Haden Ware @HadenWare

Scouts aren’t free so big market teams will, of course, have more robust scouting departments than small market teams. But you’re right, the Dodgers do a great job and Tampa Bay is a great example of a small market team investing more resources in scouting than most big market teams and competing year after year.

@Jomboy_ If you ran that exact play 10 times would he make it home in 3 of them? Bad throw, bad tag, aerobatic slide? With 2 outs those are all the odds you need to send him. The other 7 times it looks bad.

@DschlopesIsBack What 'till you hear what the Pentagon names its attack helicopters and missies.

Gambling is an interesting one. I was in the offshore gambling industry in the mid-90s and we were indicted by Clinton, ignored by Bush (due to a priority shift after 9/11) and then finally crushed by Obama, all under the auspices of being anti-gambling. Now we know they were just carrying water for the leagues who wanted to control the gambling market on their product. It had nothing to do with protecting people or the “integrity of the game”. It was just about money and the DOJ was happy to play the roll of attack dog for these corporations. Now the leagues have achieved a monopoly on the sector and we’ve got a real problem, not an imaginary one.

I just saw an ad for a drug called SKYRIZI. The ad said not to use SKYRIZI if you're allergic to SKYRIZI. How would I know if I was allergic to SKYRIZI before trying SKYRIZI? Or are they warning people who tried SKYRIZI and almost died not to try it again?

@AdameMedia You're just blatantly lying. Hari Yoga is located on 30th st between 6th and 7th. It's an address, not 30 6-7 year olds.

This exchange happened during the time that Epstein was under investigation for having sex with a 17 year old in FL. He appears to be seeking legal advice on a potential trafficking charge as the girl might have come from a state with a lower age of consent. The lawyer's advice seems to be about the law as it pertains to his case, not a guide on how to "exploit" consent laws. So, yeah, it's kinda boring.

The Jeff Epstein saga isn't a scandal about pedophilia, it's about a Russian word called 'blat,' a Soviet-era word meaning 'the use of personal networks for obtaining goods and services in short supply and for circumventing formal procedures.' It's about a kind of government. As with the large number of 'blatniks' in the Soviet era who made sure their factories got what they needed outside the formal state procurement process, Epstein greased the wheels for the neoliberal state. His job was governance. What does that mean? Well it's clear that Epstein was an entrepreneurial broker across multiple public and private bureaucracies, helping organize 'under-the-table' deals among the legal, business, intelligence, and political elites to allow them to escape the rule of law and traditional conflict of interest restrictions. It's statecraft to allow a superclass to systemically escape the formalized rules. The pedophilia and prostitution were part of it - that is obviously violating the rule of law - but so are the random favors Epstein bestowed. Like Epstein sending Senator Joe Manchin's request for a yacht, a request which came from the First lady of the Virginia Islands, to a random NY financier who might have one. Or working with Joi Ito at MIT and billionaire Reid Hoffman to restructure the Bitcoin Foundation. It's all about matching capital and talent and inputs outside of the restrictions ordinary people are subject to. This kind of governance is particularly important in Soviet-style states, where everyone knows the rules are fake, where skirting the system IS the system. Epstein and his affiliates thrived because of the weakened institutions of the United States, institutions enfeebled in many cases by the men in his network, like Larry Summers. These men adopted multiple roles - advisor, businessman, academic, board member, regulator - and put on the hat that best maximized their self-interest and the self-interest of their narrow network at that moment. The old world, where handing someone your business card meant you represented that institution, disappeared in the 1980s. Over the course of the 1990s, neoconservatives, neoliberals, bankers - ultimately Epstein's network - built this new social order. It was one where you couldn't succeed through the formal rules, but if you were let into the networks of trust by blatniks, you could do anything you wanted. While all the specifics of Epstein's network are not known, and while conspiracy theorists often have crazy views, they have correctly fingered that the world of meritocracy and formalized systems is increasingly a fraud. And that the real government lies elsewhere. In short, when formal democratic institutions like Congress stop governing, the networks of men like Epstein fill the power vacuum. Epstein built what Roy Cohn always wanted to have, but never achieved, because the then-institutions were too strong for him to break. Here's a passage from sociologist Janine Wedel's Shadow Elite on how this form of governance works.

@ninaturner Yeah we do, but for a cause. Illegal immigration isn’t a cause that helps labor.

@samswey Do you honestly believe that the working class Americans who basically voted against the constitution of globalization are Nazis?

You worked for Bernie Sanders, a staunch critic of illegal immigration and globalization. Forget the moderates, they’re done. The question everyone has is, where are the progressives! Where the fuck is the populist left?? What do they stand for? Because just being anti-Trump isn’t a platform.

@dylanmallman If the democratic process is childish, what’s your alternative?

@matthewstoller And then there are others, with more flaccid perspectives, who are wondering; do states or cities who disagree with federal laws have the right to simply opt-out of them?

@ButlerLonney @RodKahx @dianneathome This is a referendum on globalization, plain and simple. It's not racism or some secret Christian sect that elected Trump, it was the working class, people who's communities have been gutted over the past 40 years. The same people, by the way, who elected Obama in 2008.

So CNN is telling us the socioeconomic demographic known as "working class" is defined by just two factors—and one of them is you have to be white? And the other is educational attainment, not salary? So there are no working-class Black people? And Bill Gates is working class?

@mtaibbi You were a self proclaimed Bernie supporter (as was I). What’s the difference between his 2020 campaign and the current Mamdani movement? Have you changed or has the populist left changed? Honest question.

The IHRA definition that Israel here is demanding the United States and its various cities impose is one of the most extreme frontal assaults on political speech seen in years. Fuck off, Israel. You have no right to dictate the range of permissible speech in the US.

Israel Foreign Ministry @IsraelMFA

10 months ago

On his very first day as @NYCMayor, Mamdani shows his true face: He scraps the IHRA definition of antisemitism and lifts restrictions on boycotting Israel. This isn’t leadership. It’s antisemitic gasoline on an open fire.

3K 688 4K 4.4M 350

@simonmaechling I'm confused. Isn't the "elsewhere" Simon is talking about the UK?

@UnrealBluegrass Really??? You should bring this information to the authorities so they can investigate! They might even assign a special counsel!!!!

@aliasvaughn @grok was Russia involved with Cambridge Analytica in the 2016 election?