caulfield12

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 21, 2017 -> 05:33 PM) It's a good thing that a state like Wisconsin where there was a strong one put in place wasn't one of the states that swung the other way. Otherwise those complaints about how Democrats didn't turn out to save the Republicans from doing this might really sound tone deaf. Melania is uniquely qualified to help drain the swamp in regards to this...on the plus side. Watching all those women at the march today was hard, knowing that if 38,873 had voted for Clinton instead of Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio...she would have won the electoral college 278-260 and the popular vote by a little shy of 3 million votes. http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-election...article/2005323 For America's future to largely be ruined by Florida (and the Supreme Court) in 2000 and less than 50,000 votes in three states that voted heavily for Obama is still tough to take. Or my home state of Iowa going by almost a 10% margin to Trump when Iowa was one of the three key factors in Obama winning the nomination in 2008.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/2017/l...m=.7632d134fd3b Flynn's son is making it too easy. Obama/Mattis 2020 If that doesn't convince you, just watch the You've Been Trumped (2011) documentary about his golf course battle in Scotland.

If the young pitching comes around quickly and Moncada is as good as advertised, that's easily a 74-78 win team in 2018 and really promising/competitive in 2019.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 01:07 PM) I don't know, as much as I want the Astros to get desperate enough to get a deal done for Q, I feel like that kind of bias is leading posters here to underrate them. Their rotation is suspect and they could definitely use Quintana, but their offense and bullpen should be near the top of the AL. The Royals' rotation is even more suspect and this will probably be their weakest bullpen in years (I'd probably put it in the bottom half of the league at this point). The Tigers are still relying on a bunch of mid-30s players and have plenty of rotation concerns themselves. The Rangers' rotation is very top heavy and even with their top 2 Darvish has health concerns and Hamels is a year older after seeing his walk rate go up significantly. I also think their offense is pretty overrated. Seattle looks interesting but I still think they have more question marks than Houston does. I just don't see why any of these teams should be favored ahead of the Astros right now. It all depends on Strahm and Soria. Karns will be a factor out there, too, in all likelihood.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social...m=.9438c88636a5 Story of one woman's person journey to the march in Washington today Michelle Obama: seems like she might be opening the door to more continuing political involvement/opposition https://www.yahoo.com/news/michelle-obama-p...-001236789.html

“Potentially the biggest effect of this order could be widespread waivers from the individual mandate, which would likely create chaos in the individual insurance market,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. In addition, he said, the order suggests that insurers may have new flexibility on the benefits they must provide. Trump’s action drew swift protests from ACA proponents who have coalesced to try to preserve the law. “While President Trump may have promised a smooth transition” from the current law to a replacement, said Leslie Dach, director of the fledging Protect Our Care Coalition, “the executive order does the opposite, threatening disruption for health providers and patients.” Other executive orders...the most notable being to overturn a recent mortgage-fee ­reduction — geared at helping first-time and low-income home buyers — that Obama announced last week and that called for the Federal Housing Administration to cut its annual borrowing fee by a quarter of a percentage point. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tru...m=.355335f6fdbb 0/1 and likely to be 0/2 helping middle class American families the first day

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Jan 21, 2017 -> 02:46 AM) Nobel Peace Prize Nelson Mandela Mother Teresa Medecins Sans Frontieres MLK Jr. Barack Obama Arguably a candidate for a 2nd peace prize for the humanitarian effort in Syria. 100s of thousands of lives saved. I say top tier for sure. After Iraq and Afganistan and bin Laden and ISIS, how many American families were willing to send their sons to die in Syria? 1%? 2%? 3%? Would you have personally approved of a draft to send our sons and daughters to die in the desert? To fight Russia and ISIS simultaneously? Or just a conventional boots on the ground war without a draft? And for what? Democracy in Syria? In the end, mountains and rivers can be moved, but man's nature can not be moved. Sending more of our poor soldiers to die to protect the safety and security of the oligarchs and members of the Trump cabinet (other than Mattis and Kelly) is not worthy of such a blood sacrifice. We could pick apart Mother Teresa, Gandhi and MLK and find numerous personal flaws in any human being. Heck, Hoover spent 15 years trying to do that to Martin Luther King, Jr., and failed miserably in the end. But the main question remains, did they (choose any leader) make the world a better place or not? Were they selfish or unselfish, driven more out of concern for themselves or mankind...? Obama didn't deserve the first Nobel Prize, but like Jimmy Carter's work after leaving Washington...it wouldn't entirely shock me if he and Michelle earned a second on merit. Time will tell.

Mr. Trump: Ask yourself what is better for American families. To reverse the loss of seven million blue collar manufacturing jobs or for all American families to pay 25-50% more for their Iphones, typical Wal-Mart purchases and for all high quality imported cars (just a few examples)? You can't have both cheap prices fo consumers AND protectionism. You can't get both. In the end, isolationsim and protectionism only will serve to make the world weaker...because countries like Russia and China will quickly fill that vacuum you're creating. All Americans need to ask themselves who should lead the world, if not us? Finally, the top 20% of the country needs to ask themselves if they're willing to sacrifice so that the bottom 60% can have health insurance. If not, the fabric that unites us will continue to fray until there is nothing left to hold us together...at least until another war comes our way. We are either a country of carnage or of character and decency. Which force will prevail in the battle for the future?

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 09:47 PM) C'mon guys... "Reasonability" is going to be in short supply for at least the next two years... And he does have a point. Look at the pizzeria attack. Someone watching on t.v. could just as easily have said "fill in the blank" ethnic/religious protest group is blocking the streets/stands and that's why the attendance in the stands looks so sparse. Hard not to imagine Trump supporters not overreacting to fake news if they can't distinguish between reality and fantasy. I was listening to CSPAN calls before the inauguration and this woman was just going on and on about how Obama finally admitted to being a Muslim 2 1/2 years ago...that he had a close relationship with his imam (brutal pronunciation), was never the rightful president of the US due to his birth certificate and was encouraging Muslims throughout the world to engage in jihad against the US because he wasn't proud of his country. The host asked where this information came from...."You Tube."

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 09:21 PM) Just a little objectivity never hurt anyone http://www.snopes.com/white-house-web-site-trump-changes/ Well, obviously he didn't remove anything personally. Here's a better question...will those topics about gay rights and climate change/environmental protection EVER show up again on the Whitehouse.gov site over the next four years? Most liberal activists certainly have no good reason they will ever reappear again without a fight.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 07:05 PM) Actually these are baseball things. Q being a harder worker, good teammate, etc., has baseball value. Lets use the following hypothetical: The Sox believe that Sale would not perform very well in a rebuild. They think his "problems" may be exasperated if the team is terrible. They believe that if he has further "problems" on/off the field, his value may decline. Furthermore they are concerned that Sale's "attitude" may rub off on young players and create a bad atmosphere. Conversely, Q has been a model teammate and worker. He never complains. They believe Q will perform just the same during a rebuild. They also believe that Q's "attitude" may rub off on other young players and create a positive atmosphere. In this hypothetical, holding out for the "best" trade for Q whereas settling for slightly less than the "best" trade for Sale, is a defensible baseball decision. With Sale, the Sox worry that he could do something to crater his value or potentially negatively impact their future assets. With Q the Sox do not have that worry, and as a bonus believe he may have a positive value on their future assets. Exacerbated?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tru...m=.24320052c788 I'm pretty sure that American Carnage wasn't meant to be the headline that came out of this... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-ch...m=.d6395fdd2e55 Fact checking the Trump speech. 217 arrested so far.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 05:17 PM) 1 but it will be fun 2 private domain registration yo He keeps forgetting that same Republican Congress would greatly prefer Pence, and doesn't consider Trump one of their own...especially reinforced by today's speech criticizing the DC Establishment in order to play well in flyover territory.

Let's go back to 2004. Nobody in baseball expected Jose Contreras to become the best pitcher in baseball over a 4-5 month span in 2005-06, least of all Brian Cashman. Values are always changing or realigning on a yearly basis. But Chris Archer has the repertoire that checks off all the boxes for scouts, with the right pitching coach, a shot of confidence or just a few small tweaks, there's no reason to assume he will never be be a TOR pitcher again.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 05:11 PM) LOL Waiting for the first wave of complaints about all the coverage for the Women's March and how the leftist press is deliberately overestimating crowd projections.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/0...-hitlerian.html Chris Mathews on Hitlerian tones to the inaugural speech. https://www.yahoo.com/tv/trump-inauguration...-183437627.html Ken Tucker's tv critic perspective on the inauguration. America First, fwiw, actually originated with Charles Lindbergh, became key theme in Philip Roth's novel....The Plot Against America. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/am...nd-donald-trump http://time.com/4273812/america-first-donald-trump-history/

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 04:13 PM) No need to mention climate change on the white house website but thankfully they did mention this crap: White House website promotes Melania Drumpf’s modeling and jewelry line More potential conflicts of interest. Ho hum. Waiting for the first filing over the Trump DC Intl. Hotel in the Old Post Office Building to come down the pike. Chaffetz is such a hypocritical ass. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/cha...tion/index.html

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 01:29 PM) To be fair, he blocked a small reduction that was supposed to go into place on the 25th. It's not like he raised taxes. And it's a pretty minimal reduction. I think the average benefit was like ~400 for the year. If that's the best "spin job" you can do, you might still be eligible to work for Perry or DeVos.

How about those retired people run the US government instead? Teaching requires a lot of energy, preparation and passion, it's not a volunteer position. 90% of the kids in high school today would never be able to relate to older people, and if you can't build repoire...you're never going to get their attention, and they're not going to learn much, if anything. Kids in this generation are addicted to computer games, high tech devices, selfies...with that generation gap, what are they going to have in common? How many older people can teach in new and innovative ways that can engage the multiple learning styles...other than just giving a lecture or writing notes on the board? Even taking 25-40 year olds with lots of energy AND life experience and putting them into the Teach for America program hasn't made much of a dent in inner city school problems...and those are often teachers with some pretty top notch educational and career backgrounds who quickly burn out after 2-4 years.

Now the Frazier market will heat up exponentially!!! Or not. Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait until July for Cabrera, and probably at least June for Frazier/Robertson/Jones. That said, someone penciled in for the starting 3B job with about 15-18 MLB contending teams suffering a season-ending injury and we suddenly have a hugely in-demand asset again, not that one roots for injuries like that to anyone.

Wilbur Ross, in his confirmation hearing, says that US trade negotiators too often start with a blank slate and instead should have a model agreement where they can say certain things are non negotiable because they are official US policy or law. Ross further states he wants to develop a "model trade agreement" to provide such a tool. Apparently he is unaware that US negotiators have not started with a blank slate since negotiating the GATT in 1947, they consistently rely on settled law, policy and precedent as leverage in trade negotiations, and even have a "model" investment treaty from which they do not sway in all negotiations. Would be helpful if the man who is going to run trade policy had an idea of how things actually work. FB post from a former high school classmate

https://www.yahoo.com/news/in-a-klan-enclav...-230638282.html In a Klan enclave (Harrison, Arkansas), questions about Trump aren't welcome

We've been hearing this same 'ol stuff out of Colorado since Mark Hampton and Darryl Kile.

Meanwhile, Steve Alford is the King Of Westwood, for now...but he was never going to be able to accomplish that in Iowa City, it was just a stepping-stone. Iowa was almost blown out of the game at home by MD in the first half, stormed back to take a late 3 point lead but they seem to have run out of gas at the end. At least they're entertaining...for all the hype Tyler Cook got, he hasn't been THE man for Iowa like he was expected when he stepped onto campus. Needs to figure out other ways to attack the basket and improve his shooting, like most athletes who rely on physical dominance to get through high school.

Link's not working?