caulfield12

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Nov 16, 2017 -> 04:23 PM) Never wager on something you have no way of knowing. A lot of "liberals" have been caught in this mess. The reason I hate politicizing it, is because its going to become about "teams" instead of looking at each case on its own merit. Look no further than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They can’t talk about anything without the obligatory criticizing of Obama or the Clintons. What President ever acted like that 1 year into office? Not even Nixon, vis a vis the Kennedys and LBJ. Now every election should be about wiping out every single policy of your predecessor from an opposing party?

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Nov 16, 2017 -> 12:02 PM) The problem with the article is that there is no way to know whether Franken or Tweeden is telling the truth. As Rock alluded to, there are videos of Tweeden with Robin Williams where she wraps her legs around him in a sexually way for laughs at a similar USO event. It will be interesting to see if anyone else comes out against Franken. Yes, therein lies the issue. How many other accusations equals corroboration in the public eye? Weinstein and Spacey number in the fifties by now. Moore has at least six. Trump had 10-15...plus the whole Russia thing, the Access Hollywood tape, the allegations about terrible behavior during Miss Universe/Miss Teen USA/Miss USA pageants. We all know about Bill Clinton and GHW Bush now.

She was a pretty famous lingerie/fitness model who eventually became a Playboy model and actress... She has made appearances as a politically conservative commentator on such Fox News shows as 'Hannity' and 'Red Eye'. [5][6] wikipedia So the defense is going to be that it’s a political hit job and 2) that photo was taken jokingly with lots and lots of people around on the plane, so very poor taste/trying to be funny in an inappropriate way vs. a “fireable offense.” Of course, Franken was better known for being a comedian/book writer than politician at that point. My sense is that this gives Trump and Moore some political cover (both sides are guilty!!!) and there’s going to be tremendous pressure to resign from the Democratic Party despite his high popularity. Do some of the Congresswomen/staffers/pages start naming names now? Will it get any traction without visual evidence or recordings? If current political leaders or celebs took similar pictures in high school or college (with lots of witnesses around), especially at parties where heavy drinking was involved...does that end their career/s as well or get excused as a “youthful indiscretion?”

https://twitter.com/darinself/status/930880...eet-of-money%2F One of the best tweets of the year...

Depends on the money...would he sign just a bargain basement one-year deal, and how willing would he be to include an option for 2019? If you're only getting him for one year, the payoff's/upside's considerably less. And what is a bargain for a catcher? The same as Holland made for us? $7-8 million?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 15, 2017 -> 09:18 AM) Businesses have been making record profits and hording cash for years. Nobody is struggling for money to invest. Giving them big tax breaks won't change the job market or turbocharge the economy, but it will continue to widen the wealth and income gaps. And you know, that bolded is a pretty important point. We had an intentionally hamstrung recovery stimulus package at the peak of the worst economic crisis the world had seen in 80 years, but now we can deficit-fund a tax cut for the wealthy that's more than twice as large and not a single Republican seems to care. This country could really use $1.5T in spending on something actually worthwhile like infrastructure. And yet Obama is ALWAYS the one primarily blamed for the $20 trillion deficit. Not Bush. No mention of the US government successfully bailing out the automobile industry (turned a profit on those loans), and how cataclysmic things could have been had we followed GOP/Romney orthodoxy of letting them all fail. (Of course, the GOP was perfectly unwilling to let more than a couple of the smaller banks fail, but that's another story.) Does it really matter now, anyway, since the level of concern about that $20 trillion debt from the majority of GOPers is probably about a 2 or 3 on a 10 scale, except for a few of the most outspoken House Freedom Caucus members? There doesn't seem to be much concern about adding billions and billions of dollars to the defense budget, either (even though we're supposedly "isolating" ourselves from being the policeman of the world, instead preferring to respect national sovereignty and even putting it out there that Japan and South Korea should have their own nukes). Meanwhile, there's not even a hint of a $1 trillion GOP infrastructure or job training/retraining bill. It seems that those representatives and Senators simply are being forced into a box where they feel they HAVE to do SOMETHING that will be perceived positively by at least 50% of the country (Yay! TAX CUTS!)...and maybe sneaking in the ObamaCare mandate repeal can be buffered/mitigated by the bigger story of the tax cuts. One thing is certain...they're certainly not doing any favors (to local pols) by lowering that mortgage interest deduction to $500K. It will have a disproportionate impact on blue and purple states (mostly NE), along with CA.

One of the "betting odds" websites has it ranked like this: Michelle Obama Kaine (blehhh) Warren Booker J.Castro Klobuchar Bernie Sanders Biden Bloomberg Cortez Masto (that's a new name, relatively inexperienced) No mention of Kamala Harris, Gillibrand, O'Malley, Sherrod Brown

Well, I see things never change around here...the irony is that a lot of these "fake" issues and conspiracy theories are doing exactly what they're intended to accomplish, driving away the conversation from the most salient issues of the day. Even some of the Fox News on-air talent is pushing back against the Uranium One story and Sessions going after the Clintons' "corruption" storyline. Meanwhile, none of the probably 100's (by now) of examples of nepotism and violations of the emoluments clause by Trump and his family are being highlighted because it long ago failed to shock...or all of the millions of dollars spent on Secret Service, travel, golfing, Trump venue rental/fees...or even the Pence/Colts stunt and all of the money that was allocated to that rather than a million other better purposes.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/18/opinions/gun...nion/index.html Do we love our guns more than our children? http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/15/us/californi...ings/index.html Mental health issues galore Neal had been out of bail on an assault with a deadly weapon charge from January, officials said. Neal, 44, "was not law enforcement friendly" and authorities a number of times had come to his house after complaints that shots were fired from the property, Johnston said. Neal's sister told CNN's Sara Sidner that he had struggled with mental health issues for at least 20 years. "My mom spent a great deal of her time and nearly all her energy trying so hard to placate him," said Sheridan Orr, who was with her distraught mother in North Carolina. Neal's mental state began a steep decline about a year ago, said Orr, adding the family had tried to get him help. Before police shot him dead, Neal injured at least 10 others in a string of shootings that spanned at least seven sites in the small community of Rancho Tehama, west of Corning, police said. Those locations include a locked elementary school that the shooter fired into from the outside, injuring a boy. The shootings started in Neal's neighborhood shortly before 8 a.m., where he killed a woman neighbor who had a restraining order against him, Johnston said. Neal had been arrested and charged in January on suspicion of assaulting her with a deadly weapon, he said.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 15, 2017 -> 09:03 AM) League revenues are growing at more than 5% per year right now. At that pace it should take less than 15 years for contract values to double. At that pace, $25 million for JD would be something like $12 million for him in 2005. That year, Johnny Damon signed with the Yankees for 4/$52 as a 32 year old. Martinez has been a comparable player, maybe a bit better than Damon was, during the years preceding his deal, and he's reaching FA younger. If we can assume the local broadcasting rights deals continue unabated...despite the cord cutters/higher subscription fees. The stock market has been doubling that pace, but how long before the long-awaited recession hits after nearly a decade of growth?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 15, 2017 -> 06:54 AM) Bernie Bernstein? Did they decide Jewy McJew was too obvious? Must be a relative of Bonnie, lol...why would someone saying they’re Bernie or Lennie have an email address of albernstein?

Or the estate tax...is that still on the table in either bill?

$25-30 million per year for a relatively one-dimensional offensive player (corner OF/DH) is crazy in this day and age...especially with all of those contract years in the 30's. (And yet the Tigers were happy to throw that money at Justin Upton.)

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 14, 2017 -> 07:09 PM) Greg probably heard the Rush Limbaugh said Roy Moore's behavior can be explained. He was a democrat when he was hitting on high school freshman. Now that he is a republican he would never do that. Greg might not believe it unless he sees the actual story. Rush Limbaugh floated a Hail Mary defense of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore this week, telling viewers of his widely consumed radio show that Moore was a Democrat during the period when five women say he made sexual advances on them as teenagers. “Did you know that before 1992, when a lot of this was going on, that Judge Moore was a Democrat,” said Limbaugh in comments published Tuesday. “While he was a Democrat, nobody said a word. When he supposedly was attracted to inappropriately aged girls, he was a Democrat.” http://www.imdb.com/news/ni61724103/ Howell Heflin, fwiw, was the last Democratic senator from AL, overlapping that time period where Moore switched parties. Very simply, Dems went from controlling Alabama during the time of George Wallace to totally being shut out electorally as the Reagan Revolution/Moral Majority switched the Solid South over to the GOP. It was all about winning election/s.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/06/opinions/why...bins/index.html Why We Don't Give A Damn About Mass Shootings The statistics speak for themselves. A mass shooting is defined as an event where at least four people are shot. We now have one every day in America, if you adopt the broad definition used by the Gun Violence Archive. In fact, Vegas wasn't the only mass shooting on October 1, it was just the biggest. There was one outside the University of Kansas on the same day.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 14, 2017 -> 07:13 PM) 82 year old Jerry Brown? Running for President? He better have a qualified VP. Could we make this Barack Obama guy his VP candidate? I'd be ok with that setup. I'm pulling for the Bernie Sanders/Larry David ticket if Governor Moonbeam's running...

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 14, 2017 -> 07:15 PM) The Senate bill is the one that has to follow the "no more than $1.5 trillion in new deficit spending" rule, the House does not. Right, and the ObamaCare mandate being eliminated would save $300-400 billion.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2017 -> 03:59 PM) In contrast to tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, Democrats have put forth a plan that would put a massive dent in childhood poverty. Brown-Bennet Child Allowance Cuts Child Poverty By 44% It would also pull nearly four million adults out of poverty. Zero chance, but it's a worthwhile policy to promote in 2018 and 2020...Brown possibly making a run at the presidency and going for a Robert Kennedy 1968 populist/poor people's campaign feel (similar to what John Edwards and Gore have attempted).

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2017 -> 06:12 PM) House, the Senate bill is slightly less awful Probably because the Senate bill has to balance out from a budget standpoint (instead of using dynamic scoring?)...isn't that the version that pushes the corporate tax (35% to 20%) phase-in back? Trump's not going to like that particular change.

Anyone at least moderately upset about the sexier/bikini-zed versions of the Amazonian battlegear for the new Justice League film? https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/justice...-171229276.html If you look at 300, Thor, Captain America...those movies thrive on showing shirtless men. I guess the contrast here is too obvious to pass up because you had a female director/costume designer for Wonder Woman versus two men for Justice League.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2744196...paign=editorial Already released and coming back to the US. That was faster than anticipated. https://sports.yahoo.com/suspension-not-exp...-191515120.html Players should be suspended, but not expelled.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/14/opinions/the...ovic/index.html The state of politics these days is so bad that Trump Jr./WikiLeaks, sexual harassers (not named Moore), Trump trying to jam ObamaCare mandate repeal back into tax reform and Sessions lying (again) are still not getting much play even with the President largely out of the picture due to his Asia trip. And he’s still not close to signing a bilateral trade deal with any individual country that’s “advantaging” America.

So it’s four, plus the shooter. Same thing with LV, should we really credit Paddock with 59 when one was himself? Most reports now will put that shooting back at 58.

Yeah, Obama has come across as almost squeaky clean in terms of extramarital affairs...with media the way it is now, it would be pretty hard to cover up, but you never know. I think the key for Trump is that nobody's ever considered him to be anything but "fake/conveniently religious," reinforced by his Second/TWO Corinthians blunder. So he gets a pass for his behavior/s because it's almost expected with him, it's part of the package (like the Miss Teen USA/Miss USA allegations about him watching the girls changing) that is Trump Inc. But SoxTalk would be HARD-PRESSED to name even a few Democrats who wrapped themselves in the flag of pious religious belief/Ten Commandments/patriotism...who were exposed to be such hypocrites as we're seeing in the Moore case.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 13, 2017 -> 02:56 PM) lol, you keep telling yourself that. It is all about power protecting power. Nothing more, nothing less. It why Hollywood protected its own, and it is why Washington takes care of its own. Turning it into a political ideology it exactly what turns out people who "protect" Roy Moore by making party more important than country., You can imagine Obama having an Access Hollywood-ish comment coming out and it not sinking him? “Cling to their guns and religion” almost lost him the presidency. We have to talk about degrees of severity here. Moore and Trump are equal to Clinton? I don’t think so...because you’re talking about consensual adult relations (where the accuser got her revenge) versus a situation that underage high school girls (one a Trump voter today) never stood a chance. Even in 2017 Alabama, the only chance they have is a modernized version of To Kill A Mockingbird with Atticus Finch as their attorney. The very idea of defending behavior that borders on pedophilia is scary...and it won’t be accepted by the American people, women in particular. Clinton has tarnished his reputation in many ways with Dems, no moreso that the comments during the 2008 Democratic primary in South Carolina. He helped cost the Dems elections in 2000 (Gore ran a terrible campaign as well) and 2016, and that isn’t forgotten. Yet, at the end of the day, at least we can admire his intellect and political acumen. Those on the GOP side can likewise admire GHW Bush, Trump, Moore, Hastert, Newt Gingrich, Larry Craig...the difference is that Dems don’t often use religious faith to justify their behavior and hypocrisy. There are undoubtedly equally bad actors on both sides, but that whole Family Values tagline is getting more and more unseemly by the day. (PS, Jimmy Carter is arguably the only president going back to at least FDR without a string of marital affairs/indiscretions...and did more after leaving office than any modern-day leader. In a further irony, his religious beliefs were used against him due to his painfully honest “lust in my heart” comments.)