Willihammer

Huh? I don't know what we're arguing about anymore. If I see a northerner with a confederate flag, I assume that person is probably a racist. And I'm the last person to throw that label at someone. I specifically said "southern" white person in my post because I think the symbolism has a more complicated heritage that includes post-Civil War years, ie. beyond slavery, for them.

How so?

Don't you think your viewpoint could be colored growing up in the north? Its not a mistake to paint all southerners who embrace "southern pride" as glorifying slavery? I can't do that.

I agree that the people coming from out of state to use the Gen. Lee statue as a platform for their own agendas are confusing things. They might still be protected by the first amendment, I don't know. The violence doesn't help. The irony is, the Charlottesville city council voted to remove the thing. Self determination and local government were pillars of the Confederacy, as I understand it. So by inflating it into a national thing, it seems they're undermining the wish of the locals. As for confederate symbols in general, I learned a while ago that I'll probably never fully understand white southerners' attachments to them. I do know that there is more to these things than slavery and racism. For some people at least.

From the article you posted above I admit I'm not sure how the first amendment applies, but they seem to feel it does. Like most folks I think free speech is worth protecting, even if I don't like the message being protected.

Maybe everyone knows already that the Charlottesville protests were initially spurred by a free speech question regarding the taking down of the statue. Is anyone even a little bit conflicted about that?

Godwin's law in full effect I see. I appreciate that Trump could do some lasting damage to this country but its impossible for him to be a Hitler type dictator even if he wanted to be. The best comp I've heard for him so far is former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/if-berlusconi-is-like-trump-what-can-italy-teach-america

Levine practically apologized for being unable to complete a trade in the Strib last week. The Twins “have placed a lot of [waiver] claims on players we think can help our team,” Levine said, but have not been able to negotiate a trade. “It’s not for lack of effort on our part,” he added. “We’ve already pivoted once in this process, and I think we demonstrated a willingness to respond to the way the team is performing. … We have the support of ownership to do it, and we’re going to continue to be creative and aggressive the rest of the season to help our team.” Sounds like they want to add a player(s). I assume bullpen, but we can't say for sure I guess. In any case, its another reason to over-prepare before the season starts, because you can't necessarily swing a trade later, especially in August.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/08/east-notes-yankees-mets-nava-orioles-de-leon.html

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=32521

Well no, they can't evidently.

I do like the Lewis pick, and the Enlow pick. And Rooker. And Leach. But there has been a fair amount of churn since the season started, ie. Jay, Stewart, and Rortvedt. At least Gordon, Gonsalves, Javier and others are hanging on though.

Man, Jay, Stewart, Rortvedt all fell of the top 10 since preseason.

China is far from a liberal democracy but its a lot better than it used to be. The reason, I believe, is the rise of its middle class, which occurred over the past 4 - 1/2 decades after Nixon formalized relations. Before then we viewed Taiwan as the true government. The situation in Korea looks similar I think.

I don't think there's any question the defense has taken a step back this year. But the tools are still there, he just has to play better.

Liberal in the historical sense. NK being a monarchy basically, with few civil liberties, etc. Not every country needs to be a liberal democracy to do business with as far as I'm concerned.

I'm really interested in the size of the base, not overall nationwide approval, because it gets back to this question of where is the outrage? And, how bad would things have to get for Trump's base to actually turn on him. I suppose there are a couple ways to look at that trendline. On one hand the strongly approve got to a new low on August 3 (23%). On the other hand it's been stuck in a pretty tight channel since March, between 23% and 31%. Worth noting too, on the 538 polls the projections for approval and disapproval are to revert towards 50%.

Alright in the 2nd link there's a link to the poll's dataset going back to the inauguration, which breaks down into "strongly approve," ie. support from his base. That chart looks like this:

The president quite possibly conspired with a foreign power to win his election. He's waged war against the media, cut off immigrants on the basis of religion, surrounded himself with yes men and dodged attempts to look into his tax payment history. This is the US president I'm talking about. Seems like we don't have the same moral high ground we had to go around picking which despots we're going to isolate based on infractions of liberal ideals. Perhaps its time to take a more pragmatic approach to these countries.

Can you point me to the poll(s) showing this to be the case?

The 538 polls aggregate simple approve/disapprove of adults and voters nationwide. Unless I missed it the site hasn't focused on the "strongly support" group, ie the base, since an article dated May. (This one). The poll I linked to suggests support among his base found a floor in May and in fact increased in July a bit.

Out of curiousity, how did that go over?

I think it took a slight hit after the inauguration but has found a floor. Did some quick googling and found a poll that shows, among his base, Trump's popularity has gone up a tick since May. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-poll-idUSKBN1A5127

Sort of a paradox I guess. Put in a claim when you're too far back and you could be squandering assets. Wait til you're in contention, and your records too good and you'll be blocked.

“On a daily basis we are active on the trade-waiver wire process,” Levine said. “We’ve placed a lot of claims on players we think can help our team now and in the future.” "We haven’t made a trade yet, which is evidence to the fact that we may not be the only team that thinks those players would be attractive," Maybe if they're putting in claims now, they'd be blocked. But how many days ago were they they 7th team back in the WC standings. Three?