caulfield12

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%...

Meanwhile, the Dutch government has said it will set up an international fund to counter the effects of Mr Trump's ban on US funding for abortions in developing countries. The Dutch development minister, Lilianne Ploumen, said withdrawing funding would not result in fewer abortions, but would increase dangerous abortion practices and cause more maternal deaths. Bbc.com

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trum...senators-234102 Two favorites have emerged for the Supreme Court nomination President Donald Trump has narrowed his first Supreme Court nomination to three finalists, with 10th Circuit judge Neil Gorsuch and 3rd Circuit judge Thomas Hardimanemerging as front-runners while 11th Circuit Judge Bill Pryor remains in the running but is fading, according to people familiar with the search process. As Gorsuch’s fortunes have risen, Pryor’s have dimmed. A 2006 George W. Bush appointee, Pryor is currently the subject of raging debate on an off-the-record group email list that includes many in the conservative legal and political communities, including many Republican Senate staffers, thanks to his decision to join the majority in Glenn v. Brumby, a 2011 opinion that protected transgender people from workplace discrimination. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gorsuch Pretty impressive background, at least from a superficial glance. Only 49. http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-ti...-shortlist.html Story on Hardiman, also relatively young at 51. Kind of a Horatio Alger life. The Third Circuit is based in Philadelphia, but Hardiman, 51, spends most of his time in Pittsburgh, where he lives with his wife, Lori, who is a lawyer, and their three children. Among his fellow jurists on the Third Circuit is Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry. Hardiman, a graduate of Notre Dame University and the Georgetown University Law Center, came from humble beginnings. He is originally from Massachusetts. His father was a cabdriver, and Hardiman also drove a cab to help pay for law school. He was the first person in his family to attend college. Paul Titus, a Pittsburgh-based lawyer for Schnader Harrison, longtime friend of Hardiman’s, and a former colleague, said Hardiman did substantial amounts of pro bono work while he was in private practice. “If you look among circuit judges who are Republican in their 40s and 50s, it’s not surprising that his name would come up,” Titus said. "He is a very intelligent, careful and thoughtful lawyer. A very decent person." Hardiman is fluent in Spanish and was nominated to the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh by President George W. Bush in 2003.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 24, 2017 -> 04:16 PM) so Warren's come out and said that she'll vote for Carson for HUD lol at me for thinking Democrats could make even token efforts in opposition. I'll take a Mattis/Sanders presidency at this point...still really miss Paul Wellstone. https://www.yahoo.com/news/state-senator-sh...-180422705.html George Orwell's estate must be elated...copies of 1984 are flying off the bookshelves. How long before the Trump administration bans it and Animal Farm (for offending the Russians)? Still, the weekend’s events did not arrive in a vacuum. There was the report last week in The Washington Post that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, known for high standards of accuracy, was selling a commemorative book about Mr. Trump riddled with questionable notions, such as that Hillary Clinton deserved more blame than Mr. Trump did for the so-called birther campaign questioning Mr. Obama’s citizenship. (After that report, the museum said it was removing the book pending an investigation into whether it met standards for accuracy. Nytimes

https://www.yahoo.com/news/state-senator-sh...-180422705.html The not so clever "someone hijacked my FB, cover your ass" explanation from Indiana State Senator for an idiotic tweet about the Women's March. Do Republicans actually brainstorm dumb things that they can say to make national news so they can then turn around and deny it and call it fake news when the story gets picked up?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 24, 2017 -> 06:29 PM) Based on the numbers I can find, Target Field played as a top 10 hitters park in the league last year. http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor http://www.espn.com/mlb/player/splits/_/id...09/brian-dozier Those splits should answer any question about his performance last season.

I can't believe they're going to protect DeVos from another hearing...when she doesn't know the difference between growth and proficiency or that schools have to comply with IDEA. And still confirm her regardless. Or Ben Carson. Perry. The new EPA head. Sessions...c'mon. That will unite the country? Not a single Hispanic-American out of 22 positions when they comprise 14-15% of the US population now? Take me back to that moment with Betsy DeVos, when it became very clear that she didn't know the difference between growth and proficiency. What was going through your mind when you realized what was happening? Al Franken When I had my courtesy meeting with her, it became very apparent very quickly that she did not know much of anything about education policy and that her whole experience with education was from her [vantage] point of advocacy of vouchers. If you're going to be taking money from the public school system, and giving it to kids to go to private schools and private religious schools, you have to be accountable for what kind of results they're getting. And a big part of the way that we hold schools accountable is making assessments. So I naturally wanted to know what her philosophy was on assessments. This is something that, as you can imagine, is very central in all the debate on educational policy, and absolutely essential and central to this debate. And so I figured I'd ask her about it. I thought from talking to her, the first day I talked to her, that there was some chance that she wouldn't know this. But this is like asking a prospective football coach how many yards are there in a first down. You really wouldn't want to hire a coach who was unaware that there are 10 yards to get a first down. [laughs] And she didn't know that. And she didn't know that you had four tries to get it.

Not to mention Duffy becomes hugely valuable with his newly-signed hometown discount contract...in wake of the Ventura loss, Dayton Moore is going to have to seriously consider whether or not they can realistically compete when payroll is already stretched to the breaking point for that market. Undoubtedly, they'll at least wait until July. But they now have an out in terms of at least approaching Duffy in light of the new circumstances and asking him if he still wants to go through a protracted rebuild movement. He's already had TJS, so the risk factor is seemingly higher.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-trump-...-001530555.html Trump expected to suspend all immigration from six Muslim majority countries in the Middle East, including Syria, Iran and Iraq. Of course, Irani-Americans typically have economic outcomes 40-80% better than the average white families. But they're all going to be collectively lumped in together as potential jihadists.

Who has seen LION?

It's getting impossible to discuss anything because 1/3rd or 1/4th of the people calling in to CSPAN are accusing them of all news organizations of being biased against Trump...claiming they will cut their cable bills or figure out some way to defund those Washington elites like Brian Lamb in the news business. Forget even discussing things using the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal...so what does that leave, if Time and Newsweek and US News and World Report are being lumped in together with liberal globalist Ted Turner's CNN? The Christian Science Monitor? BBC or The Guardian? Well, foreigners all want to prevent America from being great again, so they can't be trusted either. Al Jazeera? No, that's Obama's Muslim caliphate/permanent jihad against the Christian world and American Exceptionalism propaganda arm. I would love to hear anyone leaning to the right or conservative list news organizations that are trustworthy. Please don't mention Fox News, let's try to be real for a minute. And maybe if the Republican Party apologized for their treatment of Obama for eight years...which he consistently handled with dignity other than a few public outbursts of frustration or more accurately irritation...the left side of the political spectrum wouldn't be so annoyed. But now their lecturing about how we should be gracious to the new president after what we've witnessed the last eight years (hate/racism/deliberate obstructionism) is beyond the pale.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Jan 24, 2017 -> 10:58 AM) Source? Because I have some really good real world evidence that says the contrary. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/science/...ng-success.html That's just fake news. Only trust the Family Research Council on this matter.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 24, 2017 -> 10:50 AM) I fail to see the connection to what was being discussed. QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 24, 2017 -> 10:29 AM) Of course there are exceptions, but the democrats have never been the party personal accountability. Needless to be said, the action of the left has been more concerned with expanding entitlements and measures to "level the playing field" for those who aren't achieving (relatively speaking). Past the actual legislators, it's just a matter of their use of rhetoric generally speaking. Just as relevant as your erroneous generalizations about the Democratic Party...you say personal responsibility, we say don't care about anyone else. And it goes round and round. And if Democrats didn't care about personal responsibility, why were Clinton and Obama able to generate more jobs growth than any president other than Reagan (second to Clinton) in modern times? Clinton removed the highest percentage of people from welfare, food stamps, WIC, TANF, etc.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 24, 2017 -> 10:29 AM) Of course there are exceptions, but the democrats have never been the party personal accountability. Needless to be said, the action of the left has been more concerned with expanding entitlements and measures to "level the playing field" for those who aren't achieving (relatively speaking). Past the actual legislators, it's just a matter of their use of rhetoric generally speaking. Apparently you missed Bill Clinton ending welfare as we know it, executing criminals right and left in Arkansas and Hillary referring to implicitly minority criminals in the inner cities as "super predators." George W. Bush expanded the Medical Part B entitlement...gave it away for free and blew another trillion plus dollar hole in the budget. (Before you list Obama spending, please give examples of world economies that were nearly destroyed and didn't have to rely on government/stimulus spending to avoid a real depression...what would you have done differently in those four years after the financial crisis blew up that would have saved the economy and lowered unemployment more quickly and cost-effectively?)

Kind of like the Republicans have been the party of free trade, limited government intervention and balanced budgets until Bush and Trump...and are usually ready to send the country to war at a moment's notice (except for the children of the politically-connected). In those cases, we usually just get poor people and contractors to die in their place.

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/oscars-la-la-l...-140250277.html Oscar nominations...pulling for Hidden Figures, but expecting La La Land. Can't even pick between the two nominated songs, haha. Watching Jackie now...it's hard to stomach, at least for Democrats (especially Baby Boomers) already demoralized by November.

Now that I'm thinking about it more, what if he was speeding away from these robbers and that’s why he crashed? Reports say speeding is what caused the wreck and his girlfriend said he never speeds because of what happened to Oscar Taveras. That would certainly tie into why these people didn’t save his life and took his stuff. Let's hope this speculation is untrue...that he was targeted and pretty much everyone in that area knew his Jeep. Supposedly the fog and 15 mph speed limit were the biggest factors, stretch of pretty mountainous road. Some say the road was in very good condition, others disagree. Others are hearing speed or alcohol, a ton of conflicting reports. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/the-brief...-004334903.html Jeff Passan article

Yordano Ventura was another outlier throwing 96-100 at 5'11', 165ish.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 23, 2017 -> 11:00 PM) First of all Trump is wrong. According to this very message board Trump couldnt have "lost" because he didnt try. (insert laughter) Second of all, I think we can now say that Bernie Sanders somehow mindf***ed America. TPP/NAFTA/free trade were all in line with Republican ideals, now they are on their way out because of Trump ideas. When you read Sanderes on the issues ( http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Bernie_San..._Free_Trade.htm ) its almost as if Trump is just parroting Sanders. When you remove the "I voted against" part, its basically Trump. Trump/Sanders/sort of Clinton arrayed against Obama, and then the entire GOP that could never cooperate with him as president. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/23/politics/tru...know/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/23/opinions/kil...nion/index.html Bad for Americans, great for China Bizarro World, then you have Bannon (brilliant mind pretending to be alt-right), Conway (requisite blonde spokeswoman who faithfully defends his every word), Kushner (lifelong Jewish Democrat who's already trying to control the gates to Trump, especially against Conway) and Priebus, Mr. GOP Establishment. Team of Rivals indeed. Maybe Trump and Sanders can align together for 2020, haha...adding universal free tuition/vouchers available on an indexed needs based score (good for final two years of university, with qualifying GPA of let's say a 2.5 GPA) to the platform. Mind-F***ed

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 23, 2017 -> 11:00 PM) First of all Trump is wrong. According to this very message board Trump couldnt have "lost" because he didnt try. (insert laughter) Second of all, I think we can now say that Bernie Sanders somehow mindf***ed America. TPP/NAFTA/free trade were all in line with Republican ideals, now they are on their way out because of Trump ideas. When you read Sanderes on the issues ( http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Bernie_San..._Free_Trade.htm ) its almost as if Trump is just parroting Sanders. When you remove the "I voted against" part, its basically Trump. Trump has had mixed messages about big banks (mostly critical but look at his Cabinet) and virtually nothing to say about free universal tuition....btw, they're now phasing the latter program in the state of Rhode Island under a Dem. governor. Yes, much smaller state with only three schools affected. Similar conflicts internally about military/isolationism, although Trump clearly wants to be super popular with them, as he probably fashions himself qualified to be a general and attended a military boarding school. You can't increase the defense budget and VA budget by 20% and be isolationist simultaneously unless we're simply planning on utilizing missile defense strategies to counter-punch. And there is one significant benefit with Trump so far...he's stopping his own party from running away on ethics oversight and he's really forcing them to come up with what just might be a better version of the ACA after 22 years of partisanship.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 23, 2017 -> 09:03 PM) Courts block $37b Aetna-Humana merger http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/0...erger/96948570/ Two victories today. That and the Texas ID/voter suppression ruling.

I listened to a really well informed guy on CSPAN. Their best estimate was 12-13 million undocumented, currently, and 900k with criminal backgrounds/prior arrests. Obama has surprisingly effected roughly 2.5 million, or thereabouts. Someone called in to argue that 9 million illegal immigrants voted for Trump somehow, with no evidence...and that he would have won the popular vote by 9, forgetting he lost by 2.9-3 million. Then there's the old, if he had actually contested NY and California he would have won the popular vote theory. You know who never once mentioned the popular vote and electoral college in their speeches? Abraham Lincoln. He never cared about popularity his entire life, neither did Truman.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 23, 2017 -> 10:27 PM) JMHO but a solid 2B is nothing compared to DeLeon's potential. I'm sure they tried to get more than 1-1 but that was the deal they could make. So i don't think they could have gotten more. It's a steal for the Rays. Dozier is unlikely to repeat, but he put up some unreal numbers in a pitcher's park. Once again, the defensive value is getting so much attention it's almost reverse Moneyball.