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I just love the way the media and MAGAS are going insane over this pardon. LOL. An effn felon is going to be president. Spare me the fake outrage.

The reaction to the pardon by critics is appropriate in normal times. But the cat's out of the bag. We surpassed normal times 8 years ago. The political world had a demarcation line, pre trump and post trump. In the post trump world and with his election once again we've decided rules don't matter anymore. The old standards where a career or admin is ruined is gone.

Yes. Well, that and HR works for them, not for you, so it's you they are trying to neuter and manage, not the bosses they are trying to protect from people like you.

scUM fan coworker trolled a tOSU fan coworker yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The best part of this is how the trolls are so trolled by it

I personally don't think Presidents should have the power to pardon anyone. However, if I had a son and some vindictive psychopath openly stated that he's out to get me and my family, I sure as hell would use that power if I had it.

He’s not worth it

I deleted the post. My patriotism got the best of me. I'm done dealing with that jerk

Russian assets should not be the DNI. Do you have a rebuttal for that?

Bit of a shakeup. Flagg still #1 but then its Demin and Harper. Bailey drops to #4. 2025 NBA Draft Big Board: Does Cooper Flagg have competition for No. 1 spot?

I find that one way to handle bullies in positions of authority is a form of passive aggressiveness where you do your work, but don't engage with them much (maybe a sarcastic smirk once in a while just for your own satisfaction). Standing up to them works in the moment, but doesn't solve the problem because they'll want revenge. Subservience is never a good response because they'll just bully you more quietly. Passive aggressiveness works especially well with extoverts because extroverts (and it's been my observation that most bullies are extroverts)can not handle passive aggressiveness. Yes, my solution is immature and don't do it anymore, but it works!

No, in all seriousness, Trump made sweeping use of his own pardon power to help out his own friends and family, including Ivanka's father-in-law Charles Kushner, who he also just named ambassador to France. He also openly campaigned on pardoning people convicted for Jan. 6, which completely discredits the idea the pardon of Hunter give Trump whatever political cover he needs to issue controversial and even odious pardons himself. This fear of some Democrats is based on maintaining unilateral disarmament in which Trump fights dirty and wins while Dems respond as though they are trying to protect some precious notion of the norms of rules of engagement. That ship has not only sailed, it's in Augusta, Australia by now. Isn't it time for the scales to fall from their eyes and see the world for what it is now, not what they hope it is based on decades ago?

We've all been seeing the hair-on-fire responses by Democrats, fearing that the pardon will undercut faith in the U.S. justice system and give Trump the excuse he's been looking for to criticize and remake the Justice Department. But didn't Ttump and the red hats already have zero faith in the U.S. justice system anyway? And wasn't he already going to tear down the justice system and use it as his personal judge, jury, and execution force against political, media, and Hollywood enemies? So, Democrats, tell me: how does this pardon make that possibility worse? Exactly what's going to happen now under Ttump directly because of this pardon that wouldn't have happened anyway?

I could fear us going the Pirates/Rays/A's route, selling off good young players before they get expensive and replacing them with good cheap alternatives that keeps us in a 75-85-win loop indefinitely. But I have not seen any indication yet that this is what Harris-Ilitch are fixing to do, so I am going to assume they intend to build us into a perennial winner, until they prove otherwise. Yes, I recognize that assuming this, and expectations in general, are just a recipe for disappointment. Well, I'm ready to take that chance on this group. Speaking only for myself, I'm at the end of my life, so I feel as though I need to hope for something good for this franchise before the curtain falls, versus maintaining perpetual cynicism to the bitter end.

That nickname was used already. I think it was Greg Zurelien when he was with the Rams. Still, cool nickname regardless

Pretty clear to me that Biden is in F it mode. The Dems dumped him, he's still bitter about it and is taking his ball and going home. Leave the Dems to clean up the mess and do damage control. He has no more Fs to give.

They'll just create new charges post-pardon and haul them in for those.

If this Golden At Bat thing actually happens, we need to get torches and pitchforks and forcibly remove Manfred from his position and this country.

From today’s Bullwerk Don’t Stop With Hunter by Andrew Egger President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter wasn’t just a display of hypocrisy. It was also the latest in a string of decisions the president has made showing a bizarrely incoherent response to the reelection of Donald Trump. During the presidential campaign, Biden and Kamala Harris didn’t hold back about the stakes of the election, correctly sounding the alarm over Trump’s malignant authoritarianism-in-waiting. Yet since Trump won, Biden has oscillated between acting as if norms can hold and as if the house may indeed be on fire. The president has participated in transition activities to ensure a smooth handoff (as he should). And he also gave Trump a backslapping “welcome back” photo op at the White House. Republicans leered—and some progressives fumed—that this pivot showed Biden hadn’t really believed all that stuff about the dangers Trump presented. Biden’s defenders argued that he was just trying to stick up for the battered norm of the peaceful transfer of power. But the Hunter pardon suggests the president believes we are now firmly in a new, abnormal political reality. The dizzying, unprecedented decision to pardon his son not only for the crimes of which he currently stands accused but for any and all federal crimes he may have committed over a decade of his out-of-control life was, as Sonny Bunch notes today, a betrayal of the case he had made to supporters. “The notion that institutions and values are worth defending is something Biden told us to believe,” writes Sonny. “And he dispensed with those stated values the second they proved inconvenient.” But the pardon also betrays a deep worry that Republicans wouldn’t stop coming after Biden’s family until they had extracted their pound of flesh—that we are past the point of saving the institutional legitimacy of our system of justice. Biden is obviously correct that Team Trump is openly gearing up for vengeance, as Trump’s abortive attempt to install Matt Gaetz at DOJ and his ongoing attempt to replace Christopher Wray with Kash Patel at the FBI show. What remains to be seen is whether Biden’s protective actions against those forthcoming vengeances will extend beyond his own flesh and blood. A few weeks ago, former Justice Department attorney Paul Rosenzweig wrote for us arguing Biden should issue preemptive pardons to protect those whom Trump had explicitly threatened over their opposition to his candidacy: People like former Rep. Liz Cheney, whom Trump repeatedly called treasonous for her participation in the House January 6thCommittee, or Gen. Mark Milley, whom he suggested should be executed. “There can be little doubt that Trump has an enemies list,” Rosenzweig wrote, “and the people on it are in danger—most likely legal, though I shudder to think of other possibilities.” Keep in mind that Rosenzweig was writing before Trump’s announcement of Patel, who recently wrote a book explicitly listing dozens of purported deep-state Trump enemies, including everyone from Hillary Clinton and Harris to Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein to former Trump aides who have since spoken out against him, like Cassidy Hutchinson and Alyssa Farah. Reading that list, it’s painfully clear that nothing unites the names but perceived enmity to the incoming president. One imagines a loyal lapdog like Patel wouldn’t hesitate to expand that list. Maybe some of these folks wouldn’t accept preemptive pardons. It’s true that, in some people’s eyes, that could look like an admission of some sort of guilt. It’s certainly true that the right-wing infotainment system would howl that argument to the moon. But Team Trump’s rhetoric of retribution has been so naked and explicit that no reasonable person would find that sound and fury compelling. And it’s a little late for Biden to decide he doesn’t want to make any controversial pardons. The point isn’t just to ensure that, say, Cheney won’t be convicted of a crime. The point is to shore up the likes of Cheney, Fiona Hill, and Wray—as much as possible—against oppressive, life-destroying investigations on the part of a weaponized federal executive. Biden can’t protect all of America against Trump. But the people about whom Trump and his lackeys are already openly drooling and braying for revenge—those Biden could preemptively protect. Hunter can’t be the only one who could or should benefit from his use of this power. At least, in this case, the president would be affirming the principles he ran on, not jettisoning them.

The moral high ground party.

LeBron has missed 19 consecutive 3PT shots. Grant Williams hills the current record at 0-25.

I said that Presidents should not have the power to pardon anyone. However, I would protect a family member from a psychopath at all costs.

I like this nickname;

Says the dude bringing up 2014 burisma lmao

Yes, but there's more. It's not just that aging hitters have slower reflexes. It's also that the pitcher class they face as an old hitter is better than they did as a young hitter. Especially nowadays—pitchers are much harder to hit now, if nothing else than due to velocity, than they were fifteen, or ten, or even five years ago. I like to call it the Wooderson Effect: the batter gets older, the pitchers stay the same age.

Okay, it's Cyber Monday. Come on baseball, let's see some action. 3 of the Top 50 have signed so far, it's boring. WE NEED SOME ACTION. TIGERS, YOU GET AT IT, YOU GO GET THAT D-LEVEL STARTER AND LIFETIME .230 HITTER FOR YOUR LINEUP. WE'RE WAITING

The connection between global change and the Tigers season. Have we had a discussion here on Hinch not getting even 2nd in MVM voting? I thought he was a shoe-in. He truly lead a team of young, malleable kids to the playoffs despite being at 0.2% odds. Those odds reflect an event that happens once every 500 years. He then managed the team into a 2-1 advantage into the ALDS, again against the odds. Not only did he lead them through a once in a 500 year-olds life event, Hinch did more play-calling than any manager I've seen. I don't need to go into detail on how he used a much inexperienced bull-pen and lead them through pitching match-ups to produce. His bullpen days strategy has to be a subject of study for managers/coaches/analysts everywhere. And his match-ups on the other side produced a lot of memorable events. Is Hinch being black balled because of the Houston scandal or is it more like global climate where events that were once in a lifetime event are occurring awfully regularly so that we don't have to go that far back to find the last once in a lifetime flood, or hurricane, or other weather event. A once in a lifetime comeback isn't all that astounding perhaps because it's now a fad were we are presented with rarities regularly. "Jake Hardhelmet is the first player since 1937 to get hit in the head twice and hit two homers in a game." Anyway, I thought Hinch would win unanimously.

$1,302 for a Brenan Hanifee autograph? https://www.ebay.com/itm/305931822710?mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5338684451&customid=121&toolid=20012&mkevt=1

I always assumed that the luxury tax was designed to suppress salaries more than to promote competitive balance. I say the same thing about the draft, although nobody seems to agree!

That’s a pretty decent point I hadn’t contemplated before. The luxury tax may have been designed more to suppress top end salaries, which keeps the average and median salaries down over time, than to help teams be competitive against one another, since we have seen franchises like Oakland and Tampa and Cleveland win year after year with some of the lowest payrolls in the game. It may also be that TPTB prefer the teams they know will spend the highest, basically the Big Six, be those that actually do so, because those are the most popular teams that will sign the highest-priced, biggest-name superstars that will help grow the game worldwide. Of course, given the way franchises make money nowadays—through gameday media, the national network, licensing, merchandising, and digital more than through ticket sales, concessions, or (lol) winning—the “poorest” franchises are rolling in dough, the billionaires and hedge funds that own them are like pigs in ****, and their fans can all go pound sand. We are actually lucky, and no more, that the Tigers, seemingly against all odds, awoke to become a franchise that’s breaking out of that golden trash can by hiring Scott Harris, the catalyst move which is changing everything.

The best part of the story is learning that this league has been playing since 1919.

Perez man, what is going on there? Perez and Colapinto started from the pits with Perez ahead of him. Light turns green and Perez just sits there. Colapinto is halfway past Perez before he even moves. Never gains any ground on Colapinto the entire sprint. Finally comes in with about 4 laps left and changes his front wing. It had no damage at all. The announcers said it was probably just trying something new for the race tomorrow. But man, Perez has fallen off a cliff this season.

In a 'Where are they now' type of thing... TORONTO (AP) — Former All-Star closer Fernando Rodney has signed to pitch for the Hamilton Cardinals of Ontario’s Intercounty Baseball League for the 2025 season. https://www.tsn.ca/mlb/former-all-star-closer-fernando-rodney-signs-with-hamilton-of-ontario-s-intercounty-baseball-league-1.2211541

I would rather increase the weight of the ball by a quarter ounce or so than move the mound back. Both would affect pitchers and spike injuries, but at least one of them doesn’t change the actual appearance of the game.

One thing is pretty clear, none of those pitchers probably ever broke 90 mph. We talk a lot about spin today but spin works in direct proportion to the loss of time to look, and that's 100% because of increasing velo. The talk about it seems to have died down but moving the mound back a foot or two needs to be considered more seriously.

Perez went out in Q1 for sprint qualifying today. How they brought him back and not Carlos is a mystery to me.

Riddle me this Smart Dude. If all farm work is automated then who exactly hires 283 thousand farm workers (the number estimated by the Center for Migration Studies report, look it up). That's about 4% of undocumented workers in the U-S. Now maybe if they (both Republicans and Democrats) actually went after the businesses that hired undocumented workers (builders, landscapers, folks that run poultry houses which are considered agricultural btw, domestic help, Trump's wife, guys like Musk who came here illegally because he lied on his visa application) it would be more effective than whatever we've done in the past. Check your figures, Obama expelled more undocuments than Trump and built more wall.

Exactly. The game on the field is merely the conduit for maximizing revenue, and can be radically modified to that end. And if a particular radical modification doesn’t work, they can employ additional radical modifications until they are satisfied they’ve achieved optimal profitability trajectory.

As I have been told that I need a shoulder replacement; I would hope that MLB doesn't make changes that causes more shoulder injuries.