gehringer_2

This is true, but I think whether as a matter of justice, the hammer finally lands on some of these guys is a separate issue to whether it continues, increases or decreases its importance as a political liability for Trump and/or his political enablers. From that perspective I'm not even in the loop. We were just hosting a friend with conservative siblings and she was telling us that even now, her brother, to whom she will not talk about politics, quite literally doesn't understand what she doesn't like about Trump. I mean, even if you support him, how can you not even understand the sources of other people's doubts/opposition to him? That seems inconceivable to me, but I met her brother years ago, he's just an ordinary Indiana guy. So at this point I try to remind myself not to bother weighing what I think MAGA may do against my own sensibilities.

Hard to see any point in appealing. If he doesn't appeal and starts serving now, he has a start moved back a couple days. If he appeals, maybe he get's it cut to 3 but they'll have the ruling come down so it still falls into his next start schedule and it will have to be moved back.

I get the compromise, but I still don't like when screenwriters put 21st century dialog in he mouths of mid 20th century real people. It's good dialog but it's not terminology either of those men would have used.

Let's see what Netanyahu tries to do to torpedo it.

Up until Iran, I had felt that the combination of Democratic turnout energy and GOP voter disillusionment (as in "i'm not voting for anyone") would be the bigger factor in this cycle that the number of voters that actually change sides. e.g. MB just linked a tweet from the Ohio primary claiming that participation on the GOP side of the primary was down. But depending on how Iran ends and how long it takes for gas prices to come down, I think the calculus on how many people do actively switch sides can change.

for me that's the difference for this team as opposed to Isiah's or Chauncey's, I thought those teams should win the championship, whereas I think we all have a good deal of doubt that this team, despite the regular season record, is at the same level as OKC or SAS, which does make it a little more fun in a way.

A good new story about ex-Piston Vinnie Johnson. He gets a news bit on Yahoo Finance for his automotive parts business building out new production capacity on the old Palace site. https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/former-detroit-pistons-vinnie-johnson-150432087.html

Do you think it's out of gas at this point though? What I mean is that they've survived the pressure to release anything more to this point, and I don't see where there is any leverage left to get past the current stonewall. So you have the possibility that like everything else with Trump, it will just recede into the rear view mirror. Fox will latch on to some story about a trans high school athlete and the RW outrage machine will back page Epstein. I have the same question about IRAN. It's done more to dent Trump's popularity than anything, but will the voters remember 30 days after if gasoline prices start back down?

yeah - I don't know what Keith has to do to get a shot to play everyday - hit a few HR I guess. Hinch does love the long ball - not without good reason. He's had a total of 7 AB against LHP this season, 1K 1H.

Whether Hope is Good Thing or a Dangerous Thing is the question.

In Indiana, Trump challengers in GOP in state house primary appear to be winning 5 of 6. Hopefully that will mean losses in the general.

This admin is wearing out the old cliche that it would be comic if it weren't so tragic.

in retrospect it was pretty silly to deal for a player for 3AB.

No good info on how much of the refinery Whiting has back up and running and they still have the employees locked out so management/engineering staff is doing operations. That might mean no maintenance is being done because even if the engineers know how to operate the plant, they don't have the skills to fix stuff that breaks, not to mention no engineering work is getting done. They are probably also double shifted so the question is how long they go before they start making mistakes. OTOH, they might already have a non-union maintenance staff. Not uncommon for operators to have gotten operations and maintenance split into union/non-union.

You look at Flaherty's pitch charts and not much jumps out, velo and break on his pitches are all similar to last season, but the pitch value of his FB is way down. The only thing I noticed is that he is throwing the curve less, probably because he's landing it for strikes less, which I suppose reduces the amount of change of speed that batters are seeing. It is the only pitch he throws that gets him to a 10mph delta from his FB. Without good change of speed life is gonna be harder.

speaking of 5' 8", McGonigle's load up is pretty similar (mirror image of course) to Altuve's. He doesn't pick up his front foot quite to the same extreme but overall the step is pretty similar, maybe even a bit longer.

If they manage to hang on and get to the playoffs this season after these pitching losses it should go down as one of the most unlikely seasons ever. The starting staff that won 87 games last season has now had injuries to Jobe, Skubal, Mize, Olson and a potential starter in Melton while adding Valdez and Verlander, with the latter being a non-factor. To that add that Flaherty has been bad. Valdez was a great add but it's still +1 against -5, which isn't good math.

The offense always feels worse when you are behind and/or especially when you don't trust your bullpen so failure to add runs feels like it's courting impending doom.

The report is that Iran hit the terminus of UAE's pipeline bypassing Hormuz - if true that's maybe another million BBL/day taken off the market.

if Melton is back quick and is good, and Flaherty straightens out, they *might* stay in it, but this is pretty much turning out to be a season from HeII

I wouldn't bet against the explanation of the epidemic of achilles raptures in the NBA being drug induced tendinopathy.

the other thing is that the single biggest reform that could be made, which is to stop corporate campaign funding, will 100% hit the television industry-since that is where 95% of those $ are spent. So the video press, who all work for the entertainment industry, and who might otherwise be at least somewhat positively disposed to reform, stay away from this issue like it's the plague.

maybe the Dems are learning that if you are going to be a 'reform' party, you actually have to be in favor of reform.

In anticipation of meeting with Trump later this month, the Chinese have promulgated a series of rules aiming to nullify US sanctions on Chinese refiners. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-rare-defiance-of-us-sanctions-sparks-showdown-over-banks-021410787.html

a number of conflicting reports about doings in the Persian Gulf this AM. The USN may or may not be trying to get ships past Hormuz. Of course the Navy doesn't have nearly enough ship to escort all the traffic waiting in the gulf even if they wanted to, and I doubt they want to.