caulfield12

LeBron/Laura Ingraham war of words...who didn’t expect that? https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/laura-i...-191513589.html

He made racist comments towards blacks, Jews and Muslims. The Anti-Defamation League called him out. The Southern Poverty Law Center started investigating as well. Wore the MAGA hat. All-around, I don’t think anyone’s going to pin him to Antifa. The original reports were confusing because that white supremacy group was saying he trained with them, probably to get publicity/funding/support. It’s pretty difficult to prove someone is or is not a member of a group like that in the first 2-3 hours after an attack until all the information comes out. What’s the difference between being a member, training with them once, regularly training...that’s harder to ascertain. The media would have been under fire for not reporting it (deliberately), or getting scooped by other media outlets reporting it. http://www.northcrane.com/2018/02/anti-def...macy-group-rof/

FBI had a call into their Florida tipline on January 5th...the problem is there’s simply no system in place in each state to deal with these issues from a combined mental health and law enforcement perspective. Certainly, no funding, and funding that did exist is being stripped away on the health insurance side of things.

Donald Trump, a Playboy Model (most famous of the 90’s), and a System for Concealing Infidelity One woman’s account of clandestine meetings, financial transactions, and legal pacts designed to hide an extramarital affair. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/do...-karen-mcdougal As the pool party at the Playboy Mansion came to an end, Trump asked for McDougal’s telephone number. For McDougal, who grew up in a small town in Michigan and worked as a preschool teacher before beginning her modelling career, such advances were not unusual. John Crawford, McDougal’s friend, who also helped broker her deal with A.M.I., said that Trump was “another powerful guy hitting on her, a gal who’s paid to be at work.” Trump and McDougal began talking frequently on the phone, and soon had what McDougal described as their first date: dinner in a private bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. McDougal wrote that Trump impressed her. “I was so nervous! I was into his intelligence + charm. Such a polite man,” she wrote. “We talked for a couple hours – then, it was “ON”! We got naked + had sex.” As McDougal was getting dressed to leave, Trump did something that surprised her. “He offered me money,” she wrote. “I looked at him (+ felt sad) + said, ‘No thanks - I’m not ‘that girl.’ I slept w/you because I like you - NOT for money’ - He told me ‘you are special.’ Afterward, McDougal wrote, she “went to see him every time he was in LA (which was a lot).” Trump, she said, always stayed in the same bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel and ordered the same meal—steak and mashed potatoes—and never drank. McDougal’s account is consistent with other descriptions of Trump’s behavior. Last month, In Touch Weekly published an interview conducted in 2011 with Stephanie Clifford in which she revealed that during a relationship with Trump she met him for dinner at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Trump insisted they watch “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel. Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” alleged that Trump assaulted her at a private dinner meeting, in December of 2007, at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Trump, Zervos has claimed, kissed her, groped her breast, and suggested that they lie down to “watch some telly-telly.” After Zervos rebuffed Trump’s advances, she said that he “began thrusting his genitals” against her. (Zervos recently sued Trump for defamation after he denied her account.) All three women say that they were escorted to a bungalow at the hotel by a Trump bodyguard, whom two of the women have identified as Keith Schiller. After Trump was elected, Schiller was appointed director of Oval Office Operations and deputy assistant to the President. Last September, John Kelly, acting as the new chief of staff, removed Schiller from the White House posts. (Schiller did not respond to a request for comment.)

The FBI had the “black eye” photos of Porter’s ex wife a week after Trump’s Inauguration...and, at the very least, communicated their concerns if not directly sharing the pictures with the WH Personnel Office. Washington (CNN)The FBI obtained photos of the bruised face of Colbie Holderness seven days after President Donald Trump's inauguration last year, according to emails obtained by CNN, raising questions about what information White House counsel Don McGahn had at his disposal regarding her ex-husband, Rob Porter. Holderness provided the photos to the bureau as part of a security clearance background check that was being conducted into Porter. At the time, Porter was Trump's staff secretary, managing the flow of some of the most sensitive information destined for the President. But, according to the White House, the full extent of the domestic violence allegations weren't known by senior officials until last week, when pictures were published by the Daily Mail. It's unclear if the FBI sent the photos to the White House, though a law enforcement source said the bureau would have at least provided a synopsis of what they portray. But the existence of the photos is leading law enforcement experts and officials in previous administrations to strongly question how McGahn didn't act on the domestic violence allegations, which have rocked the White House over the past week and triggered at least one congressional investigation. Like other top presidential lawyers before him, McGahn had legal staff in his office who were assigned to deal with clearance issues. "That isn't reasonable," national security expert Mark Zaid said of the idea that McGahn only learned about the photo when it was published. "I would be surprised that if in their partial report in March, the FBI either didn't include the photo or, at a minimum, reference they had photographic evidence of the domestic assault." He added: "And I can't fathom it not being part of the completed report" that the FBI delivered to the White House in July.

A year ago, Trump signed a bill repealing a rule the Obama administration put in place after Sandy Hook that prevented people receiving Social Security benefits for mental disabilities from purchasing guns. On Thursday, hours before his public remarks, he tweeted that “neighbors and classmates” should have reported the shooter earlier—while his son Donald Trump Jr. stoked the flames of anti-deep state fervor within the Trump base, liking a tweet from Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter that said: “the FBI was too busy trying to undermine the president to bother with doing it’s [sic] freaking job” and track the shooter’s threats online. Aside from a presidential proclamation lowering flags to half mast, neither he nor anyone else at the White House said anything more about the shooting after his remarks, even after the leader of a white nationalist group in Florida said the shooter had trained with its members, or after CBS News verified an Instagram account belonging to the shooter in which he set a profile picture of himself wearing a red Make America Great Again hat. Politico.com https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/16/politics...gton/index.html Washington’s political impotence on full display

There are no great movies this year. I tried to watch Phantom Thread and gave up after about half an hour. I’ve seen the rest of the nominees in the main Oscar categories, great performances but not the films themselves, overall.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/2245877...school-shooting Anthony Rizzo joins the gun control discussion at Parkland HS vigil

Officials Haven't Found Evidence Linking Florida Shooting Suspect To White Supremacists (UPDATE) https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-supremacis...-181802597.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/us/florida-h...ting/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/opinions/ame...rini/index.html America’s Cult Of Guns As a Christian, I'm appalled by the hypocrisy I see among others of my faith, particularly those who are our leaders in government and show eagerness to participate in this cult. They worship false idols in the form of weapons, and turn their back on the teachings of Jesus, who did not equivocate when it came to violence. The Sermon on the Mount is unmatched as a spiritual and ethical guide, as when Jesus declared: "You have learned that they were told, 'Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.' But what I tell you is this: Do not set yourself against the man who wrongs you. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer him your left." (Matthew 5:38-40) It is safe to say that nobody in the cult of guns listens to Jesus.

More people will have been killed by guns in America in 2017 and 2018 (following current rates) than died in all ten plus years of the Vietnam War (well, American soldiers, specifically). How is that not a problem? Our rate of deaths per 1.000 people is almost eight times that of Canada, which is second in the world. If you add up #2-8 in the world, it STILL doesn’t equal the US rate, just like our military spending trendline. 95%-4% want enhanced background checks. 79%-20% want a ban on certain automatic rifles.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 08:31 AM) I guess we now know where that woman's extra $1.50 a week will go. President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that a 25 cent increase in gas and diesel taxes would be needed to help pay for the administration's new infrastructure plan, according to Democratic Sen. Tom Carper. Elaine Chao told reporters at the White House when asked if the president would agree to a 25-cent-a-gallon increase proposed by the Chamber of Commerce. She added that the gasoline tax has a "very regressive effect" on low-income Americans and called on Congress to look for better solutions to pay for the Highway Trust Fund. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue called for an increase of 5 cents per gallon every year over five years in a USA Today op-ed last week. "The modest hike we're proposing would cost the average American only about $9 a month in additional gas taxes. That figure, however, is dwarfed by the cost of inaction," he said. (there goes the $1.50 per week Ryan “created”) The tax is currently 18.4 cents for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel and goes into the trust fund. The tax has not been raised in 25 years, the last time being during former President Bill Clinton's first year and only after a contentious congressional battle that had Vice President Al Gore casting the deciding vote. washingtonexaminer.com Notice it’s Mitch McConnell’s wife who sounds like a Dem.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 09:34 AM) So what exactly was the FBI to do here? Keep a 24/7 watch on this kid? Over a Youtube comment? Accuse him of working as an agent for ISIS?

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 09:11 AM) They are discussing how they can blame the shooter's neighbors and classmates for this. Blaming the FBI seems the go to route at the moment...get back at Wray for making the admin look incompetent in the Kelly/Porter mess. Of course, knowing someone could potentially be dangerous and the will to create more extensive background checks and safeguards to prevent a gun from legally end up in someone’s hands are another matter altogether. We can’t even get rid of AR-15’s or bump stocks. We also saw a dubious psych profile that with the Sutherland Falls, Texas, church shooter as well, the dishonorable discharge and domestic violence issues with the ex-wife.

“It doesn’t seem to matter to our government that children are being shot to death day after day,” Kerr said. … “It’s not enough apparently to move our leadership, our government, the people who are running this country to actually do anything. That’s demoralizing. “But we can do something about it. We can vote people in who actually have the courage to protect people’s lives and not just bow down to the NRA because they’ve financed their campaign for them. … Hopefully we can find enough people with courage to actually help our citizens remain safe and focus on the real safety issues, not building some stupid wall for billions of dollars that has nothing to do with our safety, but actually protecting us from what truly is dangerous, which is maniacs with semiautomatic weapons just slaughtering our children. It’s disgusting.” Steve Kerr, no stranger to gun violence affecting his family, weighs in (cnn.com) If Americans want gun control legislation in the wake of Wednesday’s mass shooting at a Florida high school, they need to vote Republicans out of office, a former GOP lawmaker said. “Republicans will never do anything on gun control,” former Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) said on CNN Wednesday. Jolly said Republicans refuse to enact any gun control laws, even after a member of Congress was shot at a baseball practice last year. “The idea of gun policy in the Republican party is to try to get a speaking slot at the NRA and prove to that constituency that you are further right than generations past on guns,” Jolly said. Then, he called on voters to take to the ballot box in November: “If this is the issue that defines your ideology as a voter, there are two things I would suggest tonight. First, flip the House. Flip the House. Republicans are not going to do a single thing after this shooting we saw today.” Democrats should then bypass Republicans and go directly to the law enforcement community and work on real solutions for gun control, Jolly said. He also suggested it might be time to give his party the boot since Republicans in Congress have done little to keep President Donald Trump in check. “We do know that we have a president who very well might put this nation at risk and this Republican Congress has done nothing to check his power,” Jolly added. “Democrats could, and we might be better off as a republic if they take the House in 2018.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-gop-lawmaker-...-084359146.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix...omepage%2Fstory Trump’s recent economic plans could hurt the White working class voters that backed him

Brazile is one one who helped rig it for Clinton by giving debate questions to Hillary...and got her in hot water with CNN. She has always been aligned with Clinton/Gore. When she tried to get out of it by explaining herself, and attacking the party, she only made herself look more ridiculous. Let’s go back to Romney's 47% number and Obama’s base. At least half of that is retired people. It’s idiotic to say they vote as a block for either party. There’s also no evidence a disproportionate amount of the elderly voted for Dems the last three elections. The huge majority of those receiving government benefits are WHITE PEOPLE. There’s little evidence they vote in their best interest politically, because the majorupity of the voted for Trump last election. They are...or were...Trump’s base. The handicapped and unemployed? Sure, there’s a conspiracy for them to support Obama. What Rabbit was really trying to say is more blacks and Hispanics/illegals (who don’t or can’t vote, except in Kobach conspiracy theory land) are or were supportive of Obama. Well, blacks yes...the one truth of the whole generalization, but they didn’t have enough energy or motivation to get out and vote for Hillary. One of the Top 10 reasons that she lost. Look at the states Hillary did the best in for 2008 vs. Obama. Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana...all Trump states eight years later. The poor white people in those states were never going to support Obama in a million years, especially against a white Democratic primary opponent. Florida, Texas, AZ, NM, California and Nevada went Clinton’s way as well, predominantly Hispanic states for the Dems. Hispanics supported Obama at similar numbers as generic Dems, and he was no particular friend to them in terms of immigration policies. So the idea that those receiving government benefits made up Obama’s base is all predicated on the revelation that blacks/African Americans supported ... gasp ... one of their own, at a rate 4-6% higher than a generic Dem. Unless he is really arguing white Millennials were receiving government handouts and voted Obama?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 14, 2018 -> 10:21 AM) Post some evidence to the contrary, then. That whole story seems to have died pretty quickly, swamped out by the next absurd bulls*** coming from the Trump WH. "Trump is a sleazeball" isn't really going to convince anyone to dislike Trump more than they already do, or for those who like Trump to like him less. Politico had a big story about how the Dems don’t even want to discuss Bill Clinton, pretty much the best campaign surrogate ever, going out on the trail this year.

To make this six-figure payment, Cohen set up an LLC in Delaware, a state famous for its lack of corporate transparency. He says he neither told Trump nor anyone else in the Trump Organization he was making the payment. And he was not paid back in any way, shape or form. "Just because something isn't true doesn't mean that it can't cause you harm or damage," Cohen said in a statement issued Tuesday night. "I will always protect Mr. Trump." That's the story Cohen told The New York Times' Maggie Haberman on Tuesday night. By any standard of logic, it's a very, very hard one to swallow. Don't overthink it. Cohen -- out of the goodness of his heart!!!! -- dropped a six-figure payment to a porn star even though he didn't believe her allegations that she and the President had an affair after the birth of his son Barron? I mean, come on. People don't do that. I don't care how rich Cohen is. Why would he spent $130,000 to make Daniels go away -- and not tell her story -- if her story was fundamentally without merit? cnn.com

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 14, 2018 -> 08:54 AM) On the damage being done to things people actually like and the Democrats' plans to actually help people. So, yeah, those economic things. I think the strong-and-still-going enthusiasm gap we're seeing in special elections is showing that people do care. The "get a load of this idiot" campaign strategy already backfired bigly in 2016, might as well try running on actual good issues and policies. The problem is where is the money left with another $7 trillion hole blown in the debt (astonishingly, during a period of economic boom)...to pay for anything most Americans really need? They can’t reverse the corporate tax cuts...so other than cutting defense spending dramatically after increasing it, or raising taxes on the rich, where are the funds going to come from? A National gasoline tax for infrastructure just gets the Dems tarred and feathered as tax and spenders, all evidence to the contrary since Reagan took office.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 14, 2018 -> 08:43 AM) My favorite part of that saga is the obviously fake letter Cohen put out to initially deny the claims that used her stage name instead of her real name. His base doesn't care, and neither do most people. Nothing will cause his "family values" conservative evangelical base to abandon him. Democrats would be much better served focusing on actual issues to motivate their voters rather than Trump's never-ending personal scandals imo. Yeah, in a normal world revelations that the President (or his lawyer) paid hush money shortly before the election to a porn star with whom he had cheated on his new wife who had recently given birth, but this will never stick to him. On what? The infrastructure joke? Gutting Medicare, Medicaid and SS? The stock market crashing again? The Porter and Sorensen allegations that the WH continues to bungle? Russian denials? Taking essential food benefits away from the poorest and most mentally unstable at a time when labor markets are already super tight? Nobody cares. Or has the requisite attention span for it. But clearly, with a $28 trillion Federal deficit looming...we need, yes, MORE nuclear weapons for Trump to threaten the world with. A recently declassified document shared by nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein gives the verdict that scientists at the Los Alamos laboratory and test site reached in 1945. They found that "it would require only in the neighborhood of 10 to 100 Supers of this type" to put the human race in peril. In 1945, the Los Alamos scientists concluded it would only take between 10 and 100 "Super" bombs to end the world. pic.twitter.com/01I8ypmIP0— Alex Wellerstein (@wellerstein) December 15, 2014 They reached this conclusion at a very early point in the development of nuclear weapons, before highly destructive multi-stage or thermonuclear devices had been built. But the scientists had an idea of the technology's grim potential. "The 'Super' they had in mind was what we would now call a hydrogen bomb," Wellerstein wrote in an email to Business Insider.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 14, 2018 -> 08:43 AM) My favorite part of that saga is the obviously fake letter Cohen put out to initially deny the claims that used her stage name instead of her real name. His base doesn't care, and neither do most people. Nothing will cause his "family values" conservative evangelical base to abandon him. Democrats would be much better served focusing on actual issues to motivate their voters rather than Trump's never-ending personal scandals imo. Yeah, in a normal world revelations that the President (or his lawyer) paid hush money shortly before the election to a porn star with whom he had cheated on his new wife who had recently given birth, but this will never stick to him. On what? The infrastructure joke? Gutting Medicare, Medicaid and SS? The stock market crashing again? The Porter and Sorensen allegations that the WH continues to bungle? Russian denials? Taking essential food benefits away from the poorest and most mentally unstable at a time when labor markets are already super tight? Nobody cares. Or has the requisite attention span for it.

So his lawyer paid her off completely without Trump’s knowledge, with his own personal funds (just had $130k lying around)...after the National Inquirer story...but the story is not true? Completely strains credibility. What else is new?

Aside from her big 7.4 percentage-point win, what made Margaret Good’s victory Tuesday night over Republican James Buchanan so significant was that it took place in Florida’s 72nd House District. It had been held by a Republican in Sarasota County, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by 12,000, or about 10 percentage points. Buchanan, the son of local Congressman Vern Buchanan, also had an advantage in name ID. And Trump had carried the district by 4.6 percentage points in a state that he won by just 1.2 points in November. But now Trump is too toxic even for Sarasota, say Democrats, who made sure to figuratively hang the unpopular president around the neck of Buchanan as well as the Republicans who lost in the two other recent bellwether contests: Florida’s 40th Senate District in Miami-Dade and St. Petersburg’s mayoral race. Both of those elections had Democratic-leaning electorates with significant minority populations, unlike the 72nd in Sarasota. In all of the races, Democrats made sure to use Vice President Joe Biden as a surrogate. “This is beyond a trend. The results are in. Republicans have a real problem in this state,” said Tom Eldon, a Democratic pollster who surveyed the race. “This is the bellwether seat,” Eldon said. “This seat in Sarasota is the Republicans’ backyard. Anytime Democrats win a seat like this it’s great for Democrats. It happened in 1992. It happened in 2006. And it happened in this seat. This is a bellwether for bad Republican years.” Politico.com

Cordell stood out for his athleticism and tools and has the bat speed and strength to hit for power from the right side. He struggles to control the strike zone at times and has swing and miss tendencies. He has plus speed and seems to be an efficient base stealing threat. Cordell played 6 positions while in the Texas organization but the Brewers played him exclusively in the outfield. MLB Pipeline believes that he is rangy enough to stick in CF but he profiles as an "ideal 4th OF". After arriving in Milwaukee, the outfielder lowered where he loads his hands and slowed down his stride. This helped him tap into his bat speed and allowed for pull power in games. His scouting grades according to mlbpipeline (as of 2017) were: Hit 45/Power 55/Run 60/Arm 55/Field 55. He's very athletic and toolsy but is already 25 years old. He projects to have at least 4 average tools and he's show a propensity to make adjustments at every minor league stop. The profile feels a bit like Jason Coats if he had the speed to play center field. Look for Cordell to have a shot at a MLB job in 2018, but may also spend some time in AAA Charlotte (and in fact could open the season there.) chicagonow.com Cordell and Tilson need to prove themselves in AAA first. Leury starts all over the field like Chone Figgins until he’s traded. Engel is likely a 4th or 5th infielder due to his offensive deficiencies. Willy Garcia your other outfielder.

QUOTE (GermanSock @ Feb 14, 2018 -> 01:26 AM) There is a chance that Burger doesn't stick at third but I still would prefer a shortstop. you can still slide a shortstop to third if needed but you can't put the third baseman in the middle if. Mark Teahen was moved to 2B and OF, although not so successfully...or Gordon Beckham.