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“Gene” called the vacuum cleaner guy from Omaha after he’d got made by the cab driver in the mall, so he has to go back to the same spot in Albuquerque for his new identity. What are the chances he picks up Kim, who’s still in town trying to live down her recent past somehow, while he’s there? I don’t believe he mentioned her to the vacuum cleaner guy, though …

These people have probably read the Constitution about as much as they’ve read the Bible.

This will all attain its platonic Handmaid ideal when a pregnant woman goes to a state where abortion is legal, comes back still pregnant, and gets arrested for attempted out-of-state abortion.

I just turned on the game and turned it right back off.

Who ya hurting? It can't be yourself because that would make you maso ...

Funkhouser gone until at least 2023. Faedo denied he was even in pain, which makes sense given that he is an on-the-bubble big leaguer.

If you don’t see anything wrong with a terrorist fist bump, you’re not looking at it the right way. 😏

Not for nothing, appointed by Trump.

Right out of da butt Wordle 392 4/6 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜ ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

The more the lack of communication continues, the more it puts the whole marital issues story in doubt. And even if the issue turns out to be marital problems, going dark on the team and ignoring attempts to check in with him for a month or more has to be considered inexcusable. Regardless that the Tigers are not paying him during this time, Rodriguez still has a professional, contractual obligation to the Tigers that he can’t just unilaterally cast aside at his choosing. Imagine having marital issues that you temporarily had to leave your job to handle, your employer checks in with you after two, three, four weeks, whatever it is, and you complete ignore them. Would you expect your employer to respectfully back off and still hold your job for you, no matter how long it took? Regardless of the situation Rodriguez is in, In the end, the Tigers have a business to run that affects thousands of other employees, as well as answers to a constituency encompassing an entire state. The team can’t simply put their plans in a holding pattern, held hostage to the whim of a single man who abandoned them suddenly and has gone into radio silence. I respect the idea that family is the most important consideration in the world, and that here in the 21st Century employers are expected to give employees some room to manage major family problems. There’s a reasonable limit to that room, though.

I'm not surprised by this. At their core, the Secret Service are police, Trump wants a police state, and in a police state, the police are royalty who can do anything they want anytime they want to anyone they want. Why wouldn't they support that?

Here it is, in black and white and read all over. There's no other way. Note the careful phrase they applied to Trump. He's not the mastermind behind the steal. He didn't design the strategy to pursue it. But he is, without no doubt, the driving force behind it, and that matters at least as much.

It was the joke I liked.

Front office sent Jim Leyland and David F****** Chadd to scout kids for the draft, so ... one right-handed high school pitcher coming right up. Welcome aboard, Dylan Lesko.

Ninety-one games into the season, the Tigers have five qualified batters. Miguel Cabrera is the wRC+ leader with 93. Surprisingly(?), Javy Baez is second with 78, followed by Robbie Grossman (74), Spencer Torkelson (70), and Jonathan Schoop (60). Of the 2,793 teams that have played big league baseball since 1885, only 11 of them ended the season without even one qualified player achieving as high as 100 wRC+. And that's after I expanded the definition of qualified player to include anyone with 400 or more plate appearances. The last time this happened was the 1982 Mets, when Dave Kingman led six such qualified hitters with a 97 wRC+. Before that, the horrific 1976 Expos were "led" by Larry Parrish's execrable 80. You'd have to go back to the original 16-team majors to find the next most recent team to end up without a single league-average 400-PA-qualified batter. Here's the entire list—at least so far: Highest Year Team wRC+ Record 1982 NYM 97 65-97 1976 MON 80 55-107 1951 SLB 84 52-102 1935 CIN 98 68-85 1910 CHW 98 68-85 1910 BSN 99 53-100 1909 BSN 90 45-108 1903 WAS 96 43-94 1899 CLE 85 20-134 1894 LOU 92 36-94 1886 BAL 88 48-83

I don't know about other countries experiencing high inflation, but here, consumer spending is still strong. In most eras of high inflation, reduced consumer spending due to higher prices helps moderate those prices as more businesses have to cut prices to attract sales. But this time around, consumer sentiment is still strong even as inflation races upward, and I wonder whether that is related to all the pent-up demand to spend and experience things in the newly "post-COVID" world. (I know COVID isn't gone, but consumers are spending like it is.) So until that pent-up demand recedes for whatever reason, I gotta believe we will continue to see monthly reports pointing to more or less 10% inflation. 1 big thing: The powerhouse consumer Illustration: Gabriella Turrisi/Axios For all the talk about a recession, the consumer — the bedrock of the economy — appears to be holding strong. Such is the great weirdness of the U.S. economy right now: Americans' spending behavior, as spelled out in today's solid retail sales report, screams, "No recession here!" Meanwhile, consumer sentiment has actually ticked up so far this month, according to a preliminary reading from the University of Michigan, though it remains low by historical standards. Why it matters: High gas prices might be making people miserable, but consumer demand is holding up even as the Federal Reserve acts to bring down inflation. Details: The retail sales data shows a broad advance in spending, rising 1% in June, more than the 0.8% analysts had expected. The figure reflects higher prices — but even excluding gas stations, sales were up 0.7%. Through the first six months of the year, electronics and appliances is the only category that's seen a decline in spending from 2021. But that's mostly a function of Americans pulling back on goods that they already stocked up on early in the pandemic. The new number is consistent with overall consumption spending continuing to rise in the second quarter, which would lower the odds of a second straight quarter of shrinking GDP. What they're saying: "Spending was broad based and not just boosted by more money spent on gasoline," said Jeffery Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial, in a note. "Given this report, the U.S. may actually post positive growth figures for Q2 and avoid two consecutive quarters of negative growth." Between the lines: Normally, this would be stellar news in an economy where consumer spending makes up two-thirds of activity. But in this topsy-turvy environment, the Fed wants to see consumer demand slow enough to temper inflation. The report shows solid demand, yet it might not be strong enough to tip the committee in favor of an ultra-big full-percentage point interest rate hike, particularly given another reading out this morning that we discuss below. The bottom line: There are plenty of risks ahead, but American consumers are chugging along for now, which could keep overall growth in positive territory.

Given that fascism isn't the sort of thing that merely peters out from ennui, I guess there will be nothing to avoid the worst of outcomes and turn things around except a TBD number of people being killed and the ensuing reckoning after the worst of everything happens. That's all probably going to take years and years to live through. I believe some uprising of some degree of seriousness is going to happen whether or not Justice indicts—either this year because of Trump World indictments, or early next year because of this election, or in two to three years because of that election—but I also believe it will go down worse if Justice does nothing, because that means the system would be openly giving up. At least if Justice indicts, there is a chance to still show the system is strong and willing to fight the fascists, which may dissuade those only marginally interested in rising up, which may make it easier to fight and put the whole thing down. That won't be easy, either, not by any stretch, and perhaps even people some of us personally know may die as a result. But at least we'd still have a chance.

On the one hand one would think that, given how fast the denial was followed by the arrest, red hats would question how Yost and their media could justify such a 180 so fast on the story without addressing the error itself. On the other hand, maybe they understand that the point of their media is to generate lib tears, not to vet news accounts, so their media is not held to that standard.

All we can hope is that they are releasing only a sliver of what they have in evidence, maybe even as a way to stoke the kind of overreaction from MAGA that will further incriminate them. Who knows. But as far as taking time—how much time is there left? If the Republicans sweep the elections before indictments come down, is there any way for them to just prevent that, whether directly or politically?

Swift and certain punishment for their actions in 2020 and leading up to Jan 6 is the only way I can think of that might prevent this, and even that might not be enough to stop at least the attempt.

I think you understand I’m not demanding immediate indictments. I’m just saying if all this stuff gets revealed, and they don’t even try going after Trump World, we’re basically done.