caulfield12

Smoke grenades being deployed on Senate side of the US Capitol From CNN's Kristin Wilson, Ted Barrett, Manu Raju, Ali Zaslav and Sarah Fortinsky Smoke grenades are being deployed on the Senate side of the US Capitol, as Capitol police work to clear the building of rioters. Windows on the west side of the Senate have been broken, and hundreds of officers are amassing on the first floor of the building. CNN reporters working in the US Senate, have been told by the Capitol Police that they are being evacuated from the Senate, to an undisclosed location. The Capitol Police also say the Senate won’t be in session in the Capitol building today or anytime soon, saying the building was “trashed.” While the officers appear to be speaking with authority, CNN has not independently confirmed that the Senate leadership has made that decision.

President-elect Joe Biden called on President Trump to appear on national television and condemn his supporters who breached the US Capitol. “The words of a president matter, no matter how good or bad that president is. At their best, the words of a president can inspire. At their worst, they can incite. Therefore, I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege,” Biden said in an address to Americans. Biden called the mob an “insurrection.” “Threatening the safety of elected officials, it’s no protest. It's insurrection,” Biden said. “The world's watching. Like so many other Americans, I am shocked and saddened that our nation, so long the beacon of light and hope for democracy, has come to such a dark moment.” "President Trump: Step up," Biden added. The work of the next four years will be restoring democracy, Biden says President-elect Joe Biden addressed the pro-Trump riots happening right now at the Capitol, saying the work of the next four years will be rebuilding democracy. "The work of the moment and the work of the next four years must be the restoration of democracy – of decency, honor, respect, the rule of law. Just plain, simple decency," Biden said. The President-elect said he is "shocked and saddened" that the country has come to "such a dark moment," but added that like other moments in history, America will prevail. "Through war and strife, America's endured much. And we will endure here and we will prevail again and we'll prevail now," Biden said. "Today's reminder, a painful one, that democracy is fragile and to preserve it requires people of good will," he said. https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/congress-electoral-college-vote-count-2021/index.html

Biden: "Our democracy is under unprecedented assault" From CNN's Maureen Chowdhury President-elect Joe Biden addressed the riots that erupted at the US Capitol building, calling it an "assault" on democracy. "At this hour, our democracy's under unprecedented assault. Unlike anything we've seen in modern times. An assault on the citadel of liberty, the Capitol itself. An assault on the people's representatives and the Capitol Hill police, sworn to protect them. And the public servants who work at the heart of our Republic... Let me be very clear. The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America. Do not represent who we are. What we're seeing are a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness. This is not dissent. It's disorder. It's chaos. It borders on sedition. And it must end now," Biden said. Cnn.com A White House adviser said some aides around President Donald Trump are becoming furious that the President won't do more to stop the insurrection at the Capitol. The adviser said aides have been all but begging Trump to come out and make a statement to begin to calm the situation. "He doesn't want to" to do more than what he is doing right now, the adviser said. "If we could throw him to the angry mob, we'd throw him to the angry mob now," the adviser said.

The woman who was shot is in critical condition, fwiw...if this was Antifa or BLM, the casualty count would be in the teens and likely 100’s with Trump authorizing deadly force to National Guard, who undoubtedly would have been called in a matter of minutes. This does make me even more proud of those like Stacey Abrams who didn’t quit but took their voter suppression battle to the American streets/neighborhoods and then the ballot box in Georgia and Wisconsin. PS. Growing up watching Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970’s early 80’s, this is a scene one could never have possibly conceived of on Schoolhouse Rock.

The Seige? Bruce Willis as occupying general? Where’s our Denzel Washington and that Monk guy?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/07/us/stacey-abrams-georgia-voter-suppression-trnd/index.html

Cotton has already been cast out of the group, seemingly...but then there’s always Pompeo, Rubio, Cruz and Pence vying for those same voters in 2024, assuming Trump is done. IMO, Ivanka would be better off running for an office in Florida to start out with, but how much of the MAGA crowd would automatically except her? Don, Jr., Eric and Lara, no way. Stephanie Guilfoyle will go down as one of the Top Ten reasons for Trump losing this year, so she gets crossed off as well. (Plus, Trump will do something idiotic like try to “pre-pardon” all of his family members over the next two weeks.) Nikki Haley or Paul Ryan seem so obvious they’ll probably figure out some new way to screw things up. And of course, you have Hogan/Baker/DeWine as anti-Trumpers.

The obvious thing for Abrams to do is take on Kemp again, except there’s a good chance he doesn’t even get the nomination. Then again, for some reason, he has 60% approval in terms of Covid response so who knows. Would like to see her get years of experience in Washington but she’s done so well in organizing GA the last two years that another run seems almost inevitable. She’s certainly not likely to run against Warnock for the former Isakson seat. (Thought this was interesting....”When compared to his Republican peers in the Senate, Isakson was neither more liberal than average nor more conservative than average. Won with 54.6% in 2016.)

At the same precinct, Jim Earwood, a 67-year-old retiree, said he appreciated Trump’s ceaseless commentary on the Georgia election, from his early and uncorroborated claims of fraud to his weekend call to the secretary of state. “I’m glad he’s involved,” Earwood said. “Everybody says he’s not presidential, and that’s what I like about him.” As he left the Christian church that served as a polling place, Earwood said he voted all Republican. “I wouldn’t vote for a Dem here lately unless they let Jesus on the ticket,” he said. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/perdue-ossoff-loeffler-warnock-georgia-senate/2021/01/05/7d7b5afe-4f5d-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html

Fulton and DeKalb still have 23,000 to go... Black voters again comprised 29% of the electorate, almost exactly approximating their turnout in November, which is frankly unheard of for a January runoff. And it's not just that. Ossoff was beating Perdue 93% to 7% among Black voters, nearly a double-digit improvement on Biden's performance. What explains the Black turnout? One factor may well be Rev. Raphael Warnock's candidacy. Warnock, the head of Ebenezer Baptist Church, took considerable incoming from Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) during the runoff for his ties to the Black church community -- including controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It's uniquely possible those attacks backfired on Loeffler (and Perdue) -- serving as an impetus for the Black community to turn out in droves to vote for the two Democrats. Trump won suburban Georgia voters by 3 points in November; Perdue is ahead of Ossoff by just 2 points. And perhaps as importantly, suburban voters turned out in similar numbers in the Senate runoffs as they did in the November general election. In November, suburbanites were 61% of the overall electorate, while on Tuesday they were also 61%. Assuming those numbers hold, it suggests that Trump has done damage to the Republican brand among suburban voters that goes well beyond just races where he is on the ballot. And extrapolating further, if the suburbs are now a pure toss-up across the country, that would be, generally speaking, scary news for Republicans. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/05/politics/georgia-senate-runoff-elections/index.html

NY Times meter has it ending at 1.9% for Warnock and 1.1% for Ossoff. How much does this impact Trump negatively...at least in terms of GOP electoral politics? Obviously, he's not going to take/assume/accept any responsibility for the loss, but it's hard to imagine him not being in the Top 3 reasons. If for no other reason than the $200 million he's soaked up after the election. With all the soft money flying into this, it seems the Dem advantage wasn't as pronounced in the end, but the GOP could have had a significant spending margin on advertising if they'd not gotten sidetracked. Quite a few unforced errors by both sides. For Dems, Antifa, defund the police, identity politics, embrace of "socialism" (or not differentiating enough from democratic socialism of the AOC/Squad variety) and Bernie's comments on socialism/Castro/Cuba... For the GOP, there are too many to name, but going to war with the governor of the state as well as the Secretary of State where you're trying to win two runoff elections doesn't seem to be the wisest election strategy.

https://www.ajc.com/news/distrust-and-worry-help-fuel-voter-turnout-in-east-georgia/MG5BAVXYUZEG5BDLOC6LRPFI4Q/

One thing is for sure, if both GOPers are ahead before everyone goes to bed and then they later are “caught” by absentee ballot counting (going 4-5/1 ratio for Dems), it’s just going to continue to reinforce that stolen election storyline. Or that the Dems won by promising $2000 check socialism/giveaways (what will be later conveniently forgotten is that it’s Trump’s exact same position.) 3D or 5D chess, amirite? Trump actually prefers Dem “control” of both houses to give him even more grounds to later assail it in 2022/24?

According to RCP, Warnock and Ossoff were up 1.3% and 1% so no idea what to expect. Split decision? Loeffler is clearly the worst of the two in terms of obedience to Trump...and her stock trading was even more unseemly, not to mention her inability to get along with her own WNBA team.

Somehow I doubt the dramatic twists could equal Tiger King... but real life is often stranger than fiction, right?

Well, he could be the first big leaguer in history with that particular spelling of his first name.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/a-year-without-fandom-why-these-baseball-fans-stopped-watching-in-2020-and-how-mlb-can-win-them-back-211618097.html

They were supposed to have 300k contact tracers at this point, but still only have around 70,000. Giving credit for the vaccine but not developing the distribution system is beside the point. You can’t just keep blaming state and local issues when an unprecedented situation calling for Federal intervention arises. Plus, hacks like Redfield and Jared Kushner were right in the middle of all this every step of the way. Finally, Dr. Birx allowed herself to be used as the public face of this, as well...and look where she is now.

Federal officials said as recently as earlier in December that their goal was to have 20 million people get their first shot by the end of 2020. More than 14 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had been sent out across the United States, federal officials said Wednesday. But, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just 2.8 million people have received their first dose, although that number may be somewhat low because of lags in reporting. States vary widely in how many of the doses they have received have been given out. South Dakota leads the country with more than 48% of its doses given, followed by West Virginia at 38%. By contrast, Kansas has given out less than 11%, and Georgia, less than 14%. Compounding the challenges, federal officials say they do not fully understand the cause of the delays. But state health officials and hospital leaders throughout the country pointed to several factors. States have held back doses to be given out to their nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities, an effort that is just gearing up and expected to take several months. Across the country, just 8% of the doses distributed for use in these facilities have been administered, with 2 million yet to be given. https://www.yahoo.com/news/heres-why-distribution-vaccine-taking-134801580.html

Also importantly, Caratini has a great partnership with Darvish and in the 98th percentile for framing. SD has undertaken a big change from Hedges/Mejia to Nola/Caratini, and it has made their offense even tougher...where there are no longer any easy sections of the lineup to negotiate. In the end, though, starting pitching is the one area that takes on outsized importance in the playoffs. If you look at variability in that rotation, Paddack with much less pressure on his shoulders could easily take another step forward. When you can roll out the best starting pitching prospect in Gore at #5, you’re in pretty good position. They have five starters along with Clevinger capable of finishing Top 5-10 in NL Cy Young balloting over the next 2-3 years. That’s not even considering Morejon and Weathers.

You mean 4, if you include Clevinger...

It’s risky for Hoyer in the sense that Cubs’ fans are likely going to get very impatient when they’re a Top 3-5 MLB franchise but are acting like the TB Rays. Especially whenever they look at their Marquee charges to bills or attempt to purchase anything in the neighborhood outside the ballpark. But the curious thing is the second biggest issue with Epstein for the latter half of his Cubs’ career (after bad free agent deals) was the almost complete inability to develop their own pitching. Davies will likely be gone by August. Why not address THAT? Because fixating on position players alone has proven to be a mistake in hindsight. If you trade Bryant/Baez/Contreras and then Kimbrel for half his salary...that leaves fans with just Rizzo and Hendricks to cheer for. Which won’t be easy for any Cubs’ fan who revisits the feeling around the franchise four or five years ago to digest. Arguably, Darvish, Contreras (two years left on contract), Hendricks and Bryant/Baez in walk years should be comparable pieces to what the Sox auctioned off in their rebuild. Early returns though, suggest the very worst possible timing in history to be doing such a thing.

"Payrolls are for 40-man rosters and include averages of multiyear contracts; health and pension benefits; clubs medical costs; insurance; workman's compensation, payroll, unemployment and Social Security taxes; spring training allowances; meal and tip money; All-Star game expenses; travel and moving expenses; postseason pay; and college scholarships." How one calculates all of these extra factors is the key...usually, it’s at least $12-15 million higher. The owners, obviously, would prefer to use these numbers than just the salaries alone because it’s simply PR/perception...but you wouldn’t find a single baseball fan 15-20 years ago thinking about such things, other than do we have enough money to sign XYZ player or not.

It’s obviously not second degree murder, but how can someone who deliberately does such a thing not at least get 30-90 days in jail? And how long until other enflamed anti-vaxxers come up with similar copycat sabotage efforts?