gehringer_2

Piece by Ben Rhodes (Obama admim alum) about Platner in the Times today. FWIW, he does not think Platner is a Nazi candidate - he thinks he's an anti-war, anti-military-industrial complex candidate.

38 minutes ago, romad1 said:

what goober is going to change their mind about supporting Trump to the bitter end?  Maybe nobody in that category.  But, if the will of American allies is taunted by these sorts of propaganda and they see more of their people laughing at Americans its all to the Iranian's good. 

The counterpoint is that having Trump bored and frustrated with the whole thing is more likely to end up with him more or less waking away from it all and Iran getting more of what they want,  than giving him more reason to see the conflict in the personal vendetta terms that is more likely to make him more dangerous and instransigent

1 hour ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

no denying they know US culture well enough to be good at this and the opposite in not true. But that said, they aren't doing anyone, including themselves, any good with ti.

On 4/20/2026 at 2:58 PM, Motown Bombers said:

His numbers are lower than they were in 2018 but exceptionally lower on the economy which turns out voters. 

this most recent poll that has him down ~33% - if it is to be believed, is a solid increment down from the 38-42 where he he seemed to hold in the past. I don't want to give the idea I'm resistent to evidence - I just want to see it!

a little more than 1/2 way to Sparky’s 40 game marker we’ve got a 500 team, and that’s what they are going to be if run prevention doesn’t ratchet up a notch or two. 

Remember when our farm system had given us two stars in him and Garcia? Good times….

i couldn’t watch this one, but looks like Kieder recovered after a bad innings and kept them in it. But 7 h 2 bb, for DeJesus to get 4 outs? What does a guy have to do get pulled around here? 

1 hour ago, oblong said:

Their purpose isn’t teaching or expression. It’s just to bully.  

yup. What i find so funny is that as a society, the Christian Right is so selectively oblivious.  Do they think that OT god of plague and genocide, who strikes down anyone who puts a fire pot in the wrong place is just going to give them a pass on 3, 4, 7, and 10? It reminds me of what Paul said about “with the law comes sin”. They condemn themselves by their own stds. Go figure. 

Which is because, as you note,  it’s not really about religion per se at all, it’s about anti-democracy. it’s about establishing that  “my rules transcend your vote”

you aren’t going to get great defense playing mediocre defenders

19 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

I mean no since Wisconsin has elected the likes of Ron Johnson three elections in a row. 

as terrible as Trump has been, once you break it down to the races that matter,  I'm still not seeing any forecasts that rate the Dem's chance of taking the necessary Senate seats as better than 50/50. That's were the rubber meets the road to defang Trump. Granted, some of that is reluctance to go out on a limb because along with Trump, the GOP has exceeded their past polling, but it's still telling you that there still isn't enough signal out there to be unequivocal. I'd love to see some data that Collins solidly underwater and Peltola or Talarico were a slam dunk- that's what a wave will look like.

9 minutes ago, IdahoBert said:

I don’t think that’s true anymore. It used to be, but all the secret secrets have been revealed and they test for them. That doesn’t make up, however, for the studied conceit that the teams, their physicians and the UCI itself all okayed. 

Possibly for now, but in general sport only tends to be clean temporarily in the aftermath of each crackdown, then in pretty short order the miscreants regain their lead over the gendarmes. 

13 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I've thought of that but Flaherty is useless in the pen. Not even for long relief, if he can't throw strikes.

DD was talking about Jack usually losing it after 10 more batters - if that were true you might able to use him in long relief in place of the way Hinch wants to use Anderson, but the 10 batters in thing certainly wasn't true tonight - 3 walks in the 1st 7 batters.

6 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Michigan historically and recently has been more to the left of Wisconsin 

granted, but retaking  MI and WI is not a wave for the Dems, it's just getting you back to even.

20 minutes ago, GalagaGuy said:

The winner of the marathon ran an average time of 4:39 per mile.  Elite marathon runners might be the most amazing athletes in all of sports.  

tour de france riders close, though mostly artificially enhanced

4 minutes ago, ben9753 said:

So done with Flaherty.

there are guys who come with out of nowhere plays - like Javy, and then there are guys who do stuff like that. Mental preparedness I guess. 

4 minutes ago, oblong said:

FWIW, I typically leave the regent races blank on my ballot as I don't know them and I don't really care.

yup - I think most people do. And as carefully as I do vet UM regents, I almost never vote the MSU or WSA slates exacty because I don't follow the issues at those schools. There was point a number of years ago when I did make a point of voting against all the incumbent MSU Trustees because they had mad a bad enough muddle in E. Lansing that it got on my radar.

 a̶s̶s̶u̶m̶i̶n̶g̶ h̶e̶ g̶e̶t̶s̶ p̶a̶s̶t̶ e̶i̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ A̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ o̶r̶ B̶r̶o̶w̶n̶ i̶n̶ t̶h̶e̶ p̶r̶i̶m̶a̶r̶y̶, w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ i̶s̶ q̶u̶e̶s̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ -̶ i̶n̶ f̶a̶c̶t̶

27 minutes ago, romad1 said:

the Political Science and non-aligned political campaign industry crowds seems to think a wave is happening.   What could change it from happening?   Trump suddenly much more popular?  

But beyond Wisconsin, there is little good data from full turnout elections. And Wisconsin should flip - it's a faiirly moderate state. Beyond that there is a belief that trump has managed to alienate a lot of his supporters, but so far it's all anecdote and speculation. That's OK, but it's not proof. His overall approval numbers are down, but not down enough from where they always are to indicate numbers for a major re-alignment.

23 minutes ago, NorthWoods said:

Getting him some work there to prepare for the inevitable vanishing of Tork.

14 BB and 12 H - seemed to be auditioning for the Justyn-Henry Malloy mantle, which won't get him very far.

don't really like Keith at 1st but that's relatively minor nit to pick. Not so bad if Javy isn't at short as he's likely to make the toughest throws for his 1B.

Eli's reviews around town have been good, I'm not surprised at his success. 

I don't know a lot of alums who have been happy with the Regents handling of Schlissel, the hiring and firing of Ono, and even if they couldn't have know Syverud was going to be sick, he was at best a caretaker hire. So it's not like the incumbents have strong resumes at the most important job they do. 

8 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

It's just going to be a partisan race. Most people will vote straight ticket Dem or Republican. If it is a bad year for Republicans, like we think it could and should be, people will plunk for the Democratic ticket, which will include UofM, MSU, and Wayne State boards.

I don't think so. Governing board elections have small turnouts  and even when Trump won MI the GOP didn't do well in regent's races, which I take as a sign that MI doesn't get a lot of straight ticket voters.  I have to believe it's mostly alums from each school that decide those races. 

If there really is a wave election, maybe. I'll believe that when I see it. Not saying it won't happen, but the Dems had this level of anticipitory euphoria multiple times now only for the election to turn out to be squib.

35 minutes ago, Stanley70 said:

His footwork is not there, too many flat footed throws. He has the arm strength to get the ball there but the accuracy suffers. 

Getting him right will be the difference between a team that can make the playoffs and one that loses 4 games in the big ten.

 

he also has lacked any sense of touch so far. Maybe better receivers solves part of that, but on too many throws he made it harder on his receivers that it had to be.

53 minutes ago, oblong said:

Maklid beat out Acker, who had his own issues to deal with....

with Acker out I'd put my money on Brown and Schostak. Epstein is apparently a Trumper and I don't see Maklid getting the support of Alumni, who do most of the voting in a regent's election.

18 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

but they get thrown out a lot too. 

I'd prefer a grading system which broke out coach decisions from player decisions. I get its all put together as a matter of team performance, but being sent into sure outs is a fundamentally different problem for a team to solve than than having runners who don't run the bases well, so as a diagnostic metric I would prefer that cases be spilt.

27 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Tigers through April 9 (4-9):

 

19th in pitching

14th in hitting

18th in base running

25th in fielding

 

Tigers since April 9 (8-1):

 

1st in pitching

12th in hitting

19th in base running

30th in fielding

They've had some dumb sends home, which is a reflection on Cora rather than the team's base running ability.

11 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I think Harris re-acquired Workman? I may be wrong because I don't really keep track of how we get talent, just that we do get talent.

But, in case anyone was wondering why we didnt bring him up, he's another LH bat. And we've been desperate for RH bats since last summer. The need was ignored all winter.

IRRC, Workman was lost to the Cubs via Rule V last off season. Played a few game for the Cubs, they traded him the White Sox but apparently that doesn't change the Rule's requirement that if he falls off the major league roster he comes back to Detroit, so when the Sox Cut him, he ended up back in Toledo.