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Once again, I think it might depend on how consistent and persistent they make the messaging. They’re obviously off to a rocky start. But then, Republicans also got off to a rocky start on the whole 2020 election debacle, believing it was their golden opportunity to finally throw Trump under the bus, and they’ve been largely whipped into line. So I’m not spiking the football on this quite yet.

The idea was always the investigation itself. The imprimatur of legitimacy is all they really wanted in order to keep the flame alive so they could trade off it.

Voters have short memories, especially voters who want to believe. They need to keep being reminded of this, because those voters will forget.

Voters forget if they’re not constantly reminded.

Hope not, but I also think it might depend on how consistent and persistent they make the messaging. If Republicans can completely replace the image of 10-year-old girls needing to go out of state for abortion with the vision of Democrats snapping the necks of live babies in order to abort them, while promoting a reasonable abortion cutoff that is more lenient than even some European socialist paradises, they could potentially change the entire discussion from “Democrats=Pro-choice/Republicans=forced births” to “Republicans=reasonable abortion policy/Democrats=abort already-birthed babies”. It might be a tall order to expect Republicans to all successfully message in the exact same disciplined way, but Democrats should probably already be figuring out to defend against this possibility and keep reminding people what Republicans’ actual abortion policy is, i.e., “abortion is murder, period.” Democrats simply cannot afford to look the other way and let Republicans take control of abortion messaging.

So, I’ll tell you why I am resurrecting this today … After watching the Tigers get shut out at Comerica last night and still managing a good night’s sleep at the Greenfield, I was on my way back to Broad Shoulders this morning. On 94, just west of AA, I’m driving among a fast-moving bunch of cars when I see a “left lane closed ahead one mile” sign, and most people start moving over right away. You know I’m a late merger, so as soon as the guy ahead of me moved over, there was a lot of daylight for maybe half a mile up to where we couldn’t see any more road because it was the top of a low grade hill. Know what I mean? Point is, we drivers could not see the closure yet—presumably it was beyond the low grade hill we were approaching. But since there was daylight in my lane, I planned on driving ahead to where the closure is and merging in there. Just as I was starting out, a guy a few cars ahead of me started edging back into my lane. I thought maybe he was going to late merge with me, so I hung back to let him get ahead of me and lead me there. But instead, he started driving half in his lane and half in mine. I understood what he was trying to do here. There was still plenty enough daylight to his left so I could still pass him, and as I did, he laid on his horn, and when I could see him in the rear view, he was gesticulating and yelling in my direction. Corporal Lapdog was definitely unhappy with me. Here’s the best part: once we got to the top of the low grade hill and could see the rest of the road, turns out there was no lane closure after all. Maybe it was an old one where they hadn’t taken down the “lane close ahead” sign. Or maybe they were going to close it soon. All I know is, the left lane wasn’t closed for us. So all these people early-merged and slowed everything down for what they thought was a closed lane a mile away that no one could see, but that wasn’t even there. Early merging culture sucks.

I think the only idea here is not to actually pass such a bill, but to reset the abortion argument with Republican voters. By settling on 15 weeks, he’s trying to make Republicans look reasonable to the moderate right who can’t bring themselves to vote for MAGA and won’t vote for Democrats. It’s strictly a gambit to goose turnout. If Republicans could win on this message they will ignore the 15-week thing and outright ban it everywhere they can anyway—the idea isn’t to negotiate the end product, but to win the election, full stop. If Republican candidates can all get on board and stay on this message, I could see it working.

I would think you could try chris, christopher, chris.ilitch, christopher.ilitch, cilitch, ci … at least one of them should get there.

World’s loneliest job …

I love how he was flailing about and then all of a sudden just stopped and let his buddies flip him over. I definitely want to know how they communicated “Hey! Hey! Calm down!” to him.

It would take me exactly half a nanosecond to decide to vote for Al Franken for president.

These are essentially the same players we are losing 100 games with right now. Looks like you might be suggesting the problem isn’t the players themselves, but some combination of bad (current) coaching and bad luck? That an immediately-changed approach to player development and a karma reset can save this crop of guys? Does that basically sum it up?

I’ll be there with my wife, meeting my brother and his lovely spouse. It’s my at-least-once-a-year annual trip to Comerica preceded by a short detour to the potato chip factory.

This is the latest: RotoWire News: Brieske (forearm/biceps) is playing catch and doing well, Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic reports. (8/20/2022) Injury: Biceps, 60-Day IL

Mize was a defensible pick, given he was considered the consensus 1/1 can’t-miss pick by practically everyone. Come back in four years and let’s talk about taking Jackson Jobe over Marcelo Mayer.

I don’t think Meadows will leave of his own accord because he is still hanging out with the team, or at least he said he would in the statement his camp released. I would think if he’s burning out on the game altogether, he’d be off by himself dealing with his issues. He’s going to any least try to have a spring training next year.

Not quite: about 50% of all Americans live in the Eastern time zone, and only about 17% live in the Pacific zone

It happened, I liked when it happened, and I wish it hadn't gone away. That's how I feel about it.

Happened enough for me. I liked when this happened. Although I guess it’s a good thing we’re shielded from such horror now so we can leave the ballpark after the game at 10:23:45 PM instead of 10:24:15 PM lol

Coolbaugh and Hessman probably can’t fix flaws.

Eric Haase is the hottest hitter in baseball since Wednesday.

For the second straight game a Tiger hitter comes up to the plate late in the game a triple short of the cycle …

It solved no problem at all and took away one of the more entertaining possibilities in the game. It was a bad, dumb rule change.

Also, have you all actually read the pitch clock rules? This was printed in today’s The Athletic: Pitch clock, stepping off the mound and other timing matters • The catcher must be in the catcher’s box with nine seconds left on the timer. • The hitter must have both feet set in the batter’s box and be “alert to the pitcher” — meaning he has his eyes on the pitcher, and can quickly take a hitting stance — within eight seconds. • The timer starts when the pitcher has the ball, and the catcher and the batter are in the dirt near home plate and play is ready — meaning, runners have retreated if there was a foul ball, or exited the field after an out. (The pitch timer starts with the second pitch of the game.) • In between batters, there is a 30-second clock, except for the final out of an inning. The timer for inning breaks and pitching changes is 2 minutes, 15 seconds. • Pitchers who violate the clock are charged with an automatic ball. If a catcher violates the clock, an automatic ball is charged as well. Batters in violation receive an automatic strike. Umpires can also award a ball or strike if they detect a player circumventing the clocks, and the commissioner’s office could issue discipline beyond that to teams whose players or staff violate rules, as well. • If the defense requests time, a disengagement is assessed to the pitcher, with several exceptions, including mound meetings, an object on the field, injuries, or an appeal. Catchers giving signals to infielders doesn’t count as a disengagement as long as the catcher is back by nine seconds. • Pitcher requests for a new baseball with nine seconds or more remaining on the pitch timer do not count as a disengagement, but do if there are less than nine seconds. • Mound visits have a 30-second clock starting when the manager or coach leaves the dugout, or whenever the defensive player leaves their position. If a manager joined a mound visit in progress, the timer resets if there are at least 20 seconds left on the timer. The umpire has discretion to grant additional time if a manager or coach is dealing with a physical ailment. There is no timer if a trainer goes out with the manager or coach for “a bona fide medical issue.” • Batters can ask for and be granted time once per plate appearance, and have to ask for time orally. That resets the pitch clock. A batter who requests time a second time or more in the same plate appearance is to be charged with a strike — unless the batter stays in the batter’s box, then the umpire has discretion as to whether to charge a strike. • The length of batter walk-up music cannot exceed 10 seconds. Music between pitches is to be limited so hitters aren’t encouraged to leave the box. • “Extended inning events,” like the playing of “God Bless America,” or anything that stops all action in the ballpark, requires approval from the commissioner’s office, and advance notice of those approved events has to go to the MLBPA. • The pitch timer cannot be reviewed on replay. • Umpires have sole discretion to direct the start, stop or reset of the timer if the clock operator makes a mistake or a special circumstance applies, such as a catcher not having enough time to put on equipment after running the bases or a medical concern. (They would reset the clock to 20 or 15 seconds). Holy needless complexity, Batman! No wonder the Lawyer Commissioner likes it!

I hate the banning of the shift, although it’s not the dumbest rule change. The dumbest is allowing intentional walks by waving four fingers and pointing, which in addition to solving no problem at all, takes away the possibility of a botched IBB which could change the calculus of the game substantially. It was basically a lawyerly efficiency change. Athough the limiting of throws to first is very nearly equally dumb in the sense that it also solves no problem. It was merely Bill James’s hobby horse, as far as I can tell.