caulfield12

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 4, 2017 -> 09:09 AM) Kansas is definitely going to opt out. They are going to be left in the lurch. http://cjonline.com/news/state-government/...k-veto-medicaid Tried to override Brownback, 81-44 vote, needed 3 more for 2/3rd's. Sucks for Kansans.

As Republicans rush to vote on their latest ObamaCare repeal-and-replace plan, it appears to still include a waiver exempting members of Congress and their staffs from losing the healthcare bill's popular provisions. House GOP leaders worked Wednesday night to fast-track consideration of their ObamaCare replacement bill without posting the bill text and without a Congressional Budget Office analysis detailing the effects of the latest changes to the legislation. http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/331867-...new-legislation http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/331842-...bamacare-repeal In Senate, GOP pessimism over Obamacare repeal (1/5 odds of passage) GOP senators think it’s unlikely the compromise struck between members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and moderate Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), which allows states to seek a waiver for certain ObamaCare insurance regulations, will pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian. Republicans are using special rules known as budget reconciliation to avoid a Democratic filibuster on an ObamaCare replacement. This would allow them to pass the legislation with 51 votes. The problem is that Senate Democrats are expected to argue that various parts of the House bill will not meet Senate rules governing what can be included in reconciliation. Democrats will argue that those provisions, such as a rule allowing states to seek a waiver for a regulation that requires insurers to offer certain minimum benefits, do not have a straightforward connection to spending, taxes or the deficit — something required under reconciliation. Cornyn said the House bill — if it passes — will have to be revised. “I suspect the bill the House passes will be modified if for no other reason that the reconciliation rules would require it,” he said. “My goal would be if they pass a bill, which I hope they will, it will come over here and we’ll do our best work to cobble together 51 votes.” Another GOP lawmakers said the House bill will have to be changed “a lot.” Some senators argue the push in the House could set up the Senate for blame. “All they care about is getting it out of the House so they can say that the Senate couldn’t pass healthcare reform,” said a second GOP senator who requested anonymity.

So if you were raped, your health insurance costs will now go up as a pre-existing condition. That's absolutely insane.

Amount of money set aside to subsidize those with pre-existing conditions per person: $1700 over the course of the next five years $340 per year Under $30 per month Only $192 billion dollars short over the next decade....

Well, nobody said he's a GREAT player. The first half of the 2014, sure, he looked like he had that ability. The league adjusted, mostly by busting him inside on the hands, keeping him off balance and getting to swing at offspeed stuff off the plate. He's gone from superstar rookie to "earning" his contract (barely) status, to where you'd be very hard pressed to get one Top 75-125 prospect for him in trade. We should be used to it as Sox fans this decade. First, Carlos Quentin in 2008, almost becoming MVP until breaking his hamate in anger late in the season. Gordon Beckham, 2009....Dayan Viciedo, 2012, now Tim Anderson is starting off really slow in his sophomore campaign. It would be MORE shocking if someone had sustained, All-Star level success for a 5+ year period. Moncada's the best shot at that actually happening. Maybe Collins would be second, if he sticks at catcher, but then he's still got the likes of Salvy Perez and Gary Sanchez to overcome.

Twins hold on for 7-4 win, nobody notices, since it's only the A's.

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 3, 2017 -> 04:43 PM) I guess Greg's never been asked to leave this country because of his religion. Nor have neo-nazis on the internet (and real life) blamed his entire religion for everything wrong in the world. But people making fun of his religion? That s***'s persecution. Greg, the Pope has actually reversed a lot of the anti-Catholic damage done around the world in the last 20-30 years. But there's no way you come back from the priest sexual abuse scandal/epidemic without becoming a target of jokes and derision. Even lifetime Catholics are aghast that so many of their contributions that they thought were going for ministering to the poor and sick are actually being used for lawyers' fees and the settling of thousands of lawsuits. I say this as someone who was an altar boy (never saw abuse, but that doesn't mean it wasn't happening) and someone who was forced to go to Sunday mass every weekend until I reached college...and would surely have gone to a Catholic high school were it the 50's or 60's instead of the 1980's.

Well, at least the Royals can "believe" (Nosotros Creemos, to quote Tony Pena) they're still in the hunt and not trade half their team. So there's that. I think I read somewhere where no team that had lost 9 consecutive games in the first month of the season ever made it to the playoffs, except for the 2001 Oakland A's, who had a crazy second half that year.

QUOTE (flavum @ May 3, 2017 -> 08:35 PM) Looks like the Twins will be in 1st after tonight. If they lose tomorrow, the Twins, Sox, Indians, and Tigers will all have started the season 14-12. Indians are also 3 games over .500. Or you mean by percentage points? The crazy thing about the Twins is that Byron Buxton was expected to finally arrive this year, and he and Dansby Swanson are headed to the minors at the rate they're going.

Well, Heads might be right. With Biden as president, you would be able to protect Obamacare for four more years...but that would inevitably lead to another set of losses in the 2018 midterms, with the perpetual campaign against Obama's signature act. You certainly wouldn't have an imbalanced tax "reform" plan. The GOP would have probably fared much better in terms of the budget continuing resolution/government shutdown threat. I do think people on both sides of the aisle are much more politically engaged than ever before. More polarized sure...but maybe that's exactly what the country needs, instead of punting all the big problems down the future (critics would argue those budgets and tax reform plans are doing exactly that, growing the debt more and not addressing the long-term issues with Social Security and Medicare funding mechanisms). There's also no doubt that Biden would have had little more luck than the typical Democrat in terms of being able to control profits of insurance companies OR lowering drug costs.

Abreu's probably not going to win for those Pick To Clickers unless he hits a solo homer for a 1-0 victory. 4 LOB so far...nobody else has more than 1. Btw, Aaron Judge is coming up soon for those bored to death.

The CBO score will be out in the next week or so... But definitely not before tomorrow's vote. The Republican argument is basically we know it's going to be terrible, but we've already been waiting seven years to do this so, what the hell, what's the worst thing that could happen? The Senate will fix it, right? And at least those darned Indivisible protesters won't be staking out my town halls. Well, maybe they still will be, complaining about all the Americans who will be hurt by this bill.

I have to imagine Andrew Jackson's twitter feed is blowing up right now.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ May 3, 2017 -> 07:06 PM) Can we get a low level prospect for Abreu? Who do you want to see at 1B and DH in that scenario? ANYONE else, or a specific idea?

Well, this has to be one of the most boring games of the season. Boring pitchers, no hitting...at least it's competitive?

i think we overestimate Biden. He has lots of annoying traits that would come out over the course of a long campaign. Biden tends to put his foot in his mouth, and quite a bit. He knows his stuff, but he used to come across as too self-righteous and sanctimonious. The plagiarism charges that dogged him in 1988 would be resurrected (that said, if you can bring back Jeff Sessions from the 80's, why not Biden?) On one hand, he has a strong grasp of foreign policy and a family with a military background. That said, it's kind of like Michelle Obama or the back-up QB phenomenon. As First Lady or VP, they're not really exposed to doing anything controversial or unpopular. As far as the Dems shooting themselves in the foot, you can argue the GOP did the same with Palin and Romney. All things considered, a "placekeeper" president (at his age) with no new ideas and an oppositional Congress wasn't going to accomplish much of anything. From my perspective, this is where the Democratic Party is really forced to figure out what they stand for, and whether that's the correct strategy winning elections, both national/regional/local, going forward. You wouldn't have all this grassroots activism and engagement with Clinton and/or Biden in office. Just gridlock.

The worst part is they're more concerned with 1) getting any "win" and punting it to the Senate to prevent getting pilloried again next week in their districts, and 2) keeping the reconciliation opportunities alive to jam the tax reform through with just 50+1 votes rather than 60. They don't want to get "held hostage" by the Dems again (budget deal), so they're going to do almost ANYTHING to avoid it. In that sense, it doesn't matter if 60%+ of people believe or perceive the economy's doing well when they start seeing the real financial consequences of this bill and the tax reform that won't benefit them in any tangible form. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/03/h...eal-bill-237949 If an additional $8 billion is actually convincing when they're going to be $200+ billion on the downside in terms of subsidizing those with pre-existing conditions, God help the country. Thankfully, there's the much more reasonable US Senate to still block the way, with the likes of Rand Paul still opposing the House bill after all the changes.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ May 3, 2017 -> 06:43 PM) We're getting the pitching dual we deserve. Well, that's true, there are two pitchers opposing each other in a match-up only their grandmothers would love. Bada-bing.

Aaron Judge, for real or the next Kevin Maas/Shane Spencer/Hensley Bam Bam Meulens?

We absolutely have to extend Michael Ynoa due to his friendship with Luis Robert. Give him a $25-30 million extension now, and that will certainly help convince Robert there's even more gold down the line waiting for him at the bottom of the Sox rainbow. Also, Asche should get at least $25,000 from SoxTalk mods for his banner promotion, which has allowed the site to triple page views in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan because of his uncanny resemblance to national heroes from those countries.

This is one of those lineups (plus Pelfrey going) where the odds of winning feel like 25%, at best.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/people-start...-142448442.html Conservatives starting fire Colbert movement after homophobic insult about Trump/Putin's "closeness"

Of course, there are numerous articles out there blaming Kaitlyn Jenner being embraced by ESPN as the reason for the mass firings, as well as mostly positive coverage Colin Kapaernick's national anthem protests.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/03/politics/don...nomy/index.html CNN fake news?, more and more people pleased with general direction of economy...augurs well for Trump despite stumbles https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/201...ment?yptr=yahoo US Department of Justice is literally prosecuting a woman for laughing during Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearings. She was just convicted on TWO counts by a jury. According to Ryan Reilly at HuffPost, Code Pink activist Desiree Fairooz was arrested in January after she laughed at a claim from Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) that Sessions’s history of “treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented.” But federal prosecutors have pushed forward with the case against Fairooz. As Reilly reported, prosecutors argue that “the laugh amounted to willful ‘disorderly and disruptive conduct’ intended to ‘impede, disrupt, and disturb the orderly conduct’ of congressional proceedings.” In court, they have tried to emphasize that the laugh was extraordinarily disruptive, with a US Capitol Police officer claiming that Fairooz laughed “very loudly” and people in the hearings turned around when they heard it. Fairooz’s defense, meanwhile, has argued that her laughter was a reflex and not meant to disrupt the hearings. Fairooz was also in the back of the room, and her laughter had no noticeable impact, based on video of the hearings, on Shelby’s introductory speech for Sessions. The trial will continue at the Superior Court in DC this week. If convicted, Fairooz faces a fine of up to $500 and up to six months’ imprisonment for the laugh-related charge. She is also charged with another misdemeanor for “allegedly parading, demonstrating or picketing within a Capitol, evidently for her actions after she was being escorted from the room,” Reilly reported.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/03/t...ansition-237850 Trump doing the exact opposite of draining the swamp....numerous Trump transition team members now lobbying the government for private interests