24 B over six years. The bedstead is a four- poster, with a deal of old hanging and valance, and is, as I once said, probably connected with more than 24 B's ——which I remember my hearer was pleased to laugh at, at the time. I don't know why,——when DO we know why ?——but this Luggage laid heavy on my mind. I fell a wondering about Somebody, and what he had got and been up to. I couldn't satisfy my thoughts why he should leave so much Luggage against so small a bill. For I had the Luggage out within a day or two and turned it over, and the following were the items :——A black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick. It was all very dusty and fluey. I had our porter up to get under the bed and fetch it out ; and though he habit- ually wallows in dust,——swims in it——from morning to night, and wears a close fitting waistcoat with black calimanco sleeves for the purpose,——it made him sneeze again, and his throat was that hot with it that it was obliged to be cooled with a drink of Allsopp's draft. The Luggage so got the better of me, that instead of having it put back when it was well dusted and washed with a wet cloth,——previous to which it was so covered with feathers that you might have thought it was turn- ing into poultry, and would by and by begin to Lay,——I say, instead of having it put back, I had it carried into one of my places down-stairs. There from time to time I stared at it and stared at it, till it seemed to grow big and grow little, and come forward at me and retreat again, and go through all manner of performances re- sembling intoxication. When this had lasted weeks,—— I may say months, and not be far out,——I one day thought of asking Miss Martin for the particulars of the Two six- teen six total. She was so obliging as to extract it from the books,——it dating before her time,——and here follows a true copy :—— Coffee-Room. 1856. No. 4 Feb. 2d, Pen and paper..................... £ 0 0 6 Port Negus.......................... 0 2 0 Ditto............................... 0 2 0 Pen and paper...................... 0 0 6 Tumbler broken...................... 0 2 6 Brandy.............................. 0 2 0 Pen and paper....................... 0 0 6 Anchovy Toast....................... 0 2 6 Pen and paper....................... 0 0 6 Bed................................. 0 3 0 Feb. 3d, Pen and paper....................... 0 0 6 Breakfast........................... 0 2 6 " Broiled ham................ 0 2 0 " Eggs....................... 0 1 0 " Watercresses............... 0 1 0 " Shrimps.................... 0 1 0 Pen and paper....................... 0 0 6 Blotting-paper...................... 0 0 6 Messenger to Paternoster Row & back 0 1 6 Again, when No Answer............... 0 1 6 Brandy 2s., Devilled Pork chop 2s... 0 4 0 Pens and paper...................... 0 0 6 Messenger to Albemarle Street & back 0 1 6 Again (detained), when No Answer.... 0 1 6 Saltcellar broken................... 0 3 6 Large Liqueur-glass Orange Brandy... 0 1 6 Dinner, Soup Fish Joint and bird.... 0 7 6 Bottle old East India Brown......... 0 8 0 Pen and paper....................... 0 0 6 ———————— £ 2 16 6 ———————— Mem : January 1st, 1857. He went out after dinner, directing Luggage to be ready when he called for it. Never called. So far from throwing a light upon the subject, this bill appeared to me, if I may so express my doubts, to involve it in a yet more lurid halo. Speculating it over with the Mistress, she informed me that the luggage had been advertised in the Master's time as being to be sold after such and such a day to pay expenses, but no fur- ther steps had been taken. (I may here remark that the Mistress is a widow in her fourth year. The Master was possessed of one of those unfortunate constitutions in which Spirits turns Water, and rises in the ill-starred Victim.) My speculating it over, not then only but repeatedly, sometimes with the Mistress, sometimes with one, some- times with another, led up to the Mistress's saying to me, ——whether at first in joke or in earnest, or half joke and half earnest, it matters not :—— " Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer." (If this should meet her eye,——a lovely blue,——may she not take it ill my mentioning that if I had been eight or ten years younger, I would have done as much by her ! That is, I would have made her a offer. It is for others than me to denominate it a handsome one.) " Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer." " Put a name on it, ma'am." " Look here, Christopher. Run over the articles of Somebody's Luggage. You've got it all by heart, I know." " A black portmanteau, ma'am, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and um- brella strapped to a walking-stick." "All just as they were left. Nothing opened, nothing tampered with." " You are right, ma'am. All locked but the brown- paper parcel, and that sealed." The Mistress was leaning on Miss Martin's desk at the bar window, and she taps the open book that lays upon the desk,——she has a pretty-made hand, to be sure,——and bobs her head over it, and laughs. " Come," says she, " Christopher. Pay me Some- body's bill, and you shall have Somebody's luggage." I rather took to the idea from the first moment ; but,—— " It mayn't be worth the money," I objected, seeming to hold back. " That's a Lottery," say the Mistress, folding her arms upon the book,——it ain't her hands alone that's pretty made, the observation extends right up her arms. " Won't you venture two pounds sixteen shillings and sixpence in the Lottery ? Why, there's no blanks !" says the Mistress, laughing and bobbing her head again, " you must win. If you lose, you must win ! All prizes in this Lottery ! Draw a blank, and remember, Gentlemen- Sportsmen, you'll still be entitled to a black portman- teau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing case, a sheet of brown paper, a hat-box, an umbrella strapped to a walk- ing-stick !" To make short of it, Miss Martin come round me, and Mrs. Pratchett come round me, and the Mistress she was completely round me already, and all the women in the house come round me, and if it had been Sixteen two in- stead of Two sixteen, I should have thought myself well out of it. For what can you do when they come round you ? So I paid the money——down——and such a laughing as there was among 'em regularly, when I said :—— " My family-name is Blue-Beard. I'm going to open Somebody's Luggage all alone in the Secret Chamber, and not a female eye catches sight of the contents !" Whether I thought proper to have the firmness to keep to this don't signify, or whether any female eye, and if any how many, was really present when the opening of the Luggage came off. Somebody's Luggage is the question at present : Nobody's eyes, nor yet noses. What I still look at most, in connection with that Lug- gage, is the extraordinary quantity of writing-paper, and all written on ! And not our paper neither,——not the paper charged in the bill, for we know our paper,——so he must have been always at it. Ad he had crumpled up this writing of his, everywhere, in every part and parcel of his luggage. There was writing in his dressing- case, writing in his boots, writing among his shaving- tackle, writing in his hat-box, writing folded away down among the very whalebones of his umbrella. His clothes wasn't bad, what there was of 'em. His dressing case was poor,——not a particle of silver stopper, ——bottle apertures with nothing in 'em , like empty little dog-kennels,——and a most searching description of tooth-powder diffusing itself around, as under a deluded mistake that all the chinks in the fittings was divisions in teeth. His clothes I parted with, well enough, to a second-hand dealer not far from St. Clement's Danes, in the Strand,——him as the officers in the Army mostly dis- pose of their uniforms to, when hard pressed with debts of honour, if I may judge from their coats and epaulets diversifying the window with their backs towards the public. The same party bought in one lot the portman- teau, the bag, the desk, the dressing-case, the hat-box, the umbrella, strap, and walking-stick. On my remark- ing that I should have thought those articles not quite in his line, he said : " No more ith a man'th grand- mother, Mithter Christhtopher : but if any man will bring hith grandmother here, and offer her for a fair trifle be- low what the'll feth with good luck when the'th thcoured and turned——I'll buy her !" These transactions brought me home, and indeed, more than home, for they left a goodish profit on the original investment. And now there remained the wri- tings ; and the writings I particularly wish to bring under the candid attention of the reader. I wish to do so without postponement, for this reason. That is to say, namely, viz., i. e., as follows, thus :—— Before I proceed to recount the mental sufferings of which I became the prey in consequence of the writings, and before following up that harrowing tale with a state- ment of the wonderful and impressive catastrophe, as thrilling in its nature as unlooked for in any other capa- city, which crowned the ole and filled the cup of unexpec- tedness to overflowing, the writings themselves ought to stand forth to view. Therefore it is that they now come next. One word to introduce them, and I lay down my pen (I hope, my unassuming pen), until I take it up to trace the gloomy sequel of a mind with something on it. He was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad hand. Utterly regardless of ink, he lavished it on every undeserving object,——on his clothes, his desk, his hat, the handle of his tooth-brush, his umbrella. Ink was found freely on the coffee-room carpet by No. 4 table, and two blots was on his restless couch. A reference to the docu- ment I have given entire will show that on the morning of the third of February, eighteen fifty-six, he procured his no less than fifth pen and paper. To whatever de- plorable act of ungovernable composition he immolated those materials obtained from the bar, there is no doubt that the fatal deed was committed in bed, and that it left its evidence but too plainly, long afterwards, upon the pillow-case. He had put no heading to any of his writings. Alas! Was he likely to have a Heading without a Head, and where was his Head when he took such things into it? In some cases, such as his Boots, he would appear to have hid the writings ; thereby involving his style in greater obscurity. But his Boots was at least pairs,—— and no two of his writings can be put in any claim to be so regarded. Here follows (not to give more specimens) what was found in HIS BOOTS. 

from Collier's Unabridged Edition: The Works of Charles Dickens, Volume VI. P.F. Collier, Publisher, New York, old as heck. pp. 1072—1076.

Life has recently picked up for me, and I'm no longer able to follow the team as closely as I have in the past. I wanted to know some of the best sites you guys use that cover the Bears in a more concise manner, without omitting important details. Keeping Bears notifications on the Bleacher Report app just isn't quite enough for me, but keeping up with the official team site's news and WindyCityGridiron is just too much content for me to digest. Thanks for the help!

Welcome! If you are family with the Gridiron Digest you, may have read the recent thread about changing it to a paysite. Well. that's just no good. So, wanted to start a community for free for users to come chat Indiana High School Football.

Dems Assail Trump's NFL Comments
President Trump's objection to NFL players refusing to stand for the playing of the National Anthem prior to the start of their football games spurred outrage among assorted Democrats.
Democratic Coalition chairman Jon Cooper maintained that Trump's statement that "the sons of bitches who won't stand for the Anthem ought to be fired" violates federal law. "It's pretty clear that the President saying someone ought to be fired is a crime," Cooper said. "This crime carries a penalty of 15 years in prison."
Despite the lack of any mention of race in Trump's remarks, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif) insisted that his statement was "racist. We all know that the NFL is a plantation where black men are forced to risk grievous bodily harm to entertain and enrich white folks. Calling the players who protested their enslavement 'sons of bitches' is a 'dog whistle' telling their white overseers to fire them. This is the clearest evidence yet that Mr. Trump is unfit to rule and deserves to be impeached." (Note: the minimum annual salary for "enslaved" NFL players is over $400,000. Many stars earn far more. Detroit Lions Quarterback Matthew Stafford, for example, has a five-year $135 million contract.)
Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton echoed Waters' take on the issue and wondered whether Trump "might be sending a coded message to his rich team-owning friends to have a few players killed as an example to others not to challenge his power. That would be a very persuasive message and likely to silence most opposition."
Left-wing columnist Jonathan Alter cleverly characterized Trump's words as "the fumble that will end his presidency. Football players are the most revered heroes of our culture. By pissing them off, Trump has ensured they will unite against him. Given the choice between whether to stick with their gridiron favorites or Trump's lame demand that respecting the anthem and the flag ought to rein-in their right to protest, I think we all know how that will turn out." Alter hailed reports "that NFL viewership was only down 20% seals the deal. Eighty percent will follow the players and vote to oust Trump in 2018."
In related news, the United Nations Human Rights Council demanded that Canada "apologize and pay reparations to blacks living in their country." Though Canada never had slavery, and in fact, offered refuge to slaves escaping north from the United States, UN spokesman Adam Blackman pointed out that "the power structure in Canada is white. It's always been white. What more proof do we need that reparations are warranted?"
Operation "Safe City" Nets Nearly 500 Illegals
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) teams made 498 arrests in "sanctuary cities" this past week as part of an enforcement action dubbed "safe city." Those arrested included 317 people with criminal convictions, 68 immigration fugitives, 104 people who had previously been deported and 18 known gang members.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (D) denounced the ICE raids as "an infringement on our city's sovereignty. We gave our word to these undocumented immigrants that they would be safe from arrest in our jurisdiction. Now we look like fools."
The Mayor vowed legal action "to reverse this egregious miscarriage of justice. We're confident that we can find a judge who will rescind the ICE arrests and order the release of these victims of the Trump Administration's racist xenophobia. And we're not ruling out asking for punitive damages to discourage further atrocities of this sort."
ICE acting Director Tom Homan called the Mayor's declaration "a sick and twisted version of reality. Our action targeted the worst offenders. His efforts to shield these individuals from law enforcement endanger public safety. If anyone should be held liable it's those sanctuary cities who give a haven to wanted criminals that prey upon the citizens government is obligated to protect."
Governor Approves Medicaid for Abortions
This week, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) signed legislation authorizing tax money to be used to fund abortions for poor people. This reversed a position he announced last April against such funding, but honors his 2014 campaign pledge "to ensure that poor mothers have the same ability to terminate unwanted children that their richer sisters have."
Rauner brushed aside Republican arguments that individuals morally opposed to the murder of unborn children shouldn't be forced to finance it through taxes, saying that "individual matters of conscience cannot be permitted to impede the collective will of the people. I was elected on a promise to extend abortion rights to those who can't afford to pay for it. The Democratic legislators who passed the bill were elected on the promise to expand the scope of abortion. Democracy must prevail over idiosyncratic moral or religious prejudices."
The Governor also argued that "in the long run increasing the frequency of abortions for the poor will work to the GOP's political advantage. The children of poor people usually grow up to be Democratic voters. Be enabling interdiction before birth we will be decreasing the number of future Democratic voters. So, as I see it, Republicans who oppose public funding for abortion aren't thinking strategically."
In related news, Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee for Alabama's US Senate seat, called the Illinois legislation "a good omen. The days when extremists like Roy Moore can prevent women from exterminating their unwanted offspring are surely numbered." Jones is confident that his firm support of abortion "up until the day of birth" will be a winning issue over his GOP opponent Moore in this December's special election.
China Cracks Down on Toilet Paper Abuses
Concerned that its citizens might be using too much toilet paper, the government of China is installing facial recognition technology in its public restrooms. If the same person tries to obtain more than his or her allotted four squares of toilet tissue per visit the computer will recognize the face and withhold any additional paper.
Chinese Minister of Public Facilities Hu Du Dung explained that "four squares is an adequate amount for any socially responsible person. It is four times the amount the Japanese allowed to their POWs during World War II. Any attempt to use more is theft from the collective."
Dung adamantly rejected the possibility that digestive distress might warrant a larger allotment. "Unlike backward countries such as the United States, China has universal, single-payer health care," he pointed out. "Those who suffer bowel irregularities have only themselves to blame. They have no right to appropriate more than their designated share of toilet tissue. Our new technology will ensure that this doesn't happen."
Meanwhile, in America's cruel capitalistic society toilet paper is freely available in public restrooms across the country despite the lack of the high-tech methods now being deployed in the more advanced China.
In related news, an editorial in the New York Times lauded "the amazing strides communism achieved for Chinese women." The editorial admitted that "while Chinese women have suffered under the ubiquitous oppression inflicted on all the country's inhabitants, the suffering has been equal. Considering the traditional patriarchal Chinese culture that preceded communism we mustn't discount that accomplishment." The editorial failed to mention the country's technological advance in toilet paper rationing.
Trump Tax Plan "Death Blow" to High-Tax States
A feature of the Trump Administration's proposed tax reform plan that has stirred fear among governors of high-tax states is the elimination of deductions for state income and property taxes. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) called it a "death blow" for his state.
"New York has traditionally relied on high taxes to fund the services we provide for our population," the Governor pointed out. "Resistance to these tax high rates has been moderated by the fact that deductions from federal taxes has helped pass some of the burden onto to states that have lower taxes. If we lose that deduction more New Yorkers will object to our state's taxes."
Cuomo complained that the Trump plan's replacement of state tax deductions with larger standard deductions ($12,000 for single filers and $24,000 for joint filers) "is unfair to our residents. Right now, the average deduction for state taxes for Manhattan residents is nearly $25,000. Trump's plan would allow the same standard deduction for filers living in all states. A perk that has been enjoyed by New Yorkers for decades would be dissipated into a universally shared equal benefit. How will people afford to live in New York if they're to be treated the same as residents in other states?"
New York Republican Reps. Dan Donovan and Peter King joined Cuomo's complaint asserting that "to treat New Yorkers like everyone else is unAmerican. Our state has grown accustomed to a special status. New York City would not be a world-class city without the tax-subsidy the current code allows. We will ally with Republicans from other high-tax states and Democrats to make sure Trump's plan is killed."
California is the biggest high-tax state. It currently receives a $100 billion subsidy per year under the current tax code. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) called the subsidy "critical to sustaining my state's status as the wealthiest in the United States. I cannot abide a tax reform that would change this even if it treats all states equally. California voters didn't elect me to achieve fairness to other states. They expect me to defend our entitlements and that's what I'm going to do."
Feinstein also cited a recent report published by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) showing that illegal immigration costs American taxpayers $135 billion per year as further inspiration for her opposition to Trump's proposal. "As a sanctuary state, California has to bear a disproportionate share of this cost," the Senator observed. "If we lose the federal deduction for state taxes our ability to continue as a haven for these immigrants would be threatened."
Special Counsel Declines to Pursue Evidence of Obama Crimes
While Special Counsel Robert Mueller has yet to uncover any evidence of a Trump-Russia plot to steal last year's presidential election, he has turned up disturbing incidents of the Obama Administration's illegal spying on American citizens and lying under oath.
However, it is unlikely that anything will come of these findings since, as Mueller explains, "whatever misdeeds may or may not have been committed by members of the previous administration are not part of my mandate. My mission is to prove collusion between Trump's people and agents of the Russian government. For me to go outside of my mission mandate would violate the explicit instructions I was given when acting Attorney General Rosenstein appointed me."