caulfield12

Heard the same thing about The Chi... Just finished episode 3 of The Deuce, not a big Franco fan....moreso watching because Simon always does great work. Big Little Lies was very good, too.

The upside to Reed is not high enough to offset the risk. Go back to guys like Kahnle or Swarzak, dealt to the Brewers who was pretty pedestrian with Minnesota, etc. it’s not like when we paid through the teeth for Linebrink and Dotel, but it’s not really necessary either. Heck, I’d rather that we tried to fix Albuquerque, but Cooper passed on that one. Nunez doesn’t make sense with SANCHEZ, Davidson and Leury still around. Seems like he becomes another Bonifacio or Beckham on our roster and is dumped for a meh return. We still have to see Delmonico, Cordell, Tilson as well...plenty of young players to throw out there. Gillespie, maybe. I’m assuming they will try to trade Kevan Smith, that deal for Castillo was kind of the outlier, which probably has more to do with pitch framing and managing a young staff than anything else. Smith is limited by the lack of power for someone that size, no matter how much he overachieved compared to low expectations entering the year.

We did get a lovely tweet from “Senior Advisor” Lara Trump (one of his sons’ wives) on MLK and Trump at the golf course all day instead of doing a volunteer project...which would probably turn out about as well as his aid distribution in Puerto Rico. https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/5265576/j...-meghan-markle/ Auditioning to be Trump’s next wife?

Doncic will end up on the Bulls and bust...

Dems have a very good shot at getting to 26 governors (including AK) after starting the year with a historic low of 15 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/14/g...ublicans-340218 Oregon, Rhode Island, Maine (flip from LePage), PA, NM (flip from Martinez) and NY are solidly in the DEM column right now Arizona, Georgia, Connecticut and South Carolina are still likely GOP Dems have to pick up 7 of the the following 12: Florida, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, NH, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, Wisconsin and Minnesota Still, Trump’s presence looms large. Republican campaign consultants have been working with candidates to find ways to avoid the awkward tip-toeing around Trump that many believe doomed Virginia Republican candidate Ed Gillespie. Those consultants recently circulated strategy memos explicitly warning that 2018 risks turning into an amplified version of 2006 — Democrats’ last big midterm victory year — according to copies seen by POLITICO. But amid talk of another 2006, Democrats have uncharacteristically stepped up their fundraising operation around these races, often pitching donors on their importance to the next round of redistricting. That push has brought in checks from party mega-donors, like Haim Saban and Mark Gallogly, who previously primarily gave to federal candidates, according to filings. So entering the year, the DGA had raised four times more from individual donors than it had at this point four years earlier — on top of quadrupling its number of contributors. “For far too long our party has focused on the presidential [election] every four years and hasn’t done what it needed to do on the state level,” said outgoing Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who has pledged to spend the year campaigning for gubernatorial candidates across the country. That focus, he said, is finally starting to shift. “There’s a tsunami coming in 2018,” he predicted. “We saw it in Virginia with a record voter turnout. We saw it in Alabama."

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2018/...es-trump-000617 Is the GOP tax plan working already? https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2018/...homeless-000611 City of Houston attempting a controversial plan to save money on health care by providing housing for the homeless Having the city pay someone's rent might seem like a costly way to address homelessness. But add health care to the mix and the equation starts to look different: Health care and housing experts have long known that keeping someone off the streets is often the most straightforward way to keep him or her out of the emergency room, one of the most expensive places to get health care. For just as long, however, they’ve struggled to figure out just what to do with that knowledge. The problem, in a nutshell, is who will pay? How do you persuade governments to spend money on housing when the biggest payoff comes from money saved somewhere else in the system? One reason health care in America is so expensive is that patients with some of the costliest cases require not only health care, but a roof over their heads and counseling to gain ordinary skills for living, like how to manage a bank account. But the agencies that manage health don't think much about housing, and vice versa — it's simply not their job. “The reason this is collectively hard is that you just have to pull resources from lots of different groups and think creatively about how you use these resources,” said Neal Rackleff, assistant secretary for community planning and development at HUD and formerly director of Houston’s housing and community development department. “Different groups have different ways of doing things.”

TCU is a crazy 1-4 in the B12, and all of those losses were to Oklahoma by a total of 6 points (2 losses, including an overtime thriller in Norman), by 4 to KU at home, by one on the road in Austin. They "only" beat Baylor at home by 3. Now they have Iowa State, at K-State, WV, at Vandy, at Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, at KU and Texas. That's a suicidal stretch. The Big 10 is looking pretty pathetic. MSU is slumping, Purdue is going to end up overrated, you've got Michigan and Ohio State making it as 7-10 seeds...and MAYBE, just MAYBE, Maryland. Minnesota was absolutely destroyed at home over the weekend. They were one of the surer picks coming into the year, but the loss of Lynch is obviously hurting them. NW has been a pretty disappointment as well after the way last season ended with the positive vibes.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 14, 2018 -> 10:39 PM) Is this merit based proposal public? I'd like to know what the criteria is. My family fled Germany during the war and I'm betting many people wouldnt have wanted to let them in. They were already treated very poorly, were forced to change their names and even were detained. Today I bet they would have been turned away since they were from an "evil" country at the time. This was the latest, from August. The proposed system, contained in a Senate bill, would replace one largely based on extended family ties with one that prioritizes education, English language proficiency, age, vocational skills and high-paying job offers as well as considering any criminal record and possible national security risks. ... The proposal resembles policies in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom. But despite that, it didn't take long for the critics to weigh in. "Once again White Nationalists are pushing their ethnic cleansing agenda, scapegoating immigrants for their own inability to create a labor market that works for everyone," Sulma Arias, a spokesperson for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, said in a statement. Critics claim using merit to screen immigrants is wrong, but many other countries do it. (Associated Press) "Today's announcement ... is a direct attack on all immigrants, on our legal immigration system, and on one of the core principles that drives immigration — family reunification." http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/03...d-policies.html

Greg, running a real estate company that specializes in branding doesn't mean you're an economic expert. There are many Chinese students here at my school who have a better basic understanding than he does. There are also MANY billionaires who would have been better suited to manage the economy (thinking someone like Warren Buffett), but they've never been interested in running for office. It's difficult to find someone with a worse, more abrasive personality. He can't be edited in real life like on his t.v. show, where Mark Burnett controlled his image so carefully. Turning the economy around completely just isn't possible...because that would mean GDP growth of 4-5%, and that's not realistic without huge reforms targeting job training/retraining, our entire public educational system from K-12 (as well as making 2 years of community college free if you maintain a 3.0 or 3.5 GPA)...reallocating money away from defense spending and towards a much more effective infrastructure bill than Obama got through. As Balta has mentioned a number of times, the interest rates will be going up by at least 3/4's of a point to head off potential inflationary pressures, and that's going to work as yet another brake on the economy (which already has slowed down from the 3's to the 2.8 range the last report). Bigger than that, it would require Trump being MORE open to the best international STEM workers coming to the US to supplement the gaps in our current labor force. It would also require negotiating more favorable bilateral trade deals with the rest of the world...the problem is that we haven't been able to do that with ONE SINGLE COUNTRY in over a year with the likes of Cohn, Navarro, Ross and Lighthizer studying this problem and making recommendations. "Donald Trump has no regard for rules, he has thumbed his nose at rules his entire life," said David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has known Trump for 30 years and has a new book out on Trump's presidency coming on Tuesday. "He is a dictator in waiting, he talks as a dictator and he will do whatever he wants," said Johnston, whose book "It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America" concludes that Trump is unique in being the only US president not to pursue policies in the national interest. "The Trump presidency is about Trump. Period. Full stop," Johnston writes. If that is true, the political system itself is facing an unprecedented challenge. Indeed, the President's recent assault on the credibility of the FBI and the Justice Department, interference being run by Capitol Hill Republicans on the Russia probe, combined with attacks on Mueller by pro-Trump media outlets raise profound questions about the system of checks and balances. http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/15/politics/don...ency/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/14/politics/jef...rump/index.html Speaking of being a joke around the world, Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona is going to give a speech WED comparing Trump to Josef Stalin...meanwhile, the Friday government shutdown ticking clock is starting to loom. McCain has also spoken out against Trump about his "s***hole/house" comments, along with Susan Collins of ME. According to an excerpt of the speech, Flake will criticize the President for calling the news media the "enemy of the people," calling it "an assault as unprecedented as it is unwarranted." "Mr. President, it is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own President uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies," reads the excerpt. "It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase 'enemy of the people,' that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of 'annihilating such individuals' who disagreed with the supreme leader." Flake's prepared speech goes on to say the President's actions should be "a great source of shame" for the Senate and the members of the Republican Party. "The free press is the despot's enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy," Flake's remarks say. "When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn't suit him 'fake news,' it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press." Former Republican Senator from Nebraska and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel comes out forcefully against Trump http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/14/politics/chu...rump/index.html

I'm not sure how much he deserves credit for Luis Robert, at least any more than KW, Hahn or Renteria...the main point was simply our willingness to spend a huge amount of money there. On the other side of the coin, our Dominican connections and reputation were completely devastated by the Wilder affair, and the South American bonus babies in Brazil...so that particular country was always going to be the biggest challenge to get back up and running effectively. The biggest area of disappointment is probably Venezuela, but many organizations have pulled out of that country, compared to their presence a decade ago. It's also, notably, a country that the Astros dominated for many years with their camps/academies/winter programs.

Greg, that's the whole point of this administration...that Trump takes pride in being able to shoot someone (likely to not be a white person) in broad daylight in downtown Manhattan and have absolutely nothing happen to him. 35% of the country won't believe ANYTHING that the Democrats or mainstream media presents, no matter what. Well, maybe not ALL of that 35%, but a good percentage of it right now. The other group of Trump voters simply don't care, as long as their taxes are lower and their 401 k's/investments are up, and that the Supreme Court is controlled by conservatives. (Well, I suppose they would care if they were vacationing in Hawaii and were wiped out by an incoming ballistic missile.)

All the ticket brokers holding huge blocks of NFC Championship and Super Bowl tickets just breathed an enormous sigh of relief right there. One clunker, the rest of the games were really entertaining this weekend.

Greg, put it this way. Trump has lied literally 2000 times since taking office. If Durbin could be proven wrong, he has a LOT more to lose. Imagine the headlines from conservative media for weeks and weeks. Limbaugh would spend on a month on the left’s efforts to discredit the president and prevent America from being great again. Keep in mind, Cotton and Perdue represent Arkansas and Georgia, as well. They, and, Trump has made patently clear...can lie with zero consequences from their base. I’m not sure Durbin could survive such a firestorm, if there were tapes, as Trump’s always asserting he should have. Surely, there are copious notes somewhere.

Perdue and Bolton couldn’t recall last week. Now for the Sunday morning political shows, one of their memories is miraculously clearer? And Durbin/Lindsey Graham are clearly wrong? Graham didnt deny anything. Trump himself hasn’t walked back the characterization about Africa, only the Haiti stuff. Durbin, btw, said Trump’s s***house/hole comment was made repeatedly.

Apparently you must be a Democrat if you take a liberal arts class. Ugh. Republicans are either doctors, engineers, lawyers and MBA grads. Let’s not forget that the majority of immigrant groups majoring in STEM subjects are definitely not GOP voters...nevertheless, all Millennials majoring in humanities are unemployed/don’t pay taxes, live in their mom’s basement and voted for Sanders. I guess the corollary is that all white/male non-college graduates voted for Trump, but are never duped or uninformed. The wonders of groupthink. College graduates (especially women) are brainwashed by liberal professors. Everyone else by Facebook, Russian bots, FOX News and Breitbart. Since the majority of SoxTalk has at least a BA/BS, and are disproportionately white and male, compared to the general US population, shouldn’t they be voting or identifying with the GOP following that line of logic? Perhaps the solution is to invite some Ricketts-worshipping Cubs’ board posters to the Filibuster to make for livelier debates? No stereotypes there at all, right?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 14, 2018 -> 01:24 PM) And it is much harder when you aren't signing anyone from the top of classes, but more like in the 25-30 range on most years. How many of the prior year guys in Adolfo’s spot/ranking have made it to AA/AAA or the major leagues?

Nestor Molina...haha. It is strange that we have Moncada, Jimenez, Robert and Lopez (four Top 50 guys)...along with Abreu, but 90% of that can be attributed to KW, Hahn and Renteria. Unless Paddy was somehow involved in the Avi Garcia deal? Yolmer? Scouting Leury Garcia? Minaya? Omar Narvaez? Who was the one who scouted Quintana with the Yankees again?

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/eliza-dushku-a...-203358674.html Eliza Dushku accuses True Lies stunt coordinator of sexual assault when she was 12....

This was announced September 25th, at least 3 months before anyone had certainty about the GOP tax cuts. IKEA, Costco, Whole Foods (Amazon), GAP...have all taken the same steps to increase wages. Conservative companies can retroactively turn around and curry favor by crediting the administration...but the facts on the ground don’t support that particular conclusion. In a tight labor market, in certain industries, wage hikes were bound to occur eventually. There’s been pressure in that direction for the last 2-3 years. Thousands of Target employees are about to get a raise. The big-box retailer said Monday it will start raising its minimum wage next month from $10 an hour and will eventually reach $11 for all its U.S. stores. The pay raise will outpace Wal-Mart's recent increase in its minimum wage. The two retailers have been engaged in a quiet wage war for years. Target raised its hourly minimum pay rate in April 2015 to $9, up from the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour at the time. That move came in response to an announcement by Wal-Mart in February, where Wal-Mart promised to lift its base pay to $10 an hour by 2016. While Wal-Mart has touted past pay increases, using earnings conference calls to circulate the news, Target has moved more stealthily, only saying earlier this year that it would be investing billions of dollars back into the company. When asked on a call with media about Target's decision to make Monday's news considerably more public, CEO Brian Cornell said he wants to be "very definitive" and "very declarative" about Target's commitment to, and investment in, its employees. "Target has always offered market-competitive wages to our team members," Cornell said in a statement. "With this latest commitment, we'll be providing even more meaningful pay, as well as the tools, training, and support ... that set Target apart." Target also reiterated its sales and earnings outlook for the third quarter and full year. That means the increased salary expenses aren't expected to affect the retailer's bottom line, since Target baked the wage hike into its $7 billion investment plan. "This is our continued focus of investing in the Target team," said Cornell. Target said the wage increases will begin in October and will apply to the 100,000 temporary workers that the retailer plans to hire ahead of the holidays. Only two states in the U.S. — Massachusetts and Washington — currently have a minimum wage of $11 per hour. All others fall below that threshold, but many states already have plans in place to further hike pay in the coming years. Target also committed to boosting its minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/target-to-r...nimum-wage.html

Rock Raines is right. It’s easier to fix the holes in the system instead of ditching it completely, trying to overreach with Medicare for all or just completely surrendering to insurance companies, hospital risk calculators and the pharmaceutical industry. Odds are the country will be so frustrated in the next few years that it will be one of the top 2-3 campaign issues again in 2020. This time, hopefully we’ll have people in place more interested in finding solutions than padding their own investment portfolio and riding on a private jet (Dr. Tom Price). Kennedy from LA is the Republican with the highest expertise, willingness to experiment and the most consistent ability to at least try to work across partisan lines. After Trump Tax Break Pfizer Ends Funding For Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Research And Gives Billions to Investors https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-tax-break-...-130002411.html I’m happy for my Pfizer stock, but this isn’t a good result for the country overall...

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 13, 2018 -> 07:50 PM) This is something the White Sox are going to have to figure out at some point - what do you do when frontline talent is 2 years from free agency and not behaving like a star? Hold onto them and hope they become a frontline player and you're 1 year from free agency or take the best deal you can? Heck, that's the same scenario we have right now with Garcia. And Abreu, in a way. We used to argue it was much better to have the surplus in pitching depth, and deal from that. Now, it’s not so clear because of the uncertainty over Rodon, and his likely being our version of a Gerrit Cole situation a couple of years down the line due to Boras. On the plus side, Delmonico, Burger, Rutherford and Collins all could potentially fill the shoes at RF/DH/1B. But we still need Robert, Moncada and Jimenez to be studs.

Wonder what fans in Arlington and Seattle are thinking with this news...? They’re both in no man’s land. Angels probably need to shoot for WC against AL East.

Foles getting some revenge for playoff lost four years ago when leading at same point in 4th. Philly has definitely had some tough luck in the postseason...maybe not quite as cursed as the Chiefs, but I’m sure 95% of their fans thought the Falcons would score there to break hearts again.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 13, 2018 -> 06:41 PM) The last paragraph is what is baffling to me. Pitching is proving expensive for a team like the pirates. But why target Moran? I would rather have the verlander trade honestly. Much rather Perez than Musgrove. Because David Freese or Sean Rodriguez have limited upside at this point in their careers...and Moran will be cheap.