gehringer_2

Not.

Larry Doby comtemplating how glad he was not to be a catcher?

Prigozhin is certainly a bad actor. The thing is that it's not really clear what he wants. Early statements were to the effect that he wanted to clean out the MoD so Russia could *continue* the war more effectively, and that Putin himself was a victim of MoD incompetence and misinformation. That was before we heard from Putin and it was unclear whether this was some 3D chess level ploy of his to re-create a more pliant defence establishment. But Putin made it clear this morning that whatever green lights he's giving Prigozhin in the past he wants him stopped now. So what is Prigozhin? He's not an ideological revolutionary, he's not a freedom fighter/reformer. He is a creep, but what else? He's looking to me like the dog that may catch the UPS truck. What's he going to do with it? Does he even know?

Favorite part: It's amazing how much you can get done when you worry more about the job than the reporting about the job.

Russian State forces fortifying entrance routes to Moscow. Sounds like this so far relatively bloodless rebellion is not going to be bloodless for too much longer.

The Coup Plans were all on Hunter Biden's laptop.

This moring Putin had to address his people on state TV to plead that they resist a military revolt in his army. Who had that on their bingo card 15mo ago?

That's the fun part, so far he hasn't had to - aside from taking down a couple of helicopters early on, no-one in the Russian Army seems to care to fight with him. Putin is finding out there is a down side to beating your nation into passiivity. He produced a nation where no-one cared to oppose him, in the same nation no-one will care to save him. Putin is apparently now waiting for Kadyrov to save his butt. Yup. Creating free lance armies is pretty much State Suicide 101. Or, as Gandalf would say: "A Treacherous Weapon is ever a danger to the hand."

Things getting progressively murkier. Reports that Wagner HQ in multiple places have been 'raided' by interior police. Meanwhile Prigozhin is in Rostov making nice with generals that were calling for him to stand down a few hours ago.

yeah - but he has to get control of it first.

Need some hitters.

Another report, another conclusion. https://www.reuters.com/world/no-direct-evidence-covid-19-pandemic-started-wuhan-lab-us-intelligence-report-2023-06-24/

Torkelson gets an asterisk on that K.

well at least Stewart is out of the game.

I'd say for starters he has to secure a fuel supply somewhere or he's not going to get far.

arming independent militias is a suicidal course for any government, even a dictatorship. Putin set Wagner to get chewed up at Bakhmut and now he's done with them and wants them to go away, but it's never to easy to tell thousands of armed men what to do.

1st inning triple extends Parker Meadows' hitting streak to 13 games.

wild Of course it could all just be some Kabuki on Putin's part but here's hoping it all goes South for him no matter how it starts.

What can you do? He should be in Toledo developing his command/consistency.

Well of course it does.

Good luck. I don't see anyone taking the nomination from Trump other than the possbility of the Federal corrections department refusing him furloughs to campaign - and a lot of things have to break right to get there.

well, that means it's a pretty sure bet the strikes did happen.

It wouldn't be half so bad if he were even a competent Judge, but he's an idiot. Invoking the 13th century in Dobbs - then yesterday he was the *sole* dissenter in the courts rebuff of a couple of states trying to control how the Federal gov runs immigration. You can have all the complaints you want about US immigration policy from admin to admin, but the idea that a State has any standing force the Federal government's hand on policy is legal drivel. Even Normally-I'm-a-mile-off-the-reservation-Thomas couldn't see his way to disagree with the majority on that one.

sadly I think there is zero probability of this. It's the crazies that tend to be the most monomaniacally committed. They will all stay with Trump while more secondary voices peel off slices of the remainder who are looking for less crazy voices. The thing is each voice will appeal to some of the sane because of the natural breadth of concerns of more normal people. Thus the sane vote divides and the crazy vote congeals -- to Trump. You can book it.

Pittsburgh is a traditional salary bottom feeder so there's some conventional wisdom that they would rather underslot the HS player. Ownership did spend a bunch of money on Bryan Reynolds, maybe they've changed their tack.