caulfield12

$25-30 million per year for a relatively one-dimensional offensive player (corner OF/DH) is crazy in this day and age...especially with all of those contract years in the 30's. (And yet the Tigers were happy to throw that money at Justin Upton.)

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 14, 2017 -> 07:09 PM) Greg probably heard the Rush Limbaugh said Roy Moore's behavior can be explained. He was a democrat when he was hitting on high school freshman. Now that he is a republican he would never do that. Greg might not believe it unless he sees the actual story. Rush Limbaugh floated a Hail Mary defense of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore this week, telling viewers of his widely consumed radio show that Moore was a Democrat during the period when five women say he made sexual advances on them as teenagers. “Did you know that before 1992, when a lot of this was going on, that Judge Moore was a Democrat,” said Limbaugh in comments published Tuesday. “While he was a Democrat, nobody said a word. When he supposedly was attracted to inappropriately aged girls, he was a Democrat.” http://www.imdb.com/news/ni61724103/ Howell Heflin, fwiw, was the last Democratic senator from AL, overlapping that time period where Moore switched parties. Very simply, Dems went from controlling Alabama during the time of George Wallace to totally being shut out electorally as the Reagan Revolution/Moral Majority switched the Solid South over to the GOP. It was all about winning election/s.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/06/opinions/why...bins/index.html Why We Don't Give A Damn About Mass Shootings The statistics speak for themselves. A mass shooting is defined as an event where at least four people are shot. We now have one every day in America, if you adopt the broad definition used by the Gun Violence Archive. In fact, Vegas wasn't the only mass shooting on October 1, it was just the biggest. There was one outside the University of Kansas on the same day.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 14, 2017 -> 07:13 PM) 82 year old Jerry Brown? Running for President? He better have a qualified VP. Could we make this Barack Obama guy his VP candidate? I'd be ok with that setup. I'm pulling for the Bernie Sanders/Larry David ticket if Governor Moonbeam's running...

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 14, 2017 -> 07:15 PM) The Senate bill is the one that has to follow the "no more than $1.5 trillion in new deficit spending" rule, the House does not. Right, and the ObamaCare mandate being eliminated would save $300-400 billion.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2017 -> 03:59 PM) In contrast to tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, Democrats have put forth a plan that would put a massive dent in childhood poverty. Brown-Bennet Child Allowance Cuts Child Poverty By 44% It would also pull nearly four million adults out of poverty. Zero chance, but it's a worthwhile policy to promote in 2018 and 2020...Brown possibly making a run at the presidency and going for a Robert Kennedy 1968 populist/poor people's campaign feel (similar to what John Edwards and Gore have attempted).

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2017 -> 06:12 PM) House, the Senate bill is slightly less awful Probably because the Senate bill has to balance out from a budget standpoint (instead of using dynamic scoring?)...isn't that the version that pushes the corporate tax (35% to 20%) phase-in back? Trump's not going to like that particular change.

Anyone at least moderately upset about the sexier/bikini-zed versions of the Amazonian battlegear for the new Justice League film? https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/justice...-171229276.html If you look at 300, Thor, Captain America...those movies thrive on showing shirtless men. I guess the contrast here is too obvious to pass up because you had a female director/costume designer for Wonder Woman versus two men for Justice League.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2744196...paign=editorial Already released and coming back to the US. That was faster than anticipated. https://sports.yahoo.com/suspension-not-exp...-191515120.html Players should be suspended, but not expelled.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/14/opinions/the...ovic/index.html The state of politics these days is so bad that Trump Jr./WikiLeaks, sexual harassers (not named Moore), Trump trying to jam ObamaCare mandate repeal back into tax reform and Sessions lying (again) are still not getting much play even with the President largely out of the picture due to his Asia trip. And he’s still not close to signing a bilateral trade deal with any individual country that’s “advantaging” America.

So it’s four, plus the shooter. Same thing with LV, should we really credit Paddock with 59 when one was himself? Most reports now will put that shooting back at 58.

Yeah, Obama has come across as almost squeaky clean in terms of extramarital affairs...with media the way it is now, it would be pretty hard to cover up, but you never know. I think the key for Trump is that nobody's ever considered him to be anything but "fake/conveniently religious," reinforced by his Second/TWO Corinthians blunder. So he gets a pass for his behavior/s because it's almost expected with him, it's part of the package (like the Miss Teen USA/Miss USA allegations about him watching the girls changing) that is Trump Inc. But SoxTalk would be HARD-PRESSED to name even a few Democrats who wrapped themselves in the flag of pious religious belief/Ten Commandments/patriotism...who were exposed to be such hypocrites as we're seeing in the Moore case.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 13, 2017 -> 02:56 PM) lol, you keep telling yourself that. It is all about power protecting power. Nothing more, nothing less. It why Hollywood protected its own, and it is why Washington takes care of its own. Turning it into a political ideology it exactly what turns out people who "protect" Roy Moore by making party more important than country., You can imagine Obama having an Access Hollywood-ish comment coming out and it not sinking him? “Cling to their guns and religion” almost lost him the presidency. We have to talk about degrees of severity here. Moore and Trump are equal to Clinton? I don’t think so...because you’re talking about consensual adult relations (where the accuser got her revenge) versus a situation that underage high school girls (one a Trump voter today) never stood a chance. Even in 2017 Alabama, the only chance they have is a modernized version of To Kill A Mockingbird with Atticus Finch as their attorney. The very idea of defending behavior that borders on pedophilia is scary...and it won’t be accepted by the American people, women in particular. Clinton has tarnished his reputation in many ways with Dems, no moreso that the comments during the 2008 Democratic primary in South Carolina. He helped cost the Dems elections in 2000 (Gore ran a terrible campaign as well) and 2016, and that isn’t forgotten. Yet, at the end of the day, at least we can admire his intellect and political acumen. Those on the GOP side can likewise admire GHW Bush, Trump, Moore, Hastert, Newt Gingrich, Larry Craig...the difference is that Dems don’t often use religious faith to justify their behavior and hypocrisy. There are undoubtedly equally bad actors on both sides, but that whole Family Values tagline is getting more and more unseemly by the day. (PS, Jimmy Carter is arguably the only president going back to at least FDR without a string of marital affairs/indiscretions...and did more after leaving office than any modern-day leader. In a further irony, his religious beliefs were used against him due to his painfully honest “lust in my heart” comments.)

Sean Hannity was the first out of the gate defending Moore on his Fox News radio show shortly after the allegations broke Thursday. Hannity first attacked Republicans like John McCain who called for Moore to withdraw. "So now you've got the swamp, you've got the sewer, you've got the establishment -- they hate Roy Moore...(he's) somebody they can't control," he said. Then Hannity jaw-droppingly agreed with his guest that Moore's relationships with the four then-teens were "consensual." After a media firestorm erupted, however, Hannity backpedaled, saying he "misspoke" and he only meant Moore's relationship with the older teenagers, not the 14-year-old, was consensual. Despite Hannity claiming he "misspoke," that night on his Fox News show he continued trying to help Moore. This time, though, it was by way of his guest who attacked the credibility of Moore's accusers, saying "there are women that are victims of predators," but they are "very few and far between." Hannity didn't push back at all. (In reality, studies have found only 2% to 10% of sexual assault claims are false.) Then there was Fox News' Gregg Jarrett who publicly questioned the credibility of Moore's accusers. According to Jarrett, the validity of the claims is called into question because the news came from The Washington Post shortly before an election. And on Saturday night, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro also sought to undermine the credibility of the four women by noting that the incident occurred 40 years ago. Her guest, Fox News contributor David Bossie, further tried to delegitimize the women by claiming that one of them was "a leftist activist in Alabama." Of course, neither mentioned that Leigh Corfman, who was 14 at the time Moore allegedly touched her sexually, told the media she was a Republican who had voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. SNL gets tough on Roy Moore, Fox News defends him http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/12/opinions/roy...llah/index.html And none of this will come back to bite the GOP in 2018/2020 elections, of course...

Why aren’t GOP families in AL encouraging their 16-17 year old daughters to embrace guys over 30? Because if it worked so well for Joseph and Mary, shouldn’t that produce even more prophets for society? Pro-life? Let’s make it more expensive for loving families to adopt unwanted children! https://epeak.in/2017/11/03/the-republican-...adopt-children/ How anyone who actually patterns their life on the New Testament could support this is beyond me. Did Jesus ever wield a weapon that wasn’t in the form of challenging words and parables? A final irony is the fact that most of the religious/fundamentalist schools in the South came into existence in the 60’s and 70’s to provide an escape from public schools after the desegregation decisions started rolling in...but it’s really about “religious freedom.”

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 9, 2017 -> 10:46 AM) Whatever. You said it was wrong, show us what's right. But you won't because your post was to insult me and then you found out it wasn't something I created. It must have been Putin Bots. Although Mike Oz is more famous now for opening up packs of Donruss Cards from the 90’s with former big leaguers...that, in and of itself, should not be disqualifying.

During the investigation, the school and Pac-12 Conference have been receiving assistance from Chinese e-commerce goliath Alibaba, the presenting sponsor of the Pac-12 China Game. On Monday, UCLA and Georgia Tech received a tour of Alibaba in Hangzhou and met Joseph Tsai, the executive vice chairman and co-founder of Alibaba. Tsai, who recently reached an agreement in principle to purchase a 49 percent minority stake in the Brooklyn Nets that includes the option to acquire controlling interest of the NBA franchise in 2021, splits his time between Hangzhou and La Jolla, California, where his wife and children reside. While talking to UCLA players at Alibaba on Monday, he made it a point to single out freshman guard Jaylen Hands and tell him he watched him play the Bishop's School while Hands was at Foothills Christian last year. "Every young person makes mistakes, but the key point is how they will handle it after making the mistake," Tsai said before the game Saturday. "I think sometimes things can be very complicated, and the last couple of days I've seen firsthand professionalism on all sides." Before the game in Shanghai on Saturday, the Pac-12 announced that next year's China Game would be a matchup between Cal and Yale; Alibaba extended its sponsorship of the game through 2020. Money talks in China... http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/ucla-players-...ory?id=51082652

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 11, 2017 -> 02:38 PM) Why do you think this is relevant in this case? When am Alabama GOP official is threatening to lunch anyone who stops them from electing Roy Moore? You just came up with a new Curb Your Enthusiasm skit...potentially ranking right up there with the “fake kamikaze” episode.

But Thomas Jefferson and James Madison... Thomas Jefferson opposed the Federalists, who wanted a stronger national government and alliance with England. He initially called the party “Republican,” but the name became “Democratic-Republican.” Still later, it dropped the second part of that long hyphenation and became 1854’s and today’s Democratic Party. OmG...this little fact seems to count less than George Wallace, Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats. In fact, that split of the party beginning in 1968 is what directly led to GOP presidents for 16 out of 20 and 24/36 years.

And you just know the likes of Bannon and friends are patiently waiting for a slew of celebrities to come to the defense of those underage girls from the Moore allegations so that a new front on the “Hollywood is a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah” can be opened up in the ongoing culture wars... If Kevin Spacey was dumb enough to draw a parallel with his actions, that would keep Fox News and GOP fundraisers busy for months!!! The Trumps sell out to China after two days of non-stop flattery...Church shooting by deranged white guy. Who cares? As long as we follow the Ten Commandments like Judge Moore does and don’t actually hold our leaders accountable for hypocrisy, we’ll be okay because NFL ratings are way down and Papa John is our new billionaire “up by the bootstraps” hero. Winning bigly.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 8, 2017 -> 02:19 PM) I'm more in line with your thinking SB, but keep in mind it wasn't just governors' races. 3 or 4 of the top 5 GOP Congressmen in Virginia were tossed out last night in a huge wave. Democrats also managed to break the supermajority in one of GA's chambers. We've also seen a pretty steady trickle of GOP retirement announcements at the federal level, and it'll be interesting to see if that picks up pace now. e: it won't be in effect until the 2022 election, but last night conceivably opened up a couple of US House seats for Democrats from Virginia since they'll have a major say in the post-2020 census redistricting now. So that's some actual change, even if the effects won't be seen for awhile. The biggest impact is that lots of GOPers are going to be scared of Trumpian primary challenges on the right...realizing that tacking back towards the middle for general elections is becoming increasingly difficult. A modest (at best) tax relief program for the middle class (increases for many) is not enough to win over independents. Not to mention the economy likely slowing, interest rates rising/borrowing becoming more expensive and the GOP losing the right to claim they’re the party of fiscal responsibility after what the last two Republican admins have done (Bush’s unfunded Medicare B giveaway, now Trump) to further increase the debt burden. Then there’s the fallout for blowing up the ObamaCare individual markets even more without providing any effective solutions.

On the other hand, basketball is China’s favorite spectator sport, with football quickly catching up. With the numerous connections between the CBA, NBA, athletic shoe companies, marketing....teams coming here every year like the Warriors or Rockets for goodwill tours, they probably don’t sit in jail for the customary month without bail and I think it gets resolved before trial as a “good faith” gesture to the US. China also doesn’t want to get the reputation of being a country where sports teams hesitate to travel to due to restricted criminal rights.

Bots must be writing more and more stories about her. Fake robbery, guess it fits the fake news narrative.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/scantily-clad-th...-192653483.html We talk all ruminate about "mass shooting" perpetrators getting too much attention from the media...but somehow deliberately "pretending" to steal from a taxi driver (when wearing lingerie for no apparent reason) seems even worse. It's the first time I remember someone specifically going out of their way to show their pride in doing something idiotic (but) that brought them media attention (and, theoretically, more attention for her modeling/acting/Instagram career). The passenger, identified only as Gabby, 18, told Inside Edition that she has no regrets about taking the money. "It was a kid thing to do," she said. "My friend paid him back that day." She added that while it was something she did carelessly, "I do feel sorry to an extent" for taking the money. She doesn't, however, appear to have any remorse for the attention she's gotten. "It made me relevant," she told Inside Edition. "You are calling me." The crazy part of this whole story is it seems like a set-up, where it was a "fake robbery" but the driver was actually repaid for the money stolen (probably under $20) and yet here we are talking about her.

Northam was getting battered over sanctuary cities, MS-13 and the Confederate statues arguments over the final days...and the polling was all over the place. Pretty interesting that guns would come up as such a big issue at the last moment with all the talk about tax reform, ObamaCare repeal and the economy's performance (in general).