Left Coast Sports Babe

Wait, now Stanford and Cal are negotiating possibly to join the ACC? Because nothing says Atlantic Coast Conference like two schools that are both less than an hour from the Pacific Ocean.

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Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos didn’t like announcer Kevin Brown’s honest comments about the Orioles playing at Tropicana Field, so he apparently fired him. When Angelos didn’t like Jon Miller’s honest comments in 1996, and didn’t renew Miller’s contract, SF Giants fans were the beneficiaries. Wonder whose fans will be lucky this time?

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Love this: “People counted you out saying you’re past your prime—I know a little something about that,” Joe Biden to Dusty Baker.

Okay, how many SF Giants fans have both been watching six run ninth inning in Anaheim from this offense-challenged team with a mixture of happy shock and wondering “can you save some of these runs until tomorrow?”

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CNN actually covering that President Biden will head to Arizona, New Mexico and Utah to “sell” Bidenomics. Now, will they cover what he says unless Joe stumbles over a word or two?

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Headline on Fox News. “Swing state sees massive turnout on ballot aimed at protecting state from liberals.” What’s actually happening? High turnout now in Ohio with Issue 1. Ballot measure wants to make sure ANY majority of Ohio voters can’t make decisions in their own state.

Listening to Rachel Maddow tonight: I did not have actual leprosy in Florida in 2023 on my Governor Ron DeSantis b*t shit bingo card.

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Not a Chris Christie fan but his line about Donald Trump bears repeating: “He is a criminal defendant out on bail in three different jurisdictions.”…

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Listening to Trump now alleging he just wanted to “pause” counting, how lucky are we on Jan 6, 2021, chair of Senate Rules was Roy Blunt, who quietly agreed with Amy Klobuchar to get electoral votes counted that night. Imagine if chair had been Rules committee member Ted Cruz.

So the US Women’s Soccer Team, was bounced out of the World Cup on an almost saved penalty kick.

And some conservative media wants to pin it on too much diversity.

The women lost to #3 Sweden, Funny, didn’t hear that when the men were bounced last year in the same World Cup round of 16. to the Netherlands, who were in turn beaten in the quarter finals by Argentina. And the US men lost solidly lost 3-1.

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Washington State football coachs Jake Dickert -“The old question of: How long would it take TV money to destroy college football? Maybe we’re here,”

But football is the marquee sport for TV. Most colleges and universities have 20 or more varsity sports. Imagine some of them now needing to go cross country for most of their games/matches. Besides the loss of TV revenue for all but the big three conferences? How long will these new conference realignments take to destroy all of college sports?

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Ted Cruz attacks on Barbie are going well. “Greta Gerwig’s Barbie grossed another $53 million at the domestic box office as it hit $459.4 million in North America and crossed $1 billion globally in a huge win for the filmmakers, Warner Bros. and Mattel.”

Meanwhile in Trump’s Sunday morning rant he claimed “tourists have fled DC.

Uh “Destination DC released 2022 tourism numbers that show 20.7 million domestic tourists visited DC last year, 91% of pre-pandemic 2019 numbers & spent $8.1 billion- almost matching 2019 tourist spending.”

So is Velveeta Voldemort daring the judge to put him in jail because he thinks it would be good for fundraising, or is he just too stupid to understand self-incrimination? Asking for a country.

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Can’t be said enough, whatever GOP tries to say now about her, Judge Tanya Chutkan is a strong and non-controversial judge. She was confirmed 95-0 in 2014 by the US Senate. Yes, 95-0. Even Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell were fine with her.

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Headline: “Heinz ketchup maker feels the pain as consumers push back on higher prices.” Are we sure this isn’t because of a shortage because so much of their product has ended up thrown against the walls at Bedminster and Mar-A-Lago?

Better late than never, but has any reporter thought to ask Mike Pence, if he knew what Trump was asking him was wrong, why did he seek advice from that known constitutional scholar former VP Dan Quayle?

NY Times online front page at midnight Aug 6 – 3 stories on Trump, none on Biden. Finally found Aug 4 story from Peter Baker – “Rising Tide Lifts Many Boats, but So Far Not Biden’ – how improving economy hasn’t helped Joe’s ratings. Maybe if media actually COVERED good news?

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If you didn’t already love Jamie Raskin: “Even if he did [believe the election was stolen], it makes no difference. You might believe that your bank owes you some money. You don’t have a right to go rob the bank.”

As conferences along with other leisure travelers cancel on principle, another reason not to travel to Florida, if you’re pregnant or might be pregnant and have a ectopic pregnancy or some other complication, not only could Florida be where “woke goes to die,” it could be where you go to die.

We all worry some days that we are not good at our jobs. And then there’s George Kliavkoff, who has been Pac 12 commissioner since 2021. When he started the conference actually had 12 teams….

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As Oregon and Washington become the latest two schools to leave the Pac 12 for the Big 10, thinking about how much fun it’s gonna be, for example, for fans from State College, PA to make it to Eugene Oregon, for a conference matchup.

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FL Gov. DeSantis doesn’t like NBA players criticizing Orlando Magic donation to his campaign “It appears NBA took break from protesting our anthem & bending the knee to Communist China to chirp about my policies.” Got news for Ron, the NBA is a whole lot more popular than he is.

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Wonder what if judge would call Barack Obama, “Mr. President” or “Mr. Obama?” Oh, wait, we don’t have to worry about that because Barack Obama didn’t commit crimes.

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“Just want to pause the vote” for 10 days” is not that different from “just want a bank teller to give me some money at gunpoint.” They are both crimes.

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Uh, WTF CNN?

CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning has three guests: Trump’s lawyer, Mike Pence & Chris Christie. Know network is trying to present “both sides” of every issue, but giving a platform to three different Republicans is three shades of one side. Do better.

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Jack Smith is playing chess while Velveeta Voldemort thinks he can just hire people to play checkers for him.

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Trump trying to stay out of trouble now by saying his threatening tweet was just joking. Your reminder, Trump does not joke.

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Both Pentagon & Dept of Defense say Tommy Tuberville’s stunt of holding up military appointments is jeoparding National Security. Remember- Tuberville willing to risk lives to keep military women, who don’t choose where they are stationed, from obtaining reproductive health care.

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The Senate off for August but American Edge Project, funded by Meta etc is clearly scared. They’re -running fearmongering ads about “misguided lawmakers” & legislation that is “threat to our democracy.”

Actually a bipartisan group of lawmakers knows it’s now Big Tech & lobbying that’s a threat to our democracy..

As a childhood math nerd, I remember number progression games.

Here’s a sad one.

8-10-12-0

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ACLU suing Texas over SB 12 – “regulates sexually oriented performances” & restricts those performances on premises of commercial enterprise, public property, or in presence of anyone under 18.

Bill targets drag queens, but what about Hooters… or Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders?

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SF Giants win despite getting only two hits against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

But as quiet as Giants bats were still much more going with their offense n than the Trump Ford Bronco equivalent day covered nonstop on cable news.

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If President Biden gets in a motorcade and drives slowly through DC while reciting a litany of everything his administration and Democrats have accomplished THEN will the media cover it?

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My Florida public high school didn’t have AP classes, but our elective Psychology class designed for kids going to college. We did get two books banned when parent complained. (Cuckoo’s Nest & Go Ask Alice)

Seems so quaint by comparison. And uh, AP classes are SUPPOSED to be college-level.

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Whatever GOP says now about Judge Tanya Chutkan. She was confirmed in the US Senate in 2014 by a vote of 95-0. Yes, 95-0.

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Joe Manchin today called Fitch Ratings’s downgrade of U.S. credit rating a “historic failure of leadership by both political parties & the executive branch.” Yes, same Joe Manchin who torpedoed many efforts by Pres Biden & Democrats to lead us out of gridlock.

No Labels has No Shame.

For all those asking why it took the DOJ so long to decide they think Trump is guilty, I’d like to ask “what took Mike Pence so long to decide he thinks Trump is guilty?”

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Pence in his remarks Wednesday seemed to blame January 6 on “crackpot lawyers” who told Trump what he wanted to hear about the election.. So is Mike basically saying that his old boss Donald is an incompetent easily-led man?

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So it’s not IF Trump will disobey the judge’s order not to contact any witnesses in the January 6 case, it’s how many will he call, starting this weekend.

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I wish all these interviews with former Trump sycophants had an asterisk reminding Americans they used to be part of his treasonous team.

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So MAGA world is going nonlinear because the judge in the Washington DC federal trial was appointed by Obama. But they’re just fine with the judge in Donald’s Florida trial being appointed by Trump. Make it make sense…

Eight pitch save for Camilo Doval vs Arizona Diamondbacks. All wins are good, but as SF Giants fan nice to have the occasional win without torture.

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Detroit Tigers ace Eduardo Rodriguez, who won today after turning down a trade to Los Angeles:

“It’s nothing against the Dodgers. They have a really good team over there. Just thinking about my future and my family.”

SF Giants fans want to send particularly warm wishes to Rodriguez’s family!

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Mets owner Steve Cohen said he told Max Scherzer that the team was unlikely to make an aggressive pitch to sign top free agents in 2024.

Well, to be honest, after what has become a 2023 debacle, would any top free agent who really cared about winning sign up for the Mets circus?

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President Biden has had a very successful first term so far. If competence were clickbait, then Joe’s approval ratings would match.

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Sometimes a headline says it all. “DeSantis blasts DOJ while conceding, ‘I have not read the indictment’ of Trump.”

The book-banning Governor doesn’t read. Who’d a thunk it?

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NBA is proudly “woke,” and Orlando Magic had a pride night and has a Chief officer for DEI.

But Alex Schultz of SFGate (owned by SF Chronicle) found that the Magic donated $50,000 to Governor DeSantis this May.

Maybe Ron’s war on Disney’s isn’t about LGBTQ issues but rather pure political posturing, or that Disney didn’t donate to him. Magic gave him big $$$, and he’s not attacking them…

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Fox News’ Laura Ingraham “The bottom line is this: Trump was charged… for adopting and pressing an unconventional and controversial legal view. That the electors in this presidential race could be replaced with new electors.”

“An unconventional and controversial legal view.” I don’t think I could write a joke as funny as that.

Although would Laura say Jeffrey Dahmer had unconventional and controversial eating habits?

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Mike Pence, now claiming he knew he had no right to overturn the election. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this…I am a student of American history…” Uh, if Pence was really a student of American history, he’d understand the concept of treason.

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In Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 indictment against Trump – Rudy Giuliani to then new AL Senator Tommy Tuberville “Try to just slow it down.” “Slowing it down” seems to have become Tuberville’s mantra. Are his military holds in part to hope something bad happens so GOP can blame Biden.

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The easy joke over the Trudeaus’ separating is “He’s available.”

But pretty sure this was not an easy decision for them, nor has it been easy for Justin and Sophie’ marriage with him as Prime Minister. Wishing them and their children the best.

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Any reporter interviewing a Republican politician right now who starts ranting against the latest Trump indictment should ask one simple question before continuing: “Have you read the indictment?”

Not only can money not buy you love, but also for the 2023 Mets it couldn’t even buy them a wild card playoff spot.

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So maybe the SF Giants didn’t win the trade deadline. OTOH Detroit Tigers ace Eduardo Rodríguez vetoed a trade to the Dodgers. Maybe the Giants should send him flowers?

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So wait, the Astros got Justin Verlander back, and had the Mets chip in $53 million on his contract? Of course if one of the two prospects turns out to be a star the trade will look different. But forget signs, this might be a legal steal.

(And again for SF Giants fans, Verlander didn’t get traded to the Dodgers!)

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Once more for those in the back, I like Presidents who don’t get indicted.

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Sen. Murkowski tweeted evidence shows Trump “played key role in instigating (Jan 6) riots. Lisa encouraged Americans to read Tuesday’s indictment to “understand very serious allegations being made in this case.” How crazy is it that for GOP encouraging people to read is a BFD?

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Trump fundraising email. “As you know, I did nothing wrong. It’s well-documented that I told Americans to act “PEACEFULLY” and discouraged the use of any violence

” Yeah, that’s what his tweet “Big protest on January 6 in DC. Be there, wlll be wild” this sounded like.

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Anyone who heard Donald Trump telling police “don’t be too nice” and talking almost gleefully about alleged extreme violence committed by immigrants, along with women “raped at levels you’ve never seen”, etc, shouldn’t be surprised January 6 plan included violence. Pretty clear he enjoys it.

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Tommy Tuberville said Biden’s decision not to relocate Space Command headquarters from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Ala was a “disastrous mistake” & claimed Biden was playing politics. And the man single-handedly holding up 300 military appointments said it with a straight face?!

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Seriously NY Times? Front page headline ‘Old Trump habit is seen at heart of new charges.” Old “habit” is obstructing justice. Meanwhile, when Joe Biden, who stuttered as child & HAS had long habit of verbal misteps, stumbles now over words, NY Times makes it age-related BFD.

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Wonder if anyone who still thinks RFK Jr is a Democrat used to think Tulsi Gabbard was a Democrat too.

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How the world has changed. Several teen girls in airport restroom line. Giggling with phones. Phones aren’t that new. But conversation is all like “Have you posted yet?” “Yes I already liked your post.”. Etc.

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Some would say this looks like paradise.

Starry the cat would disagree.