caulfield12

QUOTE (Dunt @ Jan 4, 2018 -> 10:14 PM) Greg and caufield sure care a lot about the Royals and their fanbase. Soria had great numbers last year, nothing to dislike about this trade. Sox got two solid bullpen pieces for a AAAA player. I follow all the teams that are in the playoff races...just to keep up my interest in baseball when the Sox aren't competitive. Just like I will still watch other Big10 basketball games even though Iowa is already eliminated from the post-season.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 4, 2018 -> 04:25 PM) Democrats typically want more taxes. How is it punishing them to give them what they want (generally speaking)? Isn't a balanced budget generally a good thing? Why can't it be closer to 1996-2000? In reality, the Republicans can only "starve" so much discretionary funding from the budget...sure, they can cut Medicaid, because typically those voters are lower income (but many of them actually voted for Trump in 2016) and not what the GOP sees as their typical constituency. The problem is when you have to cut back military/defense spending, Medicare, Social Security and interest payments on the debt. Trying to convince elderly Americans that those two hugely popular programs are now "entitlements" to be cut/sacrificed will end up with a bigger bloodbath than 1994/2010 for the Democrats. Also, voter fraud not exactly lining up to be in the millions and millions By Bryan Lowry blowry@kcstar.com Less than a day after President Donald Trump dismantled his voter fraud commission, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has filed criminal charges against two people he says voted illegally in the 2016 election. Kobach, a candidate for Kansas governor who had served as the commission’s vice chair, obtained prosecutorial power in 2015 and is the only secretary of state in the nation with such authority. He has filed charges against 15 people since then for a variety of election crimes, resulting in nine convictions or plea deals and one dismissal. The remaining five cases, including the charges announced Thursday, remain pending. Most of those cases have involved U.S. citizens who have allegedly voted in more than one jurisdiction rather than non-citizens, despite Kobach’s claims that hundreds of non-citizens are on the voter rolls. Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-go...l#storylink=cpy

It's like Dotel/Linebrink with the Sox. Deceptively good stats, but you absolutely couldn't count on him to hold a lead in August, when they were desperately fighting to stay in the division race. KC basically was desperate to get him off the roster from a financial standpoint, but mostly psychologically...Yost kept going back to him over and over again and he just completely wore out his trust by the end of the season. As a 7th or maybe 8th inning guy, he was pretty good. But he just completely fell apart the last two months in high leverage situations.

Other than his contract...and the fact that he was terrible for the Royals in key late inning/high leverage situations last year. He could actually be fine away from KC, and with almost zero pressure on him.

They’re also for punishing Democrats with double taxation (SALT deduction change) in states such as California, NY and New Jersey. Taxes are okay too, as long as they disproportionately effect someone else. The problem is they’re basically cutting off the nose to spite the face, as it’s gifting about 20-25 House seats back right there and will eventually be reversed.

EXTENDED SELECTION of new Michael Wolff book on Trump published online at: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/...nald-trump.html Pivoting from Trump himself, Bannon plunged on with the Trump agenda. “Day one we’re moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s all-in. Sheldon” — Adelson, the casino billionaire and far-right Israel defender — “is all-in. We know where we’re heading on this … Let Jordan take the West Bank, let Egypt take Gaza. Let them deal with it. Or sink trying.” “Where’s Donald on this?” asked Ailes, the clear implication being that Bannon was far out ahead of his benefactor. “He’s totally onboard.” “I wouldn’t give Donald too much to think about,” said an amused Ailes. Bannon snorted. “Too much, too little — doesn’t necessarily change things.” “What has he gotten himself into with the Russians?” pressed Ailes. “Mostly,” said Bannon, “he went to Russia and he thought he was going to meet Putin. But Putin couldn’t give a s*** about him. So he’s kept trying.” Again, as though setting the issue of Trump aside — merely a large and peculiar presence to both be thankful for and to have to abide — Bannon, in the role he had conceived for himself, the auteur of the Trump presidency, charged forward. The real enemy, he said, was China. China was the first front in a new Cold War. “China’s everything. Nothing else matters. We don’t get China right, we don’t get anything right. This whole thing is very simple. China is where Nazi Germany was in 1929 to 1930. The Chinese, like the Germans, are the most rational people in the world, until they’re not. And they’re gonna flip like Germany in the ’30s. You’re going to have a hypernationalist state, and once that happens, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.” “Donald might not be Nixon in China,” said Ailes, deadpan. Bannon smiled. “Bannon in China,” he said, with both remarkable grandiosity and wry self-deprecation. “How’s the kid?” asked Ailes, referring to Kushner. “He’s my partner,” said Bannon, his tone suggesting that if he felt otherwise, he was nevertheless determined to stay on message. “He’s had a lot of lunches with Rupert,” said a dubious Ailes. “In fact,” said Bannon, “I could use your help here.” He then spent several minutes trying to recruit Ailes to help kneecap Murdoch. Since his ouster from Fox over allegations of sexual harassment, Ailes had become only more bitter toward Murdoch. Now Murdoch was frequently jawboning the president-elect and encouraging him toward Establishment moderation. Bannon wanted Ailes to suggest to Trump, a man whose many neuroses included a horror of senility, that Murdoch might be losing it. “I’ll call him,” said Ailes. “But Trump would jump through hoops for Rupert. Like for Putin. Sucks up and s***s down. I just worry about who’s jerking whose chain.” ... The First Children couple were having to navigate Trump’s volatile nature just like everyone else in the White House. And they were willing to do it for the same reason as everyone else — in the hope that Trump’s unexpected victory would catapult them into a heretofore unimagined big time. Balancing risk against reward, both Jared and Ivanka decided to accept roles in the West Wing over the advice of almost everyone they knew. It was a joint decision by the couple, and, in some sense, a joint job. Between themselves, the two had made an earnest deal: If sometime in the future the opportunity arose, she’d be the one to run for president. The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton; it would be Ivanka Trump. Bannon, who had coined the term “Jarvanka” that was now in ever greater use in the White House, was horrified when the couple’s deal was reported to him. “They didn’t say that?” he said. “Stop. Oh, come on. They didn’t actually say that? Please don’t tell me that. Oh my God.”

According to the excerpts, Bannon went on to say he was certain that the Russians at the now-infamous meeting at Trump Tower were introduced to the candidate himself — directly contradicting Trump’s numerous assertions that he had no contact with Russians during the campaign. https://www.yahoo.com/news/roy-moore-debacl...-230212676.html Bannon/Trump Civil War just beginning... And on Wednesday, in the aftermath of the Trump eruption, Republican candidates in contested primaries began to exploit Bannon as a wedge issue. Just a few months ago, Bannon’s support was sought after. But on Wednesday, it was treated as a liability. Rep. Evan Jenkins, who is running against Morrissey in the Republican primary to oppose Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., called on the attorney general to “disavow” Bannon for what Jenkins called “vicious attacks on President Trump and his family.” Jenkins was referring to comments by Bannon to reporter Michael Wolff in a forthcoming book. In excerpts published Wednesday morning, Bannon called a meeting during the 2016 campaign between Donald Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and an informal representative of the Russian government “treasonous.”

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 2, 2018 -> 09:36 PM) https://mobile.twitter.com/cnbc/status/9483...ctivity.Message Southwest is giving all of its employees bonuses and upping their charitable donations after tax cuts. Did SW give $4.9 billion? Because that’s how much charities are expected to LOSE in donations due to the new tax bill. A 27.2% reduction in funding. Charities in the Chicago area and across the country are bracing for the potential loss of billions of dollars in annual contributions as a result of a tax overhaul plan from congressional Republicans that would eliminate the incentive to donate for nearly all Americans. The proposed House bill, pitched as the “Cut Cut Cut Act” by President Donald Trump but officially named the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, includes a provision that would nearly double the standard deduction to $12,200 for an individual and $24,400 for a married couple. Raising the standard deduction would reduce the number of taxpayers who itemize deductions — including charitable donations — from the current 30 percent to 5 percent, experts say. Combined with a decrease in the top marginal tax rate, the disincentive to itemize would reduce charitable giving by $4.9 billion to $13.1 billion annually, according to a May study by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-...1109-story.html

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/201...e_election.html Might explain some of the touchiness with Germany/Merkel as well, since Deutsche Bank is at the epicenter of the Russian money laundering scandal....as well as significant loans to Jared Kushner ($285 million, one month before the election) and the Trump Organization. Not to mention Merkel and Obama are besties. Prediction: Don Jr. and Jared are both history. Ivanka will have to leave Washington and her WH position or get divorced.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/eric-trump-tweet...-093338507.html Meanwhile, Eric Trump believe Ellen DeGeneres is part of the “deep state” cabal lined up to undermine his father Referring to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, Bannon reportedly told Wolff: "They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV." "The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor -- with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers," Bannon continued, according to the Guardian. "Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately." ...According to the Guardian, Bannon told (Fire and Fury author Michael) Wolff that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign's potential ties to Russia is centered on money laundering. The White House declined to comment Wednesday about Bannon's reported assertion. http://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/03/politics...x.html?adkey=bn

”I think it would certainly be developing deeper and better relationships with members of Congress in which those relationships have helped push forward the president’s agenda ― specifically when it comes to helping get the tax reform and tax cuts passed,” Sanders said, adding, “He has played golf with a number of senators and used that time certainly to accomplish that.” White House Argues Secret Rounds Of Golf Make Donald Trump A Better President https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-says...-212449888.html

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2729220...paign=editorial Univ of Arizona head football coach Rich Rodriguez (also, WV and Univ of Michigan)

The bigger point is that conflating the anthem with the military obfuscates the real point of the protests, and becomes another hot button "social issue" that can be used to divide the electorate. Likely it's because "criminal justice/police reform" and substantive policy analysis just doesn't work to lead a newscast as a sound-bite friendly topic.

Only a small slice of corporate America has shared tax savings with workers so far http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/02/investing/...rump/index.html

Another pretty well-known Sox community online...3-4 really dedicated writers, with arguably a more skeptical tone about the rebuild and trusting ownership from its leader.

Except for those 47% who live off handouts and don’t create any government revenues. Just kidding. After all, Romney returning brings back more ObamaCare discussion/scrutiny, as he will have to either defend it or explain how it could be improved and didn’t go far enough like his own Massachusetts plan.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 2, 2018 -> 10:43 AM) Trump taking credit for no commercial airline deaths. He's very tough on Commercial airline. Um, ok. "You guys better keep your planes in the air or else!" Commercial airline deaths in the U.S. by year: 2010: 0 2011: 0 2012: 0. 2013: 0. 2014: 0. 2015: 0. 2016: 0. 2017: 0. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielreed/201...h/#47594dce428a Some people are probably like, "Yeah, I have noticed there have been no plane crashes!" But what about 2009? Conspiracy! Obama was Pres, Hillary SecState....you’re covering up the events of that year. PizzaGate! Fake news!

How many members of the military have said they would gladly give up their life fighting to protect our freedoms, such as the right to live in a country where you have the freedom to protest or not without being repressed by the government?

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 2, 2018 -> 09:23 AM) This is how I have felt about Michigan's offense all year and then watching that GA/OK game was like walking out of a dark room and looking into the sun. The weird thing is how a relatively one dimensional team like Iowa could dominate Ohio State and Penn State for large stretches yet still lose to Purdue at home. Iowa has run the same exact offense (run on first and second down, jailbreak screen) for the entire Ferentz Era. I almost wish at this point he’d take his son and finally go back to the NFL. Then I remember what happened to Nebraska football...or Iowa basketball when Steve Alford was brought in to replace Dr. Tom Davis and lead them to a championship. Ugh. We’d even be happy to take back Oliver Martin! Every great Iowa athlete ends up playing for Michigan in football or Roy Williams in basketball, lol. Iowa has had some really good tight ends, but our last NFL running backs were Shonn Greene and Tavian Banks/Sedrick Shaw...and receivers, you have to go back to Tim Dwight and Danan Hughes. So jealous to watch all that offensive firepower on one team.

By the time the dinner was over, the (four South American) leaders were in shock, and not just over the idle talk of armed conflict. No matter how prepared they were, eight months into an American presidency like no other, this was somehow not what they expected. A former senior U.S. official with whom I spoke was briefed by ministers from three of the four countries that attended the dinner. “Without fail, they just had wide eyes about the entire engagement,” the former official told me. Even if few took his martial bluster about (going to war with) Venezuela seriously, Trump struck them as uninformed about their issues and dangerously unpredictable, asking them to expend political capital on behalf of a U.S. that no longer seemed a reliable partner. “The word they all used was: ‘This guy is insane.’” ... And news was making the rounds of an equally disastrous private meeting he had earlier in the day in Brussels with the leaders of the European Union. But what was not reported at the time was that even after all of that, some European leaders came away most disturbed by what Trump said at their private dinner. “He was very tough and very outspoken in his intervention,” a European diplomat in attendance confirmed to me about the meal. Another European attendee said Trump at the dinner was “unlike anything they’ve ever heard” in such a setting. “All this bluster and blasting. He walks in and starts talking, breaking china all over the place.” And to top it off, Trump left early. ... So what the hell is going on? I’ve come to believe that when it comes to Trump and the world, it’s not better than you think. It’s worse. The president is not playing the leadership role the rest of the world has come to expect from the United States, and the consequences are piling up. Still, it is also true that the world hasn’t exactly melted down—yet—as a consequence, leading some to conclude that Trump is merely a sort of cartoonishly incompetent front man, a Twitter demagogue whose nuclear-tinged rhetoric and predilection for cozying up to dictators should be discounted in favor of rational analysis of the far more sober-minded, far less radical policies actually put in place by his team. ... So, forget what the president says or even much of what he does. Never mind the shadow of the Russia investigation looming over the presidency, or the president’s lavish praise of autocrats and public attacks on longtime U.S. allies. In fact, the view that Trump himself is essentially irrelevant is now advanced privately by some key members of his own team—another extraordinary commentary on an extraordinary presidency. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/201...angerous-216202

If Venables was defensive coordinator instead of Mike Stoops....they would have at least been respectable. Hopefully Riley at age 34 learned never to squib kick right before halftime ever again, and never to get so conservative with a national title shot like that in your grasp. Hard to understand what he was thinking, unless Mayfield wasn’t playing at 100% after taking that hit in the third quarter. At least OU finally showed up in a game with national title implications. The last time was all the way back in Stoops’ second year, with Heupel and Roy Williams leading the way against FSU and Weinke. Just thought we’d be there every year when Adrian Peterson showed up on campus. The fact is that they haven’t had a truly balanced team (equal parts offense and defense) in nearly two decades. But that first 29:54 was a thing of beauty, at least. My #1 team, University of Iowa, has ZERO chance to ever play for a national championship. 2015 was the closest they will ever get...and they would have been smoked anyway like MSU was. I would say it’s actually less than zero with Frost at Nebraska now and an outdated offense that would take half a season to do what OU does in a half.

After Alabama's 24-6 win in the CFP semifinal, Brown told AL.com that Clemson coach Dabo Swinney disrespected the Tide by voting them at No. 5, behind Big Ten champion Ohio State, in the final coaches' poll. "I love Dabo for all the ammunition he gave this team, man," Brown said on a video posted by AL.com. "He gave this team a lot of ammunition to come play this game and ready to dominate every play. Told us we weren't ready, told us we weren't worthy of [being] a top-four team. Look, that's what happens when you talk trash to us. We're going to show you." Things didn’t work out well for the Cowboys or Texans (teams split by anthem/owner issues) either. Or Papa John. Interestingly, Kapaernick’s Niners looked like one of the best teams coming down the stretch. As far as Dabo goes, you have to show Alabama more respect than that...four national titles in less than a decade. Oklahoma hadn’t even come close to being in their national title games against LSU, USC, Florida and then Clemson just three short years ago. Nick Saban might be a jerk, but he has earned the respect of being one of the two best football coaches of his generation, with Bill Belicheck being the other.

Looks like AL has this one safely in hand at the moment... Oklahoma had plenty of chances, their offense just couldn't get it done in crunch time. But Riley's play calling didn't always go to form. Late in the game, there were two critical calls that didn't work. First, on third-and-2 from the OU 45 with 29 seconds left in regulation, the Sooners designed a wheel route to Rodney Anderson. That pass fell well incomplete and the Sooners were forced to punt and play for overtime instead of challenging for a potential game-winning field goal. Oklahoma still had one timeout remaining. Then in overtime, once again with third-and-2, the play call was an end-around to senior receiver Jordan Smallwood. Smallwood had scored touchdowns against Ohio State and Kansas on 3-yard plays earlier in the season but it didn't work this time, as Bulldogs' all-everything linebacker Roquan Smith finished off Smallwood short of the first-down marker and the Sooners had to settle for a game-tying field goal that sent the game into a second overtime. dailyoklahoman.com

This is more evidence of why only one dominant offense (Top 10 offenses playing against Top 10 defenses) has won this type of big playoff game in the last 10-15 years...that was one of Matt Leinart's USC teams (ironically, vs. OU). Seems that Mayfield needs to get his second wind somehow...that late field goal really shifted the momentum before the half.

Georgia still has hope with that field goal at the end of the half...but playing catch-up is never a good position for an OU opponent to be faced with given the blitzkrieg pace they play at. Not sure if it's that the SEC defenses are overrated or OU's offense is just that good. Probably more of the latter.