Balta1701

Because you put an offer on the table that was stupid and might be $50 million more than any other offer the guy gets this offseason. If you do that, it'll get done.

If the White Sox offered him 5/$125 right now I think he'd jump at it.

It wouldn't be a public admission of guilt any more than attending the treatment program was. If he actually attended one because he wanted leniency from the judicial system and made that public, I'd think better about him! That would be a good sign! A judge isn't going to look any worse on him for making that public than if he did it and kept it private.

There is absolutely no reason why they couldn't say that now if he had actually done so.

Just remember, third time being caught is not third time doing it. He's a legit, HOF type guy. It's ok for him.

Yes, they're buying time. Eventually he'll plead no contest or something like that in a plea bargain to avoid jail time unless the cop was really angry about things, and they're just hoping it'll go away. Then he'll do it again after some game early next season, and probably won't be caught. And again. And again.

And that's not going to happen.

Personally, I think that if the Democrats win both Georgia seats, their legislative agenda would still be somewhat limited at least in year 1, because there’s a legit crisis. It’s going to be hard to hold 8 months of hearings to develop major new health care policy in the middle of this nightmare. The things I think you would see are: 1. A major stimulus and recovery bill similar to the Cares act, with money for schools, restaurants and bars, small businesses, health care firms that have been damaged, the unemployed, and another round of checks to everyone. Perhaps some long term back to work projects get included as stuff to spend money on. 2. The DREAM act. It’s been written for 10 years, it could have gotten 60+ votes in the Senate every single year but McConnell will never bring it up because the people it helps aren’t white. It takes zero work and it is a good win for people. 3. Some minor tweaks on health care and immigration, clear fixes that have become obvious about how the program is running. For example, something has to be done now that the Republicans changed the individual mandate in their tax increase bill. 4. probably a few things to codify things that presidents other than Trump never did, like making it illegal to have a president owning businesses that are taking direct payments from foreign governments. 5. A lot of other stuff related to the virus crisis. There should be a bipartisan commission created to investigate the government response, there may need to be changes to the CDC or other contracts with businesses, and that will take an awful lot of congressional time. Getting to anything big beyond that requires ending the current crisis. Until that is over, you won’t see a major new tax bill or healthcare bill.

Personally I think a breast reduction and viagra are both quality of life issues, so I would have no problem covering both, but that’s an ok disagreement, very different from arguing that anyone who cant afford the current system should just find a better job like we hear all the time today.

If I got to build the best, most efficient and effective system I could from the ground up as a benevolent dictator? Medicare would be a minimal system that covers everyone. You pay like $5 if you need cancer treatment and preventative treatment like a COVID vaccine is free. In cases where not medically needed from an injury or health issue it probably wouldn’t cover cosmetic enhancement. If you or your company wanted to provide an additional insurance benefit above that through a private insurer, that provides treatments like those and a higher level of service, access to certain high level doctors or facilities or whatever, I would keep that as fully legal and encouraged. Medicare currently has supplemental plans like that for seniors, although they’re a little different as they also cover some copay costs which are too high in Medicare itself. Generally, France, Canada, Germany have setups like that, they are far cheaper than what the US does and have better health outcomes at every level other than the richest of the rich. In fact, we spend more on Medicare right now per person than those countries spend to cover everyone, so this design literally cuts taxes. You can always quarrel at the margins for how much to spend on certain procedures or drugs and what limits there should be, but the administration savings are so large that you save a ton of money, taxpayer dollars included, that you could easily run a system more generous than any of those countries while still saving a ton of money. But check your privilege here. Why did you default to asking about a procedure for a woman, that could never affect you directly? Should viagra be covered?

Because everyone benefits when people are able to access health care without difficulty. People who have illnesses, esp chronic ones, can get treatment to avoid things getting worse, allowing them to stay in the workforce. People who have health concerns can afford to take risks like starting businesses because they’re not locked to jobs by the health coverage. People who think they are healthy are not ambushed by huge costs when something goes wrong. When a pandemic strikes, people don’t spread things because they’re scared to get treatment due to the cost. People don’t die if the flu because they’re scared of the treatment costs, which we see every year - keeping them as productive members of society. Huge amounts of money and time are spent verifying that people qualify for health care, or denying it when possible - that money is basically hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, lots of it taxpayer dollars (think of the last time you had to spend a day calling your insurance to deal with a bill, someone was paid hundreds of dollars to process whatever issue you had). Generally it improves everyone’s quality of life, it’s the right thing to do, and there’s a reason why our health care system is by far the most expensive in the world per person - because we don’t start with that fundamental premise.

That is literally to the letter what progressives want. That is exactly what defunding the police is supposed to mean. Word for word, precisely, without any changes.

But you are ignoring the power dynamics. When LaRussa gets off with community service and a Canadian travel ban, Reinsdorf will do none of those things. They will declare they were right and DUIs aren’t a big deal and the cop should respect a legit hall of fame type guy as above the law, not like some (pick your insult for a black person). And out of every dollar you spend, 20% or whatever will directly endorse that point of view. If the way you want it to happen doesn’t work, you jump to saying the status quo is fine. “Mitch McConnell won’t let a livable wage exist, so $7.15 an hour is fine and I don’t see why anyone would protest that. The rallies outside McDonalds only cost them business and make people lose their jobs, they should be happy as is as it’s better than nothing.”

The Trump administration is refusing to give the Biden transition team access to any details about their “operation warp speed” plans for vaccine production and distribution.

1. In 2000, you would have said "The map 8 years from now will be completely revamped" and based on every election in recent history it would have been true. We've now spent 20 years with basically the exact same map, with a handful of states switching side to side. 2. This system favors moderation? Did the last 4 years not happen?

I don't know, I'm sure they'll do something...but I think the rational move for both every team and virtually every player is to hold off to do anything big until February. I mean literally Chicago's mayor today is begging people not to go to large gatherings. How on Earth do you project how much money you can spend next year until you have some idea how things are going?

You guys remember how 2018-2019 we spent 2 months thinking that something was going to happen? Get ready, this one could be far slower.

Oh and I forgot, he should have publicly apologized to the police officer for his behavior that night. Regardless of charges outstanding.

There are even things that they could be doing or saying right now if he was actually taking steps to fix them, or frankly, cared one iota. He could have owned up to it at the press conference and answered questions about it. He could have told how he realized he had a problem and it had been haunting him for years, so starting in March he went to treatment and it was extra tough because of the lockdowns but he is taking these steps to make sure he's safe from now on, he's going to take these steps with white sox charities, he sees now how his statements in 2007 were insincere and he's extra embarrassed because of it so he wants to personally apologize to Kaepernick, and he's honored that Jerry Reinsdorf saw how he was working on this and gave him a chance to show that to the world. Note the subtle difference between that and what is happening right now.

Genuinely curious - I know Raines had a major issue for years, but my impression was always that he came back and beat it in order to restore his career and has been clean since. Is there more to that story I don't know?

I dont want to do this in two threads but what the heck, it's the site owner I'm replying to, so why not. Hernandez is an awful example for you to bring up because he's a case where, based on press reports, Urban Meyer warned the Patriots not to draft him, he displayed erratic and sometimes hostile behavior in practice, Hernandez "approached coach Bill Belichick in a "state of deepening paranoia' in 2013 but 'his coach saw little reason to get more than minimally involved", and teammates were reporting some of the people he was out with and some of the places he was going. It's literally a case of the team having plenty of information and looking the other way, and in the end winding up with a murder. Could they have stopped it, maybe, maybe not, but they didn't try. They didn't pull the trigger but they absolutely enabled the behavior that led to it. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/patriots/2018/10/16/aaron-hernandez-behavior-patriots-boston-globe/1656467002/

He only gets his up if more than one team plays for it. There’s no real reason they can’t put 1/$15 on the table today and wait until February if no one else comes in.

Cheating with a trash can and this manager? Fair.

This year...guys who want a lot of money might be disappointed.

I mean, it will only be 10 days maximum and perhaps having to skip every series in Torotno. Reinsdorf is clearly ok with that. And if Manfred hasn't intervened yet, he won't be. Count that as another factor illustrating baseball's main office issues - this should have been spiked by the Commish by October 15, and not just because of the DUI. But just say the commish was too weak to stop JR from hiring him - if the arrest was known by the franchise the commish should have had them required to address it in the press conference announcing the hire at a minimum.