caulfield12

LOL. So Congress is now going to fund health care "gaps" for middle/upper middle class people between 26-45. We might start seeing medical savings accounts in the near future, and attempts to privatize or wipe out Medicare as well, but it's going to be at the political cost of an entire generation of Congress if they dare to do that. It's the "third rail" of politics. At any rate, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell...pristine condition, great neighbors, scenic views. Bargain price if you act in the next 10 minutes.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 17, 2016 -> 09:03 PM) You know, even though I despise Hillary and didn't want her to win, I conceded on here and was looking ahead to impeachment hearings ASAP. Now that Trump is president (I didn't vote for either) I'm not against the same scrutiny and impeachment ASAP. I mean Drain the Swamp means Drain the Swamp. If Trump deserves impeachment for any reason, I'm not against a new era of impeaching every one of these people that become President. That would be terrible, though. Nixon and the 1960's decreased people's trust in government by a factor of 50%. The last thing the country needs is for Trump to be impeached and to make the United States look like a complete joke and banana republic. At any rate, any president in that position in the coming years would likely resign from office before formal impeachment hearings could begin, especially Trump, because he's got to be equally concerned with the fallout in terms of his business empire and what he's leaving behind for his children and grandchildren. https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/take-a-look...-201953466.html Someone who has a $100 million penthouse is not interested in fighting the government if there's no financial benefit to be gained from it. It took the Clinton Foundation a good number of years just to get up to the $100 million market in TOTAL endowment. THIS just one of his 3-4 houses in the US, it's like pocket change to him. http://www.app.com/story/money/business/ma...ounty/82551016/ Of course, America also elected Jared Kushner to be one of the top advisors to the president. I thought we outlawed nepotism after the JFK administration (of course, RFK is probably the main reason the JCS weren't able to start a nuclear war). Racketeering/RICO/corruption charges against the father? Insider ties to Wall Street and media control/influence? Check and Check. I wonder how many Americans who voted for Trump would still check that box less than two weeks later? I really thought America was running away from the direction of family dynasties (Bush/Clinton), but it's going to be worse actually with the 3 Trump kids and Kushner IMO. Kind of funny, it's such a puff piece that after reading that article, you'd much prefer Kushner to be president. That said, real estate developers and the Rust Belt blue collar working class aren't usually aligned together in terms of financial interests.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/11/trumps-t...ish-government/ Here's a typical "present" example, Trump's top military advisor General Flynn, soon to be named to a cabinet post, who APPEARS already has a clear conflict of interest over the Turkey issue. Is that crony capitalism? I'm sure you could find strong examples that tie higher-ups in the Bush Administration with the decisions of which banks to save or not, starting very obviously with Henry Paulson. Last time I checked, nobody had been successfully prosecuted as a result of 2008-09, not even Mozilo from Countrywide. So everyone who received bonuses/golden parachutes, on the Republican (and typically, 60-65% of the Wall Street money used to flow to GOP coffers) and Democratic side...we can surely tie them into one administration or another. It's one thing to give historical backgrounds and "coincidences/conspiracy theories," but proving collusion/bribery/insider trading is an extremely different bar or standard to get over. Why would someone with all the power in the world (at the time Obama was elected, he definitely had a mandate) jeopardize his new government (and moral bully pulpit) over amounts in the single digits of millions of dollars? It doesn't make any sense.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Nov 17, 2016 -> 10:40 AM) This thought is dangerous. It is what Hillary Clinton leveraged and it didn't work. If people believe that is why they got elected, then they are missing the reality of the situation. The election happened because of a combination of things, the bulk of which people wanted serious change. They wanted a change candidate and Trump was who represented the people most in want of change (and even then he got less votes than McCain and Romney). Trump also talked to more people in the rest belt area who have had things get worse over the last 8 years and who wanted a change. Now did those people ignore certain things Donald said / did, absolutely, but to lump in and just assume that everyone who cast there vote for Trump feels the way that you seem to think is just ridiculous and does not solve anything. You saw what good those type of statements did Hillary (calling half of the voting population deplorables doesn't help things). The fact of the matter is everyone lost in this election, but we really lost if the actual politicians don't recognize that the people are fed up and do want change. They want people in the government to work together to come up with things that in general the people want, that will make there lives better. Case closed that a lot of people didn't feel that happened. Bill Clinton himself has been highlighted talking about a lot of these very same things. Just as dangerous as now turning around and retroactively overlooking all the racism, sexism, anti-immigrant, anti-gay fervor and sentiment because the GOP won somehow. Opening up that hornet's nest, Trump is now finding out how hard it actually is to put the genie back in the bottle. Serious change is what they wanted? Do you think all those Rust Belt voters really wanted to privatize Medicare, Social Security, have the age of eligibility pushed further and further back...and essentially falling further behind in government "tax cut handouts"? Were they all climate change deniers? Did environmental policy even come up once in the debates? And the likelihood "medical savings accounts" work for those same lower middle class voters is about the same probability as giving them $10,000 school vouchers to apply towards private schools costing $35-45,000 and them coming up with the money to bridge the gap. The numbers won't add up.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 17, 2016 -> 11:46 AM) Here's an interesting thought. Part of what influenced the election is that wave of fake news that some people fell into. Especially through Facebook and social media. Now go back to 2008 and 2012 - part of the reason Obama won so effectively was the data they had. The revolutionized analyzing election landscapes. So, in a sense, Trump beat the democrats at their own game - technology. And did so by taking the complex, and making it dumb. https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-democrats-20...&soc_trk=tw 50% correct. She thought she could just keep the Obama coalition together. Completely ignoring her husband's much better political instincts, listening to too many inside the Beltway advisors, completely giving up on policy discussions and hiding from the media (ditching the traveling media pool on 9/11 really blew that up), Completely ignoring the "it's the economy stupid" voters and surrendering all those Rust Belt votes and not trying to secure Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio until it was too late. Ignoring WI. Almost losing Virginia. Trying to take places like North Carolina, Georgia, Utah and Arizona away instead...they were way off on their data and didn't respond until too late, and then you had the Comey letter helping to push final undecideds 2/1 in Trump's favor. All those things said, the Democrats will still end up 1+ million ahead in the popular vote, if not 1.5ish million.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Nov 17, 2016 -> 12:43 PM) More relevant to today - SB making a comment about the Republican Party's control in 1928 and the ensuing stock market crash in 1929, or the fact that the Republicans have spent the last 8 years blaming the recession of 2008 on Obama... Seems that might have happened BEFORE the election. Seems Romney was incredibly prescient about that Detroit bailout. Let 'em fail. Free markets and laissez faire will save the day. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-trump-sc...-150455889.html Government intervention and regulation never works. If government does intervene, whatever goes wrong a decade later can always retroactively be blamed on the Clintons, Greenspan, Rubin, Dodd and Frank (Jews, gays, central bankers, corrupt politicians, philanderers).

QUOTE (raBBit @ Nov 17, 2016 -> 10:50 AM) Yeah I just watched a group of pacifist liberals 10 minutes from my place beat the s*** out of a man and steal his belongings while stating their political motivations. Don't worry though, Caulfield is on the ground getting to the bottom of it! Because 437 hate incidents against minorities in less than a week cancels out the Because a 67% spike in anti-Muslim incidents in the last two years is (BIGLY OBVIOUSLY) Obama's fault, since the alt-right is always claiming he's a Muslim, isn't proud of American exceptionalism, apologizes for the US too much, wants to reinstitute Sharia Law, studied at a madrassa/terrorist training school in Indonesia for 3 1/2 years, has an Islamic middle name and wasn't even born in America. Great that Rabbit, er, Breitbart...kept everyone so well informed the last month or so and hope that continues. Except he didn't actually have time to read/research any of the reality behind all those tweets and subtweets. So the Maria Bartiromo excuse. And don't forget y'all, Save the Confederate Flag...States' Rights...Honor Our Ancestors and Heritage. Make sure to turn out for that parade December 3rd in North Carolina.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-g...e115165698.html Rand Paul will block Bolton and Giuliani, Corker more likely for Secretary of State http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016...rs.html?ref=yfp President-Elect PT Trump gets to work betraying his backers http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/17/politics/chu...rump/index.html Dems hope Trump meets his match in Schumer Number of hate incidents at 437 in one week and rising...almost exactly one for each House member https://www.yahoo.com/news/hate-incidents-s...-231607863.html 67 percent increase in anti-Muslim attacks since 2014...coincidence?

They have to make him the closer if he's still on the roster....unless they believe he will be more effective in his former role in NYC. Switching him to set-up permanently cuts quite a bit of his trade value, unless he performs like Wade Davis in 2014 or Andrew Miller the last couple of seasons. Running Nate Jones out there as closer (with Robertson still on the roster) is a risk if he can't perform because then you've got two pitchers you could have sold at higher values. Like the Keith Foulke situation.

http://forward.com/series/forward-50/2016/ben-shapiro/ If everyone hates you at the current juncture...both Trump supporters and anyone on the left who detests Breitbart...doesn't make much sense to fan the flames. Is the hope for unity between those two groups in their dislike for Shapiro? He's probably in a lot more danger from the alt-right folks than the typical pacifist liberal.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/16/politics...sion/index.html Ooops...we thought the Pentagon/Defense Department and State Department were supposed to call US!!! Election Day was eight days ago, but Donald Trump's transition team has yet to contact the Pentagon, State Department or other federal agencies. And a move to purge some transition advisers and employees has further slowed the process of getting the incoming administration off the blocks. So-called landing teams, which President Barack Obama installed at federal agencies within days of the election for his own transition, had been expected to arrive in DC Monday. But Vice President-elect Pence's takeover of the team caused a cascade of delays.

So basically, let's blame the countries that have strong educational emphasis as part of their core culture, lol... No matter how chaotic/disorganized/corrupt India is (and you could say the same for South Korea with their current presidential scandal), they are excellent at producing engineers and IT/computer specialists. We can't even copy Finland's math program success nationwide, because that would require only choosing the top 10-15% of the best academically prepared teachers/IQ testing, and then playing them upper middle class/salaries competitive with private industry (compared to salaries which force teachers to work a 2nd job on weekends or during the summertime in "flyover" territory in the US, or Arizona, even). As chw42 noted, the competition here in Asia is incredible. I'll share a story. All the students in China that don't study abroad (and it was something like 350,000 alone in the freshman class in US universities in 2015, bigger than the next four countries combined, with India at around 150K) have to take the GAO KAO exam, which is an "all stakes" standardized exam across China that every student spends their entire three year high school period cramming for. One of the countryside schools...they basically had a rebellion/riot against the police and school authorities. Why? Because the police were jamming cell/mobile phone signals into the school, preventing their sons and daughters from cheating. The parents knew that students in other area schools were at an advantage to cheat, no mobile phone jamming or confiscation, and those other students didn't have to sit outside in the middle of the basketball courts with their desks spread out as far as the eye could see to keep them from being close enough to look at someone else's multiple choice answer sheets. Pretty much everything can be changed or altered. Don't like a student's recommendation letter, agents paid $30,000 and up for one student will go back to the school after changing the letter and force a local/Chinese teacher to sign it if the foreign teachers refuse. Almost none of the admissions esays/personal statements are real. They are bought/sold online for $500-750 and up, and that's how you ended up with almost 100 Chinese students applying for IVY League admissions having almost the same or identical essays. Grades are changed/fudged all the time. Volunteer activities are made up out of thin air, since students don't have the free time to do anything but study or go to cram schools to prepare for exams outside of school time (which is normally ending at 8-10 p.m. at night for many students, as all the time after dinner is dedicated to studying/homework/revision).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 16, 2016 -> 10:05 AM) The irony of course is that Obama's opinion completely changed once he was in charge. I fully expect the same epiphany to happen to Trump once his advisors get ahold of him. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...rds_125489.html It made some sense when we were arguing the RMB should have been set at 5.5-6.0 (undervalued artificially to give exports an advantage.) That was a long time ago. Now the issue is that 50% of the trading value is out of their control after the addition to the special drawing rights bundle of (official reserve) currencies last year. They want to stop it from devaluing further because it's causing money to flee the country and discouraging foreign direct investment. Not even capital controls are working. Look at the hot Chinese money flowing into the US and Canadian property markets, both residential and commercial. Not only that, but Chinese are pushing for more and more foreign takeovers and putting their assets into such areas as US theatre chains and movie production (Alibaba and Wanda). I guess you'd have to ask Vancouver residents if their home values going up or becoming unaffordable to first time homebuyers is a good thing. At any rate, very reminiscent of when the Japanese were buying up America from 1985-1993. That didn't have such a happy ending for them.

http://www.newsweek.com/michael-rubin-trum...-521622?ref=yfp Trump transition team with second ethics scandal...the other is $950,000+ being paid to Breitbart by a super PAC https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KVdiOKI7xd8 Apparently it's now hilarious to drive your car super-fast close to a crowd of anti-Trump protestors on the highway and hit one of them It's amazing the level of commitment Chinese students have in math, physics and chemistry, not to mention nearly all of them studying economics as well. Probably spend 3x as much time studying those areas as US students, and many go to school halftime starting at age 2-3, at least some type of educational enrichment program. Then the ms and hs students almost all go to English or SAT IELTS TOEFL training centers at night or on the weekends. Average math SAT score is 740-760. Anyone below 700 is an idiot to be made fun of, to them. Creativity and innovation and critical thinking...not so strong. They really struggle with the higher levels of computer science as well, but it's also hard to find good foreign (white/native English speaker) teachers in those areas. There's no secrets. Hard working, rote memorization, tons of practice and drilling, go over every past exam and memorize multiple choice possibilities for AS/A2 level, AP, IB, etc. This is why we're losing in the STEM areas. Not IQ or ability. Simply not enough dedication, commitment and family pressure to work harder.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/immigration-hard...-015354176.html Here comes the wall (without even a Congressional vote to get it started) and immigration round-ups... http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/16/politics/tru...ders/index.html All the areas where Trump will be at odds with Ryan/GOP Congress https://www.yahoo.com/news/giuliani-favorit...-082235190.html Transition team already struggling...but great, we've spooked RMB down almost to 6.9 and freaked out the mortgage markets as well. (And Jared Kushner's running off all the former Christie aides because of the vendetta he's held ever since the Christie administration went after his father.) The irony here is the Chinese want the RMB to stay in the 6.4-6.5 range, and are fighting to strengthen/preserve its value against speculators shorting it, instituting numerous capital controls on currency leaving the mainland. Doesn't matter...stock market's doing great, so God continues to bless the 1%

http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/15/pf/taxes/t...plan/index.html More details on tax plans...there goes trillions more added to the national debt. And of course, the poor end up worse off than before Trump.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ed-klein-...1/15/id/759037/ This article by Ed Klein basically argues that HRC lost primarily because she failed to listen to her husband's political instincts, and Mook/Podesta/pollsters/Cheryl Mills/Huma Abedin tuned him out as well. https://www.yahoo.com/news/ohio-state-stude...-160111812.html Tackling public speakers at universities in the name of "defending Trump" isn't going to go over very well. Realistically, John Kasich might be the only Republican right now that would be able to achieve a modicum of "moderate/independent" support, and that's if you concentrate specifically on his last 5-10 years and not his entire history in government (which is much more conservative, especially on values touched by religious or spiritual belief). No way it could be Ted Cruz. Kasich is also appropriate because he understands more than anyone what's going on with those Rust Belt/Obama voters more than anyone as a governor.

Carson became new national chairman of MY FAITH VOTES this past year, but not sure if that's a salaried or honorific position/title. What political office would he run for in Michigan? He lives near Baltimore now? Maryland offices to run for? Of course, many have predicted he will ACTUALLY be named the new Secretary of Education instead.

The entire foundation of "Hahn's good at this" is Eaton for Santiago...and if you're willing to give him (instead of KW and Paddy) credit for Jose Abreu. Who's the one within the Sox organization who pushed hardest for Anderson? We all have this scenario where KW was directly responsible for former footballer Courtney Hawkins, but why wasn't he equally responsible for Anderson, another raw/toolsy guy with more of a hoops background as a youngster?

And there's certainly zero opportunities for his family/Trump Corporation to take advantage of whatever information they have before the rest of the world... And it's not like Jared Kushner's not already tied directly into Wall Street. No insider trading going on, of course. SIGH. It will be interesting to see who wins. Ivanka/consumerism/shopping/fashion and style VS. liberalism/feminism. Because she gave a speech about giving women more time off to have a baby, daycare tax credits and had a ghostwritten book about female empowerment and entrepreneurialism AND she rebuked her father (a few times) for his public stances, then we should congratulate her instead of boycotting her product line.

Just not sure you also get Groome included there as well. What are there now, ten teams? Boston NYY LAD Texas Houston Atlanta Pittsburgh St. Louis Washington Cubs (nah)

QUOTE (Brian @ Nov 15, 2016 -> 05:19 PM) ...and her husband. The funny thing there is you have Bannon and Jared Kushner as part of the inner circle after all the anti Jewish statements and even his favorite kid converting to Judaism...so many moral and ethical compromises taking place already as everyone wants to get their thumbs on the wheels of power to jam unwanted policy changes on the American people who clearly didn't mandate them as much as they rejected (well, from an electoral college and not popular vote standpoint) four more years of the Clintons. Well, at least Slovenian model/starlet exports are going to benefit.

Of course, we also heard Austin Jackson would be back in July and Lawrie's situation wasn't career-threatening...

QUOTE (Brian @ Nov 15, 2016 -> 04:16 PM) Wonder how she would feel if someone called Melania a "tramp" or "slut" because of her pin up past. That's the delicious irony...that Melania will make anti-bullying/shaming/cybercrimes targeting youth her key platform issue. Start with Ann Coulter and Steve Bannon.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Nov 15, 2016 -> 04:49 PM) They also added Aoki already who's number look good last year. Added him to help off-set all the K's in the lineup. At this point, he's more of a fourth outfielder type/veteran presence with World Series experience. Tucker's older brother would be a decent candidate as filler to take DH and RF/LF at bats depending on what happens with Eaton and Cabrera. Of course, so would Puig...on an absolutely nothing to lose team. That said, having Eaton, Puig and Shields together in that scenario would be a highly combustible mixture. Of course, bromances in our clubhouse haven't gotten the Sox anywhere, either.