Stacy McCain still being banned from Twitter reminds me of Molly Norris still in hiding for her life. Both outraged me at the time and I’m still pissed off by the pair.
Seriously? If it wasn't for england the slave trade would still exist. They practically bankrupted themselves to stop ithttps://t.co/Vx4hzXqXVF
The only reason why the slave trade died was the British government put their navy on stopping it and actually paid cash to captains per slave freed. African nations at the time hated that. Rather than needing a civil war they paid compensation to slaveowners to make things work and those loans they took to do so were only recently retired.
I’m old enough when people actually knew history.
yup that's why the Wash Post and LA times didn't endorse, because Kamala is doing so well she didn't need them.
boy it's a long time since the black book of communism isn't it?
I always find it sad with I see Anne Applebaum drinking the koolaid. Her Black book of Communism was an important work and recorded things that history might have lost from the Soviet archives and a service to humanity.
But that’s not a guarantee against Trump derangement syndrome.
This picture give me hope that some people can figure out when something is beyond the pale.
Although in fairness I almost feel sorry for this young girl who has OD's on the cool aid and did something REALLY stupid.
You actually have to watch the video this is clipped from for full context but the good news is the black woman recognized that the white girl has gone over the line and scolds her for it. Given they’re Kamala fans that’s signifies hope. The bad news is that the girl who is apparently an organizer for Kamala is now going to have to carry this stupid act for as long as there is an internet which is forever.
It’s really a bad thing when your politics becomes your religion because fanatics are dangerous.
Also a lot of people seeing this remember being young and stupid and thank God that cell phone camera and the internet weren’t around when they were young.
I’m going to include two tweets in this last section first from the Lincoln Project
If Trump was the Nazi you claim you would actually be broadcasting his speech from the guardian and then saying: "See we told you"
I don’t get all that upset about these guys. You know left PACS are paying their bills and they aren’t going to make a dime from GOP candidates anymore so they’re just earning the bucks for being the paid actors that they are. This is the script or at least the outline and they’re just saying lines.
There are two types of people who don’t see the writing on the wall. The people who have made politics their religion like the niche market who still watch CNN that Jake Tapper was pandering to here:
In fairness to Mr. Tapper when your team is down by two touchdowns in the 4th you have to throw the Hail Mary
and the people who are paid to pretend not to see it. They will be talking about a Democrat wave sweeping the country right until the day that High Brazil sinks under the waves and beyond if the cash keeps coming.
Not many people these days know that the British Empire was the driving force behind ending the vast majority of global slavery.
Slavery or de facto slavery was standard practice throughout the world from the dawn of civilization until a few hundred years ago. It is even… https://t.co/HQjCz4Hago
The points “Thinking West” are making are absolutely correct and true.
The Objections and grievances of the Irish & India are also correct although in India’s case it should be pointed out that poor Indians didn’t do much better under native rulers
The point being there is nothing wrong with acknowledging both the positive and the negative aspects of a country’s history. When you ignore one or the other you insult history and you paint a false picture.
While he’s only 17 months in his first term in office, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson is on pace to be remembered as one of America’s worst big city mayors. The competition to be inducted into that shameful club includes some real rascals and incompetents, such as New York’s Jimmy Walker, Detroit’s Coleman Young, Cleveland’s Dennis Kucinich, and Chicago’s Big Bill Thompson.
The insufferably incompetent and complicit Chicago media, once among the America’s best, rarely mentions that “Branjo,” prior to his election as mayor, was a longtime paid organizer–that means agitator–for the far-left Chicago Teachers Union. The CTU was the largest donor to his mayoral campaign, and it supplied ground troops to get Johnson elected. Yes, I know, Johnson was also a Cook County commissioner. While in that job he authored no memorable legislation.
Johnson, in short, is in the pocket of the CTU.
Why can’t you say so, Chicago media?
Chicago is essentially broke because of massive unfunded pension obligations, and so is Chicago Public Schools.
On Friday afternoon, all seven members of the Chicago Board of Education resigned because they refuse to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who was appointed by Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot. Johnson has called on Martinez to resign, the mayor supports the fiscally anemic CPS to take out what’s widely being called a “payday loan” to pay for pension obligations and big raises for CTU members.
Martinez opposes that, and clearly, so do the former board members. Unlike Martinez, the board members who just quit aren’t Lightfoot holdovers. Johnson appointed all of them.
Richard Nixon had his Saturday Night Massacre, @ChicagosMayor has his Friday Afternoon Massacre. And once again, Branjo will probably blame Nixon for his problems.
The president of the Chicago Teachers Union is Stacy Davis Gates. She’s an ill-tempered leftist who is possibly crazier than US Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Gates, it’s important to know, sends her son to a private school. Of course she is against school choice for everyone else, as is Johnson.
Besides its money problems, Chicago Public Schools do a horrible job educating students. Even though CPS spending continues to soar, student test scores continue to be quite low. Roughly three-quarters of CPS students are unable to read at grade level—and math scores are even worse.
Can this story get any worse?
In Chicago, getting worse is the normal.
As part of a transition to a fully elected Board of Education, ten seats for a new board are up for election this fall–voting has already begun. Johnson will appoint the remaining 11 seats.
The new members that Johnson will appoint will be out of office in a few months. Branjo will task them to fire Martinez, approve the “payday loan” for those pension obligations, and approve a big raise for Chicago’s unionized teachers.
Good government types in Chicago—amazingly, they really exist–condemned Johnson’s pro-Chicago Teachers Union power play. Surprisingly a large majority–over eighty percent–of the Chicago City Council, including aldermen who are members progressive caucus and two of the six socialists, have expressed opposition to Branjo’s move.
As Barack Obama famously said, elections have consequences. Chicago voters choose poorly.
Crime, despite laughable denials from Crain’s Chicago Business, also known as Crain’s Chicago Anti-Business, is a serious problem Chicago. The office and retail vacancy rate downtown are over 25 percent. For 2025, Chicago faces a $1 billion deficit.
Sadly, there is not recall mechanism in place for Chicago mayors.
“The Mets have shown me more ways to lose than I even knew existed.” Casey Stengel, New York Mets manager in 1962.
“I didn’t know there were this many ways to lose a ballgame.” John Schriffen, Chicago White Sox play-by-play announcer in 2024.
“It was a year that none of us anticipated,” Steve Stone, White Sox color analyst, during the last game of the season.
Last Friday night the Chicago White Sox made history in Detroit when they lost their MLB record 121st game. To add salt to the wounds, in the home broadcast booth, Chicago area native Jason Benetti, who was the South Siders’ play-by-play announcer from 2019 thru 2023, called the game for the Tigers. According to media reports, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who has been, deservedly so, cast as the villain on the South Side, didn’t like the serendipitous and a bit quirky broadcasting style of Benetti, who is now the television voice of the Tigers.
When your team sucks, Jerry, an announcer like Benetti is just what is needed. Besides, I thought Jason was great.
While I didn’t make it out to Guaranteed Rate Field for a Sox home game—lots of stuff came up–I viewed many games on television.
And it was bizarre watching.
After I’d miss a few games, I’d tune in and see an unfamiliar player at bat or on the pitchers’ mound. A lot.
By the end of July, it was as if the team plane for the White Sox had crashed, killing the entire roster. Of course that’s exaggeration, but there was an incredible amount of turnover this season as general manager Chris Getz and team manager Pedro Grifol, tried to patch holes on the sinking ship.
Who is that guy? Where did he come from? Those are questions I asked a lot when tuning in to White Sox baseball.
Grifol didn’t survive August. Few managers do after losing 21 straight games—and that tied an American League record, set by the Baltimore Orioles in 1988.
Here’s an interesting fact. Larry Sheets, an outfielder for those awful O’s, is the father of Gavin Sheets, an outfielder and first baseman for the Sox.
Why were the Sox so bad in 2024? Bad luck? Perhaps. Injuries? A bit. But in a 162-game season, even the best teams hit an unlucky patch or two. All teams in all sports have injuries.
The short answer is that the White Sox farm system has been bereft of talent for years, save for “white flag” mid-season trades of established players with expensive contracts in exchange for prospects. The last number one Sox draft pick who has justifiably been called an MLB standout was shortstop Tim Anderson, the 2019 American League batting champion and a two-time all-star. Anderson was drafted eleven years ago. He’s out of baseball now. The following year the Sox drafted Carlos Rodón in the first round, he now hurls for the New York Yankees. Rodón is a two-time all-star who pitched a no-hitter in 2021. He comes close to stardom, but again, Rodón was drafted ten years ago.
In this afternoon’s game against the Tigers, there was a typical White Sox boneheaded error. Stone remarked that “communication issues” have been a problem all year for Chicago. A Detroit pinch hitter, Andy Ibáñez, hit a routine foul pop-up that soared near the visitors’ dugout. Sox first baseman, Andrew Vaughn, yelled “I got it” repeatedly. But Pale Hose catcher Korey Lee ran towards the pop-up too. Neither caught the ball, it landed between them.
Of the White Sox players with enough at-bats to qualify for a batting average crown, Vaughn ended up with the highest average at .246. That made him the 88th best batter in MLB in 2024
I hate to single out Vaughn, but he played a big role in one of the most bizarre endings of an MLB game ever. He was called for interference on an infield fly rule play, concluding a game against the Orioles with a double play.
Take a look.
Schriffen pointed to this defeat when making that comment about his naiveté on the many ways to lose a baseball game.
There is some good news for the South Siders. If you are a “there is a no such thing as bad publicity” type, for the first time since the White Sox won the World Series in 2005, they’re no longer playing in the shadow of the more popular Chicago Cubs. They’re getting national attention.
Secondly, the Sox, who lost 101 games last year, didn’t finish last in the AL Central in 2023. The Kansas City Royals lost 106 games a year ago–and they made the playoffs this season. That being said, if you believe that the White Sox will play in the post season in 2025, which by the way will be their 125th annual effort, I have some Enron stock to sell you. Getz has already said that the Sox won’t be a big factor in the off-season free agency market.
Thirdly, unless the Pale Hose break the record again next season, its “worst ever” record might be broken soon by someone else. In the 21st century, there have been several teams, most notoriously the 2003 Detroit Tigers who lost 119 games, who have challenged the Mets’ 1962 woeful performance. The 2018 Orioles tanked 115 times. The Tigers had another very rough year in 2019, losing 114 times.
The Orioles and Tigers will be joining the Royals in this year’s playoffs.
Lastly, the White Sox finished the 2024 season winning five of its last six games, including today’s game in Detroit. Interim manager Grady Sizemore might have made a difference–and he could return next year.
UPDATE 8:30pm EDT:
During the White Sox-Tigers game, Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf issued a long statement where he admitted that the South Siders “on-field performance this season was a failure.”
From that statement:
While embracing new ideas and outside perspectives, we will do everything we can to fix this for 2025 and the future. This will include further development of players on our current roster, development within our system, evaluating the trade and free agent markets to improve our ballclub and new leadership for our analytics department, allowing us to elevate and improve every process within our organization with a focus for competing for championships. In fact, change has already been happening in our baseball operations group throughout this past year. When named general manager in 2023, Chris Getz and his staff immediately began conducting a top-to-bottom evaluation of our existing operations. Chris is rebuilding the foundation of our baseball operations department, with key personnel changes already happening in player development, international scouting, professional scouting and analytics. Some of these changes will be apparent quickly while others will need time to produce the results we all want to see at the major-league level.
Great words, these are.
But Getz’ “top-to-bottom evaluation of our existing operations” that he began over a year ago has seen the White Sox, a bad team then, get much worse.
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