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Sure, i would expect that, but they don't know any better.

Meaning there are people who truly believe Biden stole the election working in various state houses and whatnot. Horrifying as being a true believer in this is, it's dishonest only if they know for a fact it's all a lie. If they truly believe it, they can be said honestly argue their case. That's what I mean.

They may actually, perhaps even honestly, argue Biden's entire presidency is an insurrection against a free and fair election that Trump won in 2020.

It's not escaping my notice that no actual Muslim leaders are even mentioned in the press release, so its provenance is, at the very least, suspect. This might as well be a missive straight from Trump campaign headquarters, aka the Kremlin. Not for nothing, the guy's X feed is extremely pro-Trump.

That's kind of the part I'm concerned about—that this entire episode is going to convince people who were on the fence, or maybe even some on the margins who had left him, to conclude that the despotic Biden government is abusing its power and they must elect Trump to stop him.

2024 Angels = 2022 Tigers.

Same here. I was in what they called "special ed" at the time so there wasn't much baseball discussed among the kids at school or with me at home, but once they got into the World Series even I had to become aware of them. Then when I discovered how much numbers were a part of the game—basically like crack to an almanac maniac like me—I was hooked. I couldn't wait to play it myself!

I think you underestimate the increase in fear of Trump and the Republicans in general since 2016, and you might be whistling past the graveyard believing that since things have always been calm and under control no matter who's in office, that things will always be calm and under control no matter who's in office. Granted, there are a lot of ignorant people who know no more about Trump than they did eight years ago, and who don't care about him because he doesn't directly impact their own lives. To that, two things: (1) there are a lot fewer of those people now than there were in 2016; (2) If they never knew or cared about him, they're not going to vote anyway. I like Biden and I am not a "Dem loyalist", and I have posted here after not voting D. But I can see that he and his administration are doing a great job of getting this country back on track. Everybody can point to this thing or that where they don't like how Biden is handling it, but on balance, he's one of the best presidents of my lifetime.

Were you a Tiger fan before local boy Fidrych? I'm thinking you were since you were probably 13 or 14 when he came onto the scene?

If they would just deaden the ball they could carry 12 pitchers comfortably. They could carry 11 pitchers. They could even cut the roster to 24 like they did during the 80's. But they need more pitchers now because with the live ball every pitch to literally every player could end up a home run, which is the worst thing that can happen to a pitcher, so they put 110% strain on their arms on every pitch to elicit swing and miss, or at least soft contact.

I don't think polls, especially taken almost a year out, represent how we will behave on Election Day, and I do think the past couple of presidential elections have shown us that. But I also don't see reasonable people simply moving from voting for Biden in 2020 to voting for Trump next year, or Trump scooping up undecideds. He has shown us every toxic behavior possible, and a substantial majority of people hate that. I think Trump already has practically every voter in his pocket that he's going to get, and I think the Republicans are basically going to have to engage in literal physical restraint of Democratic voters to win a free and fair election next November.

I've experienced two price increases in the past year with no change in service.

I get MLB.tv plus MLB At Bat gratis with my DTV Extra Innings package. I think I might be paying $20 or $30 a year extra for that versus just buying MLB.tv and At Bat a la carte.

Well, that's simply not true.

I'm with you. I appreciate not only the wide selection I get on DTV, I also like the centralization of and ease of access to content; not being beholden to the vicissitudes of Internet service outages; and once a year I'm able to negotiate discounts approaching $100 a month for them to keep me aboard. It won't last me the rest of my life (I don't think), but for the foreseeable future, I'm sticking with them.

Well, that's pretty transparent.

I don't think of Brad Pitt as being ten.

Kids definitely want more velocity. Velocity is cool.

I wonder whether that means foreign pitchers, like Dominicans and Venezuelans, have a leg up in staying healthy because they don't pitch as much when they're young as the travel ball kids? Particularly those who go into MLB academies when they're 16, or who train with a buscone before that, both of whom have incentives to protect kids' arms, as opposed to American travel ball managers, who have no such incentive and may work kids like galley slaves in games until their arms fall off, because it's no skin off their nose. This is merely a hypothesis based on reading around here and there and I have no actual insight into it either way.

I think it depends how well they can rig the election. Because if the election is allowed to be free and fair, I don't think he has a chance—that is, unless Biden dies and someone like Kamala becomes the nominee.

I don't think the successor can be Gaetz, for two reasons: (1) He doesn't have the personality to maintain a cult of personality; (2) he's too politically stupid to understand that a Trump/Tucker ticket in 2024 would get absolutely crushed in a general election—or at least a free and fair election. I believe the narcissistic psychopathy of Trump actually precludes a successor, since he is so insecure he must strive to have 100% of all favor and power accrue only to him, and as such he is constitutionally unable to groom anybody as his successor for fear they will prematurely upstage him before he goes. Once Trump dies, though, the rush to fill the power vacuum will be one of the more entertaining political spectacles we will see in our lifetimes—assuming he does so in the next few years.

Wait a minute: you think Trump is a lock to be elected president next year?

Changes are always incremental before the revolution happens.

Maybe some of "us guys" think it will be a brutal dictatorship, and that's certainly within the range of outcomes. I think a more likely outcome is the kind of authoritarian regime they have in Russia: the kind where our rights get steadily eroded, and if you voice a strong opinion about it publicly there's a good chance you will get a visit. But if you keep your mouth shut and just live your everyday life not thinking about it, you will probably be fine as long as you don't need those rights at some point, which to be fair most people don't. But either way, once they take power, they will take immediate and drastic steps to curb elective democracy and maintain single-party autocracy permanently, which will be an undermining of the basic principles this country was founded on, but which has also functioned and been accepted in this country before (notably in the post-Reconstruction South). The question will be, how happy and willing will you be to live in such a way?

I'm afraid we are too far beyond the normal range for that party to simply fix itself. Something dramatic will have to happen to snap us out of it, and it probably won't be painless.