Danny Dravot

LOL at you seeming to think this had any other possible outcome.

I imagine a coup d’etat having a lot more tanks and machine guns and a lot fewer bad lawyers and typo-ridden court briefs. Agree to disagree, I guess.

They're making incredibly stupid arguments to challenge an election. Arguments which, I might add, are not going to work. We shouldn't whip out the treason and sedition talk here, just like we shouldn't whip it out when Beto claims he's coming for people's guns. Someone wants to plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan? Treason. Federal prison for life. Someone wants to shoot some congressmen at a baseball practice? Death penalty. I'm all for it. But let's not plot our own tyrannies because of free albeit idiotic speech. YMMV.

No one should be undermining the election results, and it's disappointing that 106 or whatever reps are backing that Texas lawsuit (I'm really disappointed by some of the names I saw on the list, too), but disenfranchising the voters who emplaced those representatives isn't the answer. Doesn't exactly scream "all votes matter" in a sincere way either. I mean, disqualifying anyone who seeks to attack American democracy? The Electoral College is in the Constitution. I disagree with arguments against it and think they're missing the point, but should the many progressives who make those arguments be booted out of Congress? And I know nothing about Powell v. McCormack, but that seems terrifying- the majority can just kick people out? "Screw you, people of ID-2, the majority thinks your representative is an asshole. Taxation without representation is back...for YOU, baby!" Yeah. Make your argument that conspiracy theories are dumb, vote against people who make dumb arguments, but let's not go too far...

Thanks. Didn’t know how much the hurricane changed the overall course of the city. Either way, kinda validates my point that the hurricane killed 20% of the population. SS, appreciate it. I’ll check it out (my phone sucks at formatting).

Something to keep in mind as well is population totals. More people died each day from Spanish flu and there were far less people available for that disease to kill. The Galveston hurricane killed 8,000, but how many people live in Galveston today? 100,000? How many less was it back then? This isn't to make light of this, 3,000 a day is still God awful, but it's just worth keeping in mind for comparison's sake.

Maybe I’m out of the loop, but why is Eaton an asshole exactly? Did it have to do with the LaRoche situation? Is that it?

If you think about all the transitive properties here, we basically turned Hector Santiago into Lucas Giolito, Lance Lynn, and Adam Eaton.

Love the move.

RIP Chuck Yeager

You clearly are a logistician.

I’m guessing it actually has to do with logistics, because the Pfizer vaccine needs special refrigeration. Even 50 million doses is probably beyond our distribution capacity. So we’ll use this company’s stuff for high density urban areas and depend on other companies like Moderna for more logistically challenging areas.

I don’t know what to think of Biden nominating Gen. Lloyd Austin as SecDef. I really wanted Flournoy. Starting her own think tank and writing a bunch of essays gives me a solid idea of where she stands. Austin has a Ranger tab and a Silver Star, so he’s legit, but everything in this article suggests he wouldn’t really be his own thinker. Not sure if that’s what I want in this administration. Also, I’m all for diversity, but I’m unnerved by this article implying that his nomination is the result of pressure on Biden to have a black SecDef. I really hope more thought went into this than that.

I love me some Eloy, but put him in RF and we will allow the most triples in baseball.

Trading Vaughn is an atrocious idea. Trading him for Snell is even more so. I don’t know why so many people are excited to do this.

Thought you were going to go in a different direction and I was ready to duke it out. Yeah, all those things suck. I'll see myself out.

What is basic human decency? What are these human rights we're litigating?

You’re missing my point. I don’t care about Harper. I don’t see replacing Keuchel with Wheeler, which is what you’re doing, as an improvement.

Your trade involved sending Keuchel to Philly. We have some good pitching prospects, yes, but I want to go deep in the playoffs in 2021. At this moment, starting Cease, Kopech or Dunning in game 3 of round 1 isn’t going to help us do that.

The point of signing a Bauer or trading for a Wheeler is that we have two really good SPs and then junk. What is the purpose of acquiring another good one while giving up one of the two we have?

I agree. I never listened to Mark Levin or Rush Limbaugh or even Tucker Carlson, but I did read certain blogs that really influenced my thoughts. I stopped a while back but I check in on them occasionally- they’re all going on about voter fraud and so forth. I just had to get away from all that. Not only does it make you stupid but it makes you angry as fuck, too. I always laugh when people talk about how Trump is the only one who fights for “us”. The commenters on those blogs I mentioned (along with the bloggers themselves) would refer to Never Trumpers like David French as gutless wimps who don’t fight. But French goes to court all the time to represent campus free speech cases, and he WINS. Is that not fighting? The same people also hate GW Bush. But Bush built coalitions to fight two wars, passed an anti-abortion act, a massive education reform act, a tax cut, and managed to win the popular vote on the way to a second term. You can disagree with whether all of that was wise, but the dude clearly fought for his world view and did it well. Trump used a friendly Congress to get one tax cut passed and then did a bunch of unilateral stuff. They say he fights because he acts like a belligerent ass at rallies. Whoopdedoo. I’m happier now because I’m less caught up on outrage-game bullshit and because my vote is no longer guaranteed. Mitt vs. Bernie? I’ll donate a month’s salary to Mitt. Delaney vs. Loeffler? Dem all the way.

Also, @Two-Gun Pete, you do make a rather convincing argument that the two GA Dems will likely be moderates. Loeffler and others are out there claiming Warnock would be one of the most progressive and radical Senators if elected but that doesn’t line up with the history of blue senators in red states. I wish I could hear more about their foreign policy views, however. I will also say that, while claiming to be a moderate, I am really not a moderate on the things that I care about. This is important because a couple of years ago, like some posters in this thread, I’d have referred to moderates as “squishes who stand for nothing”. I’m not interested in fighting counterproductive culture wars (minus abortion, however) and I’m willing to enact a public option and raise the minimum wage, but I want 1000-fucking-% to knock off the regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang and to put ultimately unbearable pressure on authoritarians everywhere else.

@Two-Gun Pete Likewise, I appreciate your thoughtful response. I also applaud you for arguing to your “adversary’s” perspective, rather than from your own. Too many would say, “Oh you don’t want x [super progressive thing?!” It doesn’t get far as a persuasive device. Pointing out that, yeah, I really do despise what Kelly Loeffler really does hit much harder. I will admit that part of the hang up here is my own history. Not too long ago and for all of the time before that, I was a serious dyed in the wool conservative. I’ve done a lot of moderating this year and I’ve developed much more nuance in my views. I’ve come to realize that, because I tend towards neoconservatism, allying with paleoconservatism for any reason doesn’t help me at all. In 2016, I figured Trump was a nasty buffoon but he was a nasty buffoon on my team so I just did what I always did. It’s all much smoother now- sure, if you identify as a Marxist-Leninist, we’ll agree on absolutely nothing, but for the most part it’s no longer “Democrats evil, Republicans good.” I like Mitt Romney, I like Larry Hogan, I like John Delaney, and I am starting to actually like Joe Biden. At the same time, it’s now clear that there are parts of the right that I despise as much as certain parts of the left. Voting for Republicans is still my gut instinct, but I have to remind myself that not all Republicans are MY Republicans and not all Democrats are THEIR Democrats. I’m working on it. FWIW, Ted Cruz, who’s much more important here because he is actually my senator, has gotten to a level of depravity and cowardice that I will decline to vote for him in 2024. Perhaps even vote against him (although not if it’s Beto).

Lol, OK then... I want an interventionist foreign policy with patriotic leaders who believe in America. Trump is an isolationist who lashes out every so often (Soleimani, Baghdadi, etc) while mixing in some insanely stupid thoughts (let's raid Syria's oil wells!) and not appreciating the boring but vital parts of being Team America: Globe Cop (maintaining or increasing troop levels in Germany, fully supporting the democratically elected government of Afghanistan rather than negotiating with Taliban thugs, using TPP to isolate China, etc). I also don't believe he can make America great again because I don't think he understands what makes America great in the first place (I very much support capitalism and constitutional rights, but being able to own military rifles with bump stocks and silencers without a background check while paying as little as possible in taxes and coughing freely on each other during a pandemic is NOT the answer). In Georgia, neither Ossoff nor Warnock even bother to have foreign policy sections on their campaign pages. I have some minor disagreements with both of them (Ossoff, for one, is pro-choice and seeks to abolish the death penalty) but whatever. Their healthcare ideas aren't terrible and not that far from mine. At a cursory glance, they focus on Medicaid expansion without mentioning M4A. I'm OK with that. But I really can't get over the foreign policy stuff- I suspect both would wish to rejoin JCPOA rather than upping the pressure on the Iranians. While military force should be a last resort, I believe for both of them it would be a non-resort. For Warnock, his statements about not serving God and the military and his support of people like Jeremiah Wright suggest an Obama-ish "fundamentally changing America" approach. I believe in constructive criticism and in making the country better, but if you don't agree that America is still the last best hope for man and the shining city upon a hill in spite of its well known flaws, then I'm really not interested. I suspect this is the case with both of these men. So I reject them more than I accept Loeffler and Perdue. Lastly, Joe Biden might govern as a progressive, or he might prove @pettie4sox right and be a total Republican. Who knows. I do like some of his cabinet appointments (such as Blinken and Flournoy, who's not official yet but I'm sure it's coming). I was never going to vote for Trump this year and I was just going to abstain from Biden as well, but he won me over by constantly talking about how America can do anything she sets her mind to. I don't think he will be perfect and I suspect I will end up heavily criticizing certain parts of his administration, but the appointments and attitude so far fit decently with what I want. I think having a slightly Republican Senate would prevent more aggressively progressive pushes.

Crème brûlée.