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I’ll stop beating around the bush about my disdain for prosecutors, yesterday and this morning’s search, and the juvenile justice system generally, because I can’t lie, it is personal for me. I’m going to change some minor details to preserve what little internet anonymity I have left. I’m the adoptive parent to an older teenage boy. When he was 13, he went on the run from the foster care system after he was physically abused at a residential facility. While on the run for almost a year, NO ONE (and I mean absolutely no one) was looking for him. When I would come home from California, I would perform my due diligence because I cared about him, and actually located him on one occasion. Police did a drive-by when I called, nothing more. While on the run, homeless, no family, nothing to speak of, he turned to crime. With two adult men, he committed a robbery. It was poorly done, no one was hurt, they got nothing out of it. Fast forward a year and a half, he’s doing better and has turned himself in (and was placed BACK INTO the very same abusive residential - another soapbox for another time)…. The prosecutor charged him as an adult with Armed Robbery, while pleading out the two other men to testify against him. Mind you, he was not the ringleader by any stretch of the imagination. They tried really freaking hard to put a homeless 13yo foster youth away for a substantial portion of his life, at least 8 years. Thanks to my character testimony on his behalf that I flew back to give, as well as a phenomenal public defender, he was sentenced as a juvenile and served 18 months in juvenile detention (which was also abusive and neglectful, but that’s yet another soap box). Mind you, 18 months is more than either of the other two served (both of whom have reoffended multiple times since). Upon release, he came directly to my home. It hasn’t been easy, but in the first loving home he’s ever been in, he’s done incredibly well under the circumstances. Almost every prosecutor I have come across has no real interest in the true sense of the word justice. They’re scummy and constantly pull the tactics McDonald has in the last week to look good to the politicians, the cameras, and the people who have no freaking idea what life is like for the people below them on the social ladder. They want to get rid of the poor kids, the black and brown kids, and the kids who landed in situations that their privileged lives couldn’t ever imagine. All the while appealing to those at their level and above, “aren’t you happy the world is a better/cleaner place now?” They want to look in the book and say “how do I lock this person up for as long as possible?”, without any mind that in the vast majority of crimes, that person WILL be released eventually, and become a member of society again, just like you and me. Right now, those two parents (who deserve their day in court, as heinous an act as their son committed and as negligent as they appear to be) have been absolutely vilified by the court of public opinion, because that’s the way McDonald wanted it to be. Never mind whether they are actually guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter (which I think will be an interesting question for a jury to answer if they can find a fair one). The answers to societal problems of inequity and criminality cannot be to just sit on our hands and wait for individuals to do what everyone knew (or should have known) they were going to do, throw them in a cell and lose the key when they do, and then pat each other on the back while they rot years away. Yet people fall hook-line-sinker into that line of thinking.

People with any kind of criminal history should not be allowed to buy guns. Crumbley should not have been allowed to get a gun. If you're not a responsible person, then you probably won't be responsible with a gun.

You watch a lot of cop shows, don't you?

It’s the democrats fault these trumpies let their kid get a gun and he shot people. sound.

I'm having a hard time seeing the Rangers as winners. I think they are crazy.

I agree with this. If there is an impartial jury of peers (or two) to be found in Oakland County, I think the defense has a really strong case here. Holding parents criminally liable for their child's actions is a very slippery slope, and I don't know if there is any precedent. They were negligent without a doubt in my mind, and would almost certainly be found responsible for damages in a civil suit. Did they commit involuntary manslaughter though? I'm not sure. Say someone has a kid who is 15-17, mentally ill, but usually good at hiding it and very resistant to medication or therapy. Parent goes to the corner store for something one day and the kid has a mental breakdown, grabs a knife from the block in the kitchen, and kills someone who is just walking their dog down the street. Is that parent criminally responsible for their child's actions? They didn't force the child to be seen by a mental health professional after all. They left the child without supervision. They didn't secure their knives. Keep in mind that with no weapons charges being filed, that likely means they broke no laws as it comes to storing the weapon (which is infuriating in its own right, but also a separate conversation from whether the Crumbley parents are guilty). It will be an intriguing case to follow.

I would guess 75% or more of people who come into trouble with the law on any given day have past run-ins with the law. Prior to the Waukesha Parade incident, he was charged in the prior incident with Obstructing a Police Officer, 2nd Degree Reckless Endangerment, Disorderly Conduct, Battery, and Bail Jumping. The incident itself came from the mother of one of his children calling police and stating that he had tried to run her over, displaying to police a tire mark on her pant leg. A much more standard incident for police contact than the high-profile ones that have been talked about extensively here. Say that Waukesha never happened, that Brooks pled not guilty to those charges, went to trial, and evidence came out that completely exonerated him. This was a vindictive ex and video from across the street that the police didn't see in their investigation shows the woman rubbing her leg against a tire after he's left, and it's not clear that he hit her at all. These are all things that might not be known at arraignment, but could certainly come out at trial. If he had been denied bond or given an outrageous bond that a low-income individual such as himself could never afford, that means that he sat incarcerated for months awaiting this trial, for having done absolutely nothing wrong (in this incident at least). What he ultimately did was tragic, without a doubt, and the world would be a better place now if he had been denied bond. That doesn't mean that we should be reactionary and now more harshly punish every future person who walks through the doors of a courtroom accused of violating a law. Accusations are only accusations, and people are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. It also doesn't mean that if his bond was higher but still affordable with collateral (say $10k) that it wouldn't have happened.

As for Russia not being as big a concern as Iran...talk about exactly what Putin wants the RW nutters to think. Putin's a Christian, he doesn't like homosexuals, he believes in slapping a ho, and probably supports the right to keep and bear arms!

additional signings will be arms that throw from the mound.

the concept started in the middle ages. when you captured somebody, you held them for ransom. but then you would let them go on so they could rustle up the money to pay the ransom and then come back when its paid. the french king captured at poitiers being the most famous example. or richard the lionheart. but i digress. i think bail is possibly unconstitutional. you get arrested, you havent been convicted yet. by what right can they hold you? so im sympathetic to "anti-bail" prosecutors (like our own here in chicago). but with that is going to come increases in crime because you are likely putting people back on the street who are in criminal gangs who will return to do criminal things. as i believe you noted before, the reasons for crime are society based reasons, and local prosecutors and cops arent the ones that can really influence that on a large scale. bail reform has its positives - not locking people up for minor offenses cause they cant pay - and negatives - letting out people who will commit other crimes again before being tried for their last crime. i tend to favor the bail reformers.

What do you think is the point of bail? These are people who have NOT been convicted of a crime. The purpose is not to prevent crime while awaiting trial, it’s to hold a deposit to ensure people return to court for their trial. If Brooks could have been predicted to commit more violent crimes while out, he should have been denied bond. No one can predict that 100% though. If you give him (and the 10000s of people like him who don’t commit violent acts while awaiting trial) a bond they cannot afford (like I don’t know… $500k), you’re just jailing 10000s of people who haven’t been convicted of anything, many of whom will be found not guilty at the end of the day. Meanwhile they are losing their job, their homes and cars, their relationships with their significant others and children, and everything they care about. And what do you think happens when you build more prisons and jail more people, even for just those who are convicted and sentenced to harsh penalties? You get more people exiting jail without jobs, homes, cars, or relationships, who the state then has to either support or be just STUNNED (/s) when they reoffend. The US already holds something like 20-25% of the world’s prisoners…. Maybe another thing we should look to other countries for models in fixing.

You're joking, right? Build more prisons?

It's an curious calculus. Putin attacking Ukraine is not a direct threat to the US like the wars in the middle east that threatened oil supplies a generation ago were. And in fact if Ukraine fell back completely into the Russian orbit it would not even have significant impact on the world economy. The ex-Sov block are not serious economic players and even on the energy front Putin wants a puppet gov in Ukraine more to guarantee he *can* sell gas into Europe than so he can threaten the EU not to. What's at stake in Europe is all about principle, not so much actual security or economics, and Putin may be right that the West may rather compromise principle than actually spend blood and treasure when it's just as easy to say "Well Ukraine has been part of Russia since Catherine the Great - this is just a return to the longer term status quo" Taiwan is a much tougher case. If an attempted Chinese take-over of Taiwan led to widespread destruction of the Taiwanese economy it would seriously upend the world economy. The are a big player and are huge in many critical technologies like semi-conductor manufacture. And of course if the Taiwanese actually landed any blows of their own on the mainland? It's formulae for real chaos. I don't see the Japanese or Korean or even us being willing to go to war with China over Taiwan, but it still would be chaos enough short of that. But Xi is probably too smart for that. Unlike Putin who is too imperialist to care about what he may break, Xi wants his cake and to eat it too. He wants Taiwan intact. So I think we are looking at a very long game pressure campaign hoping to just tire everyone out - and the question of how hard the Taiwanese would actually fight? Who knows on that one. Bottom line I wouldn't argue that China is a more serious threat, but Putin is a more immediate one to cause trouble.

everything politicians do is political. news at 11.

I'm glad it happened this way. I don't think they should have the freedom to decide when they turn themselves in.

I understand that this case is high profile, and that these are significant charges, but this entire “manhunt” was outrageous. It is not unusual for someone to take a day or two to turn themselves in when a warrant is issued. What is unusual is for a prosecutor to refuse contact with a defense attorney, hold a press conference as the day ends on a Friday, and then basically turn off the podium and claim “we can’t find them! They’re running!” McDonald is playing games. She wants public perception to be that these parents were making some break for it, when I think they fully intended to turn themselves in on Monday. If they wanted to go to Florida or Canada, they’d have been there by now. They were hiding from the media circus, as any reasonable person would have. Since every agency under the sun wants to stick their nose in though, I’m sure the FBI and US Marshals won’t have any problem now that they’re in custody devoting these kinds of resources to finding the 100s of children who go missing from the Michigan foster care system ever year right? Right? No? Hmm.

They apparently are not turning themselves in.

In the gran scheme of things, $4,000 isn't a lot so they will need help if they plan to actually flee and get away. I suggest they look for vacuum cleaner stores with owners who drive kidney bean looking vans.

table legs with protruding nails aren't weapons

I wouldn't be surprised if she ran for state wide office in the future but Bouchard isn't someone to be trusted at face value.

I don't trust things Mike Bouchard says. He pulled the civil forfeiture crap on some people I know for legally growing weed, they cleared every single step with the state, he did it anyway and took almost everything they owned. By the time it was settled the lawyer fees had ruined them.

I can't imagine the sheriff didn't know charges were coming. The prosecutor said a decision would be made Friday. He just lost track of the parents and is trying to deflect blame.

Nobody who lived through the last decade will or should take anything for granted.

The World Series ended November 2 and could’ve gone longer. Adding more teams would make the season go even deeper into November. And there’s no way they’re going to shorten the season to accommodate expanded playoffs. And teams that are wild cards now would justifiably have to be bumped up to at least a three- or five-game series? A bunch of crappy one-game playoffs seems like a stupid “reward“ punishing better teams and rewarding worse ones. And you end up going until the middle of November? Every opportunity to generate more revenue isn’t always good. Amalgamated Puppy Grinders is not a good idea even though it may create jobs, and neither is playing halfway through November.

You realize that there are a decent amount of major league baseball players who don't make millions, right? I don't think you can have a conversation about the earnings of major league baseball players without discussing the fact that these guys were all once minor leaguers and, a majority of them, had to defer salary doing normal jobs and do things like living with host families in order to accommodate their pursuit of the big leagues. Hit the "laugh" button all you want, those are risks.

This is wrong on a couple of levels. The idea that players are taking no risk is laughable because, again, baseball is the only source of income for most of them. As long as the game shuts down their income stops, and however long it stretches into the season--or seasons (!)--that eats into the short window of time they have to ply their trade and make any income at all. Plus, because players are well known and in the media all the time, every day the lockout stretches on, they're the ones who get blamed for the whole thing. That's the complete opposite of the owners' situation, since they are relatively unknown because they hardly ever appear in the media, and who all have multiple sources of non-baseball income. For a local example, consider the Ilitches, who own a pizza chain, a hockey team, arenas and theaters, and a casino hotel. Whether or not baseball is even played doesn't affect any of these businesses. It appears that you've misplaced the risk on the opposite end of the spectrum. Also, the idea that all players are millionaires. I can see why you believe this because the media, much of which is owner-controlled or at least sympathetic to them, lead you to believe that all players are millionaires. But this is true of only a small portion of major league players. Of the 1,374 players who stepped onto a major league field last year, about 30% were paid at least $1 million. That means 70% of players were not. Many of these players bounced up and down between the minors. Most of those guys scuffled for years at minor league money, which I guarantee is less than you make, before steeping into the sun for a brief moment. And many of those guys also came from impoverished circumstances from third-world countries. Unlike many of the men who own the teams, few if any players were born with the silver spoon. But ultimately, whether some players are millionaires is not even the issue. The issue is that revenue in the game has increased substantially, the share of that revenue going to players has dropped to historic lows, and as people working in an industry that generates the money, they have some leverage to improve their circumstances to at least what it was just a few years ago. This isn't like owning a restaurant, where it's the owner's world and the fungible employees just live in it. Players are connected to the game as people by the rest of us, so they are not mere employees.

Also, it's a pretty ridiculous statement to say that players take no risk. Think about the guys on the bottom.... not the Carlos Correas of the world, but the guys who slug it out in the Minor Leagues making not much only to get to bigs. The sacrifices that these guys on the lower level are making *are* risks.... often times, people are deferring money they could be making doing normal jobs in order to pursue this line of work. Sometimes I just think these conversations ignore how many guys in the league actually had to make sacrifices in order to get to where they are. Not every player in baseball was drafted in the first round and had it handed to them.

So? When poor people take a risk, we call them irresponsible. Why should wealthy people get special consideration for taking a risk? If you take a risk with your money and you screw up, that's your fault.

That's a good question. Missed games hurts Baseball as a collective, since the entire enterprise gets shut down and the gameday revenue stops flowing in, and it obviously hurts Players for most of whom this is their sole livelihood and source of income. But when it comes down to individual owners, I don't think baseball is the main source of income for even a single one of them. I would bet that for most owners, baseball is a very small part of their portfolio. For however long baseball is suspended and games are missed, every one of those individual owners will be fine and the income will still to flowing to them from their various other sources. So, I'm going to conclude that Players will be hurt more by missed games.

If the current relationship is unfair, then of course the players would have more demands. Either the owners want to play a full season or they don't. That's where there can be leverage. It's a battle of wills. Which side is going to be hurt more by missed games?

when things are slanted to once side then of course that side will have fewer demands. Why wouldn't they?

I don't feel bad for either side, but I am on the labor side. I despise Manfred and don't trust the owners. They are all making a fortune and the players (who are the product) want a bigger piece. Also Manfred sucks.

what's the rationale? There is none. Your take is like a guy pointing a guy at another's head and saying "Well he's being unreasonable" to the guy he's pointing the gun at. Revenues are up and player's salaries are down. MLB can't cry foul to the degree that they need to pull this stunt now. Manfred has no credibility.

Late to this thread but I enjoy the conversation. I retired in May of 2017. I invested without fail for over 30 years in a 401K. The 401K was still relatively new to the marketplace for the average investor when I began contributing. As I recall, I began contributing 6% of my salary initially. Then I moved to 10% and then 15%. For about 30 years I contributed 15% of my salary. If I were to offer advice…I would advise that 15% is a base to work off of, 20% if you possibly can. Everyone’s situation is different. This includes the options you may or may not have through your employer. Personally, and I do invest fairly conservatively, I would avoid individual stocks in a retirement account. If you want to buy a few stocks here and there, do it outside money you’re relying on for retirement. Be very aware of fees. Again, your employer is choosing the options you have but be very aware of what you’re paying in fees. A good S&P fund or ETF is fine. The S&P beats practically everything out there year in and year out. The yield is generally around 2%, historically speaking. If you’re relatively young, ignore the market and don’t stop contributing. Educate yourself on investing. I think most here have by reading the comments. Don’t make this complicated, it’s not. Lastly, the most under utilized investment vehicle in this country is the Roth IRA. If at all possible, and again everybody’s situation is different, try to max one of these out every year. I feel for younger investors in this country right now, my son included. SS may or may not be around and at the rate we’re going taxes are going to be a bear. Pensions are long gone. As a FWIW, I’m a Vanguard fan. I subscribe to Morningstar for dabbling in individual stocks now that I’m retired. They are a good resource if anyone is interested. A Premium annual subscription was $199 a few months back. They have a lot of good information for review. Apologies for getting long.

The minimum player salary is $570k, hardly going backwards. Maybe as a percentage to owner profit??? Sorry, have to side with owners 100% Players are treated like gold, never wanting for anything. I would play for $0, with or without the MANY additional perks. Owners risk everything, players risk nothing.