caulfield12

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/eco...m=.c2fde77cd4ec In these six smaller American towns, laws targeting "the illegals" didn't go as well as planned (and backfired in most cases)

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 26, 2017 -> 01:42 AM) Looks like he was equally as valuable on the road as at home, so I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at here. If it did play as a more favorable hitter's park, then hitting better on the theoretically close to neutral composite field of all visiting stadiums should affirm his pretty spectacular offensive season.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-...76c1610?ref=yfp The danger of arguing why Saudia Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and UAE aren't being included in the immigration ban.

http://theweek.com/speedreads/675913/contr...-2-million-bill Guess we should have known already from all his unpaid bills (this one on the DC hotel), lawsuits and bankruptcies.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 10:10 PM) I could NOT agree more. There's literally no point in talking about the election anymore. Well, that's not necessarily true if you want to apply the lessons learned to 2018/20...like Nate Silver and his team are in the processing of doing. https://www.yahoo.com/news/how-global-gag-r...-174753327.html Oh well. Back to the abortion/global gag order argument. That's good for a moralistic response from brett at least. MSI (Marie Stopes Intl.) projects that with the loss of USAID for its contraception and family planning services, there will be as many as 2.1 million additional abortions in the areas it serves during the next three years. In a statement from the U.N. Foundation, an organization that connects the goals of the U.N. with NGOs around the world on issues on female empowerment, UNF CEO Kathy Calvin said: “This action will do more than change policy; it will make it more difficult for millions of girls and women to access the contraception and health care they need to determine their futures.” When the policy was last enacted, during the George W. Bush administration, health care clinics in many countries were forced to close, and outreach services for the most vulnerable populations were eliminated, Calvin said. Millions of people around the globe were left without critical health services, including maternal and child health care, HIV testing and counseling, and contraceptives, including condoms. “Without these life-saving services, more women and infants died due to pregnancy-related complications,” she said. In fact, banning abortions doesn’t reduce abortion, according to several studies conducted by the World Health Organization. Cutting access to contraception increases pregnancy rates and the incidence of illegal, makeshift and unsafe abortion practices. But the cut goes far beyond health care access, said van Min. Once basic screenings and contraception and exams aren’t accessible, a domino effect begins for women, and in turn, communities.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/the-2017-all-...-014254782.html Pretty surprising Hernandez, Blanton, Logan and Hochevar are still unsigned for some team's bullpen. At any rate, more damming evidence for and why our veterans aren't going anywhere. Also makes more of a question mark why they bothered to keep Lawrie when Saladino could be a key part of the rebuild, but that's probably due to not being able to move Frazier as much as anything against Tyler. And there will be plenty of DH at-bats available as well. Wonder if Morneau or Navarro will just retire...? You'd think a playoff team in the AL could use a platoon DH bat. Of course, Alvarez, Carter, Moss and Napoli are all still out there, too.

And signed for only $700k, a bargain price in recent years in the Latin American market. $100k scholarship as well. http://dplbaseball.com/featured-post/tatis...h-the-whitesox/ He developed with Giovani ¨Sabino¨ Ubiera in San Pedro de Macoris. Hard to find the scout who signed him. http://thebaseballcube.com/players/profile...ernando-tatis-2 No listing for the scout.

https://www.yahoo.com/music/madonna-banned-...-162615818.html Seems like just yesterday the Dixie Chicks were in the eye of the hurricane...now back to targeting singers for being anti-patriotic, aka Anti-Trump.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 08:36 PM) Went to a county dem meeting last night. Was told that it was record attendance. Had to move the meeting into a bigger space to accommodate. First time going to a meeting like this. Actually came away disappointed. The attendees were in the mood to discuss specific ideas. Moderators wanted no part of it. Kept talking about needing to go to other meetings and pimping some fundraiser dinner. I understand it's a marathon and not a sprint but man we're party leaders tone deaf. No wonder we lose elections. Direct action/doing something to feel you're actually making a difference >>> raising money you're not even sure will be spent wisely. That's why Bernie Sanders kept his donor list away from the DNC for so long. For that very reason.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 08:42 PM) Uh, her 30 years of public service and campaign platform kinda made it clear. Yes, but the disconnect from 1992 Hillary and the 2016 version was that everyday Americans no longer thought she was one of them. Bernie, they knew he was firmly on their side and who the enemy was...she simply became captured by the establishment, in the same way it happened to Dole or McCain. All the smoke around the Clinton Foundation, the speeches to big banks....that only increased the disconnect. She could no longer sell the idea that they were broke, like she used to her advantage after leaving the White House in 2001.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 08:40 PM) Uh. This is fundamentally untrue. They had one slogan: Stronger Together One. From the beginning. And it's still being used at all of the rallies nationwide. Why did Trump want to be President??? Are you seriously saying Clinton is more narcissistic than Trump? Not outwardly...I do feel that a part of her thought she had earned the job for suffering right wing conspiracies going all the way back to Bill's first run for Congress in 1974...for staying with her husband...weathering the storms of Washington. Felt she deserved the job might be pushing it, but there was some entitlement. Trump's motivations don't matter. At least half of that 62.5 million wanted to take back America from Washington, Hollywood, BLM, political correctness, apologizing for American Exceptionalism, sanctuary cities, affirmative action, atheists, the gay/lesbian rights movement, Muslims, scientists who care more about the environment than American jobs, Mexicans...anything conflicting with Eisenhower's 1957 America. That they would get a conservative SC justice as part of the bargain didn't hurt.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 08:19 PM) At what point are people going to wake up and realize that Trump wasn't "easy mode" If he were easy mode, why didn't any other GOP candidate beat him? He tapped into something that nobody realized was there besides Michael f***ing Moore. See third paragraph. Bill Clinton saw it coming a mile away. But Mook would never listen to him. You would think all of his political experience would have been an asset. Look where that speech was given, and when. Said Clinton: "It's a devastating thing for a person to get up and look in the mirror every morning and think every tomorrow is going to be like yesterday. I can tell just by looking in your faces you know that just by being here, you can make your tomorrows different if you choose. That's what we've got to do for all Americans so we can all rise together." (That's why she lost, they thought Trump would change things!) Minnesota Sen. Al Franken was also on hand to address the audience. Clinton said Franken's endorsement — and others — shows that Hillary Clinton is popular outside the political establishment, even as he touted endorsements from lobby groups. "You really think Al Franken is part of the political establishment? Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign, the League of Conservation Voters? All the Latino organizations, the American Nurses Association, the Congressional Black Caucus?" he said. Clinton also spoke about his wife's plan for student loan refinancing and making tuition aid more accessible to those in need if they are willing to work for it. (Too little, too late...Sanders already owned that issue.) http://www.wpr.org/bill-clinton-campaigns-hillary-appleton

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 08:15 PM) You don't know how much your opinion means to me as resident hard-line GOPer and Reddy fan favorite. Reddy, why did she want to be President, other than to be the first woman? It was never crystal clear. I don't even remember her campaign tagline, but we all know Trump's and Obama's. They tried 2-3 different ones but nothing stuck. I also find it pretty telling that a lot of Clinton Foundation initiatives are being wound down now that they're seemingly permanently out of power...that indicates to that me their motivations for helping people were more calculated and political than altruistic and philanthropic. Helping people is a lifetime calling to service that doesn't just stop when you lose an election.

Here's the problem. What are the odds that he global/foreign policy in 2-4 years from now is even more muddled? It's not anything specifically about Warren, Booker or even Sanders. Other than Bernie, pragmatism is sometimes necessary. Internal conflicts are often resolved on the side of holding onto power. Profiles in Courage...or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, just not reality anymore. At some point, you have to stake a position and hold it. Obama did that on being against the war from the very beginning, and it became part of his brand. It could just as easily turned against him. It certainly was one of many decisions Hillary Clinton regretted. Yeah, you have to pick your battles, your moments. But it's easy to score points on price gouging in big pharma or criticize big banks. Nobody likes banks...not even most bankers. The one thing that's obvious is that a Democrat with keen insight on the military and foreign policy is going to be increasingly critical. Obama didn't have it, and it turned out to be largely hit and miss. Nobody will be perfect, and you can argue Hillary had all the experience in the world in this area, but she never could articulate her successes and why her policies were best for the country. She never developed a new vision or strategy for world affairs, and the Benghazi debacle cancelled out any of the good she might have accomplished. Hope/change candidates almost always win in the face of the establishment unless the country is at war.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/201...-defense-214500 So much for the idea of Mattis being a stabilizing presence...was wrong on that one. And it's telling that the Secretary of Defense with his record couldn't even convince Trump that "enhanced interrogation" was the wrong move. Just like the infighting with Conway, Bannon, Kushner and Priebus is going to tear one part of the White House up, the conflicts between JCS, Flynn and Mattis are going to be even more dangerous for the country. And Trump's already making idiotic statements about taking the oil from Iran/Iraq...why? It feels like Trump's ego requires a military conflict so he can (in his own mind at least) further burnish his credentials as a patriotic hero and leader in war. Of course, our best presidents with prior military service knew this was the last thing the country should go looking for unless there was absolutely no other option and "moral rightness" was on their side.

Probably the millions the Russians put out there, but the majority of those came after the Billy Bush/Access Hollywood tape release. In theory, attacks from your own party should only make you a better candidate. She didn't learn as much as she needed to in 2008. Her husband lost the governorship in Arkansas after one term but never lot again. It seems she and her staff completely ignored him on the need to contest states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin until it was too late in the game...spending more time on North Carolina, for example. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/bern...nterview-215179 Those are just three key issues she flip flopped on when it became politically expedient. At any rate, the following story makes a lot of sense...as well. There are 100+ reasons she lost, obviously. Unlike many politicians, for whom loyalty is a one-way street, Clinton is loyal in return. And one of the lessons of her catastrophic defeat is the potential downside of loyalty. Clinton stuck by her husband through years of humiliating sexual scandals. She is sticking by him still, although a case could be made that his decision to stroll across the Phoenix airport for a chat with Attorney General Loretta Lynch effectively cost his wife the election, not only by reinforcing the public perception of the Clintons as inveterate string-pullers and corner-cutters, but by setting in motion the chain of events that led to FBI Director James Comey’s intervention in the campaign. And through the series of scandals involving Abedin’s husband, touched off by his habit of sending sexually suggestive pictures to strange women, Clinton stuck by her aide. In retrospect it was all too predictable that this association would blow up eventually, as it did when the FBI examined a laptop used by both Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner, and discovered a trove of emails to and from Clinton. If anyone on her campaign staff foresaw the potential for this kind of disaster, they evidently didn’t bring it up to Clinton, or if they did, she didn’t act on it. Cutting ties with Abedin in the midst of that ghastly embarrassment would have been emotionally wrenching for Clinton, who has described Abedin as like a second daughter. It would have been cruel to Abedin, and it would have been, above all, disloyal. But it might have saved the election. Clinton’s insistence on loyalty and discretion was shaped, no doubt, by her early experience in politics, in the 1970s and ’80s, when she was a lightning rod for her husband’s opponents, frequently on the defensive about imaginary scandals and invented conspiracy theories. The lesson of those years is that you minimize trouble by surrounding yourself with people who know how to keep their mouths shut. But that’s not how the world works now. You can build a wall around your headquarters, and hackers will penetrate it with ease; you can pen journalists inside a rope corral, but anyone with a smartphone can tweet a photo out to the world in seconds. You can’t control the news cycle any longer, so your best hope is to use all the tools of social and electronic media in a 24-hour race to get ahead of it. For all its vaunted expertise, the Clinton campaign never seemed to grasp that. And for all its internal chaos, the Trump team — or Trump himself — evidently did. https://www.yahoo.com/news/clinton-trump-an...-174941337.html

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 11:03 AM) It was more than that. The 2nd order expanded the initial DREAMERS order. Regardless, even though I was in favor of the move itself (allowing certain illegals that are already here to file for quick status if they passed certain criteria), I still argued against it being done unilaterally by the President. What's the point of having a legislature passing laws if the laws can be ignored per the directives of the President? Yes in an ideal world, you have to go through Congress, the President and get the okay from the SCOTUS about constitutionality. But who or what is the check on Trump now, other than the 2018 mid-terms? If the GOP showed any inclination to work together or compromise just once, Obama wouldn't had to keep circumventing them. And Trump is wiping out most of them anyway. Surely a Dem would do the opposite in 4 years, 25% of his/her campaign would be based on promising that.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 10:54 AM) LOL. You don't speak for me re: Booker and Warren. That type of attitude is why we have Trump. The reason we have Trump is the Clintons soaked up all the air in the room and leadership from the next generation (after the Baby Boomers) is lacking and/or never developed. Martin O'Malley was really the only other option? It would be one thing if Clinton had the same gravitas as 2008, but she already been fatally exposed, it's just that nobody had the cojones to stand up to the Clintons other than Sanders. Certainly not the DNC. By the way, that Clinton intimidation factor never got in the way of Obama. Maybe Michelle will say enough's enough and decide to run. And Biden could have won but his moment is past. He had the ability to speak directly to those middle class laborers Hillary never seemed to be able to connect with. Mattis/Sanders 2020, haha

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 10:43 AM) Those who were fine with Obama enacting an order to stop enforcement of immigration laws now see a problem with Trump enacting an order limiting immigration. Reap what you sow. Obama was in the wrong. But, Congress also had a responsibility to work together with the president and reach a compromise. They never even tried, not really. They just punted the problem down the line. And you're realistically going to gather up 11-12 million people, and evict them all...especially all the kids under 18 who grew up here? Even for the GOP, few have positions that extreme, and yet that would be technically carrying out the law. Well, that makes no sense after the money for education has already been invested in them. Quite a few of the kids don't even speak much more than barely passable Spanish. And a lot of those undocumented workers were already contributing to the economy by paying sales tax, rent or property tax (which was then paid by landlord/owner), etc. Obama, fwiw, has deported 2.5 million already, and there are 800-900,000 remaining with criminal backgrounds who also should becsent back, with more extreme penalties for trying to come back again if they had committed felonies.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 10:31 AM) Now we are seeing why the slow expansion of powers in the Presidency over the years is such a dangerous thing. We have watched each subsequent President take things a little bit further, until when we got a true lunatic in office, he is taking full advantage of all of these things without any sort of Presidential type of respect for this level of power. Trump has literally cut out Congress and is ruling by decree now. This why the Executive Order has always been dangerous and IMO should have been unconstitutional all along. Not to mention the Democrats made rules while in power that have completely neutered themselves in the Senate...in terms of the filibuster, specifically. Munchin, Price, DeVos, Carson, Sessions, Ross, Tillerson...no way they all get through at any other time in recent history. Daschle got stopped by a mere $15,000 in unpaid taxes, and he'd been majority leader. Fwiw, if the Pacific Trade agreement went to Congress, Trump would surely lose, so they should consider themselves fortunate that they don't have to cross him so early. Or completely compromise their core beliefs. By the way, us liberals are done with Warren and Booker. Bernie Sanders is the only one to remain consistent in his beliefs.

Iranian American families average $72,345 in yearly household income. White families average $59,968. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethni...ousehold_income Brilliant. Helpful for the economy, STEM areas in higher ed, high tech industry, physics, etc. How many terrorists attacks have there been in the US or abroad committed by Iranian-Americans? Maybe we should ban Russians because the 2 Boston bombers were from an area near Chechnya while we're at it.

Lopez doesn't qualify? 44 innings means he's still technically a rookie.

Not to mention Obana started out at 80 and GW Bush was at least 66% in 2001 if I can recall correctly. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/nei...ourt/index.html Well, at least now it's abundantly clear why Trump and the GOP want/ed Gorsuch for SCOTUS.

Not to mention that Tatis will probably end up at 3B, where we desperately need a player in the future. The contract was bad enough...but that was one of the biggest swindles off a false positive start the last 12 months, other than the Shelby Miller deal. Meanwhile, Adolfo is stuck in Low A ball. The one guy we identify correctly gets traded away. Props to Preller for being an expert on Latin American prospects...would be interesting to see the other names SD targeted.

QUOTE (brett05 @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 06:40 AM) Just the opposite. His approval has gone from 38 on election day to 45 on Jan 23 with 10 percent undecided. Still 20 net points behind Obama, 45/45 vs. 58+/38-. Maybe if they didn't shoot themselves in the foot everyday with nonsense and alternative facts the country would see him as fulfilling many of his campaign promises...but there's also no simple way to quantify the damage done to the trustworthiness of the administration with the rest of the world. Other than Israel, Russia and the Philippines, that measure of approval from the typical European country would only be around 15-25%...