Sick and Sad GOP

In six days, my Dad will celebrate his final double-digit birthday. 

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The editorial cartoon that is featured on this post was in yesterday’s Chron. It pretty much sums up the GOP’s response to Donald Trump’s denials and admissions of the past week. It is indeed a sad, sick, and pitiful sight.

The MAGA infested GOP is calling for defunding the FBI. They have put a bullseye on the backs of federal law enforcement agents and have put a bounty on election workers.

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Some local Latino activists and a LULAC organization have been meeting and strategizing on how to remove the at-large positions of the H-Town City Council and go with 16 districts. We currently have 11 single member council districts and 5 at-large council positions.

Since we went to the hybrid single member and at-large system that took effect for the 1979 elections, 38 individuals have served as at-large council members. Only 2 of the 38 have been Latino and Latina. Former Council Members Gracie Saenz and Orlando Sanchez.

Since you asked.

15 of the 38 have been African American.

13 have been female.

1 Asian American.

I don’t know if there is an upside for continuing with at-large council members. If you are a Democrat or a Democratic Party affiliated organization, can you justify supporting at-large positions? What is your rationale for keeping the current system?

Look at it this way. If we went to an all-single member district system, every member on City Council will pretty much have to go door-to-door to get elected. That is a good thing in my book.

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I know it is way too early to be talking about the MLB postseason games so I will just talk about the format.  This year’s postseason is different from the past postseasons. There will be 12 teams instead of last season’s 10.

Each league will send the three division champions and three wild card teams to the playoffs. The three teams who didn’t win their division with the best overall records will be the wild card teams.  The division winners will get the top three seeds. The other three teams will get seeds four through six based on their regular season record.

The top two seeds in each league will get a first-round bye. Seed three will host seed six and seed four will host seed five in the Wild Card Series. The Wild Card Series is a best of three game series with all three games being played at the ballpark of seeds three and four.  Seeds five and six will not get to play a game at their home ballpark.  That is certainly a new twist.  Expanding a Wild Card game to a Wild Card Series is also a new feature. Same goes for the top two seeds in each league getting a first-round bye.

The Division Series will stay at five games with the same home/home/away/away/home schedule set-up.

The League Championship and World Series will remain seven games affairs with the home/home/away/away/away/home/home set-up.

Got it?

Commentary is ok with this format in part because there is not a durn thing I can do about it. 12 teams get in and 18 stay at home.

In the NBA, 16 teams made the playoffs and 14 stayed at home.

In the NFL, 14 teams made the playoffs and 18 stayed home.

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We swept the A’s this past weekend. Heck, they swept us the last week of July. We took 5 out 6 this homie. We are 75-41 with 46 games left to play. 22 are roadies and 24 are homies. Oh, yeah. A 2 ½ game lead over the Yankees for the best AL record.

We are in Chicago today to start a four-game series with the White Sox.

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Of the 3500 plus who came to the game yesterday from Uvalde, I wonder for how many this was their first big league game. I wonder for how many this was their first visit to The Yard. I wonder for how many this was their first visit to H-Town. Just wondering