Marvin

Awe, man. I'm eating.

You are correct. On the national level, most Conservatives and Republicans who dislike Trump have been ostracised if not outright purged. Look at what happened to Justin Amash when he came out for impeaching Trump. IMHO, it looks like the desire to completely remake the Judiciary over-rules principle, honour, justice, backbone, and Truth. Here on the ground, my assertion that, "Donald Trump is everything I dislike about Bill Clinton writ large," got my wife kicked out of a Pagan discussion group a couple of months ago. Trump has such a stranglehold on the NYS Republican Party that generations-long family loyalties and flat-out competence have been ignored in favour of blind loyalty.

This annoyance had its zenith with Chris Pronger. I always figured that while he was on a Sunbelt team that he was untouchable.

I should have been clearer: Electoral landslide. I can easily see him losing the election by more than last time and still win 385-180 in the Electoral College. In fact, if I were a betting man, I would bet on him losing the popular vote by a greater margin than last time. But if the economic sugar high from the big spending increase and tax cuts keeps the economy seemingly improving rather than living on borrowed time, I can't see him losing the electoral vote at all. As a (Bill) Clinton hater, I agree with a lot of the polling that Bill's and Hillary's baggage might have weighed her down too much. Also, his horrible character meant that Trump's character was never in question. "Hard Right" is what I think a Democrat nowadays would think of the Simpson-Bowles plan fiscally (revised because of the Trumped Up Deficits), because it kills of any shot at Medicaid for All and cuts back on overall social spending -- even though it cuts overall weapons spending and increases taxes on everyone, particularly the rich. In particular, ditch the bits about free college for all (unaffordable). Go pro-second amendment -- but by saying that you the voter are presumed to have the Constitutional right to bear arms and the Constitutional right to vote unless the government can prove otherwise in a court of law; the burden is not on the voter. I agree with Democrats trying to stop voter-suppression laws; but just substitute the right terms and you see that the same argument holds for guns. (Remember that the next time the fringes argue for gun confiscation.) I also would recommend a sharp increase in cyber-security spending and an increase in readiness for the troops and better technical training overall. I can get more specific, but this is broadly what I think would pull in different people who would not ordinarily vote for a Democrat. I beg of you all- please make it someone whom we never-Trumpers find palatable. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/08/dems-fopo-murphy-1259699 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/trump-2020-second-term/585994/ https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/if-democrats-really-want-to-beat-trump-joe-biden-should-be-their-nominee-its-not-clear-they-do/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/anti-trump-republicans-could-help-democrats-2020/589933/ https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/campaigns/article225994695.html

This "rule" dates back to at least 1972 with the Special Prosecutor's office. This was the approximate consensus from later interviews with Archibald Cox, Eliot Richardson, William Ruckleshaus, Robert Bork, Leon Jaworski, and Sam Dash. The actual memoranda are at https://www.lawfareblog.com/indicting-president-not-foreclosed-complex-history Here is how it played out in real life. When the Watergate Grand Jury was going to wrap up, the foreman wanted to know if they could indict the President. ("He was the man giving all the orders!") It had been the considered opinion of the Special Prosecutor's office that they could name Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator, but could not indict the President. Leon Jaworski and Sam Dash said that the only people whom everyone agreed could "indict" the President was Congress via impeachment, so their work was packed up to be sent to the House Judiciary Committee and, I believe, the Senate Watergate Committee. Ford's pardon of Nixon was to stem any potential crimes that could have been prosecuted after Nixon's resignation. Because I witnessed the collective sigh of relief from Watergate -- often coupled with outrage -- I expect that there will not be too much stomach to indict Trump on the Federal Level unless there are tax-related charges. On the other hand, if, say, New York State has been regularly screwed by Trump on taxes and can prove that Trump's handing of properties on the federal level are different from his tax filings on the state level, then we should expect the state to try and recover the lost money.

You mean, if you don't agree with them, it is because you hate America? Oh, yeah. That is open-and-shut. Agreed. There are many for whom the partisan battle has eviscerated their moral compasses. The idea of putting aside partisan gains for the good of the country seems to be lost with the exception of people like Justin Amash.

Mill, I might actually be worse than you. One of my parents' first friends after they were married were a football coach (a former original Cleveland Brown) and his wife. After my parents met them, the man went to work with an old friend whom he knew from his college days in Cleveland, Ohio. He was the defencive line coach of the No-Name Defence. From 1971-83, he used to let me sit in on the defencive game plan review at the team hotel the day before the game. Interesting tidbit: It did not matter that the Bills were 4-9-1 during Miami's Perfect Season. I have a clip of the former coaching staff being interviewed on a Miami TV station from the 20th anniversary year. To a man, they say that the only game that they realistically should have lost was to the Bills on 22 October 1972 at the Orange Bowl. Apparently, Saban's game plans had them befuddled the entire game. They uniformly believed that had the Bills started Dennis Shaw instead of Mike Taliaferro, the Dolphins that season go 16-1.

That may be. What I am doing is warning you off of the Bernie wing of the Party. I won't vote for Trump, but a vast majority of Conservative Trump Haters I know in swing states will NOT vote for a Democrat whom the Socialist Wing can stomach. Assuming the economy goes bad, then there is a chance of beating Trump if you go the HARD right of your caucus. If both don't happen, then Trump wins in a landslide. Then we might have a chance of picking up enough votes in FL and OH to make them competitive and to give we Trump-haters a chance in MN, WI, MI, PA, VA, CO, NV, and NM. Yes, I am saying that FL and OH are purplish-bright-red, WI, MI, and PA are bright-reddish-purple, and that MN, VA, and CO are neutral purple. The four best polling aggregators I know (realclearpolitics.com, fivethirtyeight.com, theatlantic.com, politico.com) all agree that Trump lost a lot of support in states he is going to win handily anyway, but he is over-performing, level, or has a certainty of exceeding his poll numbers in states with a large number of Cultural Conservatives. Democrats need to ignore the coasts and focus 100% on competitive states in Middle America if we want to have a prayer of defeating Trump. Nominating, adopting the platform of, and campaigning for someone like John Kasich, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Bill Weld, Susan Martinez, Larry Hogan, and the like would be ideal, but even if you don't, we need them on our side regardless.

Just so that everyone understands why some potentially reasonable arguments might fail. Let me whittle this down to the most common arguments with the broadest appeal across the country. Where possible, I will use direct quotes that were delivered in serious political debates in conversational tones. Believe it or not, in many political circles, this is not considered inflammatory, illogical, or anything else negative that you might say about it. My primary sources are national mailings. Those of you who follow pseudo-conservative media will understand the reasoning below. Merrick Garland is 100% irrelevant. Did he overturn the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and Roe vs. Wade in the mid 1980's as Bork would have done? Did he stop a Commie Kenyan from getting elected? Did he un-genocide all the babies from 1972 onward? Is Vince Foster still alive? If he did not do all of these, then what happened to him does not matter. You obviously do not understand because you hate America.

Maybe. Kind of like Finland at the IIHF WHC, selfless ensemble play makes a whole team better than the sum of its parts and players find something in themselves that no one else knew. Some nameless D becomes Brian Campbell. A career 4th liner turns into Mike Peca. The HOF playmaker becomes a ferocious checker because he's covering defencively for Gretzky and Lafleur. Among others, I think Okposo-Larsson-Girgensons would thrive in an extended playoff run.

I could trade a 2nd or two to get that 3rd back if it allowed me to hit Point and similar players.

With all the cap crap we have plus the complete line-up disasters of the last 2 years, I think that JBots must be very tough about taking them on. After the favour he did StL last year, one more trade that even gives me an impure thought should cost him his job. If he can screw his coach by only giving him 75% of an NHL quality team, the fans by not making moves to keep the team in the playoff hunt, the players by telling them that their winning was a mirage, and the owner by bungling the O'Reilly trade, then he can screw everyone else with the same alacrity. Callahan should require 2 firsts and top 2 prospects for Tage Thompson, which is equivalent to Point's offer sheet. Zaitsev should require Andersen and Kapanen for Nylander, which keep their Nylander happy and keeps Marner. Yes, those are stupid. None require Okposo or a signed and extended Sobotka going the other way.

We hope.

Hi, there. I didn't mean to side-track us a bit by commenting about being a Sikh. It is just my perspective: things that could actually cost me my life cause me less consternation than the ROR trade seems to for some people. I have a much lower tolerance for that kind of talk than most. Aside: hallucinogens, smoking, etc. are strictly forbidden to Sikhs. Also, I am a traditional Sikh, not one of the Sikh Dharma (Yogi Bhajan's group). It is nice to read a different perspective. However, I must disagree with you. We needed at least another 4th line. SOBotka, Thompson, Elie, and Mittlestadt had no business being in the NHL this year. Housley hardly maximised the Sabres' productivity by having SOBotka getting the 4th-most ice time until articles from Bill Hoppe et al. pointed out how bad he was. But he had a MAXIMUM of 10 NHL-quality players to choose from for most of the year. Just three guys who wouldn't get caved in every time would have been preferable. And O'Reilly makes that clearly possible.

I think there is a book about this trade called "Fifty Shades of Grey, Mustard Yellow, and Navy Blue" available at the naughtiest BDSM clubs locally. I imagine it is right next to complaints about Peter McNab, Real Cloutier, Tom Barrasso, Slava Kozlov, and 1 July 2007. <vent> I have to say what I think of all this wallowing in self-loathing. Can we set a time-limit on this, please? I get it. I hated the trade at the time. I hate it even more now. I also hate that people think I am going to blow them up when they see me with a beard, moustache, and turban because I am a male Sikh. I hate that security at KBC and RWS told me they put extra people in my section because people ask for their help in killing me. I complain about that less than people here complain about that trade. </vent>

The problem you have with the NHL and the NBA is that you have to contend with the NFL, which is targetting Presidents' Day weekend eventually for the Super Bowl because Baseball keeps running later and later -- and they are targetting Veterans' Day weekend for the end of the World Series. They probably figure the best idea is to run hockey and hoops playoffs during baseball's "Dog Days" until NFL training camps in June/July.

I think he's onto something. That exact thought process occurred to me as well.

Donald Fehr is still the head of the NHLPA. I estimate there is negative ten per cent chance that a lockout is avoided.

I suspect that your evaluation of the offers we were getting is largely correct. The only counter might be is that maybe we don't get saddled with SOBotka. The only theory that makes any sense to me is that he told Terry and Kim that he was going to move O'Reilly at any cost and their response was, "don't waste our money and then move him before we pay that stinking bonus." Honestly, if that was it, I would have preferred that he take a bunch of futures instead.

Recall that I put a majority of the blame on this past year on Botterill; please take that bias into account in my comments below. I really hope you are right, but if we assume your first paragraph and that he recognises the truth of your third, then it looks like he puts all the blame as described in the 2nd paragraph and the magical solution is the 4th. If I had heard that news conference from one of my bosses or subordinates, I would think that s/he is trapped in an SEP field (cf. https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Somebody_Else's_Problem_field) and doesn't want anyone else to see it, let alone get out of it.

Historical perspective from someone who has lived through lots of this. This has been brewing on the cultural right as far back as Brown vs. Board of Education. It got a push with the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. It got its biggest push with Roe vs. Wade. It finally broke out into full-blown partisan litmus tests ever since Robert Bork was stopped from serving on the Supreme Court -- many of my fellow conservatives have been trying to obstruct every nominee who might have been more liberal than he. A majority of partisans I know talk about "getting even" - Bork on the Court and impeaching and removing a Democrat for "being a Democrat." IMHO, this is a complete misreading of Watergate and of Robert Bork's role thereto. As a Watergate Junkie, I can give you all sorts of stuff information if you ask. For those of you who do not remember Watergate, Robert Bork fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox after his two superiors, Eliot Richardson and William Ruckleshaus, resigned to protest the order. IMHO, that makes him Richard Nixon's hatchet man for the Saturday Night Massacre, who put partisan interests above the country's best interests. I can't even explain the extraordinary outrage that was directed at Bork. His demeanour under stress was most understandable, but did not help him in the least. I always felt that the visceral negative reaction to him had nothing to do with the press, but was people subconsciously remembering his role in Watergate. It did not matter to me that both Richardson and Ruckleshaus testified on his behalf at his Supreme Court hearings. For me, he was automatically disqualified for firing Archibald Cox, no matter what else I thought of him. After 45 years and a change from Liberal-Libertarian to Libertarian-Conservative, that has not changed.

I like it. Nothing outrageous or silly. I personally like the original colour scheme the best, but I am fine with this.

Not even SOB?

Based on some poking around: Tennis, Figure Skating, Swimming, Diving, Golf, Basketball, Soccer, Field Hockey, Ice Hockey. Interestingly, women's figure skating and women's tennis often have higher ratings than the men's games. Women's swimming and diving have comparable ratings to men's. I hate to say it, but I don't think it is an accident that those are the sports listed where women wear what I think are the sexiest uniforms.

This is one of those times where this board will miss Jame. Whatever his flaws (and I have a list), he was stupendous at evaluating the prospects before a draft. I learn a lot from his posts on other boards.