diehardtwinsfan

Yeah, this whole system needs to change. Reps and Dems get federal matching funds. The press is allowed to exclude them from the debates despite it being mathematically possible for them to win. What really needs to happen is even up the playing fields: No federal matching funds to any party.Candidates appearance in the debates should only be contingent on whether or not it's possible for said candidate to acquire the necessary electoral votes (oh yeah, and they all get a chance to answer the same questions, not "what do you think of the color blue?" type questions that someone designated as a long shot gets.Corporations and PACs should be treated and capped in the same way an individual is in terms of their donations. That right there would give 3rd parties a fair chance... and it is quite honestly embarrassing that our country allows the contrary. This is nothing short of legalized vote tampering.

I agree that helps, but the problem is that we find ourselves looking at qualities that have nothing to do with whether or not the candidate will do a decent job in the WH. Sorry, but I don't think either Hillary or Trump is good for this nation. Johnson may not have charisma, but he's at least talking to the country's problems with solutions that will actually work. Trump and Hillary are more of the same. People have to get beyond that as the Reps/Dems are two wings of the same bird flying straight into the ground.

No offense, but if you believe the first part of your statement you weren't paying attention. I'm not so certain the second part is true either, but that' a bit harder to prove. People to this day are upset about how the government handled this, not to mention the federalization of airline security as a nice handout to the industry who had to fund it prior... and if you think the TSA is well run, efficient, and even remotely good at what it does.... well, I cannot help you. They maintain the allusion of security... and it's just that, an allusion. Gun control by the way isn't much different. In my limited understanding of human sociology, I've discovered one fundamental truth... Criminals break the law. I'm being a bit sarcastic here, but the reality is that no gun law is going to prevent someone from getting machine gun. It may make it harder, but it won't make it impossible. Any gun regulation falls into that as it will be the law abiding citizens who end up without guns and will have no option but to hide when seconds matter and the government is minutes away. There are, on estimate 192 million guns in the US. They aren't going anywhere, and making them harder to obtain will create a black market that will eventually see the transfer of these weapons out of the hands of those who should have them and into the hands of those who shouldn't. Let's stop putting whitewash up on our crumbling walls. Gun control isn't the answer here. It may make people feel better, but it won't stop these events. If anything, it will create a greater target rich environment for them.

Sadly, I think the team would probably be not much better off than what they are now. And if they seriously tried crowdsourcing... yeah, we'd give up guys like Berrios for James Shields and then DFA Shields a month later.

My words to describe this would get censored by the site.... The PC answer... just an awful decision. I'd have optioned Kepler and let Arcia play every day, or optioned Park. Seriously, you just gave up on a potential impact bat, and they cannot even claim money was the reason. Just dumb.

No adam's family?

You whine line... just some advice as an expert in dogs and dog houses... get the biggest dog you can find. not some overgrown rat with fur that has a complex because it knows it's small. I'm talking a big old Malamute. Don't listen to the lady's advice here. Get a real dog.

quite possibly. Guys like Collett and Benninghof are insurance picks in case they get someone well under slot. Curious what Baddoo signed for, as that will be a good indicator of whether or not they can grab one of them.

A handful of even decent starts before the deadline won't change his value I suspect.

I'll give Kohl a bit of a pass on the Ks in his first few weeks of AA. Nice to see him getting what is hopefully a lot of weak contact. He's really reclaimed himself as a prospect and if he sharpens his command a bit, I wouldn't be surprised if the Ks come back.

I haven't checked that close of late, but last I did, Rosario has yet to take a walk. Has that changed? I don't mind him being aggressive, but ML pitching isn't going to throw him many good ones if he cannot lay off the bad ones.

well, if he's made those adjustments, his numbers will climb. Not sure I agree with everyone that he's a trade candidate (yet), but we do need to see what we have in Polanco at some point.

Take a look at his minor league slash line... all while being significantly younger than his competition. His only real knock was needing to be a bit more selective at the plate. I don't know if we'd regret losing him quite like Ortiz, but I do think there's a very real possibility that we regret losing him.

I beg to differ. If anything, this is another case of rushing a prospect. He got promoted quickly through the high minors and added to the 40 man early, out of need granted, but early. Now he's out of options and he never adjusted after MLB adjusted to him. I would lose sleep over losing him. He's got the potential to be a middle of the order hitter. Perhaps he's a head case and doesn't take coaching well, or perhaps he's not coached well. I'm not sure which, but I wouldn't part ways with him unless I got a pretty decent offer, and I don't think many GMs would give one for him right now. He needs to play every day. There's no reason why Molitor couldn't rotate through Kepler, Buxton, Arcia, and Grossman. Playing 3 out of every 4 games is very very doable.

I would think Buxton or Park gets sent down. My money would be on Buxton if I was a betting man.

That would make for an interesting training idea. Have them pitch from a balance beam no one would ever get hurt, right?

You know what's really funny? Reading through the game thread when you already know how the game finishes...

Oh sweet. My wife thought it was today. Should I tell her it's not?

Happy Fathers Day to me. What did I miss?

I'm not quite sure what the criteria is for ranking. I don't see how Rortvedt is better than Garver right now. He certainly may have a higher ceiling, but Garver could actually be a league average to slightly better catcher. Rortvedt could definitely be better, but he's nowhere close to where Garver is now. Same with Walker. I wouldn't rank him below either of the guys we drafted right now.

The second amendment to the constitution. If you want gun control, then it's time to repeal it. But 'the people's rights to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed' is a clear mandate from the founding fathers. Like it or not, they wanted that. And if you read their writings, it had a lot to do with the idea that it presented a check against tyranny in a way no document could ever do. This was the same group of people who said that those who trade their freedoms for security deserve neither. And I think that just maybe, they might be an authority on the matter. They saw tyranny first hand. They understood how it developed, and they knew that no government would ever be immune to it. They put their lives on the line to stop it, and they did everything in their power to make it difficult to happen here... including I might add, the second amendment. I understand if you don't like ARs. I even understand if you want some form of gun control. But it won't solve the problem you want it to solve, and I really don't understand how you'd be more than happy to give up your guns and trust a guy like Dick Cheney to not take advantage of it.

I think the last name being Clinton isn't a whole lot more than her gender, though it's a bigger factor I agree. But the most obvious simply is that Hillary is not a good person. She's got a bad reputation for good reasons. Her last name is certainly a part of it, but she's been at the center of a number of scandals. Republicans haven't done themselves a favor in politicizing her life down to whatever color she dyes her hair, but there's still plenty of wheat once you've sifted through the chaff. I don't want her in office because I don't trust her to be a good leader. Truthfully, I don't trust Trump either, or just about anyone whose name was on either ticket this year. Power is one nasty animal to contain. It is always the worst types of people that seek it out, and usually the ones that stop at nothing to get it who attain it.

Concur. Once their time is served. It's served. I can agree with logic that says that abuse of your freedoms requires forfeiture of others (though I think that after serving the ability to earn some of them back should be on the table), but the idea that voting is one of them is just silly.

Dave, the email scandal alone would put anyone else in jail. Full disclosure, I work on military networks doing IT related engineering. I have a clearance, and it is a process that has literally taken years to get vetted for. The rules are very clear on the matter, and the network which would have contained all of those emails does not allow them to be removed. The only way to accomplish what she was accused of would be to intentionally circumvent the system (which isn't impossible, but not something you can accidentally do). Hillary took that information and moved it offsite to a non-secure facility in secret. The only difference between what Snowden did and what Hillary did is that he leaked it to WikiLeaks. Her reason for storing it offsite is a bit more nebulous. I'll be direct on your first point. This is more dismissive than anything else; and to be honest, I know you can do better than that. When you do that, it's pretty hard to take you seriously, and I find personally in the realm of politics, that's your approach when someone disagrees. I do like it when you take the time to discuss it because you're smart and usually well reasoned, but not when you respond in a dismissive manner. The Hillary in jail may be an old meme, but it's based off of real information. I listed several links earlier, and while I agree there's plenty of grasping at straws in the links I provided, there's a few of them that are far more insidious. The email scandal in particular, I do know quite a bit about, because I have been working in defense for about four years over a number of commands. What this really comes down to is the tired old thing we all do when it's our guy: pretend it's political BS. She's on your team, so short of publicly shooting someone on national TV, you're going to give her a pass. Republicans are just as guilty. I might add. That's why I'm no longer a Republican. Four years of watching GWB get a pass for things that Bill Clinton never received was enough. And when it comes to politics in this country, if we simply held our own accountable instead of looking the other way when it was one of our guys, this country would be in a LOT better shape.

I'm going to address this a bit, and given that I'm the closest thing the mods have to a conservative (ex-Republican who votes Libertarian), it's probably best coming from me. This thread is 180+ pages long and will easily top 200 pages when all said and done. We've cracked down on it a few times, particularly with name calling and what not. If you go back, you'll see some discussion on Voldermort and Hitlery. Hence the warning a few pages back being reiterated. We do allow a bit more leeway in the sports bar in general, but I would agree with you that Smerf's statement was condescending an unnecessary. I'd also note that Smerf is a pretty good poster here and that he recognizes this and will refrain going forward. He's usually very articulate. I'd further note that if we reacted here, this entire thread would have been shut down ages ago and we'd be infracting for referring to candidates as Voldermort, Hitlery, a Goober, or whatever. Politics is difficult b/c it personal to everyone (more so than our beloved sports team), mainly b/c the stakes are a lot higher. Let's try and be respectful. Let's not stereotype people to make our points, and let's definitely treat each other respectfully. I don't agree with the other mods on just about everything politically, but if I have to boil them down to a stereotype or name calling, then perhaps I shouldn't be participating here. It just shows that I'm not smart enough to articulate what I believe. Thanks