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I don't think the Astros can sign Bregman since they let him walk, so I think there might be some bad blood there. But if they could and would sign Bregman, sure, I would do the deal, and the Astros might be talked into it on those terms. They have no one decent for RF that I can see.

It’s easier to pad on top of and then skim off a flight costing taxpaying suckers hundreds of thousands of dollars than it is to do the same to a flight costing $8,577.

OK, now I get Trump’s interest in no taxes on tips. https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/employer-payroll-tax-obligations-for-tipped-employees

Also, they can’t build houses if all the people with the hands to build them are deported.

I wonder how many of this kind of movie ideas the Trump administration will successfully thwart, using harassment and threats of investigations and IRS audits of studios and production companies? That would be one way to MAGAtize Hollywood.

Also, “African Americans”? Too woke a phrase. I’m sure Trump can come up with another word for them and mandate its use via some proclamation.

Never Episcopalian. Too close to Catholic. Assembly o’ God. There’s your state church.

Trump’s CIA is now embracing the lab leak story? You don’t say …

Christ Almighty, she's a complete dip****.

The irony being, we got Harris from a Big Six team! When I say "Big Six", I don't mean the teams with the six best records every year, or over the past X number of years. I mean the six franchises that get romanced the most in the media, year after year, almost irrespective of their records. The Yankees. The Dodgers. The Mets. The Giants. The Cubs. The Red Sox. These are the franchises that columnists, talking heads, and the fans they influence—whether consciously or unconsciously—get all dewy-eyed about. And therefore, they are also the franchises players with a choice tend to favor. Harris may end up back in the fold of one of those franchises, but hopefully, before he does, maybe we can end up considered at least one of the next tier of franchises, along with the Phillies, the Braves, the Orioles, the Astros, the Cardinals, the Mariners.

I agree. I have always been skeptical of how much PEDs even helps players do better at baseball and, not for nothing, Baseball has no interest either in pursuing the question if they haven’t, or publishing the results if they have. But using home-cooked technology to steal signs during a game is a clear and unambiguous undermining of competitive fairness.

When Jack’s good, he’s very very good. The problem is he’s not good consistently enough for me to want him to sign for five years here.

I will never get the idea why a guy who was one of the architects of the sign-stealing scandal should be given the red carpet treatment in Cooperstown. Beltran was, in fact, the only named player in the report. Nevertheless, because of their defense of the whole thing, and their subsequent apologies for participating in it only once they saw the jig was up, I will root against Altuve when he gets on the ballot, and if they get that far, against Bregman and Correa as well.

Thanks for the update. Here’s some news for you: the more static they get while trying to crime, the less successful they are at it. We have to keep up the static.

Well written reply. I appreciate much of what you say here. I would reply only that if that 11-year-old lodged a death threat against the president, then the USSS visit would be an appropriate response. But if all the kid did was something that’s the equivalent of “Trump is a poopyhead”, then unless you are an intractable red hat, we should all seriously worry about our country and ourselves. So, which do you think is likely to be the case here? And as you ponder an answer, just consider that if it were an actual death threat, or any other kind of bodily threat, do you think the USSS agents could have been successfully turned away from the door by elementary school administrators?

Is that what happened with the 11-year-old at the school? I didn’t see that in the story.

Oh, NOW we know why ICE didn't just hold administrators at bay at gunpoint and walk in—they weren't ICE at all. They were Secret Service. That totally checks out, because there is no forking way ICE would ever take "no" for an answer when they want to just go in and raise hell. But now we know: if you post anti-Trump content, they're coming for you. I mean, I guess most of us should be getting a little worried now? Because this subforum is lousy with anti-Trump content from everybody except, like, four or five guys.

Looks like we're gonna get our taxes to fund religious schools sooner than later. And when I say "religious", I mean only one religion.

Putin solidifies his MAGA bona fides; red hats swoon.

Hasn't Trump had a major forking hard-on for windmills ever since the Scottish golf club incident?

I hope so, too. That's really all we wanted him to be.

I don't take those away, nor do I take away Flaherty's injury seasons or his overall poor 2023. They are all part of his body of work which points to his inconsistency, as well as the iffiness about his ability to stay on the field. If we sign Flaherty for bunches of years anyway, I'll root hard for him, because he'll be on my team. But I don't think we will. If we sign him at all, it'll be after waiting him out and he has no other alternatives, and it'll be either for two years max, or more years only with team options. I'd be downright shocked if we backed a Brinks truck into his driveway.

I will fear a Tampa situation in Detroit when we have an actual Tampa situation in Detroit. I won't write off Harris until he proves he's feckless and/or incompetent. That said, I don't expect him to make us like one of the Big Six franchises. We may be able to put together a good run for a number of years, and I'm reasonably optimistic but we will never be spoken of in the same breath as the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Giants, Red Sox, or Cubs. I will expect, though, that he makes us something like the Cardinals, with plenty of playoff appearances and very few seasons under .500.