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Not a map, but pretty informative.

Probably because they treat the Constitution like MAGA Christians treat the bible: they embrace the parts that make them feel good, and they ignore the rest.

False choice. There can be both. 😏

So what if Senate votes to pass the resolution to curb war powers? What do they expect Trump to do in response? Comply? As if.

Especially likely since under the terms of the settlement, the government has no responsibility for “the protection or safeguarding” of the funds once they have been placed into the account, including any issues related to bank errors or crimes, like fraud, that may be committed with the money. The fund will also be managed by a six-person commission, five of whom will be appointed by the Trump-appointed attorney general, and any of whom can be unilaterally removed by Trump at any time for any or no reason. What could possibly go wrong?

Sometimes the pitch you think is right isn't actually right because the pitcher masks it effectively enough to make it look like one type of pitch when it's really another, and then it's too late. Hitting is hard. Hitting at the major league level is major league hard.

I do think the RWM is the linchpin of this whole thing, and if that ecosystem could be somehow decimated, that would go a long way toward breaking the spell.

At least in its current form, and we can no longer simply vote our way back to whatever we nostalgically regard as normal. At this point it’s probably going to take something very dramatic (or drastic, take your pick) to change things for the better on a permanent basis, and it’s well within the range of outcomes that a frightening number of us—both old and young—may not be alive to see it.

They’re counting on people being too distracted by endless entertainment options to notice.

Another thing I wonder about is how the introduction of grizzled veterans like Kenley and Framber and even Justin into the clubhouse mix may have affected the bonhomie the team has enjoyed the past couple years. Justin especially has been known to have clubhouse tangles here and there. There’s also looming free agency for key players and the dark cloud of doom that kind of thing might cast as a pall over a clubhouse. Players are people, and off-field drama can definitely affect focus, concentration, and ultimately performance of people’s jobs, and left insufficiently checked, can snowball into a crisis situation. I have seen that kind of thing in my own workplaces during my time running the hamster wheel. This is mere speculation, not a diagnosis.

Yeah, a couple ticks down, spin was way down, and his misses were all over the place, specially up. Wouldn’t be surprised to hear he’s hurt again and has to go back on the list.

Yeah, why can’t they just collude to stop it?? I mean, come on, it’s been 40 years, no one will remember, right? And in all seriousness now, this particular government would probably be sympathetic toward remaking precedent and law to restrain the free exercise of labor agency, especially for a federally-protected monopoly.

That’s why I think it’s fair to question A.J.’s effectiveness at managing the team during this stretch. I’m not talking about ready blame fire, because it might be that no one could effectively stop this kind of stretch dead in its tracks on a moment’s notice, but I would bet A.J. Is learning on the fly about managing this particular group of people.

Yeah, it seems as though the goose is way too golden to kill. I can see losing a big chunk of spring training and maybe—maybe—first half of April, which would be bad enough since they’d be ceding a lot of the landscape to basketball (and, in some areas, hockey). But to exit the stage entirely for month at a time and forfeit a maybe a couple billion dollars or so each month is business suicide. It took maybe a couple of decades to recover from 1994-95. I can’t see them having the appetite to go through that next year. Forced to predict, I’d say they settle in late March, have a two week ST, open the season April 10 to 15, and play a 154-game season.

I think Riley was sitting on a yakker from a wild pitcher on a 1-2 count, which is reasonable, but yeah, you could also argue he should have been still ready enough for the heat enough to at least foul it off.

I wrote this during the bottom of the ninth.

I would argue the 2025 Rockies, 2024 White Sox, 2019 Tigers, and probably at least several dozen other teams are more inept than this team is. This is a bad stretch, not a death knell.

“It’s pretty ****ty right now.” It sure is, A.J.

We’re going to lose this game because Riley let a fat meatball go right down Broadway untouched for strike three.

Is it time for the Alarmist Non-sense yet?

This Is the long-term effect of Brexit: by delinking from Europe and hitching their wagon to the US, they have fallen prey to Trump’s demands that they become Great Again, and “cosying up” to Moscow is front and center in Trump’s agenda.

Out of reactions today, but Thanks. Disappointment is directly connected to expectations, so if Susan Collins is telling us she’s expecting ethical decisions and behavior out of Trump, she is either pathetically disingenuous or galactically stupid. As for Mike Johnson, he is simply a Pharisee straight out of Matthew 23.

It’s not solely Harris’s fault if teams don’t want to trade their blue chip prospects and perennial All-Stars to us for whatever it is we have to offer.

I don’t know that thousands of baseball clubs and schools will want to move their mounds back however many feet it would take. I think changing the ball over a period of time might be a better solution, although the tricky part will be doing any of this without precipitating a rash of injuries, something that has already happened as pitching incentives coupled with team demands have dramatically changed.