caulfield12

It’s life. To say that everyone should be forced to deal with “world poverty/hunger” or disease eradification before joining an organization like PETA makes zero sense. The reality is that unless you’re directly affected by an issue, it’s going to be a more passive concern. Then, you become a parent and your 8 year old is hit by a drunk driver, MADD is born. We could spend the rest of our lives studying why panda or even orca sanctuaries receive 10 or 100x as much as “human” causes...or you can run for office and try to change things in that way. But to force everyone to join a cause...well, if you’re Christian, you’d feel the exact same way about anyone who didn’t give up their lives protesting abortion clinics, for example.

At least Pence "looks like a US president" if you were casting the role...50% of the reason he's there in the first place, sadly enough.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/white-sox-rookie-michael-kopech-latest-player-exposed-racial-homophobic-tweets-223632861.html Now it's starting to make it to the national news websites...

12. "For 30, 40 years I've been watching flippers. Everything's wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they -- they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go." Ahem. "According to a 1981 FBI memo, Trump offered to 'fully cooperate' with the bureau, proposing that FBI agents work undercover in a casino he was considering opening in Atlantic City. FBI agents even prepared an 'undercover proposal concerning the TRUMP casino' that senior agents and Trump planned to discuss, according to the document." 13. "It -- it almost ought to be outlawed. It's not fair." Well, this is awkward. cnn.com

Is there such an unbroachable difference (between public meetings and "private" fundraisers) ? I’m pretty convinced that the press is part of the public, but I’m enough of a libertarian to be sympathetic to people like Ocasio-Cortez who want to control the gate for campaign listening tours. If she wants to hold a meeting with supporters without reporters (and it’s not an official government meeting) and can pull it off, more power to her. The press corps’ sense of entitlement doesn’t guarantee them automatic invitations to privately funded affairs, even if the subject is campaign politics. But I don’t see how an organizer of a mass event can hope to keep reporters out of such sessions unless they maintain an accurate database of the facial-signature of every member of the Fourth Estate. Even then, an enterprising news outlet could send an intern who hadn’t been scanned into the database to circumvent the blackout. It’s a losing war for a candidate. If those analogies don’t move you, try this one. A movie distributor doesn’t owe a film critic an invitation to pre-release screenings, but once the movie is out, he can’t bar critics from attending a free screening or a paid one. The funny thing about the Ocasio-Cortez kerfuffle is that her ban didn’t work. According to the Queens Chronicle, which broke the press-ban story, meeting attendees issued reports of the event on their social media accounts. “We’ve been polite with racist people for far too long,” Ocasio-Cortez was quoted as saying by Twitter user Nick Gulotta. Gulotta also tweeted a photo of Ocasio-Cortez speaking at the Queens meeting, proving that her moat was verbally and visually permeable. Politicians have been trying to prevent reporters from hearing them speak for as long as politicians and reporters have walked the Earth. Enterprising reporters know how to sneak into closed events to gather news. On the occasions they fail to crash the gates, they can usually find a source who attended and who is willing to spill what was said inside. This moat-breaching happens with such regularity that I sometimes think that politicians contrive their closed sessions to attract the attention of reporters who would otherwise not attend and report on them. Yes, another variation of that pesky Streisand Effect. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/21/go-ahead-ocasio-cortez-ban-the-press-219376

Seems like Madrigal is really wearing down...long season at OSU, the extended College World Series, then straight to professional baseball. Think he needs a break, was pulled out of 2nd game for some reason tonight. Hope they don't send him to the AFL until after he's had the opportunity to make some adjustments with his approach.

Gil Meche?

Vacations and travel August 6 to 10, 2011, in Las Vegas and elsewhere, the Hunters spent $2,448.27 on a personal vacation with individuals 3A and 3B. During the vacation, the Hunter’s bank account began to incur insufficient funds fees until a check from Duncan Hunter’s parents was deposited in the account. To conceal and disguise charges, Duncan Hunter told his treasurer they were “campaign related.” Margaret said the Las Vegas charges were for “couple meals.” August 18, 2011, Hunters spent $1,419 on five round-trip tickets to Boise for a family vacation. Hunter told his treasurer the charges were “campaign related.” October 28, 2011, in and around Washington, D.C. the Hunters spent $3,754.73 on a family vacation in which the Hunters ran the Marine Corps Marathon 10K course. Mr. Hunter told his treasurer that the charges were “all campaign” and Margaret said they were “during a trip to DC. Meals, mostly.” On January 12, 2012, Margaret spent $918.60 to fly her sister and two family members to a funeral in Tucson. She claimed they were for a “flight to Baltimore for NRCC winter meeting.” On January 22, 2012, Margaret spent $504.20 on round-trip tickets for her mother from San Diego to Chicago. She claimed they were for a “flight to Baltimore for NRCC winter meeting.” March 18,2014, in La Quinta, California, the Hunters spent $1,386.48 for two rooms at the La Quinta Resort & Club for a personal vacation with two unnamed individuals. The Hunters told the campaign chief of staff they had they “had issue with one room and ended up switching.” January 7, 2015 Margaret paid $800.33 in Hyatt Hotel charges, but told the campaign chief of staff they were paid with her personal card. In November, 2015, in an attempt to justify the use of campaign funds for the family's trip to Italy, the congressman attempted to set up a day tour of a U.S. Navy facility in Italy. After Navy officials responded that they could only provide a tour on a particular date, Duncan Hunter said he would discuss the proposed date with his wife, then subsequently told his chief of staff, "tell the Navy to go f*** themselves," and no tour occurred. Margaret Hunter told the treasurer that various charges from the Italy trip “were mostly military/defense meet related.” In an email to a friend, she said “Italy was amazing. Truly our best family trip so far. Like that saying ‘if traveling was free you’d never see me again!’” NFL games According to the indictment, Rep. Hunter twice spent campaign funds on outings to Pittsburgh Steelers games at Heinz Field. From the San Diego Union Tribune

The immigrant from Mexico charged in the kidnapping and murder of an Iowa college student worked at a dairy farm owned by the family of a prominent state Republican leader. Yarrabee Farms said in a statement that Cristhian Bahena Rivera had worked at its farms for the last four years and was an employee in good standing. The company said it was shocked to hear that Rivera had been charged in the death of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts. Spokesman Dane Lang said Tuesday night that Yarrabee Farms is a "small family farm" owned by him and his father, Craig Lang, who has long been a prominent Iowa farmer and political figure. Craig Lang previously served as president of the Iowa Farm Bureau and president of the Iowa Board of Regents, which governs the state's public universities. In June, he lost a close GOP primary in the race for state agriculture secretary. Read more here: https://www.thestate.com/news/business/national-business/article217068605.html#storylink=cpy Of course, Trump has never really mentioned what all those farmers were going to do in terms of replacing legal (and mostly illegal) itinerant workers at their farms and beef processing plants/slaughterhouses...the type of work that no "local" kids would ever want to do. Read more here: https://www.thestate.com/news/business/national-business/article217068605.html#storylink=cpy

You can just about guarantee that Mollie Tibbets' GFM will be well into the millions...75% due to the (expected/predictable) politicization of her case.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in unusual charges on Hunter's campaign credit card had come under scrutiny, including among other things, an Italian vacation, dental work, purchases at a surf shop, and huge tabs at bars in restaurants in the San Diego and Washington, DC, areas. Among the most mocked charges was airfare for a pet rabbit to fly with the family, which an aide said was mistakenly charged to the wrong credit card. Hunter, a former Marine, has reimbursed his campaign account some $65,000 since the Federal Election Commission first questioned spending on video games in 2016, according to FEC records. "There was wrong campaign spending, but it was not done by me," Hunter told KGTV-10, a San Diego television station, earlier this year. His comments have cast blame on his wife and former campaign manager, Margaret Hunter, who also made charges on the campaign credit card. Hunter's lawyers said last year that "any mistakes were made they were strictly inadvertent and unintentional." But her e-mails/Benghazi!!!

Moncada's first game was last July 20th (against LAD)...Thursday night, attendance of almost 25,000.

LOL. Where did Vieira's supposed 98-100 MPH fastball go?

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/20/brett-kavanaugh-bill-clinton-explicit-questions-lewinsky-789599 Kavanaugh plumbs the depth of depravity as a 33 year old counsel during MonicaGate back in 1998...encouraging to see him added to the Supreme Court, SIGH.

Bad Giolito is back again...let's see if he can manage to at least record a quality start. Unfortunately, he's already thrown too many pitches to get through 6 unless it's a REALLY quick 5th.

What's the latest timetable on when Adolfo will be able to return to outfield play (after surgery)? Maybe he DH's again at the start of the year and slides into RF/LF in the middle of the season? Guess it's not too far off from what the Angels are doing with Ohtani this year...

Basabe will likely be in AA to start the year, unless they send him to the AFL and he just completely lights it up. I doubt with his K rate and an OPS in the mid 700's they're going to push him THAT fast up to AAA and the majors. (Although it's the White Sox, so who the hell knows...) We do have TOO many deserving candidates for the AFL for the first time in about two decades.

Francisco Liriano in 2006...

Ilitch spent like a madman in Detroit, too. But yeah, the pharmaceutical industry was kind to Ewing Kauffman. Fwiw, he was worth "only" around $2 billion at the time of his death in 1993, so that's around $22 billion if it was growing at roughly 10% interest per year.

Now all we need is Optimus Prime to sign off on it... Giolito's K rate has definitely picked up from the first 2-3 months of the season, no doubt about that.

What would it take for Mauer to make the HoF? With a little bit shy of 2100 hits...not looking like a sure thing that he gets to 3000, or wants to hold on long enough. And where does he go next? Re-up with the Twins, or jump (re)start his career by leaving Minnesota?

How/when is Moncada going to learn to hit lefties? Winter ball?

Did the Mets get 7 years of control with deGrom and Syndegaard? Just curious. Because they were supposed to dominate the decade with a rotation centered around Harvey, Wheeler, Matz, etc. Have the Braves been holding back their young pitchers to get that extra year? Premium young hitters would seem to be the more precious commodity these days. (That said, obviously those team-purchased control years/options on Sale and Q played a huge role in expanding their trade value...and it’s also possible that Hahn feels more confident they can go that direction with Jimenez, who didn’t get all his riches upfront like Moncada and Robert.)

Well, therein lies the question. How can the Right use Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Schumer or Ocasio-Cortez-Cortez so successfully, but the Left can’t successfully turn around and do the same with “fill in the blank” name (someone other than Trump, and the jury’s still out on simply opposing Trump leading to any significant electoral success or turning out more Latino voters)? Of course, it’s fair to point out that women almost alway absorb the harshest attacks, whether it’s HRC, Palin, Liz Warren...why isn’t Bernie Sanders held to the same standard for disinterest or lack of knowledge about foreign affairs? As an Iowan, how can junk politicians like Grassley and King hold office so long (incumbency effect, yeah) despite such voluminous trails of idiocy?

And who wanted to give Arrieta $75 million and 3 years?