October 2015 archive

Last night’s game

Top 1st leadoff Single and a Walk.  Single, Bases Loaded, No Outs.  RBI sacrifice.  Astros 1 – 0.  RBI sacrifice.  Astros 2 – 0.

Top 2nd 2 Out Double.  RBI Single. Astros 3 – 0

Bottom 2nd leadoff Solo Shot.  Astros 3 – 1.

49 minute Rain Delay.  Royals pulled Ventura for Young, Astros stuck with McHugh

Bottom 4th 2 Out Solo Shot.  Astros 3 – 2.

Top 5th leadoff Single, Caught Stealing.  Solo Shot.  Astros 4 – 2.

Top 8th leadoff Solo Shot.  Astros 5 – 2 Final.

Astros lead Series 1 – 0.

Analysis and Setup

Frankly the Royals (95 – 68) looked terrible even before the Rain Delay so I don’t think it’s as significant as some people do.  The good news is they say they’ll start Ventura again in the 4th game but they will have to get there first which, on the basis of their performance last night, is not a sure thing at all.  As for the Astros (88 – 76) McHugh did not disappoint and 2 Solo Shots against the Royals’ potent lineup is not a bad outing at all.

Today we have the Battle of the Losers.  The Royals will send out Johnny Cueto (R, 11 – 13, 3.44 ERA) and the Astros Scott Kazmir (L, 7 – 11, 3.10 ERA).  Pick ’em.

Game time is 3:30 on Fox Sports 1

Today’s Meta (because what good is a day without Meta?).  It is indeed Big Friday with 4 games to play.  The Junior League will be playing in the afternoon.  They have a travel day tomorrow and want to get an early start.  TMC and I have an early afternoon meeting so there will be NO liveblogging of those games.

The Senior League plays tonight, Cubs @ Cardinals at 6:30, Mets @ Dodgers at 9:30.  If you think I’m going to miss either of those, think again.  In fact I have dug out and dusted off my official Blue and Orange Metropolitans Cap (wool of course) because it’s been a looong time since I’ve had anything to celebrate in the Playoffs.

What this means for you, my readers, is that coverage of The Late Show is going to depend on when the game ends and, in another genius move by the same folks that instituted the abomination that is the Designated Hitter, MLB has relaxed the game pace rules.  Honestly I expect it will last to 1 am and that’s without extra Innings.  I will post because I want to set up next week’s guest lists for you.

Now onto today’s starting game.

Last night’s game

Top of the 3rd the leadoff Batter was HBP.  Runner advanced on a sacrifice and scored on a Single.  Rangers 1 – 0.  Runner advanced on a sacrifice and scored on a Single.  Rangers 2 – 0.

Bottom of the 4th a leadoff Single and a Walk.  Fielder’s choice, runners at the Corners.  RBI Single, 2 On 1 Out.  Rangers 2 – 1.  That was it.

Top of the 5th leadoff Batter HBP.  2 RBI HR.  Rangers 4 – 1.

Bottom of the 5th leadoff Double.  Sacrifice, runner advanced.  RBI Double.  Rangers 4 – 2.

Bottom of the 6th leadoff Solo Shot.  Rangers 4 – 3.

Top of the 7th Solo Shot.  Rangers 5 – 3 Final.

Rangers lead Series 1 – 0.

Analysis and Setup

I certainly expected the Blue Jays (93 – 90) to start much better than they did.  Basically Price did not pitch as well as his record indicated he should and what I didn’t know was that he has a record of choking in the Playoffs. The Rangers (89 – 74) also had better production from the bottom of the order (2 HR) than expected.

Both teams suffered potentially lineup changing injuries.  The Rangers lost Adrian Beltre to back spasms and the Blue Jays lost both Josh Donaldson (potential concussion) and Jose Bautista (hamstring spasms).  All will be evaluated this morning to see if the can play.  While Beltran is a good player the losses to the Blue Jays are possibly more serious since they are the number 2 & 3 hitters in the order.

The Blue Jays will be starting Marcus Stroman (R, 4 – 0, 1.67 ERA).  Stroman was benched after his first game of the Season with a torn ACL in his left knee and was expected to be lost for the year.  Cole Hamels (l, 13 – 8, 3.65 ERA) will be on the mound for the Rangers.  This would be no contest at all except for the injury.

Game time is 12:30 on MLB (which it turns out I get, but I won’t be around).

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman : It’s All Benghazi

So Representative Kevin McCarthy, who was supposed to succeed John Boehner as speaker of the House, won’t be pursuing the job after all. He would have faced a rough ride both winning the post and handling it under the best of circumstances, thanks to the doomsday caucus – the fairly large bloc of Republicans demanding that the party cut off funds to Planned Parenthood, or kill Obamacare, or anyway damage something liberals like, by shutting down the government and forcing it into default.

Still, he finished off his chances by admitting – boasting, actually – that the endless House hearings on Benghazi had nothing to do with national security, that they were all about inflicting political damage on Hillary Clinton.

But we all knew that, didn’t we?

I often wonder about commentators who write about things like those hearings as if there were some real issue involved, who keep going on about the Clinton email controversy as if all these months of scrutiny had produced any evidence of wrongdoing, as opposed to sloppiness.

Continue reading the main story

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Medea Benjamin: The Doctors Without Borders bombing is a symptom of foreign occupation

The Kunduz bombing is a symptom of the underlying disease of foreign occupation. The prescription requires that President Obama keep to the timeline of withdrawing US troops by the end of 2016. The US military presence will not create long-term peace and stability in Afghanistan. On the contrary: as long as US troops are there, militants will fight to oust them. [..]

The American people have long soured on continued military involvement there. Responding to public sentiment, President Obama promised to cut the current force of 10,000 US troops in half by 2016. In March, however, the president announced he would slow the pace of the troop withdrawal and now – with the resurgence of the Taliban – there is a call by many Congressional representatives to keep the troops there for years to come. There is even talk of sending more troops.

That is not the way forward. As Kunduz has shown, US involvement is not the answer to the instability and violence in Afghanistan. Now, what is needed most, are answers about this horrific bombing. And that must start with an independent investigation.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Guerrilla leader Che Guevara executed in Bolivia; Anthrax-laced letters sent to Capitol Hill; Achille Lauro hijackers surrender; Andrei Sakharov wins Nobel Peace Prize; Musician John Lennon born.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

John Lennon

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

October 9 is the 282nd day of the year (283rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 83 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1967, socialist revolutionary and guerilla leader Che Guevara, age 39, is killed by the Bolivian army. The U.S.-military-backed Bolivian forces captured Guevara on October 8 while battling his band of guerillas in Bolivia and assassinated him the following day. His hands were cut off as proof of death and his body was buried in an unmarked grave. In 1997, Guevara’s remains were found and sent back to Cuba, where they were reburied in a ceremony attended by President Fidel Castro and thousands of Cubans.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as El Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, military theorist, and major figure of the Cuban Revolution. Since his death, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol and global insignia within popular culture.

As a medical student, Guevara traveled throughout Latin America and was transformed by the endemic poverty he witnessed. His experiences and observations during these trips led him to conclude that the region’s ingrained economic inequalities were an intrinsic result of capitalism, monopolism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, with the only remedy being world revolution. This belief prompted his involvement in Guatemala’s social reforms under President Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara’s radical ideology. Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raul and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and travelled to Cuba aboard the yacht, Granma, with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the successful two year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.

Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government. These included instituting agrarian reform as minister of industries, serving as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba’s armed forces, reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion and bringing to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, he was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful motorcycle journey across South America. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed.

Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled “Guerrillero Heroico”, was declared “the most famous photograph in the world.”

The New Kid

Ronny Chieng

Well tonight is the one we’ve been waiting for Rachel Maddow.  Hopefully she’ll talk some about her hosting duties for the upcoming Democratic Forum (shhh, don’t call it a debate, you’ll upset the evil or incompetent Debbie Wasserman Shultz).

The New Continuity

Pro-Life

Tonightly the panel is Bobcat Goldthwait and Shannon DeVido.

The Dancing Man

Ben Bernanke was another in a string of too cozy interviews with reprehensible people.

Stephen will be very late after the Throwball game.  He will be having Cate Blanchett and Brian Chesky on.

This Week’s guests-

• Friday 10/9: James Corden, Shane Smith, and Halsey

The Royals (95 – 67) have the best record in the Junior League and you’d think they’d have a clear edge on the Astros (86 – 76).  Well, not so fast.  The Royals are reigning Champions and have the fewest strikeouts (Astros led the League), but they have the second to last number of Home Runs while the Astros have the second most.  The Royals do have Wade Davis, a devastating Reliever with a 0.94 ERA.

Starting for the Royals tonight is Yordano Ventura (R, 13 – 8, 4.08 ERA) while the Astros will be sending out Collin McHugh (R, 19 – 7, 3.89 ERA).  Tonight’s game is a tough call, on paper McHugh is a much better pitcher but, you know, Davis.

My prediction?  Royals in 4.

Game time is 7:30 on Fox Sports 1.

President Barack Obama called the president of MSF, Dr. Joanne Liu offering his apology and condolences for the attack on MSF’s hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan than took the lives of 22 people. He assured her that their would be a transparent investigation. At this point apologies are not enough nor are internal investigations.

We already know that this was not a mistake. The Afghan government has clearly stated that the hospital was targeted because they knew there were Taliban inside. Letting the US investigate itself is tantamount to letting the murderers investigate the crime scene. A independent international  investigation under the Geneva Conventions

Why Is the U.S. Refusing an Independent Investigation If Its Hospital Airstrike Was an “Accident”?

Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

In Geneva this morning, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) demanded a formal, independent investigation into the U.S. airstrike on its hospital in Kunduz. The group’s international president, Dr. Joanne Liu, specified that the inquiry should be convened pursuant to war crime-investigating procedures established by the Geneva Conventions and conducted by The International Humanitarian Fact-Finding [..]

An independent, impartial investigation into what happened here should be something everyone can immediately agree is necessary. But at its daily press briefing on Monday, the U.S. State Department, through its spokesperson Mark Toner, insisted that no such independent investigation was needed on the ground that the U.S. government is already investigating itself and everyone knows how trustworthy and reliable this process is: [..]

So predictably, American journalists have announced without even waiting for any investigation that this was all a terrible accident, nothing intentional about it. Those U.S.-defending journalists should be the angriest about their government’s refusal to allow an independent, impartial investigation since that would be the most effective path for exonerating them and proving their innocent, noble intentions.

Many Americans, and especially a large percentage of the nation’s journalists, need no investigation to know that this was nothing more than a terrible, tragic mistake. They believe that Americans, and especially their military, are so inherently good and noble and well-intentioned that none would ever knowingly damage a hospital. John McCain expressed this common American view and the primary excuse now accompanying it – stuff happens – on NPR this morning [..]

They’re certain of this despite how consistent MSF has been that this was a “war crime.” They’re certain of it despite how many times, and how recently, MSF notified the U.S. military of the exact GPS coordinates of this hospital. They’re certain of it even though bombing continued for 30 minutes after MSF pleaded with them to stop. They’re certain of it despite the substantial evidence that their Afghan allies long viewed this exact hospital with hostility because – true to its name and purpose – the group treated all wounded human beings, including Taliban. They’re certain of it even though Afghan officials have explicitly defended the airstrike against the hospital on the ground that Taliban were inside. They’re certain of it despite how many times the U.S. has radically changed its story about what happened as facts emerged that proved its latest claims false. They’re certain of it despite how many times the U.S. has attacked and destroyed civilian targets under extremely suspicious circumstances.

But they are not apparently so certain that they desire an independent, impartial investigation into what actually happened here. The facially ludicrous announcement by the State Department that the Pentagon will investigate itself produced almost no domestic outrage. A religious-like belief in American exceptionalism and tribal superiority is potent indeed, and easily overrides evidence or facts. It blissfully renders the need for investigations obsolete. In their minds, knowing that it was Americans who did this suffices to know what happened, at least on the level of motive: It could not possibly be the case that there was any intentionality here at all. As McCain said, it’s only the Bad People – not Americans – who do such things deliberately.

The US has been undeniably caught in the act and needs to answer for thia atrocious attack.

First some Meta.  Today we have two games, tomorrow, Friday, and potentially also Monday we will have four.  This is a lot of Baseball to cover and while we will put up Open Threads it will probably not be possible to live blog all the action.  Also TMC and I will be in meetings all weekend related to the impending transition of our sites to Wordpress.  In addition to that next weekend I have an out of state business appointment and it’s my understanding TMC does too.  It’s a very busy time and we’re doing the best we can.

Secondly, more Meta.  Major League Baseball, with the same genius instinct that led to the abomination that is the Designated Hitter, is showing some games on fairly obscure cable networks that many people do not subscribe to.

Today’s games are all on Fox Sports 1.  I may get that, I’d have to check.  Tomorrow’s 12:30 game between the Rangers and Blue Jays will be on MLB’s own network as will Sunday’s 4 pm game between the Royals and Astros.  Pretty sure I don’t get that.

If I can’t watch it I can’t live blog it so there will probably be some gaps due to that.  Also (see above) I will be out of state at least the 15th through the 17th and I have no clue what channels I’ll be able to get there, possibly not even TBS.

Now onto today’s first game.

The Blue Jays (93 – 89) are about the best team in baseball that isn’t playing in the Senior League.  Among their achievments they outscored opponents by 221 runs (that includes losses).  The Rangers (88 – 74) on the other hand are still somewhat scarred from their memorable 2 game fold against the Cardinals in 2011.

David Price (L, 18 – 5, 2.45 ERA) will be starting for the Blue Jays and Yovani Gallardo (R, 13 – 11, 3.42 ERA) will take the hill for the Rangers.

My prediction?  Jays in 4 (remember it’s a 5 game series and first team to 3 moves on).

Game time is 3:30 on Fox Sports 1.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

David Cay Johnston: Get ready to debate the TPP

We will soon get to see the text – with very little time to examine it

At long last, we are finally about to see the entire text of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a new set of trade rules for the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries.

The final trade agreement was announced, without details, in Atlanta on Monday. Proponents say the deal would grow the economies of all 12 partners. Critics fear it would benefit the biggest corporations at the expense of workers and taxpayers.

As Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, put it, “Wall Street and big corporations just won a big victory to advance a disastrous trade deal.”

Stirring nativist anti-trade sentiments, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed that, as president, he would force Ford Motor and other big companies to move their factories back to the United States. Just what authority the Constitution would grant him to do this remains a mystery.

Even a designated spokesman for the staunchly pro-business American Enterprise Institute said, “The TPP should be carefully vetted … If unsound, the TPP must be rejected.”

Dean Baker: ‘Massive’ Media Hype for TPP

We continue to hear superlatives even as the evidence suggests the trade impact will be trivial. For example, the New York Times reported that US tariffs on Japanese cars will be phased out over 30 years. Wow! The most optimistic growth estimates show a cumulative gain by 2027 of less than 0.4 percent, roughly two months of normal GDP growth.

This doesn’t mean that the TPP can’t have an impact. It will lock in a regulatory structure, the exact parameters of which are yet to be seen. We do know that the folks at the table came from places like General Electric and Monsanto, not the AFL-CIO and the Sierra Club. We also know that it will mean paying more for drugs and other patent and copyright-protected material (forms of protection, whose negative impact is never included in growth projections), but we don’t yet know how much.