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I love this organization! Tarik Skubal: ball’s in your court. How bad do you want to be part of this?

Lessons for the Democrats? By Calder McHugh Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during the 2026 Liberal National Convention in Montreal, Canada, on April 11, 2026. | Andrej Ivanov/AFP via Getty Images MONTREAL — What happened last year in Canada is by now a matter of political lore. Harnessing a wave of Canadian nationalism in opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump’s belligerent rhetoric, Prime Minister Mark Carney implored voters to get their “elbows up” and led his Liberal Party to victory after trailing badly in the polls. Then, in January, Carney won international acclaim for delivering the most consequential speech at Davos, arguing that a “rupture in the world order” required a new approach from middle powers like Canada. Yet even as Carney’s global stature grew and his popularity surged, his Liberal Party remained short of a majority government — until last night. By sweeping three special elections, Carney finally has a majority in Parliament. The victory should keep Carney in office until 2029, and it enables him to more easily enact a domestic agenda that includes trade policies designed to reduce Canada’s economic reliance on the United States. But it also offers lessons for center-left parties around the globe as they struggle for relevance amid the rise of the populist far right. The election results come on the heels of a jarring — and perhaps revealing — moment in Canadian politics. Last week, Marilyn Gladu, a former Conservative MP, crossed the floor to join the Liberals, becoming the fifth member in a year to do so, along with three other Conservatives and a New Democrat. Gladu, however, stood out among the group. A social conservative who won her safely Conservative riding in 2025 by over 15 points, when she arrived on stage at the Liberal Party Convention in Montréal on Friday, she was such an unlikely convert that her appearance was met with a mix of modest applause and pointedly folded arms. In the media scrum afterward, as journalists shouted questions about her seemingly contradictory past positions, she insisted that this is what her constituents want. “It’s going to be good for the riding … good for the country … and it’s good for me personally as well,” Gladu said. The last point is the operative one. Success has begotten success for Canada’s Liberals. People like a winner. And Carney has laid the groundwork for this directional change. As POLITICO’s Nick Taylor-Vaisey recently noted, the current version of Canada’s Liberals looks a lot more like that of the early 2000s, when social conservatives were more commonplace within the party. And while much has been made of the backlash to Trump that has advanced Liberal Party fortunes, Carney has also signaled he intends to be a big-tent leader, ideologically and stylistically different from his more polarizing predecessor, Justin Trudeau. A technocratic former central banker more comfortable in board rooms than on the stump, Carney has nevertheless leaned into gladhanding with voters. He has cast himself as a change candidate — and revisited a decade of Liberal policy on climate, taxes and federal public service expansion — without entirely jettisoning Trudeau’s priorities. “If I’m a Conservative … I want to campaign against giving Liberals a fifth term rather than Mark Carney a second,” said Gerald Butts, the chairman of the Eurasia Group and a senior strategic advisor to Carney and Trudeau. “But in order to do that, you have to make the case that he’s the same old, same old. And I think that’s going to be a tough brief.” For now, as political parties of all stripes around the globe become more insular and more insistent on purity tests, Carney’s broadening of the definition of a Canadian Liberal is expanding his coalition at home. And his willingness to forcefully buck the United States has made him a leader in nascent global attempts to build a new Western alliance without Washington as its beating heart. But, as pollster Philippe Fournier said, “When you have a big tent, how much can you stretch the fabric until it snaps?”

As long as it's a free and fair election, I agree.

What is the problem you see in the article quoted in the meme that highlights your point? I'm missing it.

It's out fault—they were telling us exactly what they were doing by projecting onto their enemies, and we weren't sophisticated to see that in the moment.

Once Harris got his hands on them!

And he said it in public! And it was considered OK!

Blame the technology instead of the AV crew if you like, but it hasn't escaped my notice that almost no other team's broadcast has the same problem.

Already spiking the football on Gage Workman to the full credit of Al Avila, are we? 😁

It's debatable how racist Branch Rickey himself might have been—he was born in 19th Century America, after all, so even if he were in, say, the least racist 10% of the white population of the time, he almost surely still engaged in a paternalism borne of the assurance of an entrenched superior racial status. But it is also completely understandable that Rickey had to be very careful to choose the one black player who would be the most acceptable/least unacceptable to the out racists among his colleagues. There were any number of other players Rickey could have selected who would not have had the fortitude to withstand the brickbats of the first two years and, as importantly, to finally stand up for himself on the field starting in year three. That third year was crucial in the development of black player acceptance, because it paved the way for Jack and the others to be regarded as a player same as everyone else, and not just as a novelty colored player. RIP Jackie Robinson.

Also, the Yankees. Remember what Casey Stengel said about Elston Howard.

Never saw Fidrych pitch live. 😢

And, again, the radio audio overlay was way, way ahead of the video, at least in the first inning, something like ten seconds ahead.

I’d rather they meet at the high end. 😉

Games with six or fewer total strikeouts (both teams combined) in 2025: 7 games out of 2,430 total (0.3% of total games). Compare to 1975: 304 games out of 1,934 total MLB games (15.7%). Nothing short of a strikeout revolution, directly tied to Chicks Dig The Long Ball.

He could be this generation’s Bill Freehan.

The most memorable game I have ever been to is the Magglio walkoff in 2006, and a close second is the Saturday 12-inning walkoff the second to the last day of 1987. Some of the other memorable games I've been to include: Shohei pitching a one-hitter in the first game of a doubleheader in 2023 Henderson Alvarez no-hitter in Miami in 2013 The ALDS clincher against the Yankees in 2006, in which A-Rod batted eighth! Tigers' first-ever regular season game in Wrigley in 2000. (We lost 😢) The second-to-last game ever in Tiger Stadium in 1999 Bobby Higginson three-homer game in 1997 Tram and Lou's last game together in Baltimore 1995 Ken Griffey Sr and Ken Griffey Jr playing in the same game 1990 Cecil Fielder's roof shot in 1990 Kirk Gibson's roof shot in 1983 George Brett's three-homer game in 1983 Hank Aaron's only Tiger Stadium home run in 1975 My first-ever game in 1972 against the Texas Rangers, a game in which Ted Williams had a duty to perform

You're right, of course, that's her calculation, although he can never get there on his own. There would have to be some sort of putsch.

We may have gotten the comp sandwich pick as a consequence of our not-so-goodness, but point is, all 29 other teams had a crack at Kevin, so they could have seen the exact thing we saw. I would love to know what the thinking inside the office was when it came to this pick. Did they have their eye on Kevin the whole time and calculated that everyone else would pass on him because of his presumed price?

On the one hand, I have to ask, is he the best she could do? On the other, if the Intertubes are to be believed, at $12 million, he's worth six times she is. Aim low, that's where you go.

Yes, because any link will tell us the Trump administration always follow the rules.

There might be something to that ...

I thought he had a 70 hit tool? Did they upgrade him or did I misread that somewhere?

Bet you can still make a few bucks off it.