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I know I shared this eight years ago, but I think it would be helpful to refamiliarize ourselves with the word "Kakistocracy": a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy

TIAL that you can't post an 8 and a close parenthesis back-to-back without it turning into a cool guy with glasses emoji.

I think it hears posting in full here, at the risk of dovetailing into her obvious sales pitch for her book and whatnot. On Trump and Project 2025: 1) Yes, Trump knows what it is. No, he likely doesn’t care, because policy is a thing other people do while he steals money and ensures impunity for himself and his backers. 2) Trump is not an ideologue. He is a bulldozer used by two GOP-linked networks that often collaborate. 3) The first network is made of hard right-wing ideologues that have been gradually implementing a neo-fascist US since the Reagan era, chipping away at courts, regulations, rights, etc. This is the Project 2025 network. 4) The second network is transnational organized crime, the network in which Trump is most at home. Their goal is to collapse the US and strip it and sell it for parts, much like the oligarch wars that followed the collapse of the USSR. This network has been active for decades as well. Its dynamics and Trump’s role are laid out in my book HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT. 5) Both networks contain fanatics of varying faiths who deploy rhetoric with apocalyptic overtones. Some are true messianic believers. Others exploit religion for financial and political gain. 6) Broken or corrupt US institutions, esp the DOJ, have allowed these anti-American entities to grow and thrive. 7) Blackmail, threats, and bribery play a role in solidifying their power, but many officials are simply complicit, including in the Democratic Party. 😎 The two networks may clash at some point, depending on whether their goal is American autocracy or collapse. Either way, Americans will get some form of mafia state kleptocracy, which is what we have already. 9) I’ve explained all this in details in my books and free newsletter and interviews. It’s a complicated history. What’s not complicated is that the big danger isn’t Trump, the man, but Trump *and* the criminal billionaire networks behind him. The latter need to be examined far more than the former.

I wonder whether Trump's got something on her we don't know about.

So, DFA him and back to Krediler and McKinstry?

So says Mister Seventeen Posts! 😉

I thought this died off weeks ago? Is it actually still going?

I am definitionally a boomer, but I am X-adjacent. The youngest boomers born after 1960 have nothing to do culturally with the oldest boomers born in the 40s, in almost any sense. They determined a long time ago that Baby Boomers were born 1946 through 1964, which makes sense if you look at birth rate, but culturally speaking, I think Gen X starts in 1961.

Personally, I would like them to get dependent mental fitness tests—meaning dependent only on the interpretation of a nonpolitical, purely scientific evaluation methodology.

I get the Tigers as part of my MLB package. Who'da thunk living outside of Michigan would be an advantage? 😏

lol, just did this and Walt's first-ever post on the then-new MTF site was, "What, there's no political forum?"

Hey, fun fact: there is no way to put a capital C and a colon back-to-back and not see it turn into a smiley face.

hey, Greg, welcome to the forum. Just putting pencil to paper to project our probable needs for a 2026-27 contention window: 1B: Tork? Keith? 2B: Keith? Lee? McGonigle? SS: McGonigle? 3B: Jung LF: Greene CF: Clark RF: Perez? 😄 Briceño? So, not a lot of certainty (considering how little certainty anyone in big league ball can muster). So any trade would have to effectively fill some of these holes. And if we want to fill at least two, we may have to add something to Skubal for you. I'd love to offer you Tork, and maybe you guys could fix him and make him your DH, but that's a sixth grader's fantasy trade on my part. Our top hole to fill is middle of the infield, for reasons I don't have to remind you of. So this trade has to start with Jackson Holliday. Otherwise, no dice. You haven't hung up yet? Good! In addition to Skubal, I will offer you Parker Meadows. He's a plus plus CF and his stick is starting to come around. Cedric is turning into a pumpkin for you, so you could put Parker out there right now. (Well, once he comes off the List, of course.) You say you got Beavers coming up soon to replace Cedric? That's fine, you can figure out which of Parker and Beavers takes your newly-spacious left and which takes center, then you can shift Cowser to right where his plus arm plays, and move Santander into a DH/fifth OF role. That will solve your outfield situation for most of the rest of this decade. So, for our two guys, we want Holliday; Basallo (who you really don't need with Adley and Mountcastle on your team for the next several years); one of Haskin, Fabian, or Rhodes (I'm still not sold on Wenceel here); and a pitching lottery ticket like Strowd, Gillies, McGough, Hoffman, or Armbruester. What do you say?

Post of the day!

You misspelled 248.

You may be right, although given his embrace of data science, it would frankly shock me to learn that Harris let Willi go because a hitting coach said words. Another possibly explanation I've yet to contemplate is that the data science Harris relied on at the time was flawed.

Or maybe Harris just ****ed up on both of them. That's a possibility, too. Maybe I should be PBO instead! 🤪

I don't know, I'm having trouble imagining that I saw something in Willi (and Jeimer) going forward that Scott Harris didn't. That's whhy I'm thinking it must be more than a pure performance evaluation that doomed him here. I wonder whether what factored into the decision was some combination of the press relentlessly hammering the Tigers on Willi and Jeimer and ownership wanting it to stop; and that maybe Willi and Jeimer were not the right kind of clubhouse guys, since this is an characteristic Harris is explicitly seeking, for better or worse.

I don't think that's true defensively. He was at least a slightly plus defender at more than one position. But he did obviously have the potential to be unlocked offensively, and the Twins figured that out, mostly by getting him to be patient at the plate. I know people hate everything about the Tigers' hitting coaches here, but they do practice patience at the plate, so I think Willi could have done that here, too. And of course, with the bigger bases, the Twins let Willi loose and now he's a 20-30 steals guy.

I didn't imagine Willi being an All-Star, but I defended keeping him before he was let go last year. I'm thinking there was something more than just his evaluated potential or even his numbers at play in the decision. Same with Jeimer.

I know I thought Trump would pull out of the debate claiming natural bias againt him, but now I'm thinking they both have to go through with it, Biden to redeem himself, and Trump to retain his honor in front of his honor-fetishizing constituency.

That’s fine, let them, and I hope it gets traction this time. But I would be frankly surprised if it did, because if it didn’t years ago when it first came out, why would it now? There would have to be some newly-reported wrinkle to freshen it up, and I’m not sure the “boys” angle is enough. It all looks like a fantastic lie, meaning the right may well claim it proves there are underlying fantasies Democrats are projecting, since the pedophilia thing might be sticking to them with more people than it is with Republicans.

I had no idea J.D. Vance was even gay. 😝 Seriously, I believe Trump fears J.D. Vance will upstage him. And personally, I fear J.D. Vance right now more than anyone else outside Trump. He’s famous, he’s young, he’s articulate, he’s into the fascism, and I bet mainline Republicans are just itching to vote for exactly that kind of guy.

That’s it, I’m not voting for you anymore. 😉

I’ve been giving more thought to the whole “it has to be Kamala Harris” thing. If Joe were to simply coronate Kamala, wouldn’t there be a huge uproar in the party and create actual factions over it, at least behind the scenes at first? I mean, yeah, black woman, yada yada, I get that. But there are a few other people in the party who would like the nomination themselves and they have vocal supporters, too. The party would go into flip flops over it. Just one more reason Joe has to stay in the race. Get him over the finish line in November, then figure out when Joe steps down if at all. Because remember, we’re not voting for just the candidate—we’re voting for all the people they bring in, too. And those people have to be there behind Kamala if/when she takes over.