Guard Dog

The Cubs just fo Justin Wilson and Alex Avila from the Tigers. I think the seriously overpaid for them but, a championship banner flies forever. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/245505228/cubs-trade-for-tigers-justin-wilson-avila/

I watched the Giants/Dodgers game last night. I was pulling for the Giants because Bumgarner was pitching. And he was dealing. Losing it like that in the 9th and 11th just sucks.

Throughout our history we have gone through periods of political tribalisim rivaling what we see today. I can think of at least two times it was worse. But what we have now is the worst of my lifetime. It's getting to the point where a special prosecutor is appointed the day each new President takes office and impeachment proceedings are drawn up before the plates are cleared from the inagural lunch. It amazes me to see the Democrats howl when Trump does the same kind of thing they praised Obama for doing. When Barack Obama was increasing warantless wiretaps and data mining on everyday Americans the Republicans howled but they were the same ones who voted for the Patriot act and the FISA changes that permitted it. It's fascinating to see but there really does seem to be a reaction of folks who favor the Democrats thinking everything the Democrats to is good and everything the Republicans do is bad. And vice versa. It's a political absolutism that, hell I've never seen it like this. I am a card carrying Libertarian and a paid member of the party but even I only agree with them on about 80% of their platform. I guess that means I'm that because I'm closer to being that than anything else. But this... thing we see here now. A refusal to even acknowledge a moral correctness in any stance of the political opposition or even a small a moral incorrectness in our own is troubling. To quote Thomas Jefferson "I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent." Just my $.02

It's a nice idea. The problem is there are only two ways to make it happen. Constitutional Amendment or Constitutional Convention. Trust me... you do NOT want the latter and the former would require at least five states with less than 10 electoral votes to agree to marginalize themselves. It's a hard sell.

I mean, in terms of the presidency, there's not much that can be done until we move on from first past the post. Even if a major third party did rise, it would just cannibalize the others and likely lead to Congress selecting the winner. For non-presidential elections, sure, third party candidates can work. For the presidency, we're in need of election reform before it becomes realistic, though. And quite frankly, hardly anyone seems to care about this issue, so things aren't likely to change anytime soon. Even taking enough electoral votes to force a House election would be enough to establish a legitimate 3rd party. Winning a governorship and a few seats in Congress would too. IMO that is where the focus and assets should go right now and the LP seems to be embracing that strategy. The ides should be less about winning now than setting the table for the future.

No, a Trump re-election is not unrealisitc. There are pleny of flawed Democrats who could go in there is completely screw this up. And if they didn't they would be in office and we would be no better off. This two party system we have become stuck in is quckly becoming a binary death trap. Who was the last major party nominee that was not seriously flawed? George HW Bush? And going back to 2008 & 2012. Had McCain or Romney won their elections does anyone really think they would have done anything different than Obama did? Two tribes fighting tooth and nail because each want's "their" chief to be the one to do what either will do. And the tragedy of it is we are only stuck with it because we think we are. 3rd party candidates only lose because people think they are wasting their vote. If enough people decide enough is enough those votes won't be wasted, they will change things.

BTW Malcador, you were right it seems. This whole trans ban thing was all Trump's idea, not a reccomendation from the JCS. Apparently he felt there was not enough chaos in his administration and had to stir up some more. Like I've been saying for 9 months now... don't blame me I voted for Johnson.

David Price is on the DL, Boston has lost 6 of their last 10 games and the now resurgent Yankees are in first. The Rays traded away some valuable prospects and a SP for bullpen and infield help and have now lost eight of their last 10 games to fall out of WC contentions. Grrrr! Kansas City found their ju-ju and have made the AL central a three horse race with the Twins & Indians. AL West? Move along Son, nothing to see here. The Astros are dominating. NL East? Ditto. The Nats are alread thinkng of a magic number and it ain't even august yet. The Cubs came back from whatever vacation they were on and assumes control of the NL Central. Milwuakee is still scrapping but sigs of a fade are there. The NL West has been pretty much over since May. The Dodgers are unbeatable. Ditto the NL Wild card. Arizona & Colorado have that in hand. Oh yeah... Tim Tebow's slash line in the FSL: 303/.389/.495 with an .884 OPS and 5 HR. OK, so I was wrong. He can play.

The quickest way to fix the ACA is to force Congress to have to buy it. They exempted themselves from it back in 2010. As they usually do, after all "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-threatens-to-cancel-some-health-care-benefits-for-lawmakers-1501352607

I've never heard of that book but the last reccomendation I got from aluminiumtrioxid was good. So I'll give this a shot.

Went to dinner at the VFW last night. There is a wall there with a picture of all the member who have passed away. They put a picture of Tommy there. I was touched. I seldom went there without him so I guess that makes him as much a member as anyone. They all loved him there. I'd like to start bringing Sunny but she is a little too rambunctious for that. I'm still working on her social skills.

Hey if it's not cramping your style not having a car think of all the money you're saving.

For those of you who opposed the Citizens United decision. Re-thinking it in the age of Trump: http://reason.com/blog/2017/07/25/trump-attacks-on-washington-post-illustr For those of you who thought it was the right decision and free speech should be free no matter who is speaking, pat yourself on the back. pat pat pat

No likes for this? Well you get one from me. Respect to the people doing this, and respect to you for chipping in. Thank you Sir! An ending has been written to this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/27/marine-dog-bone-cancer-says-final-goodbye/516853001/ I was even more sympathetic since I just lost my own best friend to this exact disease.

The Navy is a pretty wide ranging service. Serving on a ship, other than a carrier which is literally a floating city, is not easy duty. I did to float deployments during my time. They were both Gator Freighters (amphibious warfare) and that was enough to make me glad I didn't join the Navy. The Naval air wing is big. It serves a different purpose than the Air Force (tactical rather than strategic) and the Navy does have the finest Special Operations division in the US.

Let's see, Hoover was a Quaker and never served in the military for religious reasons FDR missed WWI was was SecNav before becoming President. No draft in his day. Truman served in the Army and National Guard as an artilleryman in WWI Eisenhower was a career military man and the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe in WW2 Kennedy was a naval officer and PT boat commander in WW2 Johnson was too young for WWI and too old for WW2 so he never served but there was no draft. Nixon was a Navy officer and served in the Pacific in WW2 Ford was also a Naval Officer and served in the Pacific in WW2. Carter was a Navy man and Submariner. He served in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets in the '50's Reagan was an enlisted man in the Army when WW2 started. He was later commissioned and served in the Army Air Corps. George HW Bush was a Navy fighter pilot during WW2. Bill Clinton was given draft deferments for college. When his number was coming up he used influence from Democrat Senator William Fullbright to get an ROTC appointment he never reported to. He didn't actually "dodge" the draft. But he came real close to doing it. George W Bush used family influence to get in the Air National Guard. Barack Obama missed all the wars. The draft was over. He never served in the military. Donald Trump got four deferments for college and failed the draft physical during Vietnam. So no presidents ever actually dodged the draft... but the military service bar sure has sunk.

Well, if this is all his own idea then he kicked a hornets nest for no good reason. That would be weapons grade stupid IMO. I certainly would not have put it past him. @Bruce: When you get right down to it, the only difference between a gay person and a straight one is whose company they prefer in the sack. That is it, there is nothing else to it. Put 10 Marines in uniform in a room and ask someone to find the gay one and they could not do it. There is no martial reason why gay servicemen could not serve openly from the get-go. It was entirely social. The same with blacks before the services integrated. There was no reason to segregate other than to not create a disruption. But this is a concern a military commander must take into account. Like I said, it says something ugly about us as a people that a gay marine would have been mistreated or ostracized in 1989 much the same as it does when black (dark green) marines were in the '40's and 50's. But it's how things were. We look back on it now and wonder what the big deal was, but it's not the purpose of the military to "change the world" or anything like that. It has to live in the time it's in.

Presumably. Other than officers attached to the NSA or other agencies the JCS is the only military members the President typically interacts with as far as advice and policy goes. This was his statement according to USA Today: “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”

OK, before I get into this let me get one thing out of the way. You all know me and know my social views. So you all can guess my opinion of folks who deal with gender dysphoria by cross dressing, hormone or surgical solutions, etc. If it works for you, do it. And no one should hold it against you. A man is not less of a a human being because he feels more comfortable living as a woman. He is not less deserving of our respect or our protection from discrimination. The same is true of any societal subset, social, religious or otherwise. All any of us wants is to enjoy the time we have on this earth as best as we are able. Since I cannot walk a mile in trans person's shoes (probably literally as well as figuratively) I am taking no position on whether the decision to bar them from military service was correct. i just don't know enough to answer. It's discriminatory no doubt. But is it necessary? There is something you all need to understand about the military service. Not just the US, any military service. It is not a social club. It is not a university, or fraternity, or corporation, or job. The rules of normal society, for good or ill, do not apply to military service. It is an institution dedicated to a purpose. It must be able to achieve that purpose with maximum efficiency and effectiveness. The stakes are literally life and death. I served from 1989-1994. When I served gays were forbidden to serve. Was that discriminatory? You bet. Was it wrong morally? Yes. But it was necessary then. An openly gay Marine in 1989 would not have been OK. Not only would he have been in danger from his fellow Marines his very presence would have been detrimental to morale and unit cohesion. That says something ugly about us as a people but that is how the world was then. It was not socially acceptable to be openly gay in 1989. There is no martial reason why a gay Marine cannot serve and do so with distinction. I am 100% certain many have and no one ever knew. But that is just how things were and forcing a change then, even if it was morally right, would have damaged military readiness and capability. That is a fact. Fast forward 10 years, attitudes have changed and no one gives a damn about it. Gays can serve openly and no one cares. The same thing happened in the '30s and '40s when it came to integrating black servicemen. From the days black soldiers were first allowed to join (1862 iirc) the served in segregated units. There was no reason for that beyond military expediency. But that is a thing. I've written here many time the military is a meritocracy. And to a large extent it is. But not always. There are injustices great and petty visited on servicemen by the military every day in the name of "the requirements of the service" as we called it. Things that would not happen in any other environment can happen there. And there is often nothing you can do but suck it up. I believe Manifested and ShadySands will back me up on that. I do not doubt trans servicemen can do the job. And I don't think social attitudes are the problem today like they might have been in the past. For whatever reason the Joint Chiefs are telling the President "this is a problem". And that means the President has to solve it or knowingly accept a reduction in military readiness. Even if the solution is not morally correct. Like I said, the rules of normal society cannot always apply to the military.

Apparently Bernie Sanders has been stealing his neighbor's newspaper: http://redalertpolitics.com/2017/07/25/report-bernie-sanders-stealing-neighbors-newspaper-d-c/ Makes sense I guess. The neighbor has a paper, Bernie does not. How is that fair? Where is the justice in that?

Why they hell are we covering Viagra? My insurance does not even cover that. Not that I need it.....

Can't open that page. Well... if she means chronologically she's right. I suspect that isn't what them mean.

The last paragraph addresses that bit: My guess would be it has something to do with the appeal of service. The military has always been popular as an option for those struggling to find their identity. There seems to be some overlap according to this survey. I never thought about it that way. I was looking at it more from a perspective of folks with gender dysphoria already having a clue about themselves. At any rate this hearkens back to a discussion you and i participated in not long ago about the benefits of gender-reassignment surgery. I still disagree with you and assert it is an elective surgery. A man who identifies as female and has an operation is still a man afterwards. Just with a few bits moved around. Ditto for the women. It is superficial, skin deep, a nose job. If they want it, more power to them but don't ask the tax payers to cover it for you. Until we figure out a way to swap that Y chromosome for an X or vice versa, you are stuck with what you were born with.

It's also a ticket out of the service if that is what the service member wants.

No transgender people in the military, not sure they were so much of a distraction to affect the combat performance. I think t was more of a cost savings move since gender reassignment surgery was becoming a covered benefit. As much as I abhor discrimination of any stripe the military is a different animal than the rest of society and the rules that apply are different. But I suspect the pols will make much more of this than the story deserves. I believe I read there were less than 10 "transgendered" service members in all four branches. This study from 2014 estimated over 15k, but can't say how accurate it is. "Our estimates suggest that approximately 15,500 transgender individuals are serving on active duty or in the Guard or Reserve forces. We also estimate that there are an estimated 134,300 transgender individuals who are veterans or are retired from Guard or Reserve service." https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Transgender-Military-Service-May-2014.pdf Never mind... my math was wrong.