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The first rule of Condescending Club is.....actually, it's quite complicated and you probably wouldn't understand it.

It won't happen. At the very least I hope the Republicans would come up with false accusations and treat the nominee the way the dems treated the Trump nominees. I doubt they would thought. They can do some low things but they wouldn't stoop as low as the democrats. What ever they do they need to make it very tough on them.

Ukraine isn't an ally to the US. They aren't in NATO. The only thing they have done is give Joe's boy a job, that he wasn't qualified for, that paid a lot of money.

I'm not a fan of McConnell but the best thing he did in his career is keep Garland from being on the SCOTUS. He would have been a politician and his decisions based on politics like he has as AG. He's been an embarrassment as AG. I assume Biden's nominee or the dems nominee since Biden won't have much say in it, will be a racist decision. The person will be picked by their skin color and not their qualifications. The new Justice will most likely be ruling based on politics and not the law.

i dont care about stockton's politics, i do care about isiah putting 44 on stockton's overrated ass.

Their peers are the ones who put Harold Baines in the Hall of Fame. The writers are fine, but they need to get rid of the ones that don't take it seriously. If they haven't covered the game for ten years, they shouldn't be voting.

ortiz is one of my least favorite players. but what is really galling is the hypocrisy. if steroids are keeping clemens, bonds, and arod out (who are all much better than ortiz) then how is fat papi in? its a joke. but its the hall of fame. the hall of fame has been a joke for a while.

I'm going to complain about the local schools teaching Arabic numerals in grade school.

That’s something.

It is a lousy logo. I mean the guardians of traffic are pretty cool looking on that bridge, you think they could have done better.......... But the worst logo - in the history of sports - belongs right here in the D The sad, confused tiger that needed serious dental work. How did this even happen?

I don't disagree with what you catalog here, but I'll specify that I'm talking residential segregation. We are much more integrated publicly, but the basic question is whether America is still a racist nation, and I would argue that despite all the changes that you note since 1922, it still hasn't changed that basic calculus that White American move away from where Black Americans live and we are still a vastly privately segregated county. That is the one irreducible part of the equation that, despite all the changes in law, and *public* behavior, which have certainly made life for Blacks in America much better, tell me that at heart, this country still harbors a fundamental racist bias. And I would argue that on a residential basis, this country is at best only marginally less segregated by where people live, go to school or go to church, than 100 yrs ago.

Another thing I'd like to see them do is require that all ballots be public. The private ballots tend to be writers that don't vote for many players. This is not a presidential election. It's sports. You would think that sports writers would want to make their votes public and talk about them.

A couple of role players with modest upside and a mid to late 1st? Nah If that's the best offer Weaver can get in this sellers market then just keep him and reassess in the offseason. I'm not a big Grant fan but I don't think they should trade him just for the sake of trading him. I get the arguments for Grant not being a great fit for the team anymore and not being worth his next extension but I feel like that Minnesota package would be selling somewhat low considering the way the market is shaping up.

Collins would be a God send here and if you do decide to go with Ivey and not one of the bigs in the draft I would totally go after Ayton if we could. I guess the problem comes though is that I prefer Bey at the 4 vs. The 3 but that would be a small concession to have that much athletic talent in the front court.

Tots and pears

You and I are generally on the same side of things, but I have to call BS on this claim. There is a humongous difference between 1922 and 2022. In 1922, races were segregated by law, and in practically every American state and territory. Black people could not live within certain, and outside of certain other, neighborhoods; could not stay in "white" hotels; could not eat in "white" restaurants; could not shop in certain stores; could not hold political office; could not even vote in many jurisdictions. Some places required all black people to be off the street by sundown. All by law. None of this exists now, and this circumstance itself has been prohibited by subsequent law and court rulings. That by itself is a huge difference between then and now. And that doesn't contemplate that businesses would not hire black people for any but the most menial jobs, that black people would be routinely lynched without provocation and its perpetrators openly protected by the prevailing power structure and its enforcement apparatus, or, on a softer note, that blacks were almost never represented as actual human beings in popular culture. None of this is a factor anymore. I think you know that I understand that there is still what should be considered an unacceptable degree of segregation resulting from the conditions of a century ago, and that de facto institutional racism exists in place of de jure institutional racism in many circumstances. Work, much work, needs to be done to erode all such remaining barriers for all people, regardless of their identity, background, beliefs, or choices. But even considering the considerable barriers that do still exist, and even now in 2022, black people, and other people of color, are not prevented by law from doing any of the things I list out above. We are not a perfectly desegregated country by any definition, and may not be even by the time our grandchildren die off, but we are certainly much less segregated today than in 1922.

Trust me, it was just a joke.

It's not so much stonewalling, but simply letting the people decide.

The Guardians of the Cellar of the AL Central.

This is your wake-up call for Taiwan

i assume the vouchers will come with instructions on how to apply, but i agree that they will end up taking away the best students from struggling schools. now, the question is why should those students be forced to go to school in a bad school because of where they live, while other wealthier students can afford to go to better private schools? no amount of funding will save those bad public schools. schools are as good as the parents and kids that attend. active participating parents who instill those values in their children will lead to better public schools in the area. i dont support "defunding public schools", but i do think the idea that if we throw tons more money at certain schools or force kids to go to bad schools even if they can succeed elsewhere that those schools will get better is a pipedream. what will improve those schools is better economic conditions for their parents.

I'll do you the honor of not sharing the photo.

Heck of a game by Cade in a competitive loss. It was a lot of fun to watch him just take over. These are the types of losses I like to see this year, not the 30 point blowouts. Great to see Cade continuing to improve and we're not even at the All Star break yet. This team needs a real Center so bad. Watching Cade do all this damage while having both defenders crowd him after the pick is painful. His stat-line would've been even more impressive with a lob threat out there. I've been calling for having Killian run the bench unit, so I hope that's the plan going forward rather than just these couple of games due to the hip injury. He was supposed to be a pick n roll maestro and a great passer - we won't see that with him in the starting lineup alongside Cade. Let's let him run the bench unit and see what we have by year end. We already know he's a very good defender. Does he just become a bust, does he improve his shooting and fall into the Lonzo Ball 3 and D PG archetype, or does he he improve his ball skills and fall into the Ricky Rubio archetype? That's what we need to know going into the offseason.

its more than that, its a generational thing. the older sports writer (i.e.: hacks) still vote based on who they liked or perceived morality bullshit and less on stats (see phil rogers voting for buerhle and ortiz for the hall of fame and not bonds or clemens). the next generation will likely vote more on stats and will have other moral bugaboos (likely liberal social issues) and will not consider peds as a hindrance like their older brethren. living in chicago and having to deal with phil rogers, joe cowley, and paul sullivan over the years just highlights how stupid most baseball writers are. like you guys and mccoskey.

and again, grant hinders this team. look what they've done without him? they've finally done what most people here have told them to do all season: put hayes on the bench and give the ball to cade and let him work. if grant is on the team he hogs the ball with all his one on one iso shit that takes the ball out of cade's hands. cade defers to grant. look, if grant wants to stand in the corner and shoot threes, that's great. if grant wants to be the guy with the ball in his hands when cade is getting a rest? that's great too. but grant starting and continuing to go one on five in casey's weak ass offense? nope, nada, trade him now.

the united states is not going to war over ukraine. the united states SHOULD not go to war over ukraine. ukraine is not a nato member and we owe it nothing. when we go off on our little dalliances to "defend democracy" we get ourselves in trouble. (and ukraine isnt much of a democracy anyway...freedom house gives them a lower ranking than (gasp) hungary with evil orban...even though freedom house is bullshit) we have a set of solid alliances that we need to respect and defend. israel, nato, japan, south korea, australia, canada!. other than that, we can pick and choose our battles in the new cold war. ukraine is not in our interests and should not be a red line in any sand. russia will not invade a country that is a member of nato. the us can use the ukraine as an excuse to bolster up some defenses in poland and the baltics to make them feel better, but it should not be fighting russia in the ukraine. i assume this is biden playing bad cop to europe's good cop to try to strike some deal that will leave russia holding the cards on ukraine without formally invading it.

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This is the thing about the Terry McAuliffe gaffe during the campaign... it clearly was a gaffe, saying that parents shouldn't have control over schooling is never gonna play well. Having said that, as we are currently learning from living in our red state, 'parents' aren't a monolith.... it's really just a question about which set of parents are empowered and get to call the shots and which set of parents have no voice at all. As far as I'm concerned, I'm in the latter group; if you don't agree with their line, these clowns are making the job of being a parent harder in Texas, and that now appears to be case in Virginia as well.

It affects only major league teams and organizations’ 40-man rosters, who are dues-paying major leaguers. Everyone else is outside of that and are free to play this year even if the big leagues shuts down for the whole season.

Or Leo:

I definitely think he is worthy but I felt there have been way more worthy guys than him in the past not get in on their first ballot, not to mention the guys on this ballot I felt were more worthy. Like look how long Edgar Martinez had to wait cause the voters thought it would be blasphemy to vote in a dh but Ortiz gets to waltz in on his first try.

I enjoy seeing all the negativity here about Ortiz. I think he is legit, but he was probably about the 9th best player on the ballot and has some of the same character flaws as those who were better. It's funny because everybody in Boston thinks he is greatest thing ever and I was hoping he'd have to wait his turn.

Yes, Payton will go make a fortune being a studio guy for one of the networks. He will be recharged as soon as a team with a good QB situation offers him 4/$60m.

the GMO thing covers multiple of issues. I would agree there is little evidence that GMO food is harmful to consume, but the issue of whether it is harmful to the environment to grow it is a different question. e.g - If engineering crops to resist glyphosate results in more massive quantities of glyphosate being pumped into the environment where it 'overflows' into other systems where it is toxic, you may still believe with justification that there is a problem with GMO.

I think the fact that he contacted him and talked to him about it is good enough. Questioning whether that qualifies as an official apology makes one sound like a whiney little snowflake. Biden said something dumb and apolgized for it. Trump never did that in his life.

perfect is the enemy of the good.