NFL Scripting Confirmed

The NFC Championship game didn’t require any interventions; the non-call on Saquon Barkley’s hold made absolutely no difference to the outcome of a game the Eagles dominated from the start and won 55-23. Indeed, given the way the NFL hates blowouts, it’s likely that the refs didn’t put a thumb on the scale due to the way that everyone is now watching very closely for them doing so.

The AFC Championship game was pretty good despite the Bills losing a key cornerback early in the first quarter to his second concussion in a matter of weeks; he almost certainly should not have been playing even though he cleared the concussion protocol. That made the game closer than it should have been. But once again, the Chiefs were given a dubious call at a very critical moment.

  • As CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore said, it looked like quarterback Josh Allen got the ball to the line to gain before he was pulled backward on fourth and short early in the fourth quarter, with the Bills leading 22-21.
  • CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore thought Josh Allen got enough yardage for a first down on a fourth-down quarterback sneak early in the fourth quarter and Bills head coach Sean McDermott felt the same way. Unfortunately for McDermott, Allen and the Bills, the officiating crew saw things differently.
  • The refs running in with two different spots — and the Chiefs getting the benefit of the spot and the stop on 4th down — is going to be the number one discussion from this game.

Even big names in the mainstream sports media are paying attention to the observable fact of the NFL favoring certain teams and disfavoring others. Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, has even gone so far as to claim he won’t watch the NFL anymore.

I’m quitting watching football. There is no other way to teach @nflcommish a lesson. This is blatant cheating. #nflrigged

Given the growing professionalization and competitiveness of college football, and a situation where top NCAA players can actually make more money staying in college than declaring for the NFL draft, it’s a tremendous mistake for the NFL to continue scripting outcomes and using the referees to control the winning margins. What was necessary to force through the AFL-NFL merger and eliminate the Super Bowl routs of the 1980s is not only not necessary anymore, but is increasingly detrimental to the health and popularity of the league.

It’s time to protect the Shield, Mr. Goodell. Stop the scripting, stop the rigging, take the thumb off the scale, and let the players play the game. Make every call reviewable and put a chip in the ball to ensure the accuracy of first downs and touchdowns; it’s now absolutely and entirely obvious to everyone that the reluctance to do both is based upon a reluctance to give up the ability to influence the outcomes.

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Ukraine Peace Proposal

Simplicius dutifully reports what appears more like a Ukrainian fever dream than the leaked US peace plan that it is purported to be:

▪️Trump plans to have a telephone conversation with Putin in late January – early February. He also wants to discuss the situation in Ukraine with its authorities.

▪️Based on the results of the negotiations, a decision may be made to continue or suspend the dialogue.

▪️Volodymyr Zelensky must cancel the decree that prohibits negotiations with Putin.

▪️A meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelensky may take place in February or the first half of March. It is not yet clear whether this will be a trilateral meeting or two separate ones. The meeting is planned to discuss the main parameters of the peace plan.

▪️Starting April 20, a ceasefire is planned to be declared along the entire front line, and all Ukrainian troops will be withdrawn from the Kursk region.

▪️An international peace conference is set to begin at the end of April to formalize an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict. The United States, China, and a number of countries in Europe and the Global South will act as mediators.

▪️Also at this time, the exchange of prisoners will begin according to the formula “all for all”.

▪️By May 9, a declaration of the conference on the end of the conflict should be published. Martial law and mobilization will not be extended in Ukraine, and presidential elections will be held at the end of August.

➖ What is included in the agreement?

▪️Ukraine does not seek to return the territories that were liberated by Russia, either militarily or diplomatically, but at the same time does not officially recognize Russia’s sovereignty over these territories.

▪️Ukraine will not become a member of NATO and declares its neutrality. The decision that Ukraine will not be accepted into the alliance must be confirmed at the NATO summit.

▪️Ukraine will become a member of the European Union by 2030. The EU is committed to rebuilding the country after the war.

▪️The number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is not decreasing, and the United States is modernizing the Ukrainian army.

▪️After the conclusion of the peace agreement, some anti-Russian sanctions will be lifted, and restrictions on the import of Russian energy resources to the EU will be lifted.

▪️Parties that defend the Russian language and advocate peaceful relations with Russia should participate in the elections in Ukraine. The persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church will also cease.

▪️Separate consultations will be held on the issue of EU peacekeepers.

Very little of this makes any sense. NATO holds no significant cards. Russia can accomplish everything that is being offered to it here without the need to agree with either Washington or Kiev. As a starting point to signal a willingness to negotiate a surrender, it’s just barely plausible, but it’s not even remotely close to what Russia would expect to achieve through negotiations.

As Simplicius himself observers: In short: the deal above is a non-starter should it actually appear in even a remotely similar form; it is the mere deluded fantasy of the West to even think Russia needs to stop fighting any time soon, at a time when major Ukrainian strongholds are folding like cheap lawn chairs on a daily basis.

Some of the missing elements:

  • Demilitarization of Ukraine
  • Odessa
  • The withdrawal of NATO from all countries bordering Russia, especially Finland and the Baltics.
  • Compensatory payments for sanctions and seizures.
  • Future non-interference in Ukrainian and Eastern European elections by US, EU, and Western NGOs.

At the rate that Ukraine is losing territory and soldiers, there soon isn’t going to be any point to negotiations. No amount of bluster by President Trump or anyone else is going to change the facts on the ground.

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Inside the OODA Loop

  1. Colombia has refused to accept U.S. deportation flights, stating that migrants must be treated with dignity and not as criminals. President Gustavo Petro emphasized that U.S. military aircraft carrying deported Colombians would not be allowed to land until proper protocols for respectful treatment are established.
  2. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he will impose sweeping retaliatory measures on Colombia, including tariffs and sanctions, after the South American country turned away two U.S. military aircraft with migrants being deported as part of the new U.S. administration’s immigration crackdown. Trump’s punitive action appeared aimed at making an example of Colombia, the second case of a Latin American nation refusing U.S. military deportation flights. It was a demonstration of a more muscular U.S. foreign policy and showed a renewed willingness by Trump to use the might of the United States to force other countries to bend to his will. The retaliatory measures include imposing 25% tariffs on all Colombian goods coming into the United States, which will go up to 50% in one week; a travel ban and visa revocations on Colombian government officials; and emergency treasury, banking and financial sanctions. Trump said he would also direct enhanced border inspections of Colombian nationals and cargo.
  3. BREAKING: CNN reports that Colombia is now offering the presidential plane to help repatriate people being deported from the US.
  4. BREAKING: Trump administration has directed ICE officials to ramp up arrests to at least 1,200 to 1,500 per day because the president is disappointed with the results so far, per WaPo.

Remember this the next time people say something risibly stupid about the impossibility of repatriating foreigners. President Eisenhower deported 1,074,277 Mexicans in one year, which is nearly 3,000 per day, and that was with 1954 technology.

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The NFL’s Scripting Crisis

The Chiefs and the NFL are desperately trying to deny the obvious. And absolutely no one who watches the league or has anything to do with it is even remotely convinced.

OUTKICK: Many fans not rooting for the Chiefs believe that to some extent that the Chiefs get calls they don’t deserve. That’s a problem for the NFL’s all-important integrity of the game aspirations. But, you see, the problem is there is statistical data that suggests that is exactly what’s happening. During Kansas City’s current eight-game playoff win streak, opponents have been called for six roughing the passer penalties. The Chiefs have been called for none. This according to the ESPN statistics department. The Chiefs furthermore have been called for one unnecessary roughness penalty, while their opponents have been flagged 4 times.

PROFOOTBALLTALK: The NFL imposed a $25,000 fine on Texans defensive end Will Anderson Jr. for publicly criticizing officials. Said Anderson after the loss to the Chiefs, “We knew it was going to be us against the refs going into this game.” The initial Mixon fine was based on this comment from former Bengals receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh said, “Why play the game if every 50/50 call goes with Chiefs. These officials are trash and bias.” The second Mixon fine was based on this, which he did say: “Everybody knows how it is playing up here. You can never leave it in the refs’ hands. The whole world see, man.”

FOX SPORTS: NFL legend Champ Bailey was among those glued to the television when he saw the controversial penalties called on the Houston Texans during their playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. “I don’t feel like the games are fixed because I was in it, but when I’m sitting here every year – I’m out of the league – the more and more I start believing what the fans are saying about the games being ‘fixed,’ because you see things like this happen over and over, so they just got to figure out a way to get the calls right and live with it.”

Just let them play and stop trying to dictate the outcome of events. Pat Mahomes is good enough on his own, if he needs the refs to get him over the top, he doesn’t deserve to win anyhow.

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The Deep State Purge

The purge of the Deep State appears to have begun :

President Donald Trump has removed all the White House National Security Council (NSC) detailees and ordered a full review of new incoming staff. Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has fired 160 NSC staffers and is conducting a full review of new staff in a bid to retain those aligned with President Trump’s agenda. “National Security Advisor Mike Waltz promised and authorized a full review of NSC personnel,” NSC spokesman Brian Hughes said a statement to the Associated Press.

This also comes after President Trump on Tuesday pulled the security clearances of the 51 former intelligence officials who penned a letter in the days leading up to the 2020 presidential election falsely claiming the Hunter Biden laptop story was “Russian disinformation.”

The so-called intelligence agencies are one obvious manifestation of the enemy, so it’s good that the President is focusing on them. Personally, I think he’d do well to simply shut them down and begin again from scratch, as whatever institutional knowledge and expertise they possess is irretrievably corrupted. And other than the Department of Defense and the Department of the Treasury, there isn’t a single government department that is absolutely necessary for the functioning of the Federal government.

In related news, it’s fascinating to see the international media openly reporting on Operation Northwoods, the Pentagon-approved plan to stage a false flag involving shooting down passenger planes and blowing up a US Navy ship in order to garner support for a war on Cuba which JFK rejected in 1962.

Chilling Pentagon documents may reveal why the ‘Deep State’ has always feared the release of the John F. Kennedy assassination files.

A 12-page report, signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in 1962, details a secret plan to commit heinous acts against American citizens to justify war with Cuba in the 1960s.

Code-named Operation Northwoods, this top-secret plot proposed enacting terrorism on US cities in a what is known as a ‘false flag operation’, before blaming Cuba in order to fool the Americans into supporting war efforts to oust communist Fidel Castro.

‘We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,’ the document states, among dozens of other violent ideas of how to incite American hostility against the island nation.

US officials even proposed killing their own soldiers, writing: ‘We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba,’ and, ‘casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.’

JFK rejected Operation Northwoods when it came across his desk and was shot. A conspiracy theory surrounding JFK’s assassination claims he was killed by Israel which allegedly controls the US ‘Deep State.’

I wonder when the media is going to stop calling the factual reporting of documented events “conspiracy theory”. At this point, it’s not conspiracy theory, it’s the historical Law of Conspiracy.

LAW OF CONSPIRACY: When there is a contradiction between the official story reported by the mainstream media that exculpates government officials, large corporations, and public figures and an alternative explanation for the same event, the alternative explanation is always and inevitably closer to the truth.

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One Pertinent Question

The Band contemplates just how deep the socio-cultural reset of Clown World is going to go:

The question is how deep the conflict goes. The beast system is built on the false materialist dogmas of the post-Enlightenment West. And proven incapable of maintaining a moral sustainable socio-culture. The West was culturally healthy to the extent that social norms were based in traditional Christian and organic values. The atrocities – from apocalyptic wars to rapacious colonialism – were all products of “Enlightened” elites. Cultural degeneration took off when those elite !values seeped into the NPC base code via screens. The pattern reveals the problem. Entropy.

In a fallen world, things that are not actively maintained degenerate. Personal, moral, social, as well as physical. On the socio-cultural level, objective standards – religious and organic – are the active maintenance. Banishing those for subjective relativism because [a human self-actualization chimera that isn’t actually real] guarantees decline.

It’s why The Band is disinterested in historical resets. Without a change in basecode assumptions, it’s just a different spot on the curve to here.

The beast system is the institutional and logistical structure of the West. The House of Lies is the operating system. The vertically integrated cloud of nonsense promulgated through every systemic organ. We separate them for analytic reasons, but the boundary is not that clear in reality. For example, Clown World globalist ideology shapes the beast system by guiding or establishing new institutions and links. How deep the conflict goes refers to how much of this symbiotic knot is under attack.

Low depth is switching some Clown World superficialities without real consequence. The most egregious beclowning is replaced with superficial civnat bromides as veneer over the House of Lies. The beast system isn’t touched at all.

This is the option The Band considered most likely. Early returns indicate this was the wrong call.

Which, I suspect, is a good thing. Not necessarily, and not necessarily leading to a significantly more promising future for our grandchildren, but at least there is some room for optimism going forward.

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The Legend at Work

A WORKING MAN, starring Jason Statham, will be coming out March 25th. It’s based on The Legend Chuck Dixon’s first Levon Cade novel, Levon’s Trade, was adapted for film by Sylvester Stallone himself, and based on the trailer, appears to be pretty faithful to the novel.

Dixon. Statham. Stallone.

That’s a lot of testosterone right there.

It’s got at least one killer line in it too.

“You a cop?”

It looks like a quality action flick of the sort that Schwarzenegger and company used to make, with the trademark Dixonian working man hero. Should be fun!

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The End of Foreign Aid

President Trump has ended US foreign aid. Most foreign aid, anyhow. One guess as to the exception…

The US State Department has issued a halt to nearly all existing foreign assistance and paused new aid, according to an internal memo sent to officials and US embassies abroad.

The leaked notice follows President Trump’s executive order issued on Monday for a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance pending a review of efficiencies and consistency with his foreign policy.

The United States is the world’s biggest international aid donor spending $68bn in 2023 according to government figures. The State Department notice appears to affect everything from development assistance to military aid.

It makes exceptions only for emergency food aid and for military funding for Israel and Egypt. The leaked memo’s contents have been confirmed by the BBC.

“No new funds shall be obligated for new awards or extensions of existing awards until each proposed new award or extension has been reviewed and approved,” says the memo to staff.

It adds that US officials “shall immediately issue stop-work orders, consistent with the terms of the relevant award, until such time as the secretary shall determine, following a review.”

It also orders a wide scale review of all foreign assistance to be completed within 85 days to ensure the aid adheres to President Trump’s foreign policy goals.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio – the US’s top diplomat – has previously stated that all US spending abroad should take place only if it makes America “stronger”, “safer” or “more prosperous”.

This is a good start, but it all needs to be shut down. Permanently. There is absolutely no justification for a single penny to be sent to any nation or state outside the United States, especially given the precarious financial state of the federal government. It was a serious oversight by the Founding Fathers not to ban any and all foreign aid, especially given their opinion of the deleterious nature of foreign entanglements.

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Keep Your Pillows Fluffy

Virtually everything the Boomers believe is bad is actually good for America and the younger generations:

Oh no, the population is declining.

Who will buy property? I guess we’ll just have to lower real estate prices. What a nightmare.

Who will fish our lakes and create landfills? I guess we’ll have to watch council rates fall and pollution decrease. What a nightmare!

Who will work unskilled jobs if there aren’t enough people to do them? I guess >we’ll have to increase wages. What a nightmare!!

With smaller populations comes more tightly knit communities. Who will commit crimes? What a nightmare!!!

Cheaper real estate, less pollution, higher wages, lower crime… HOW WILL WE SURVIVE!?

I pay literally zero attention to anything Boomers say. I’m not exaggerating, I simply let them talk without even registering whatever it is they happen to be babbling about. Boomers are not only wrong about absolutely everything, but because they have zero empathy, because their analytical metrics are frozen circa 1960-1965, and because their only concern is what they believe is best for themselves at the present moment, all of their opinions are totally irrelevant to anyone under the age of 60, even when they’re not a priori incorrect.

The primary responsibility of Generation X is to ensure that the following generations do not follow the lead of our predecessors.

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