The Nats are another team that are facing the lonely drive frome the empty Locker Room tonight. They’ve done much better against the Dodgers than I expected actually.
Top 9– Single. 2 RBI HR. Dodgers 10 – 4 Final Dodgers lead Series 2 – 1.
Ugh.
Well, the Yankees can beat them (it would be Classic) and I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to tell you precisely why I hate the Dodgers more than any other team in Baseball.
Max Scherzer (R, 11 – 7, 2.92 ERA) who pitched 5 in the Wild Card and 1 in Game 1 is miraculously available again!
Ok I’m given to understand it went something like this- Scherzer had been scheduled but Sánchez (who I told you was just floating around) got the start with Corbin (their 4th Starter) in Relief.
Corbin didn’t work out at all.
Anyway the Nats send Max. In his 7 Playoff years (including this season where he pitched 5 Innings in the Wild Card and 1 in Game 1) he has appeared in 18 games with a record of 4 – 5. Over 88 Innings pitched he has allowed 40 Runs and 10 Home Runs with 34 Walks and 109 Ks for an ERA of 3.78. He throws Heat, but not as many as some, with Sliders and Changeups as his off pitches.
The Dodgers send Rich Hill (L, 4 – 1, 2.45 ERA) for the finish. A 4 year Playoff Veteran he’s appeared in 12 games with a record of 1 – 2. In 50.1 Innings pitched he’s allowed 17 Runs and 5 HR with 28 Walks and 63 Ks for an ERA of 3.04. He throws Fastballs and Curves.
Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.
A president should not be able to stonewall and run out the clock.
When the Democratic leadership was finally forced to formally back an impeachment inquiry, they faced a choice: focus broadly on all of Donald Trump’s corruption and unfitness, which could drag on for a long time, or focus narrowly on the new revelations about Trump and Ukraine and do so quickly. They chose the latter.
I happen to agree with that strategy, if one assumes that you only have one shot at this. But, I also propose another scenario: Do both. Draw up articles of impeachment on the narrow case of Ukraine, but don’t close the impeachment inquiry. Keep it open and ready to draw up more articles as new corruption is uncovered. Impeach Trump repeatedly if necessary. [..]
Trump deserves to be impeached for every offense he has committed against the office of the presidency and the American people. That means that the impeachment inquiry can’t be constrained by electoral calendars or judicial machinations.
President Trump’s latest move to ward off impeachment may be his dumbest one yet.
On Friday, the president demanded that the full House must vote before it proceeds on an impeachment inquiry, and said he would not comply with any congressional requests for documents or testimony until it does.
He should be careful what he asks for.
The possibility for such a showdown has been in the air for days, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) brought up the subject herself when I interviewed her Wednesday. Her reaction: Bring it. [..]
And once the resolution passes, what happens then? Trump’s bluff will have been called. To resist handing over necessary materials at that point only bolsters a case for obstruction of justice, which is an impeachable offense.
By forcing the House to play its hand, Trump may find out that he’s the one who is holding the losing cards.
Something is not adding up about the Justice Department’s account of its decision not to open a criminal investigation based on a complaint by a whistleblower in the U.S. intelligence community about President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
The complaint was passed on to the Justice Department through both the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, and, as NBC News reported Friday, the CIA’s general counsel, Courtney Simmons Elwood.
The Justice Department appears to have conducted a wholly cursory examination. It interviewed no witnesses and examined no evidence other than the complaint. Text messages within the State Department that might have provided evidence of criminality were not examined. Justice closed the file without opening a formal investigation. [..]
The department’s chief explanation for closing the file with so little investigation is that the referral mentioned only potential campaign finance violations. Justice concluded that there was no possible crime because President Trump — in a July phone call urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the supposedly suspicious involvement of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukrainian matters — had not sought a quantifiable “thing of value,” as required by the pertinent statute.
There are two conspicuous defects with this account.
It is no longer surprising to see President Trump wielding the government as an instrument purely for his personal benefit or vengeance.
What is both alarming and new is how government, increasingly, is giving way and giving in.
Three years into Trump’s term, we are witnessing the accelerating erosion of a bedrock American principle: that the awesome power of government will be wielded fairly, based on facts and evidence, and without regard to political fear or favor.
A normal government that cared about corruption in Ukraine, as officials in this administration sometimes pretend they do, would seek improvements in its judicial system. But Trump has no such concern, as you can tell from his July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president. He never mentions corruption, but presses only for two specific investigations he hopes will benefit his domestic political fortunes.
Almost a decade ago, Warren Buffett made a claim that would become famous. He said that he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary, thanks to the many loopholes and deductions that benefit the wealthy.
His claim sparked a debate about the fairness of the tax system. In the end, the expert consensus was that, whatever Buffett’s specific situation, most wealthy Americans did not actually pay a lower tax rate than the middle class. “Is it the norm?” the fact-checking outfit Politifact asked. “No.”
Time for an update: It’s the norm now.
For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group, according to newly released data.
Top 9– Double. Steal. Walk. RBI Double. 2 RBI Single. Braves 3 – 1 Final. Braves lead Series 2 – 1.
Truth is that I’m not sure either the Cards or the Braves has the chops to hang with the Dodgers unless the Nats get lucky.
The Cards need Dakota Hudson (R, 16 – 7, 3.35 ERA) to win. He’s a 2 Season, Post Season Rookie who throws Heat and Sliders.
The Braves will try to finish it with Dallas Keuchel (L, 8 – 8, 3.75 ERA), a 4 year Post Season Veteran (including this one) with appearences in 11 games and a record of 4 – 2. In 56.1 Innings pitched he’s allowed 21 Runs and 5 HR with 19 Walks and 48 Ks for an ERA of 3.20. He throws about 50% Fastballs with a mix of Cutters, Changeups, and Curves.
You see, the thing about losing at Home is, after the game, you clean out your locker for the last time, then you go to your parking spot for the last time, get in your car and drive to your house.
You don’t even get 6 hours in an Airport to mourn.
I hope the Rays extend it a bit, if only to tire the ‘Stros out.
Top 9– Single. Single. Wild Pitch. Walk. RBI Sacrifice. ‘Stros 3 – 1 Final. ‘Stros lead Series 2 – 0.
The Rays’ hope is Charlie Morton (R, 16 – 6, 3.05 ERA) who’s had 4 years in the Playoffs (including this one) with 8 appearances for a record of 3 – 2. He’s allowed 17 Runs in 36.1 Innings with 3 HR, 15 Walks and 35 Ks for an ERA of 3.96. He throws Heat (not as often as some) and Curves with an occasional Cutter.
The ‘Stros look to close it out early behind Zack Greinke (R, 18 – 5, 2.93 ERA), a 5 year Post Season Veteran with 11 appearances and a record of 3 – 4. In 67 Innings he’s allowed 33 Runs with 9 HRs and 15 Walks to 59 Ks for an ERA of 4.03. He throws less than 50% Fastballs and spreads his junk between Changeups, Sliders, and Curves.
A federal judge on Monday rejected a bold argument from President Trump that sitting presidents are immune from criminal investigations, a ruling that allowed the Manhattan district attorney’s office to move forward with a subpoena seeking eight years of the president’s personal and corporate tax returns.
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In a 75-page ruling, Judge Marrero called the president’s argument “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.” Presidents, their families and businesses are not above the law, the judge ruled.
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Mr. Trump’s lawyers sued last month to block the subpoena, arguing that the Constitution effectively makes sitting presidents immune from all criminal inquiries until they leave the White House. The lawyers acknowledged that their argument had not been tested in courts, but said the release of the president’s tax returns would cause him “irreparable harm.”
Mr. Vance’s office asked Judge Marrero to dismiss Mr. Trump’s suit, saying a grand jury had a right to “pursue its investigation free from interference and litigious delay” and rejecting his claim to blanket immunity. The judge was appointed by President Bill Clinton.
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Last week, lawyers with Mr. Trump’s Justice Department jumped into the fray, asking the judge to temporarily block the subpoena while the court takes time to consider the “significant constitutional issues” in the case.
The Justice Department, led by Attorney General William P. Barr, did not say whether it agreed with Mr. Trump’s position that presidents cannot be investigated. But, citing the constitutional questions, the department said it wanted to provide its views.
Federal prosecutors are barred from charging a sitting president with a crime because the Justice Department has decided that presidents have temporary immunity while they are in office.
But in the past, that position has not precluded investigating a president. Presidents, including Mr. Trump, have been subjects of federal criminal investigations while in office. Local prosecutors, such as Mr. Vance, are also not bound by the Justice Department’s position.
That’s the Federal Judge folks and includes the last minute intervention by the DoJ.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
U.S. and Britain strike Afghanistan; Achille Lauro hijacked; Supreme Court pick Clarence Thomas faces damaging claims; Matthew Shepard beaten to death; Singer John Mellencamp born; ‘Cats’ hits Broadway.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
No two ways about it, the Dodgers underperformed Friday night against the Nats.
You see the thing about Homefield Advantage is that unless you win at Home, you lose it. This is particularly acute in a short series, in a longer one you can mask it with unexpected Road victories (Nats have a marginally better home record). The Nats rose up and stole that advantage. Now I have sources in Washington and they tell me that the Nats intend to pitch Scherzer and Strasburg until they drop with Sánchez floating in the mix to disguise the fact that they don’t have any others, or indeed a Bullpen.
Well, that may see you through 5 games or even a long series, but two in a row? I don’t think so. The Nats have had to advance through an extra game just to get here too, pitchers, even the best, get tired.
Top 8– Double. Walk. Sacrifice. RBI Single. Nats 4 – 2 Final. Series Tied.
Max Scherzer (R, 11 – 7, 2.92 ERA) who pitched 5 in the Wild Card and 1 in Game 1 will take the mound for the Nats. In his 7 Playoff years (including this one) he has appeared in 18 games with a record of 4 – 5. Over 88 Innings pitched he has allowed 40 Runs and 10 Home Runs with 34 Walks and 109 Ks for an ERA of 3.78. He throws Heat, but not as many as some, with Sliders and Changeups as his off pitches.
The Dodgers send Hyun-Jin Ryu (L, 14 – 5, 2.32 ERA). He’s had 3 years in the Post Season and appeared in 7 games with a record of 2 – 2. Over 35 Innings he has allowed 16 Runs and 6 Home Runs with 6 Walks and 29 Ks for an ERA of 4.11. He throws 60% Junk, Changeups and Cutters are favorites with Curves half as often.
So the Braves finally won one at home which is a good thing because otherwise they would be hurtin’ for certain. They lost Homefield Advantage to the Cards in Game 1 but to head to Busch Stadium facing elimination is a bit of a lift.
The Cards will be sending out Adam Wainwright (R, 14 – 10, 4.19 ERA). This will be his 7th year in the Playoffs. He’s appeared in 24 games with a record of 4 – 5. Over the course of 89 Innings he’s allowed 33 Runs and 9 HR with 15 Walks and 96 Ks for an ERA of 3.03. He throws Fastballs and Curves kind of interchangeably and a Cutter almost as much.
The Braves will attempt to gain advantage behind Mike Soroka (R, 13 – 4, 2.68 ERA). This is just his second season in the Bigs and he’s a Playoff Rookie. He throws Fastballs and Sliders 3:1.
Donald Trump is fixated on stopping those brown people from crossing our southern borders. His main idea is his “beautiful” wall that was supposed to be paid for my Mexico but is now being financed by US tax payers by gutting necessary Pentagon expenditures here and abroad. He as even suggested shooting migrants as they crossed the border. Trump also suggested building a water filled moat and filling it with poisonous snakes and alligators, sending out staffers to do a cost analysis. Trump. of course, denied in tweet that he never wanted a moat, misspelling moat “moot.” Stephen Colbert, host of CBS “The Late Show,” called out Donald for steeling his idea from his character on “The Colbert Report,” in a “from the desk” segment of “The Werd.”
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
Impeaching Donald Trump would do nothing to halt the deep decay that has beset the American republic. It would not magically restore democratic institutions. It would not return us to the rule of law. It would not curb the predatory appetites of the big banks, the war industry and corporations. It would not get corporate money out of politics or end our system of legalized bribery. It would not halt the wholesale surveillance and monitoring of the public by the security services. It would not end the reigns of terror practiced by paramilitary police in impoverished neighborhoods or the mass incarceration of 2.3 million citizens. It would not impede ICE from hunting down the undocumented and ripping children from their arms to pen them in cages. It would not halt the extraction of fossil fuels and the looming ecocide. It would not give us a press freed from the corporate mandate to turn news into burlesque for profit. It would not end our endless and futile wars. It would not ameliorate the hatred between the nation’s warring tribes—indeed would only exacerbate these hatreds.
Impeachment is about cosmetics. It is about replacing the public face of empire with a political mandarin such as Joe Biden, himself steeped in corruption and obsequious service to the rich and corporate power, who will carry out the same suicidal policies with appropriate regal decorum. The ruling elites have had enough of Trump’s vulgarity, stupidity and staggering ineptitude. They turned on him not over an egregious impeachable offense—there have been numerous impeachable offenses including the use of the presidency for personal enrichment, inciting violence and racism, passing on classified intelligence to foreign officials, obstruction of justice and a pathological inability to tell the truth—but because he made the fatal mistake of trying to take down a fellow member of the ruling elite.
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…There is no shortage of working-class Americans who feel, with justification, deeply betrayed and manipulated by ruling elites. Their ability to make a sustainable income has been destroyed. They are trapped in decaying and dead-end communities. They see no future for themselves or their children. They view the ruling elites who sold them out with deep hostility.
Trump, however incompetent, at least expresses this rage. And he does so with a vulgarity that delights his base. I suspect they are not blind to his narcissism or even his corruption and incompetence. But he is the middle finger they flip up at all those oily politicians like the Clintons who lied to them in far more damaging ways than Trump. Trump was weaponized to stick it to the man. Polls in the 2016 presidential election showed that 53 percent of Trump supporters were motivated by dislike of Hillary Clinton and only 44 percent said they were motivated by support for Trump.
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Impeaching Trump would be seen by his supporters as an effort to take away this primal, if ineffectual, form of defiance. It is yet another message to the disenfranchised, especially those in the white working class, that their lives, their concerns, their hopes and their voices do not matter. This huge segment of the population, as Trump is aware, is heavily armed. There are more than 300 million firearms in the hands of U.S. civilians, including 114 million handguns, 110 million rifles and 86 million shotguns. The number of privately owned military-style assault weapons—including the AR-15 semi-automatic rifles used in the massacres at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.—is estimated at 1.5 million. The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, an average of 90 firearms per 100 people. Mass shootings in the U.S. take place at a rate of one or more per day on average.
Economic, social and political stagnation, coupled with a belief that our expectations for our lives and the lives of our children have been thwarted, breeds violence. Trump, fighting for his political life, will use rhetorical gasoline to set it alight. He will demonize his opponents as the embodiment of evil. He will seek to widen the divisions and antagonisms, especially around race. He will brand his political opponents as irredeemable enemies and traitors. He will demand omnipotence, the power of a dictator. Many of those for whom he is a cult leader will seek to give it to him. For when the magical aura of Trump’s power is attacked, those in the Trump cult feel attacked. He is an extension of them. Trump embodies the yearning by millions of Americans, especially those in the Christian right, for a cult leader.
The efforts by the Democratic Party and much of the press, including CNN and The New York Times, to remove Trump from office, as if our problems are embodied in him, will backfire. Our social, cultural, economic and political crisis created a demagogue like Trump. These forces will grow more virulent if Trump is impeached. The longer we fail to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for the misery of over half the U.S. population and our broken democracy, the more the disease of cultism will spread. It was the seizure of power by corporations that vomited up Trump. And it will be only by freeing ourselves from corporate rule, by rebuilding our democratic institutions, including the legislative bodies, the courts and the media, that we can roll back from the abyss.
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…If we do not succeed in overthrowing corporate power, the explosive devices mailed to Trump critics and leaders of the Democratic Party, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, along with George Soros, James Clapper and CNN, allegedly by Cesar Sayoc Jr., an ex-stripper and fanatic Trump supporter who was living out of his van, will become an acceptable form of political expression. Such assassination attempts will, if left unchecked, eventually succeed. Anarchic lawlessness and tit-for-tat forms of political murder will swiftly turn the United States into a failed and terrifying state.
The most crucial aspects of the Trump-Ukraine “scandal,” which has led to impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, are not being told, even by Republicans.
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We know from the leaked, early 2014 telephone conversation between Victoria Nuland, then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, that then Vice President Biden played a role in “midwifing” the U.S.-backed overthrow of an elected Ukrainian government soon after that conversation.
That’s the biggest crime in this story that isn’t being told. The illegal overthrow of a sovereign government.
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…As booty from the coup, the sitting vice president’s son, Hunter Biden, soon got a seat on the board of Ukraine’s biggest gas producer, Burisma Holdings. This can only be seen as a transparently neocolonial maneuver to take over a country and install one’s own people. But Biden’s son wasn’t the only one.
A family friend of then Secretary of State John Kerry also joined Burisma’s board. U.S. agricultural giant Monsanto got a Ukrainian contract soon after the overthrow. And the first, post-coup Ukrainian finance minister was an American citizen, a former State Department official, who was given Ukrainian citizenship the day before she took up the post.
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That leads to another major part of this story not being told: the routine way the U.S. government conducts foreign policy: with bribes, threats and blackmail.
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…Trump may have withheld military aid to seek a probe into Biden, but it is hypocritically being framed by Democrats as an abuse of power out of the ordinary. But it is very much ordinary.
Examples abound. The threat of withholding foreign aid was wielded against nations on the UN Security Council in 1991 when the U.S. sought authorization for the First Gulf War. Yemen had the temerity to vote against. A member of the U.S. delegation told Yemen’s ambassador: “That’s the most expensive vote you ever cast.” The U.S. then cut $70 million in foreign aid to the Middle East’s poorest nation, and Saudi Arabia repatriated about a million Yemeni workers.
The same thing happened before the Second Gulf War in 2003, as revealed by whistleblower Katharine Gun (who will appear Friday night on CN Live!). Gun leaked an NSA memo that showed the U.S. sought help from its British counterpart in signals intelligence to spy on the missions of Security Council members to get “leverage” over them to influence their vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq.
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…In 2001 the U.S. threatened the end of military and foreign aid if nations did not conclude bilateral agreements granting immunity to U.S. troops before the International Criminal Court.
More recently, the U.S. used its muscle against Ecuador, including dangling a $10 billion IMF loan, in exchange for the expulsion of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from its London embassy.
This is how the U.S. conducts “diplomacy.”
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…As former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali wrote:
“Coming from a developing country, I was trained extensively in international law and diplomacy and mistakenly assumed that the great powers, especially the United States, also trained their representatives in diplomacy and accepted the value of it. But the Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States. Diplomacy is perceived by an imperial power as a waste of time and prestige and a sign of weakness.”
This fundamental corruption of U.S. foreign policy, which includes overthrowing elected governments, is matched only by the corruption of a political system that exalts partisan political power above all else.
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