Go Skins

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/13/politics/electoral-college-faithless-electors-supreme-court/index.html Washington (CNN) As election season heats up, the Supreme Court will hear two cases Wednesday that could shake up the Electoral College at a time when contests are increasingly polarized in a volatile political atmosphere. At issue in the disputes is whether states can bind presidential electors to vote for the state's popular-vote winner. In 2016, 10 of the 538 presidential electors went rogue, attempting to vote for someone other than their pledged candidate. In all, 32 states and the District of Columbia have laws that are meant to discourage so-called faithless electors. But until 2016, no state had ever actually punished or removed an elector because of his or her vote. Now, those on both sides of the issue believe the justices should settle the question. "This has become a big deal because there is a large risk that for the third time in this century the popular vote winner and the electoral vote winner will be different people," said Reed W. Hundt, who runs a foundation called Making Every Vote Count.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29162217/owners-approve-mlb-season-proposal-plan-july-start-players-union-preps-weigh-it Among the other vital points included in the proposal: An expansion of playoff teams from 10 to 14 An 82-game season The use of home stadiums in areas that have local and state government approval A so-called spring training 2.0 that begins in June, with a season set for early July A universal designated hitter Geographical schedules, in which teams play only in-division opponents and interleague opponents in a similar area (i.e., American League Central teams play AL Central and National League Central teams.) A 30-man roster with a taxi squad that would have upward of 50 players available

I am expecting this to happen on November 22nd: http://www.nfl.com/m/share?p=%2Fvideos%2Fnfl-cant-miss-plays%2F0ap2000000064724%2FWK-3-Can-t-Miss-Play-Bengals-open-with-a-bang

https://abcnews.go.com/US/dallas-salon-owner-sentenced-week-jail-reopening-businesses/story?id=70532233 A Dallas salon owner who repeatedly defied orders to shut down her business in compliance with state coronavirus executive orders was sentenced to a week in jail Tuesday. Dallas Civil District Judge Eric Moyé criticized Shelly Luther for keeping her business, Salon a la Mode, open last week despite a citation, a cease and desist letter and a restraining order. During the hearing, Luther admitted that her business was still open partially, and the judge scolded her for blatantly disobeying the law meant to protect residents. "The rule of law governs us. People cannot take it upon themselves to determine what they will and will not do," he said during the hearing.

My employer did the same thing, but your work conditions and mine are different. There are not many people where I work right now.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2889154-report-mlb-could-realign-into-3-divisions-if-2020-season-restarts-after-hiatus?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_medium=referral "The league could open in 10 to 12 states, or in as many as 20 home parks, sources say. Or it could start in Florida, Texas and Arizona, then take a break after say, five weeks, to reassess the viability of moving to other locations. Even states hit hardest by the virus — New York, Michigan, California — might welcome the return of baseball in empty parks, citing it as an example of life returning to normal." Some states have begun to relax their stay-at-home guidelines, thus opening the door for some businesses to return on a limited basis. The NBA announced Monday it would allow for teams to reopen their practice facilities no earlier than May 8, with specific restrictions in place. Teams would be prohibited from having more than four people in the facility at once, for instance. Nightengale noted MLB's three-division plan is contingent on getting the green light from medical professionals and that widespread coronavirus testing will need to be available to the public.

Protests in Indiana and Texas: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/coronavirus/us-coronavirus-updates-protesters-push-back-on-stay-at-home-orders/2276723/ More than 200 people upset over restrictions on Indiana residents because of the coronavirus protested outside the state mansion of Gov. Eric Holcomb, urging him to back off and restart the economy. Holcomb, a Republican, said a stay-at-home order that expires Monday will be extended to May 1 while he works on a plan to reopen businesses. In Austin, Texas, a few hundred people rallied at the state Capitol in another protest over stay-at-home orders. The demonstration came a day after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced that next week Texas will begin reopening state parks and letting retailers sell items curbside. Abbott says more restrictions will be lifted before the end of April.

https://www.wavy.com/news/virginia/virginia-man-files-lawsuit-against-northam-claiming-executive-orders-violate-state-constitution/ RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — A man from southwest Virginia filed a lawsuit against Gov. Ralph Northam on Monday claiming the governor’s executive orders limiting gatherings of more than 10 people has had “a chilling effect” on his right to religious freedom. The suit, filed by Larry Hughes in Russell County, argues Northam’s order violates the Virginia Constitution’s guarantee of the enjoyment of life and liberty. Hughes’ suit also claims Executive Order 55 violates the constitution’s guarantee that people are the source of power in the commonwealth, that laws may not be suspended without the people’s consent and the guarantee of the the free exercise of religion. The complaint from Hughes, who is described as a professing Christian who regularly attends religious services in the suit, states that Northam’s executive order has left a chilling effect on his right to religious freedom in regards to the 10-person limit.

Bernie drops out. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bernie-sanders-drops-out-of-the-presidential-race/ar-BB12kzlV?OCID=ansmsnnews11

Democratic National Convention postponed to mid August. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/02/825953889/democratic-national-convention-pushed-back-a-month-and-the-format-may-change

Warren drops out. https://wtop.com/presidential-election/2020/03/warren-ends-2020-presidential-bid-after-super-tuesday-rout/

I agree with part of your list. I like interleague play, because it forces teams to visit every stadium every few years (like the NFL does). DUMP THE DH! I will never forget seeing this in person, which adds to the evidence: https://youtu.be/loYAcwyyFDY Pete should be in Cooperstown. Not sure Arizona should be contracted, but Tampa should move. I've been to that stadium. It was odd being in Fla in the middle of summer and not needing shades to watch a game in the middle of the day. One upside to that stadium, a ton of parking.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28673912/mlb-weighing-major-changes-postseason-including-growing-number-teams-14 MLB is considering a move in which each league would have three division winners and four wild-card teams making the postseason starting in 2022, sources said. The best team in the league would receive a bye into the division series. The two remaining division winners and the wild-card team with the best record of the four would each host all games of a best-of-three series in the opening round. The potential changes were first reported by the New York Post. Once the teams clinch and the regular season ends, the plan gets congested: The division winner with the second-best record would select its wild-card opponent from the three wild-card winners not hosting a series. The division winner with the worst record would then choose its opponent from the remaining two wild-card teams. The final matchup would pit the wild-card winner with the best record against the wild-card team not yet chosen. All of the selections, sources said, would be unveiled live on television the Sunday night of the final regular-season games.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-shooting/texas-gunman-who-killed-seven-had-previously-failed-background-check-for-firearm-idUSKCN1VN0L3?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+(News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News)&utm_source=reddit.com (Reuters) - The gunman who killed seven people and wounded 23 others in a rolling rampage across West Texas obtained an assault-style rifle despite failing a background check, state and law enforcement officials said on Monday. The gunman, identified by police as Seth Aaron Ator, 36, carried out the shooting spree in the neighboring cities of Midland and Odessa on Saturday, a short time after he was fired from his trucking job. He called local emergency 911 responders and then an FBI tip line to make rambling statements, officials said. In those calls, Ator did not threaten to commit violence, they said. But he would soon go on to open fire on civilians and police officers in a roving series of shootings, at one point hijacking a U.S. Postal Service truck before dying in an exchange of gunfire with law enforcement, police said.

I present exhibit A: https://www.insidenova.com/news/crime_police/prince_william/woman-injured-after-gun-accidentally-discharged-in-high-school-parking/article_8bb8fb4e-c363-11e9-b744-774df822c60c.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/parkland-students-unveil-sweeping-gun-control-proposal-and-hope-for-a-youth-voting-surge-in-2020/2019/08/20/145f4574-c36f-11e9-9986-1fb3e4397be4_story.html The student activists who crashed the political arena after the mass shooting last year at their high school in Parkland, Fla., are throwing their weight behind a new and ambitious gun-control program that they hope will set the tone for the debate following the most recent mass shootings and headed into the 2020 elections. The students are speaking out for the first time since 31 people were killed in one weekend in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio. They hope their plan — unveiled Wednesday morning — will be considered by President Trump as well as his Democratic presidential rivals and will serve as a catalyst for a surge of youth voters next year. “I think similarly to a lot of the country, I’m in a lot of pain right now,” said David Hogg, 19, a co-founder of March for Our Lives and a survivor of the shooting in February 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. “You see these shootings on TV every day and very little happening around it. It’s painful to watch. And I think it’s been really hard for me and many of the other students and people that we work with to find hope in this time. “But I think that this plan is something that we can truly — as a country and as Americans united against violence and fighting for peace — can get behind.” March for Our Lives has been focused on voter registration and outreach across the country over the past year and a half, building a national infrastructure with more than 100 chapters centered on grass-roots organizing. They hope to turn that into droves of voters at the polls next year.

Trump calls Hollywood racist: http://www.darkhorizons.com/donald-trump-slams-hollywood-as-racist/

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/03/us/el-paso-shooting/index.html

Title and trailer here (movie to be released 12/20/19):

https://www.wkrn.com/news/crime-tracker/5-juveniles-arrested-for-murder-of-man-in-west-nashville/1763201240 Metro police later said five juveniles will be charged in Yorlet's murder after they were taken into custody at the Walmart on Charlotte Pike. They have been booked into juvenile detention. The supects include three girls, ages 15, 14 and 12, and two boys, ages 16 and 13. A gun was recovered as was a stolen car in the Walmart parking lot, according to Metro police.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/national-march-on-the-nra-rally-planned-for-saturday-outside-washington/2018/08/03/dd1650d6-966e-11e8-810c-5fa705927d54_story.html?utm_term=.3b44a0545757 Halfway through their national tour of registering young people to vote and raising awareness about gun violence, survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting will step off their bus Saturday at the Fairfax headquarters of the National Rifle Association. The teens will be joined by activists, protesters and survivors of gun violence to protest the NRA’s role in blocking gun-control laws and defending sales of guns such as the AR-15, the semiautomatic rifle used in the Parkland, Fla., massacre. The protest, dubbed the “National March on the NRA,” will begin at noon. It is expected to last three hours. Demonstrators say they will come with a number of demands and policy proposals. Among them are a ban on high-capacity magazines and “any weapon of a caliber higher than .30 caliber or more and any rifle, long gun, or short-barreled rifle that fires in semi-automatic and takes self-loading magazines,” and the institution of universal background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. They also want a searchable database of gun owners run through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/07/26/eric-church-says-nra-is-to-blame-for-las-vegas-festival-mass-shooting.html Eric Church, who was one of the headlining acts at the Route 91 Festival in Las Vegas, said the NRA is to blame for the mass shooting that occurred in October 2017. A crazed gunman opened fire at the crowd of festivalgoers while Church's fellow country star Jason Aldean was performing, taking the lives of at least 59 people. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Church, who said he considers himself a "Second Amendment guy," blamed the NRA and gun lobbyists for being a "roadblock" to gun safety in a new interview. "There are some things we can't stop," Church told Rolling Stone. "Like the disgruntled kid who takes his dad's shotgun and walks into a high school. But we could have stopped the guy in Vegas." But he added, "I blame the lobbyists. And the biggest in the gun world is the NRA." The "Desperate Man" singer said the NRA has "been a bit of a roadblock."

http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/956207-keri-russell-joins-star-wars-episode-ix Golden Globe winner Keri Russell (The Americans, Felicity, Free State of Jones) will be teaming up once again with award-winning writer-director-producer J.J. Abrams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Westworld) on the upcoming Star Wars: Episode IX, Variety has confirmed. The pair also previously collaborated on Mission: Impossible III, where Russell starred alongside Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Ving Rhames.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/one-roadblock-to-arming-teachers-insurance-companies/2018/05/26/59d6c704-5f7e-11e8-8c93-8cf33c21da8d_story.html?utm_term=.539c16f13b04 Kansas has a problem: It has a law allowing teachers to carry guns in the classroom, but almost no schools are using it because insurance companies refuse to provide coverage if they do. As EMC Insurance, the largest insurer of schools in Kansas, explained in a letter to its agents, the company “has concluded that concealed handguns on school premises poses a heightened liability risk.” Then came the Parkland, Fla., school shooting in February, leading frustrated Republican legislators in Kansas to try forcing the issue with a bill banning “unfair, discriminatory” rates for schools that arm staff. The insurance industry held firm. Last month, the bill failed. “I don’t think insurance companies are notorious anti-gun liberals,” said Mark Tallman, associate executive director for the Kansas Association of School Boards, “so we think they’ve got good reasons for not doing it.” As proposals to arm teachers sweep across the nation, insurance companies are being forced to weigh the risks of these controversial plans. Some insurers are balking. Some are agreeing to provide policies but lamenting the lack of evidence about whether it makes schools safer — or increases the chances of people getting shot. Others are raising rates. “There’s not a lot of carriers that want to insure that risk,” Nate Walker, a senior vice president at insurer AmWINS Group.