caulfield12

Michael Moore said that the GOP goes for the jugular, the Dems pillow fight. He’s 90% right. The GOP never would have allowed Merrick Garland to go down like that...

Anita Hill, Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones are more famous to the general public than most Supreme Court justices. Why would any woman want to put herself through that willingly if there wasn’t any truth to the allegations? It’s not like the Jones case where there is money involved for the complainant, either. This is more about weighing personal/reputational cost versus the opportunity cost of not doing anything and knowing this guy might have been the key vote to overturn Roe. How many women, though, would do the same? She’s a Stanford professor with an established career, after all. And it’s also not like anyone can control the next nominee’s view/s on this issue, although we can all theorize they might be more moderate. Knowing Trump, he’s just as likely to do the opposite...pull Kavanaugh and attempt to jam someone through (even before November elections) that’s more conservative. Or put another way, what would you do if your wife was the accuser...with this allegation going back 36 years to high school...? Tell her to let bygones be bygones after all the therapy she has been through? It’s an incredibly complicated decision for any family, especially if you had children, no matter what age/s.

But few prosecutors in the 1990s would have pursued an extensive criminal investigation over perjury into a middle-aged man’s lies about adultery if that person had not been President Clinton. In his zeal at the time, Kavanaugh, like Starr, may have worked himself into a belief that this was about sacred principles of law, but to many others—and ultimately to a clear majority of the country—it was obvious that the case was fundamentally about political power. Kavanaugh’s fate, too, now depends on precisely the same thing: Do the allegations change the calculation for the perhaps half-a-dozen senators—including Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—whose minds were not already made up by earlier political calculations? With the benefit of hindsight, Kavanaugh later concluded presidents should be shielded from criminal investigations of the sort he helped wage against Clinton. At the time, however, he was filled with righteous indignation. “It is our job,” he wrote colleagues in Starr’s office in an email, “to make his pattern of revolting behavior clear—piece by painful piece.” politico.com

Since this administration took office, what issue hasn't been politicized? About the only thing MOST of the country was unified around was striking back at Syria/Assad after the chemical weapons attack, but, if you read the Woodward book, that decision itself was a highly politicized one as well. Would it be better if the reported victim came forward after the next Citizens United decision of the court? As the Roy Moore election showed, even giving voters the evidence on both sides and allowing them to decide is better than them never knowing it existed at all. As much as the GOP tried to attack Obama, they never could do it through Obama's personal life, other than the marijuana and cigarette smoking...nary a hint of an affair or untoward glance in all that time. Generally, you don't need to find character witnesses for individuals who "are of good character" in the first place, right?

The Democratic Party Is Changing Forever. New York Just Showed Us How. https://www.yahoo.com/news/democratic-party-changing-forever-york-002352909.html

Fwiw, the victims were reportedly local prostitutes already in Texas, and this occurred over a number of months...as opposed to the Border Agent targeting illegal immigrants at the border, specifically. Not that it makes it better, obviously. Guess we will learn more on Monday.

We can start to ascertain who’s winning and losing between progressives and centrists/moderates when we come out of the recession that’s about to hit in 2019-20. At some point, Dems will have to decide how hard they’re willing to fight to preserve Social Security and Medicare. The GOP will happily cut back those programs 15-25% and refer to them as entitlements rather than benefits earned. And it’s not just corporate tax cuts, cuts for the Top 1-2%, it’s that 10% increase in the defense budgets that’s being used as one of the rationales for cutting back on social programs. Of course, the category of corporations/corporatist also include major defense contractors.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dianne-feinstein-what-in-the-hell-were-you-thinking?yptr=yahoo here would be another reason...supporting candidates like Diane Feinstein, that are the equivalent of Chuck Grassley in our party, out of touch and out of their depth

Because nobody cheers for Chuck Schumer, Fake populist Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, Tim Kaine, moderation, the establishment, the status quo, accommodation, corporations...etc. It’s the same reason Collins, Murkowski, Flake, Corker, Sasse are not going to survive long on the other side the aisle. Dems are sick of being reasonable to the right being obstructionists and bomb throwers. What did all that patience and haughty reasonableness get Obama? https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/14/michael-avenatti-2020-democratic-primary-219910 On the other hand, this might be more to your liking, arguing Avenatti is enticing Dems like Booker and Harris to act more and more like Trump. Let’s just see if the two sides can unite under the banner of Liz Warren. Somehow, I doubt it. Biden and Sanders are the past, old white men. Oe we can go with Beto O’Rourke and let the chips fall where they may.

And yet the Dems didn’t learn that lesson in 2008 from the Clinton campaign...? That’s half the reason the Supreme Court will have a “Reign of Terror” the next 20-30 years, that “you’re likeable enough” issue wasn’t ever fixed, despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on her behalf.

Couldn't we same the exact same thing about Trump and Obama...?

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/13/opinions/the-question-woodward-book-doesnt-answer-zelizer/index.html The one question Woodward's book doesn't attempt to answer Fifty years after it seemed that George Wallace's brand of politics was banished forever, his legacy lives on in the White House. Our political processes were so broken that a political novice with a checkered business history and claim to fame from reality television rode his way to the presidency. While many people in the electorate were not happy with Trump or the system that produced him, and he actually lost the popular vote, the President was still able to win, thanks to the Electoral College. His victory was likely enabled by a combination of factors -- including growing inequality and the uneven recovery from the Great Recession, the rot in our campaign finance system, the failure of Congress to govern effectively, the flaws of his opponent, the growth of conservative news media, the use of social media by Russian hackers and the continued popular strength of reactionary social ideas in certain parts of the nation (you can probably add the Comey investigation of Weiner e-mails the last two weeks MY EDIT). Trump's support among Republican voters is currently at 85%. The answer to the state of our electorate won't be found in the portraits of the insiders who rule the roost in the White House. So Woodward has once again offered a fascinating account of parlor politics, this time in the Trump White House, but he has not provided an understanding about why this all happened and why it is allowed to continue. While this is not the story that Woodward intended to tell, it can't be ignored since it is the only way to get to the bottom of what is going on in American politics today. We need to start looking more carefully at the big picture -- understanding the trends and dynamics that created the toxic political environment that allows the presidency depicted in Woodward's book to occur. Until we have answers to these questions, we won't be able to have any assurance this will turn out OK, or that after Trump's presidency ends, his brand of politics won't outlast him.

In N.H. election stunner, a onetime refugee knocks off entrenched incumbent He’s a veteran state representative who has railed against immigrants “getting everything” at the expense of people born and raised in the state. She’s a 27-year-old former Afghan refugee making her first run for political office. So when the tally from Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Concord, N.H., was announced, even Safiya Wazir said she was astounded. She hadn’t just beaten state Representative Dick Patten, a 66-year-old former city councilor. She crushed him, winning 329 votes to his 143. Read the full story.

Getting closer and closer to having 6 guys with 20 homers...the only problem with that is only Anderson and Moncada are part of the future, with the POSSIBILITY that Palka/Davidson can be a workable platoon split at DH I guess.

Looks like the GOP is flooding the race in Nevada to support Heller (and oppose Jackie Rosen) with $22 million of soft money. Gotta love Citizens United.

Swarzak and Kahnle would quality as "nearly amazing" for the Sox, just like Fat Albers the first couple of months before the wheels fell off...think it was that game he pinch ran against the Mets.

Rondon needs to get the starting opportunity at 3B next year over Yolmer. Yolmer can be the supersub, his most suitable role...and Leury for OF/defense/PR, if you duct tape him up and he can still stand.

Heitkamp now has a 60% chance at losing, regardless of how she votes. I would argue Manchin's at 75-80% winning. Haven't seen anything recently on Donnelly and McCaskill/Tester, but the latter two SEEM safe for the moment (despite Trump waging a personal way out there in MT.) The Missouri situation has been a mess for the GOP for months now, between the governor and actual candidate.

Never in a million years would have predicted Mondesi would be outplaying Moncada by this much at the end of the year. That said, there's a lesson. Look at how many times Mondesi came up and failed (mostly, from an offensive standpoint) before he finally started to put it together the 2nd half of this season (of course, it seemed Buxton had turned a corner as well, and that didn't take.)

In the Woodward book, they talk about the RNC operation being revamped under Preibus (in light of the Obama dominance over two presidential elections) and how they had those strategic lists broken down into 90% likely to vote for Trump, 80% likely...and just hammered into them submission sending out all vote by mail/voter registration materials, calling pretty persistently until they got a commitment to get out and vote. As much as the story was the "independent/moderate" votes turning to Trump the last couple of weeks and minority voting being quiet or muted in terms of intensity for Clinton, the base REALLY turned out for Trump, and the Dems just took for granted a lot of voters in those Midwestern and Rust Belt states we keep coming back to over and over again (IA/WI/MI/OH/PA).

Any reason given for Moncada not playing, other than avoiding a LHP and the strikeout record? Haven't his RHH stats vs. lefties been significantly improved the last 4 weeks or so?

3/4ths of the way through now...scary stuff, a bit more on the military/foreign policy side, but that’s logical since tax reform was the only big legislation. Porter, Cohn, Tillerson and Mattis are the ones who come out best.

https://sports.yahoo.com/yoan-moncada-closes-200-strikeouts-022412845.html

If Eloy Jimenez doesn't come up and hit 800-850 the first three months next year, there will be a ton of fans jumping ship. This rebuild was largely predicated on Kopech, Moncada and Robert being superstars, and none of them are even close right now...so everything is basically riding on Eloy's knees and Cease's elbow at this point. It's pretty easy to imagine reactions on here to the typical Class B/C free agents we're going to roll out there. Watching these games with Detroit, Minnesota and KC are becoming almost unbearable with the "race of the bottom" mentality that we're currently witnessing. Otoh, having a #3 pick (instead of 4-6) will give us ANOTHER reason to get excited about next year. Jimenez is pretty much it, for now.

Ho hum, another called strike 3 on Moncada, way outside according to Pitch Track at MLB.com.