caulfield12

Cue the "BUT things are different now" responses regarding this particular ownership group and front office operating style...

To ratify a treaty, two-thirds of the Senate must vote in favor. Our politics just does not allow for that kind of consensus. Perhaps the saddest example of this dysfunction came in 2012, when the Senate could not even ratify a treaty that simply translated the Americans with Disabilities Act into an international commitment. The treaty was negotiated and signed by Republican President George W. Bush, but even with former Republican presidential candidate and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole returning to the Senate floor in his wheelchair to lend support, it garnered only 61 votes. Not bad for our hyper-partisan times, but six short of success. Only eight Republicans voted for it, and of them, only three are still in the Senate. No reasonable observer can believe that two-thirds Senate majorities are possible on difficult and contentious issues. They are not even possible on easy ones, like celebrating U.S. leadership on disability rights and extending our best practices to the rest of the world. politico.com

Seems like AGES since 2012, the last time we were playing meaningful baseball games in September. The crazy thing is that adding Abreu was one of their best moves in a generation, but it still didn't really make much of a difference...if anything, it probably delayed the rebuild by at least 2 or 3 years.

Dawn a Female Assistant @Truth08168336 Tuck it in boys, your panic is showing “Hurry and vote!” “She is not coming, is she coming?!?” “She misidentified him!!” “She is a political actor!” “No matter what, we confirm him!” “We can’t interview her, hire an attorney, we will call her our FEMALE ASSISTANT!!” Patti Solis Doyle ✔ @PattiSolisDoyle A female assistant??? In addition to conducting the questioning of Dr. Ford, will she also make the Starbucks run?

The White Sox don’t even have to play to lose these days...but at least Tim Anderson, White Sox “star,” made the national baseball news for calling out Joe West. So there’s that. Hawk will be amused, at least. Almost feel bad he couldn’t watch Tiger Woods over the weekend, instead.

On the plus side, the Internet is more upset about Crissy Teigen’s new bob hair style and how it makes her face look bigger and how she hasn’t lost as much weight after her 2nd baby. In all seriousness, Trump personally has 35% that are rock solid and unmovable, roughly 45-50% that are solidly opposed and 15-20% STILL on the fence (or not yet won over by any Democratic candidates on a national level.) That’s the only thing that makes sense, reading that recent poll arguing the GOP has peaked in popularity again at 45%, going back all the way to early 2011 and the Tea Party/anti-ACA election. You also have almost 1/3rd of Americans believing the middle class will eventually entirely disappear in America.

If you go in any direction, we’ve been beaten up by rivals. Cubs and Cardinals. Brewers and Twins with new stadiums, better attendance, more competitive teams (2002-2010, two of last three years from MN, Milwaukee recently and with Greinke/Sabathia), playoff appearances, etc. KC in 2014-15. Cleveland for the last four seasons, likely to be at least 5 in 2019, not unlike Tigers’ run at beginning of decade. About the best thing you can say is that we’re in similar situations to the Reds, Tigers, Pirates...or Mariners, for a myriad of different reasons. We’re not KC, at least? Perhaps the most remarkable aspect is we’re STILL 24th in MLB attendance, the same as 2012/13 and an improvement position-wise on 2014-17!!! Of course, the “real” revenue generation has fallen off even more dramatically than those numbers would indicate compared to the Cubs, Cardinals and Brewers. Profitability, definitely...but largely due to revenue sharing, the Chicago market and one of the most advantageous stadium lease deals. http://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance Obvious problem is we’ve arguably lost another 10-15% of the fanbase...but, halfway through blind luck, we’re better positioned for competing the AL Central than any team but the Indians for the next five years (2020 is the first year you can realistically argue anything close to competitiveness, barring some shocking free agency moves.)

Clarence Thomas was probably/arguably worse...but you would have thought after #metoo and Gorsuch’s “success” that they would have looked for another straight arrow type. Hubris?

But why can’t they find another version of Kavanaugh, maybe a conservative female...do we really want to tarnish the Supreme Court further with Clarence Thomas already there? Do we really want the first justice confirmed on a 100% partisan vote? It would be sort of like Joe Moore serving in the Senate today. Not illegal, per se, but not morally the best thing for the country. Imagine the SC overturns Roe vs. Wade on the back of votes from Thomas and Kavanaugh...how embittered women across the country would feel? We keep saying let’s have objective conversations, so let’s get real here. Fewer and fewer Americans attend church once a week anymore, it might be down to 25-30%. At least 2/3rd’s or maybe even 75% of the country doesn’t want abortion to be made illegal. Why do we want to divide the country even more by going in this direction? In fact, a new candidate would give Collins and Murkowski a lot more protection on their flanks, politically. Or maybe women losing all their rights to a “minority” government will finally balance out female representation in Congress...as women get increasingly tired of 10-11 committee members (old rich white men) deciding and controlling their private lives and run for office?

Can’t wait to see if he decides to “soldier on” like Collins, Hunter and Joe Moore...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-attacks-kavanaugh-accuser-string-134819897.html Is Trump even human? How can you have zero empathy when you have two daughters of your own? Even ___________ (fill in the blank with random infamous world dictators) somehow exhibited more emotions/caring in his relationships.

https://t.co/YIDC3rrdbi https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-tries-zillow-prove-kavanaugh-012933947.html Man tries to use Zillow to prove Kavanaugh's innocence and ends up owning himself

Apparently we need to show the career OPS numbers of all the Cubs' position prospects that have come up in the last half decade and compare them. Do we get any credit for Palka? A little, I guess...

Now Anderson's in a pretty good slump...it would be nice if we had any position other than DH/1B that could put up a 750+ OPS. I guess we have Narvaez, but can we count on a repeat next year? Waiting for Lip's, 18 leads blown in the 7th inning or later, and counting.

Douglas Ginsburg took himself out of the running for pot smoking, for an example.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/o-rourke-leading-cruz-2-163048000.html First polling with O’Rourke leading...still don’t trust it quite yet, because the GOP is desperately trying to save Cruz, Heller and McSalley, with the TN race wide open right now.

Both teams trying their best to lose this one...

Which we've heard for years are the two easiest "Moneyball" positions to fill. Of course, the reasons here are Dunn, Konerko/Abreu and LaRoche, for the most part.

Real in the sense that half the remaining Sox fans are cheering for a draft position loss?

I guess he's probably set a record for taken called 3rd strikes in the history of baseball? Last time they published the numbers, it was either Judge or Stanton that was like 15 behind him...

He's probably been stuck within that band range of 690-710 OPS for most of the last 4-6 weeks as well. You can say the same of Yolmer and Anderson, although Tim's been 5-15 points higher on average than Moncada. Right now, sitting on an exact 700 ops with 204 strikeouts, 11 games left to go.

Then we'll hear it's all "Inside the Beltway" gossip, only the pundit class cares about stuff like that, not the farmer in Iowa...

Extended.

Let’s not forget the biggest “political party” in America is non voters, around 100 million...either as a result of hopelessness, gerrymandering, difficulties getting to a polling station, age/feeling their voice doesn’t mean anything. It wasn’t Bernie Bros that stopped Clinton, it was the fact that millions and millions of Americans had a pretty strong indication what Trump would be like and still voted him over the alternative...which was a bunch of warmed over platform items that excited pretty much nobody. Trump at least excited his supporters and energized them to vote or buy hats. Even today, there isn’t a really exciting set of proposals for the Dems...only the most “outlandish” ones (Medicare for All, abolish ICE, free college for everyone) that have split the party into two. The only thing saving the party is the womens’ vote (Roe vs. Wade when it might be too late), young people in some states and then the elderly have flipped away from Trump over the last year due to the ObamaCare failure, threats to Medicare/SS and the fact that Trump’s simply the most likely politician to get everyone in the US killed prematurely by his actions.

Is there any GM more likely to get $2-4 billion in investment behind him?