caulfield12

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/28/world/north-...unch/index.html North Korea just launched another missile. Twitter will be busy this weekend from Mar A Lago. Maybe surrounding neighbors can try to cell phone jam that place, lol. Or wifi can be cut by provider to save us from war? Oops, guess he'll be in Harrisburg, hiding from the WH Correspondents Dinner. http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/28/politics/don...-nra/index.html Donald Trump is the best troll in all of politics "I have a feeling that in the next election you're going to be swamped with candidates," Trump told the crowd. "You'll have plenty of those Democrats coming over and you'll say 'No sir. No ma'am, perhaps ma'am. It may be Pocahontas, remember that. And she is not big for the NRA that I can tell you." ("Pocahontas" is Trump's derogatory nickname for Warren who faced a major controversy when she ran for the Senate in 2012 over whether she had Native American roots.) Then there was Trump's reference to former presidential primary rival Ted Cruz, who was in the audience as the president spoke. "Like, dislike, like," Trump said by way of describing the arc of his relationship with the man he regularly referred to as "Lyin' Ted" during the course of the primary race. http://www.stltoday.com/business/columns/d...3c.html?ref=yfp Trump's tax cut looks like Kansas writ large. Trump isn’t being quite as generous as Kansas, which decided not to tax pass-through sums at all, but he does want to lower the tax on such income to 15 percent. Pass-through income currently is taxed just like wages, at rates that escalate to 39.6 percent. The result is easy to predict: A lot of people would start LLCs and other entities, turning their paychecks into lower-taxed pass-through payments. “Whenever there are different rates for different sorts of income, individuals can find ways to game the system,” says Scott Greenberg, an analyst at the Tax Foundation. Congress could try to write rules to limit such conversions, but it would have a hard time keeping up with clever tax lawyers. “It would probably leave federal revenue pretty substantially lower,” Greenberg said. When candidate Trump floated the idea of a lower pass-through rate last fall, the Tax Foundation estimated that it would cost the government $1.7 trillion over 10 years. As news of the president’s plan (to exit NAFTA) reached Ottawa and Mexico City in the middle of the week and rattled the markets and Congress, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, and others huddled in meetings with Trump, urging him not to sign a document triggering a U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA. Perdue even brought along a prop to the Oval Office: a map of the United States that illustrated the areas that would be hardest hit, particularly from agriculture and manufacturing losses, and highlighting that many of those states and counties were “Trump country” communities that had voted for the president last November. And, of course, the best way to convince Donald Trump to do something—even better than showing him maps, which he loves—is to appeal to his ego. “It shows that I do have a very big farmer base, which is good,” Trump told the Post. “They like Trump, but I like them, and I’m going to help them.” http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/don...fta-map?ref=yfp

ObamaCare 47%, Trump 40-44%. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/201...ut-trump-215049 What the press still doesn't get about Trump. Must read. Long, but detailed. 12. Trump’s success depends just as much on what happens outside Washington. Jessica Yellin, senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy and former chief White House correspondent for CNN Political reporters are doing a fantastic job covering Washington, D.C., under extremely challenging conditions. But we still need to devote more resources to covering on-the-ground reality in communities across the country. Consider these recent stories: Jobs: Rexnord industrial bearings, less than 2 miles from the Carrier plant in Indianapolis, is shipping some 300 jobs to Mexico, according to the Indianapolis Star and the Associated Press. After all the television coverage devoted to the president’s negotiations to keep some Carrier jobs in the United States, where are the cameras now? Immigration: Nebraska meatpackers rely heavily on refugees and immigrants to staff their food processing plants. Now, the Omaha World-Herald reports that the industry, fearing labor shortages caused by the crackdown on foreign workers, is considering moving toward machine labor and/or cutting back on production. Travel: In March, USC held a three-day African trade summit with zero Africans, VOA News and the Guardian reported. One hundred percent of the attendees from Africa—at least 60 people—were denied visas, blocked from attending an event meant to give American businesses more investment opportunities overseas. These aren’t just human-interest stories. They’re about the real-world impact of our policies and politics. When they do get national pickup, it’s fleeting compared with coverage of, say, the search for leakers in the White House. Trump’s election was an outside-the-Beltway phenomenon. It would be a mistake to cover his presidency as a largely inside-the-Beltway reality.

The Picketty book (Capital in the 21st Century) a couple of years ago covered this exceedingly well...and looked at corresponding European examples.

Still won't earn him back the chairman position.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/201...emocrats-215069 Theo Epstein for governor or President?, Axelrod interview

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trump-go...-151957054.html The odds of a government shutdown just went up to about 50/50 thanks to Trump's unhelpful tweets. No matter what happens, if you have control of all branches of government and still can't prevent a shutdown, the majority of people are going to blame the party in power. That's the way it works, spin all you want. If they won't leave the Obamacare subsidies in place...watch out. And it's not like Ted Cruz or the GOP paid any real price for his 13 day shutdown stunt in 2013. If he's already tweeting like this against the Dems, will really enjoy the reaction to the Blumenthal/Senate "conflict of interest/emoluments clause" lawsuit again Trump. http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/sena...t-against-trump

The Chiefs' pick of Mahomes was even ballsier, because they haven't drafted a QB in the first round since Todd Blackledge back in the early 80's. He's either the next Brett Favre or a bust.

Justin Verlander would be another good example, although he rebounded and was a legit Cy Young candidate last year. For awhile, it looked like one of the worst future years contracts in baseball.

Greg, you won't be seeing any of it. If, on the other hand, you are an admirer of the Koch Brothers, they'll be throwing parties down in Wichita...

At any rate, here's an example for Rabbit of a fair/objective/balanced article on Trump that actually looks at both sides instead of attempting to score "gotcha" points. From a Democratic Party perspective, some of these answers are a bit scary, but it's still going to take a lot more than that solid or strongly committed 35-40% of the electorate for Trump to win another term. http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/26/politics/we-...-trump-america/

It's messed up that you would use some story about Buffet with no context whatsoever, and seemingly, no understanding of investing, to push your socialist agenda It's even more messed up that your defense of capitalism comes at the expense of all the people who actually voted for Trump in OH, WI, MI and WI in the first place. Most of those people can't even afford to invest in the stock market, they have enough trouble just making ends meet. That their taxable rates on income (the whole point of the Buffett story, which still holds true today) are less than the 2nd richest person in the world is ludicrous. Warren Buffett doesn't even take a salary as chairman of BRK, all of his profits come from capital gains due to distributions from within the Berkshire-Hathaway umbrella of companies. Whatever tax deductions he got for donating a large junk of money that will eventually be paired with the Gates Foundation is not the reason why his nominal rate is so low. It's the fact that all of his earnings come from capital gains, which were taxed much more fairly at the time of the Clinton administration in the 90's (not surprisingly, these were the last 3 years Federal budgets were actually not bleeding red ink) and have finally started to come back up a little bit under Obama but are still nearer the historical lows than the historical highs on such gains. You can write about baseball well enough, but your understanding of politics needs to catch up, because (right now) you lack the objectivity to see these issues from both sides without coming across as being completely dismissive. SIDE NOTE: One of the reasons I am a White Sox fan is their long-standing association with "blue collar" fans who actually follow the game. Miller was their beer for a long time, a strong union beer. The Cubs represented the opposite, venture capitalists and hedge fund yuppies who just wanted to be seen on camera at Wrigley while they were texting on their cell phones or looking at stock quotes on their PDA's. It's a sad time when people are defending the raping of America (Trump's words about China), not by foreign countries, but our own political leaders and their lobbyists. If you read any interviews in the last decade with the likes of Buffet or Ted Turner, you'll see that not even they feel these rates should be so low...that the rich should either be paying a higher share or donating most of their money to charity, or both.

Cespedes is all about raw power and showcasing his arm in the field. Robert is a taller and leaner version of Sammy Sosa (the Panther, back then) when he debuted with the Sox. He actually looks more like a typical Cuban national team basketball or volleyball player. Eric Davis, minus the switch hitting, is who came to mind. Devon White would be another.

Let's not forget KC is last in MLB OPS. It's going to take a very nice run in May to be close to that offseason value.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 27, 2017 -> 11:52 AM) It also eliminates the ability to deduct state and local taxes. Which has a disproportionate effect in many blue states like NY.

Well, most of the rich pay much closer to 0% than 100%. Warren Buffett says even though he and other top earners are paying higher taxes this year, he thinks he's still paying a lower rate than his secretary. In 2013, capital gains for those earning more than $400,000 ($450,000 for couples) will be taxed at 20%, up from 15%. And high-income households also will pay an additional 3.8% in Medicare taxes on their investment income for the first time. The top marginal tax rate also rose for the wealthiest wage earners, but since Buffett's income is from investment gains, not wages, that's not a factor. But part of the problem is that his secretary's tax bill also went up since a partial payroll tax holiday ended, raising what she pays for social security by 2 percentage points. "I'll be a fair amount higher, 8 or 9 points higher," Buffett said of his own tax rate in an appearance on CNBC Monday. "But the differential between me and the rest of the office, not just my secretary but the rest of the office, was greater than that. It'll be closer, but I'll probably be the lowest paying taxpayer in the office." http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/econo...axes/index.html

Here we go again. AHCA back alive with McArthur Amendment....House Freedom Caucus is supporting, which means it's now up to the moderate Tuesday Group. Need at least 22 votes from the GOP to kill it. Undoubtedly, it would die a slow death in the US Senate without changes that are almost impossible to imagine, as the House bill is going further and further to the right, whereas to pass the Senate they'd need to tack WAY back to the left side of the spectrum again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/opinion/...ol-right-region This Isn't a Tax Policy: It's a Trump Heist This isn’t about “jobs,” as the White House claims. If it were, it might cut employment taxes, which genuinely do discourage hiring. Maybe he will eventually provide details, but in his campaign tax plan (which over all seems similar to the latest), fewer than 10 percent of low-income households with children would get anything at all, according to a study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in February. It added that under the campaign plan, families earning between $10,000 and $30,000 a year would receive an average child care benefit of just $10. It would eliminate the alternative minimum tax, without which Trump would have paid less than 4 percent in taxes for 2005; with it, he paid 25 percent. The top rate for American corporations — almost 39 percent, including a 35 percent federal rate and a bit more for the average state rate — is among the highest in the world, according to the Tax Foundation. Yet that’s deeply misleading, because most companies don’t pay that rate. The Government Accountability Office found that two-thirds of active corporations paid no federal tax. Even large, profitable corporations paid an average federal rate of only 14 percent — and Boeing, Verizon, General Electric and Priceline paid no federal income tax over a five-year period, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. Trump apparently would allow some business owners to dodge personal income tax by paying at the much lower corporate rate. In other words, tycoons would try to structure their incomes to pay not at a 39.6 percent top personal rate but at a 15 percent corporate rate. The White House talks solemnly about protecting family farms and other businesses, but give us a break! The estate tax now affects only couples worth more than $11 million. About one-fifth of 1 percent of Americans are affected, and much of the wealth in rich estates has never been taxed at all. The Tax Policy Center examined Trump’s campaign tax plan and found it would cause the federal debt to rise by at least $7 trillion in the first decade, and more than $20 trillion by 2036 — slowing growth, not raising it. To put the latter number in perspective, that’s additional borrowing of about $160,000 per American household.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/201...-history-215075 Hillary Clinton's First 100 Days: An Alternate History Good stuff. Her approval ratings would probably be not much better than Trump at this point...maybe 3-5 points higher, at best.

ONE group (ironically) very pleased with Trump as president, Christian/Social Conservatives http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/201...rvatives-215073 The one group Trump has paid outsized attention to—and consistently delivered for—is the social conservative movement. He reinstated and even toughened the Mexico City Policy, which eliminates U.S. funding for international NGOs that perform abortions. He rescinded President Barack Obama’s protections for transgender students to use preferred bathrooms in public schools. He signed legislation that routs federal money away from Planned Parenthood. He cut off funding to the U.N. Population Fund, which critics say has long supported coercive abortions in China and other countries. He stockpiled his administration with pro-life evangelical Christians in critical roles, including Tom Price as secretary of Health and Human Services, Betsy DeVos as education secretary and Mike Pence as vice president. And, most significantly, he appointed Neil Gorsuch, a conservative originalist in the mold of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, to the United States Supreme Court. The political and demographic divisions that drove the 2016 presidential campaign have hardened into chasms in perceptions of Trump: Among Republicans, 85% approve, while just 8% of Democrats agree. Most men, 51%, approve, while only 38% of women do. Whites generally approve (52%) and non-whites mostly disapprove (68%), but among whites there's a deep gap by education, with 59% of those who do not have college degrees saying they approve vs. 38% of whites who hold at least a Bachelor's degree. In rural areas, 58% approve, but just 33% of urbanites approve. http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/26/politics/don...poll/index.html

He's really DESPERATE for any positive news with this 100 day deadline. Launching the tax "reform" crusade way before Congress was ready, providing no details and pissing off all the members of Congress who have been working behind the scenes for the last year...par for the course. What does he have left? Attacking North Korea? Touting the stock market returns again?

Right now, it's looking more like an 87-93 loss team. All depends on what's left after the trade deadline/waiver wire deadline, too. Then again, guys like Moncada, Burdi and Lopez could really make a positive impact as well in the second half of the season. We'll just have to wait and see on Giolito. Not to mention Delmonico, Willy Garcia, Hayes, Tilson, etc. Obviously, the majority of them will not excel right off the bat, but they should be entertaining to watch at least.

https://www.milb.com/milb/news/dunning-domi...996/t-185364810 Dunning Dominates Versus Former Organization Dunning could be on the move again soon. The University of Florida product was the only college pitcher taken among last year's 30 picks to not reach at least Class A Advanced, and with the way he's taken to the Sally League, he might be a candidate to move to Winston-Salem before long. He's trying to stay focused on his next outing with the Intimidators, though. Weather permitting, of course.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 26, 2017 -> 05:31 PM) How many of Trump's Executive Orders do not fall into one of these two categories: 1. You, executive department, please do study things and do your job 2. Slapped down by a court Working from that, we can have a list of what he's actually "accomplished". Maybe. What executive departments? The Senate has confirmed 26 of Trump’s picks for his Cabinet and other top posts. But for 530 other vacant senior-level jobs requiring Senate confirmation, the president has advanced just 37 nominees, according to data tracked by The Washington Post and the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition. These posts include the deputy secretaries and undersecretaries, chief financial officers, ambassadors, general counsels, and heads of smaller agencies who run the government day-to-day. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/slo...m=.0a514b825b52

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/updated-l...-150419050.html Lots of recognizable names. Jayson Stark and Jim Bowden on the baseball side, and Doug Padilla used to work in Chicago before moving to LA to cover the Dodgers. Len Elmore on college basketball. A lot of their college BB and FB staffers, recruiting experts, even Dottie Pepper on golf.

The one positive with that trade is that Dunning is really looking like a fast mover, but we won't know much until he hits Winston-Salem/Birmingham and continues to repeat the same results, although expecting a 0.3ish ERA isn't going to continue, obviously. He's really piled up some flashy K numbers and impressive IP/H numbers, but let's see how he handles the challenge of the next two stops.