The people who made those shitty laws are to blame. Unfortunately, those people are usually the ones that benefit directly from the same laws, or are paid by those people. Mitt Romney made a big deal during the 2012 election that he only paid the amount of taxes as was legally required, which made him a smart…

Yup.

There are lots of ways to do it. Just giving cash works. In Canada, which has very high sales taxes, the government offers rebates. All you have to do is check a box on your tax return and you get a direct deposit every six months, based on your income level. The Netherlands gives parents something like $700 a year,…

Actual conversation between myself, my brother and my three-year-old nephew.

I disagree. I don’t know about the Sacramento fans or media, but I think Boogie would like playing for Van Gundy, and he without doubt would be adored in Detroit. Shit, I still love Rasheed Wallace and he was a lazy headcase who stopped playing for the Pistons a decade ago.

I agree, but that’s assuming he doesn’t already know. Apparently he and Van Gundy are on cordial but not particularly friendly terms, so who knows how he would take it. (Beyond, you know, being horrified that someone would want to send him to Sacramento, which you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.)

My favorite piece of just fucking weird baseball trivia: Damion Easley was in the home run derby...in 1998.

Hey, the 2000 team was pretty good. They had a plausible shot at the wild card, and they had Dean Palmer’s amazing brawl against the White Sox.

That game was amazing. But there was no way anyone other than Verlander was winning the Cy Young that year. I went to two of his starts that year, and in one (at home against the White Sox? in July) there was an audible groan from the crowd when he gave up his first hit in the third inning. (The other start was the…

Don’t forget the symbolic value of a black Muslim leading the opposition party to Trump.

The proper response was, “Things are bad, but if you think voting for the party of Paul Ryan is going to help you’re insane.”

To be fair, there are thousands of people in Washington who graduated college long ago and now hold positions of real power who fail to understand the conflict. The just see it as “enemy terrorists/friendly victims”.

You’re not wrong, but I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. To adjust your analogy, imagine the constitution of Oklahoma called for the destruction of Texas, while at the same time Texas controlled the economy of Oklahoma and the movement and political exercise of its citizens, was systematically settling Texans…

The CBP agents’ union was one of the very first endorsements Trump got. There isn’t a lot of friction there.

I’m not a lawyer, but someone who’s traveled to some unsavory places and had more than my fair share of run-ins with CBP and gotten legal counsel about it: Interactions with CBP are considered legally distinct from interactions with police, which offer more protections. One, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply to…

It’s not one bus. The current jail site is in the middle of downtown, so there are lots of bus routes that go there, and it’s down the street from the central transit station. Moving the complex anywhere outside of that area makes it less accessible.

It’s been pointed out that the Gratiot complex would also house courts, and that corner is much more accessible by bus than somewhere outside of downtown, which is a major consideration for a public building like that. While I agree that a jail right there is not ideal, downtown needs more workplaces where people will…

Whatever your stance on drone strikes and the killing of Americans abroad, Anwar Awlaki was the target when he was killed. Nora Awlaki was collateral damage.

It’s not gay. Just two men celebrating each other’s strength.

Not quite. The raid was planned by the military, but the Obama administration decided it was too risky for the possible benefit and rejected it as an option.