#Mike has now stolen the phoenix

[royalarchivist]

Mike with his dogs and the knitted Richarlyson Barb made: 😄

Mike, two seconds after logging back into QSMP: [WAR AND VIOLENCE]

[orangedodge]

@dannybagpipesarecalling​ replied to your text post:

I didn't realize those were Destiny's diaries either. If you would be so kind, can you explain how Emma knows? Unfortunately I haven't read enough comics to know this backstory.

I am glad you asked about this, because it gives me an excuse to post about it while hopefully not sounding like a conspiracy blog. I've been slightly obsessed with this idea since Emma first turned up in House of X, so I'm rather excited that “maybe Destiny's Diaries still exist” isn't just my weird crack canon any longer.

Emma was, in short, the last person who can be established to have control over the whereabouts of the diaries. And as one of the top five telepaths in the world, who has expressly defended that secret from the likes of Exodus and Mr. Sinister, she is capable of preventing Professor X from just taking the information from her. So barring new retcons, if Moira has the diaries now, they had to have been obtained directly from Emma.

That's not enough to say that she turned them over to Moira specifically. She could have given them to Charles or Er—okay, no, she wouldn't give them to Charles. There could be a circumstance where she'd trust them to Erik though. But in that contingency, I think there's enough context to support Emma knowing why they'd want them and for who. To be clear though, I would be less confident about making that assertion if Emma hadn't just opened the “Dr. Moira MacTaggert Memorial Public Hospital” expressly to freak out Charles and Erik, and if HoxPox hadn't already linked them by showing Moira to be worried about what Emma was up to.

(This got kind of long so I thought it'd be helpful to say the important part up front before spiraling down the continuity rabbit hole)

The origins and resulting chain of custody for Destiny's Diaries are as follows: One January, decades ago, Destiny began recording visions of the future in a series of diaries. Filling one book per month, she continued writing for thirteen months. This process was described as auto-writing, and Destiny herself did not have a complete memory of what she had written, nor did she understand the meaning of much of what she wrote.

Nonetheless, the July diary contained a recording of the events leading up to the defeat of Apocalypse, and another diary contained information on the life of Hope Summers, so they've been very relevant to the events of the modern era. It's not explicit yet that Krakoa's founding is also in the diaries, but because we know Destiny had at least one separate vision of Krakoa, and because Moira is interested in reading them, it seems fairly likely that whatever Moira, Charles, and Erik have been doing behind the scenes is also in there.

In the decades since Destiny authored them, most of these diaries were lost, except for five that Mystique kept hold of, and a sixth that Irene hid away herself. After Mystique killed 'Moira,' she sent her five diaries to Professor X, hoping that the temptation of using them would consume his life and lead him toward a ruinous fate. Destiny meanwhile had entrusted the sixth diary to Shadowcat (who Destiny met in 1936, while she was time traveling and having an affair with Moira's grandfather don't worry about it), who eventually became so freaked out by something she read in it that she vanished on a mission, let her friends believe her dead for weeks, and had herself deleted from Cerebro, while leaving the diary to Rogue for safekeeping while she was away.

(That last chain of events isn't incredibly important, I just think it becomes kind of lol in light of current canon)

Rogue went on to take that diary and the research that had been done on it to Storm. Storm and Rogue then formed a splinter team of X-Men, to journey the world searching for the lost diaries, believing Professor X could not be trusted. Along the way a seventh book turned up with a treasure hunter named Vargas (don't worry about him), and an eighth was found by Gateway and given to Rogue in a dream. Eventually Storm tried to get Phoenix to collect Professor X's diaries for her, but they discovered that they had already been stolen (Shadowcat did it).

The rest of the diary hunt isn't really important, just that Kitty eventually ended up retrieving the full set, before she rejoined the X-Men, which only happened after Xavier had left Scott and Emma to run the school. This timeline is important for establishing that Xavier has never possessed the full set of diaries himself, and was not involved in collecting the lost books at any point, nor was he present at the time the diaries were brought to the school and fell under Emma's protection. This rules out the possibility that the set of diaries we've previously seen were somehow forged by Xavier.

Xavier would not return to the school until after losing his mutant powers, whereupon he departed for space on an adventure to another galaxy. He was unavailable, therefore, to have undertaken any telepathic shenanigans, so what happens next actually happened, and is not a psychic illusion. While Xavier was gone, Mr. Sinister recruited Exodus and Mystique, and began a campaign of hunting down precognitive psychics, time travelers, and any other sources of information on the future. Scott, Emma, and Kitty meanwhile predicted that they were going to be next, and came up with a bananas plan to keep the books safe.

X-Men volume 2 no. 203 by Mike Carey (Writer), Humberto Ramos (Penciler), Carlos Cuevas (Inker), Studio F’s Edgar Delgado (Colorist), Virtual Calligraphy’s Cory Petit (Letterer), Will Panzo (Assistant Editor), Nick Lowe (Editor), Joe Quesada (Editor in Chief), Dan Buckley (Publisher)

First they hid the diaries somewhere in parts unknown. Emma then altered the minds of “all of us” (everyone who lived at the mansion at that time) to perceive a bunch of decoy books as the real thing. She then erased Kitty's memory, and her own, so that no telepath would be able to extract the information by force, before they gave each other a series of post-hypnotic triggers so they could restore one another's memories if they ever needed the books again. When eventually Exodus attacked the school looking for the books, they restored their memories, and decided to send another team to the hidden location where they'd buried a mystery box. Emma gave this location to Sam and Bobby, who dug up the box, which was never opened, and which was destroyed by Gambit during a firefight with Sinister's forces before anyone could confirm its contents.

This was intended by author Mike Carey to be the end of Destiny's Diaries, a dropped plot from a previous creative run, that was vaguely useful at building up to the Messiah Complex crossover, but was a lot more trouble than it was worth to an author who was writing about the X-Men trying to avert a bad future. But there's a lot of room in the story he wrote for the diaries to have survived after all.

I think it's actually really suspicious that the box was accessible to Bobby and Sam at all. Why not drop it under a mountain? Why not bury it under the ocean? Why not keep it phased in a tree? And it's a big red box with a big red 'X' on it. I know the X-Men love their branding and all, but that's going pretty far.

No one actually opens the box before Gambit blows it up either. It could have contained more decoys, or nothing at all. 

And when talking among themselves, Emma and Kitty never actually say that they're sending the X-Men to retrieve the diaries. They say that they know where the diaries are, and then send the X-Men to a place where they've buried something. The intent of the author is clear, but there's room in the dialogue for a later writer to decide that this just was another plan to keep the books hidden.

So for the entire period of time between assembling the complete collection of thirteen diaries, and their seeming destruction, they are never unaccounted for. Only Emma and Kitty knew the full extent of what they did to hide them, and where they were hidden. If fakes were destroyed instead of the real thing, no one would have known.

We could just be in retcon territory, but I don't think so, because it's fine on its own without any direct changes to canon. And really, faking the destruction of the books to cover up their real location makes a lot more sense than believing Emma Frost actually sent Sam to retrieve the incredibly suspicious looking red box that contained the most important object in the world, while half the super villains on the planet were chasing him.

Believing the diaries weren't really destroyed just requires the reader to accept that Emma would lie to the other X-Men, and keep lying to them for years, and that she'd be willing to put Sam and Bobby's lives at risk to protect that lie. Which she was already doing in that story anyway. She was already lying to everyone when she changed everyone's memories. And she—and Scott and Kitty—was already fine with risking everyone's lives when setting up a decoy trap in a school. So that's why I think this works better as a continuation of the existing, known, story of the diaries, and not a direct retcon to what happened.

In conclusion I think Emma knows about Moira because Moira got the diaries from somewhere, and Emma is the person she could have gotten them from. Nothing proves a direct hand-off in, like, a formal standard of proof or anything, but Emma having access to the diaries for so long, and having been wrapped up in this whole weird plot thread—which involves Moira and most of the Quiet Council—is enough to imply the connection in a story sense.

(ETA - For completion’s sake, there is also a weird story I didn’t go into called Chaos War that was published in 2011 where Moira is resurrected and finds a book in the ruins of the Xavier School that may or may not be one of the diaries, and touching it causes her soul to merge with Destiny’s, who then possesses her and guides her through a quest to destroy an evil god. This was an odd story to place in continuity at the time, and has only gotten stranger, given  1. that couldn’t be the real Moira, 2. Destiny is not merged with her soul. If this is in continuity (it’s been suggested that Moira’s golem was the character in this event), and all of the characters are who they say they are, and if the book in question was actually one of the thirteen diaries (and not some other book that Irene also wrote), then it requires Emma to have deliberately left one of the thirteen books behind for “Moira” to find, which if anything only adds to the likelihood that she knows what’s up)

[defensefilms]

The NBA Finals Are Evenly Matched At 2-2

The NBA Finals have delivered a high standard of play despite the injury to Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The Suns made this look like it might be a walk over in game 1 but a lot of that was early series overreactions. If we’ve learned anything about the Bucks this post season, it’s that it take them and head coach Mike Budeholzer, a few games to get in to the series. Their sweep of the Miami Heat in the first round, may be the only exception to that as far as wins and losses go.

Game 1 may have been the Phoenix Suns at their best. When you get 27 points, 6 assists and 2 rebounds from Devin Booker and Chris Paul leads the way with 32 points, 9 assists and 4 boards, that’s hard to beat. That was all round destruction and it’s this kind of performance that had many fans and media saying that this would end in a sweep.

A sweep looked even more likely after game 2 of the series. The Suns actually managed to shoot 50% from 3 in game 2 and Devin Boooker was 7-13 from beyond on a night where he had 31 points, 6 assists and 5 rebounds.

Game 3 and finally the series goes to Milwaukee’s home court and I gotta admit game 3 is my favorite game of any Milwaukee Bucks series. The Nets dealt with it, the Hawks dealt with it and now the Suns are getting their dose too. 

Every Bucks opponent has had to deal with the question of what happens when the officiating allows the Bucks to do what they do best? The Suns found out the hard way. Giannis had 17 attempts from the free throw line. 

Game 3 was indeed a great game for the Bucks collectively, 5 Bucks players would score in to double digits.

Devin Booker was the biggest casualty. Scoring just 10 points on 3-14 from the field. Monty Williams would pull him from the game. 

The Suns were far more ready in game 4.

The major adjustment being their interior defense was a much bigger focus for the Suns and the Suns actually led for most of the 4th quarter. 

However a series of great defensive plays down the stretch by Giannis Antetokounmpo, as well as some absolute clutch plays by Khris Middleton gave allowed them to snatch the game from the Suns. 

The game was tied 99-99 in the final 2 minutes of the game. Giannis made a brilliant play on Ayton as Booker attempted set him up with an alley-oop and when the Suns came down the court after Middleton scores on a pull-up jumper, CP3 would get the ball stolen by Jrue Holiday resulting in a easy fast break for the Bucks..

ESPN’s Mike Wilbon went on to Scott Van Pelt’s show and said that the Suns beat themselves with turnovers. He’s right. That game was a huge missed opportunity for Phoenix and now we have a series on our hands..

I want to acknowledge former Philadelphia 76ers assistant coach and now current Phoenix Suns head coach, Monty Williams.

 Please believe, I would not be dapping him up if he was coaching trash but dude is actually the great equalizer in this series. Bucks might have the most unstoppable player in the series but Monty knows how to use his guys and how to trust them. The play that he’s gotten out of Cameron Payne and Cam Johnson has been nothing short of commendable.

I actually think the Suns need a cool headed approach from their head coach more than the Bucks do. It’s weird to say this because the Suns have veterans like Chris Paul and Jae Crowder but you can tell that the rest of their team is really young. 

They were not ready for how the series changed in game 3 and they were kind of shell shocked by how different the officiating would be once the series went to Milwaukee.

The thing is Milwaukee are actually one of the clunkiest and at times clumsiest teams you’ll ever watch in an NBA finals and I’m dead serious. This team is quirky and eccentric. It’s not all poise, precision and finesse with these guys, even when they’re playing well.

Let me break it down.

Giannis is the out and out best player on the team and he’s carrying most of the weight. The guy can’t shoot. That’s not an indictment but it explains a lot of what you see on a possession to possession basis. He’s their star players despite what former San Antonio wing and podcaster, Stephen Jackson might tell you. Stack might actually be the most annoying person in NBA media right now.

What Stack is likely allowing himself to be swayed by is that Middleton is the most interesting player on the Bucks and I’m not talking about hype and fandom, I’m talking about his performances on a game to game basis. 

See Khris is without doubt their best shooter and closer and he’s more than capable of doing what he did in game 6 against the Atlanta Hawks and scoring 23 points in a single quarter. However look at his performances on a game by game basis and you’ll notice a huge disparity in his best and worst games.

It’s literally the first question on anyone’s mind before a Bucks game. “What kind of performance will the Bucks get from Khris Middleton?”. Dude is a walking, breathing game of Russian Roulette.

This isn’t a new trend either. Since the Brooklyn Nets series in the 2nd round, the speculation, and sometimes even pressure, has mounted. “Giannis needs help” is actually code for “what the hell is Middleton doing?”. 

If I’m a Suns fan, the guy I’d be worried about is Deandre Ayton. Dude has been a monster level contributor throughout the Suns post season but he hasn’t scored more than 20 points in this series since game 1. Ayton was the key to beating the Denver Nuggets by outplaying Nicola Jokic and then against the Los Angeles Clippers, where they couldn’t match up with him.

To be fair Deandre is also a big part of the reason that Brook Lopez isn’t getting as many minutes as he has until now. Point is, the Suns don’t have the same inside scoring presence before and the block by Giannis in game 4 illustrated that perfectly.

Game 5 awaits on Saturday night.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 10, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

A poll today by the Associated Press (AP) and the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) shows that President Joe Biden’s administration is gaining positive traction. Sixty-three percent of Americans approve of how he is handling his job as president. Seventy-one percent approve of how he is handling the coronavirus pandemic; 62% percent approve of how he is handling health care. Fifty-seven percent approve of how he is handling the economy; 54% approve of how he is handling foreign affairs.

Fifty-four percent of Americans think the country is going in the right direction. This is the highest number since 2017, but it is split by party: 84% of Democrats like the country’s direction, while only 20% of Republicans do.

Biden’s weak spots are in immigration, where 43% approve and 54% disapprove, and gun policy, where 48% approve and 49% disapprove.

And yet, Biden’s people have been working to address the influx of migrant children; White House Secretary Jen Psaki noted last week that “At the end of March, there were more than 5,000 children in Customs and Border Protection Patrol stations. Today, that number is approximately 600…. The amount of time children spend in CBP facilities is down by 75 percent — from 131 hours at the end of March to under 30 hours now.”

The administration has backed that short-term work with a long-term initiative. Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris met virtually with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leader of the left of center populist nationalist coalition party MORENA, to talk about finding ways to promote economic development to address the root causes prompting the flight of refugees from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and southern Mexico. They also talked about working together to protect human rights and dismantle the criminal networks that smuggle migrants. She will travel to Guatemala and Mexico in June, where she will meet with their leaders.

Disapproval of Biden’s gun policies might well reflect a desire for a stronger stance. In April, a Morning Consult/Politico poll showed that 64% of registered voters supported stricter gun control laws. We have had an average of ten mass shootings a week in 2021, 194 in all. (A mass shooting is one in which four people are killed or wounded.)

This week, Biden will be meeting with bipartisan groups of leaders, including Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), to begin to hammer out an infrastructure measure based on his American Jobs Plan. He will also meet with Senators John Barrasso (R-WY), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), who have proposed their own $568 billion proposal without corporate tax hikes.

As the good news from the administration is starting to filter into the media, bad news from the Trump wing of the Republican Party is also starting to get traction. On Saturday, we learned that at retreats in March and April, staff for the National Republican Congressional Committee refused to tell lawmakers how badly Trump is polling in core battleground districts, where 54% see Biden favorably while only 41% still favor Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, and the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan are all more popular in those districts than the former president.

Indeed, it is more than a little odd that party leaders are bending over backward to tie their party to a former president who, after all, never broke 50% favorability ratings—the first time in polling history that had happened—and who lost both the White House and Congress.

Another set of data from Catalist, a voter database company in Washington, D.C., shows that the 2020 election was the most diverse ever, with Latino and Asian voters turning out in bigger numbers than ever before. Black voting increased substantially, while Asian-American and Pacific Islander voters had a decisive increase in turnout. The electorate was 72% white, down 2% from 2016 and 5% from 2008. Thirty-nine percent of Biden-Harris voters were people of color (61% were white); only 15% of Trump-Pence voters were POC (85% were white).

This demographic trend is behind the new voter suppression bills in Republican states. But the racial breakdown of the 2020 vote is not the only problem for the current Republican Party. The biggest turnout gains in 2020 were among young voters, 18 to 40 years old, who now make up 31% of voters, while those over 55 have dropped to only 44% of the electorate. Younger voters skew heavily toward the Democrats. Also notable was that women break heavily toward Democrats by a 10 point gap—79% of women of color support Democrats; 58% of white women voted for Biden-Harris—and women make up 54% of the electorate overall.

News out of the private “recount” in Arizona by Cyber Ninjas, a company without experience in election recounts and whose owner has already gone on record as believing that rigged voting machines in Arizona cost Trump victory, continues to be embarrassing as well. Although the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which has a Republican majority, said the count was fair and opposed a recount, sixteen Republicans in the state senate voted to give the ballots for Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, to the company for a private recount. The count has been plagued by conspiracy theories—one observer claimed they are examining the ballots for signs of bamboo in the paper to show that tens of thousands of ballots were flown in from Asia—and it turned out that one of the people recounting the ballots had been at the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Now the “recount” is running so far behind it appears it won’t be done until August, rather than May 14 as the company promised.

State senator Paul Boyer, who voted for the “audit,” told New York Times reporter Michael Wines: “It makes us look like idiots…. Looking back, I didn’t think it would be this ridiculous. It’s embarrassing to be a state senator at this point.”

And then, this morning, the Washington Post dropped a long, investigative story by reporters Emma Brown, Aaron C. Davis, Jon Swaine, and Josh Dawsey revealing that the arguments former president Trump has grabbed to “prove” the election was stolen from him were part of a long conspiracy theory hatched in 2018 by Russell J. Ramsland, Jr., “a Republican businessman who has sold everything from Tex-Mex food in London to a wellness technology that beams light into the human bloodstream.” The story follows how Ramsland’s theories, which were debunked as “bat-s**t insane” by White House lawyers, got pumped into the media by Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, among others, and how Trump came to embrace them.

While Republican leaders are still standing behind those theories, and the former president, opponents of the party’s direction are pushing back not just against Trump but also against those leaders supporting him. Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tweeted this morning: “A few days before Jan 6, our GOP members had a conference call. I told Kevin [McCarthy] that his words and our party’s actions would lead to violence on January 6th. Kevin dismissively responded with ‘ok Adam, operator next question.’ And we got violence.”

Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) has narrated a video distributed by the Republican Accountability Project recalling the violence of January 6, blaming Trump for spreading lies about the election, and reminding viewers that more than 60 lawsuits disproved his claims that the election was stolen. The video says “we are the party of Lincoln. We are not the party of QAnon” (showing an image of Jacob Chansley, the so-called “QAnon Shaman,” who wore a horned headdress during the Capitol insurrection) “or white supremacy” (showing an image of Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson). “We cannot embrace insurrection” (showing a picture of Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene). “President Trump provoked an attack on the United States Capitol which resulted in five people dying. That is a person who does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward.” The video features an image of McCarthy standing with Trump. Cheney made it clear she was not about to shut up.

This afternoon, McCarthy released a statement calling for Cheney’s ouster as conference chair, featuring the line: “[u]nlike the left, we embrace free thought and debate.” (References to George Orwell, who famously wrote about how fascists used language to rewrite history, were all over Twitter.) McCarthy and other Trump loyalists have suggested that Cheney needs to go because she keeps talking about the past, but Allan Smith of NBC News points out that Trump himself seems to be the one who cannot stop talking about the past.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[clericbyers]

after mike comes out to the party, no one is really unsupportive. lucas, dustin, and max are a little uncomfortable at first, but after a while they stop caring. anyways, when they get more comfortable, whenever no one but the party is around mike, and trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to do, he uses "being too gay" as an excuse

Mike didn’t really expect to tell the Party anytime soon, not because he didn’t trust them but simply because he didn’t know how to say it. Words were Mike’s forte but words when being used to express his own emotions usually escaped him. He had been formulating a plan on what to say for a good number of weeks once he decided he would eventually tell them, but in the end, the news was unceremoniously dropped during a lazy weekend night.

“Mike,” started Dustin as he splayed himself on the floor. “you gonna ask out that cute chick from homeroom already? I heard she’s really into you.”

“What?” Mike scoffed and distractedly ate chips from a bowl on his chest as he laid his body across the couch. “No way.”

“No way she’s into you or no way you’ll ask her out?” Lucas asked from the other side of the room where he was lounging with Max. “Because yes way, she’s into your oblivious ass and yes way, you should.”

Mike sat up a little, frowning as he rubbed at his eyes and felt an uncomfortable buzz in his chest. “Uh, no way to asking her out.” He looked down at the chip bowl and felt his stomach flip. “I’m not interested.”

Max gave him a curious look. “I’m surprised, Mike; she really seems like your type.”

“And what is my type then because I’m pretty sure you don’t know.”

“Short, brunette, wide smile, good humor,” Dustin started listing off traits and then paused. “Basically El, actually. Wait…El is literally the only girl you’ve liked.”

Mike rubbed at the back of his head and nervously took another chip to his mouth. “Yeah, huh? Wow, that’s crazy.”

“I thought you said you were fine with it being over between you two.”

“I am fine.” Mike chewed on his chip, opened his mouth to say more, and then shut it as he felt his heart speed up in his chest. He looked over at his friends and then sighed. “It’s just…there’s not gonna be another girl out there for me.”

“Unless it’s El?” Max guessed.

“No.” Mike gritted his teeth and slouched as he stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t look them in the eye and say this. “Because there are no girls for me.”

“Plenty of girls like you now, Mike; it’s not like middle school anymore.”

Lucas was right, it wasn’t like middle school anymore. Mike couldn’t hide it. “I’m…I don’t like girls. Like at all.”

There was silence for at least two minutes and Mike kept his eyes closed until Dustin spoke up. “Like in general or like like, like you don’t have a crush?”

Mike threw his hands up with a groan. “I’m gay! Like, really fucking gay and super into guys, alright?” He rubbed his hands down his face. “That’s why you don’t know my type.”

“Oh,” Lucas croaked and Mike took the chance to give his friends a glance. Dustin had sat up and was eyeing Mike curiously while Lucas and Max had twin furrowed brows. None of them looked visibly upset about the news but they didn’t look particularly settled about it either.

Dustin spoke up. “Wow, that’s…that’s surprisingly not as shocking as I expected it to be.” He squinted his eyes and looked Mike up and down. “Are you sure?”

Mike blinked twice. “What? Of course I’m sure.” He frowned and stared back at his bowl. “Why would I not be? It’s not like anything has changed.”

“No, no! I didn’t mean it like it’s a bad thing I just,” he waved his hands about, “it’s taking a moment to sink in, you know? I didn’t mean to seem like I don’t believe you; I do! I really do.”

“You don’t, uh, hate me?” Mike turned to Lucas and Max who were still silent after he came out. “I meant to tell you earlier but…it’s not really everyday conversation.”

“We don’t hate you, Mike, not at all.” Max started with a soft smile. “It’s just something to get used to, you know? But I promise you, there’s no hate at all.”

“Yeah,” Lucas grinned widely. “You’re still Mike after all. Now we just know why you keep rewatching Back to the Future.”

Mike flushed and scowled as he stuffed his face with more chips to avoid having to answer the incoming questions. “Oh my god, all this time I thought you had the hots for Marty’s mom,” Dustin gasped before cackling. “Fuck, Mike, you have the hots for Michael J. Fox.”

“Shut up,” Mike spat back though his face was bright red with embarrassment. “It’s not my fault he’s cute.”

Even saying that aloud made Mike blush harder and he returned to the chips with a vengeance. “Oh, this is so weird,” blurted Max and everyone turned to her with a quickness. “No, not that Mike is gay, you idiots, just that Mike and I have more in common than I thought.”

“Hey, I thought you told me you think River Phoenix is way hotter that Fox!” Lucas grumbled.

“That doesn’t mean Michael J. Fox isn’t hot! I mean, look at his ass!”

Mike nodded. “She’s kinda right.”

“My girlfriend and best friend are conspiring against me.” bemoaned Lucas as he slumped in his seat. Max scoffed but laughed and pulled him back up in their shared seat. “I can’t win against celebrities.”

“You’ll always win for me.” Max cooed as she pressed a kiss to Lucas’ cheek. Mike felt a little twinge in his chest as he thought about one day being able to be as open about loving someone as Max was about Lucas. That someone had already stolen his heart long ago but he’d already told enough on the day. Maybe that news would come later.

Later took a while longer than Mike expected. Even though the Party was honestly totally fine about Mike being gay, they still had moments of silence whenever Mike voiced an opinion about finding some guy cute or something along those lines. The moments of silence grew shorter and shorter, especially when Max would fill it with an agreement or beg to differ. She was surprisingly helpful with keeping the awkward dissonance between everyone low and even though Mike was loath to admit, he was genuinely happy they could bond over this. He really never expected to be able to simply talk about his attraction so easily but Max was frighteningly receptive and Mike couldn’t ask for anything better.

“So, who are you crushing on?” Max asked one day when it was just the two of them hanging out outside the comic book shop with Wonder Woman and Captain America back issues in hand. “I can tell you’ve got someone in mind so spill it; I wanna know.”

Mike shrugged and sipped at his Coke. “I think it’s pretty obvious.”

“Well, if it was I wouldn’t be asking.”

“Fair point.” Mike looked to make sure no one was nearby and then softly said, “Will.”

Max took a couple seconds and then nodded before motioning for Mike to get up and follow her. “That explains a lot.”

“Does it?” Mike tightened his grip on his comics. “I thought I was good at hiding it.”

“I didn’t say it was obvious, dummy.” Max flicked his forehead and then shook her head with a chuckle. “It’s just when you put the way you are with him together with knowing how you feel toward him, it all adds up. It makes sense.”

“Oh.” Mike stared at the ground and then cleared his throat. “Well, yeah. Yeah, he’s kinda it for me.”

“That’s disgustingly cute, Mike; don’t ever tell me that again.” She laughed and then grew a little softer. “Seriously though, I’m glad he makes you feel all fuzzy warm like crushes do. He’s a good kid from what I know. I’m glad you feel, uh, comfortable enough to share with me.”

“Me too.”

After that, there were basically no issues whenever Mike mentioned something in passing about being gay. And eventually, Dustin and Lucas learned about Mike’s crush on Will and they spent most their time accepting the news by teasing Mike relentlessly, especially when Will called the Wheelers and Mike would answer down in the basement where Dustin and Lucas would make kissy noises.

(When Will confessed over the line one day and Mike basically replied with, “I’m so in love with you; yes, I’ll be your boyfriend, why did you ever think I wouldn’t,” Lucas, Dustin, and Max cheered so loud Mrs. Wheeler came downstairs to check on them. When she left, they continued their cheering at a lower decibel but still equally excited.)

About a month later, Mike was lazily outlining a new story he had spent hours bouncing ideas off Will for (a conversation that was half Mike organizing his thoughts on his soon-to-be novel and half being the grossest couple on the face of the planet) and the rest of the Party was impatiently waiting for him to finish. He has said six times already “just five more minutes” and at least three of those times he didn’t actually add more to his notes as his mind kept wandering to Will’s soft words about how much he missed Mike. He really didn’t want to get up and lose inspiration or the freedom to laze around and daydream about Will.

“C’mon, Mike,” whined Dustin, “we said we’d go out biking over thirty minutes ago.”

“Sorry,” he replied mindlessly as his traced the scribbled I love Will in the top corner of the page, “I’m too busy being gay right now.”

Max fell out cackling and Lucas made a face. “If you don’t want to go you can just say so.”

“Hmm?” Mike looked up, seemingly confused before he thought back on what he said. “Oh. Well, I mean, I do wanna go, I was just…” he motioned vaguely with his hands and then groaned. “That came out so wrong.”

“That came out so wrong,” Max giggled and Mike flipped her off.

“I swear, Mike, if you start tossing around your gayness as an excuse to not do shit with us,” Dustin playfully teased as he plopped down next to Mike and snatched his notebook from his hands. “Oh god, Mike; not even I doodle love letters in my notebooks.”

“Hey!” Mike squealed, sitting up as his face went scarlet. “I didn’t say you could take that!”

“My heart yearns for the warmth of your gaze, desperation laced in every beat as each breath from my parted lips echoes the taste of your lips,” Dustin wheezed out between huffs of laughter as he bounced off the couch to find refuge in Max and Lucas. “Do you even know what his lips taste like?”

“Shut up, Dustin!”

Max took the notebook next. “Eyes as bright as starlight, enchanting as the northern star above whose light offers the path to freedom. For me, that is freedom to love you as deeply as I do.” She wriggled her eyebrows and passed the papers to Lucas as Mike lunged for her. “Mike the poet, huh?”

“It’s not for Will–I mean it is for Will, but not like that!” Mike snatched the notebook back before Lucas could get a good glance. “It’s a letter one of the characters in my novel wrote for his love interest, okay?”

“Sure, Mike,” Lucas drawled, “whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Mike pouted and stormed back to his seat, tucking the notebook under his arm as he plopped down. “You guys can go biking then; I’ll stay here writing love poems and being gay for my boyfriend.”

“You’re such a drama queen.” Max laughed but stood up and stretched before walking to Mike where she patted the top of his head. “Have fun, but next time you’re coming with us.”

“Depends on how much gay is in the forecast,” Mike petulantly mumbled under his breath, but he grinned when Max started laughing again.

“Wheeler, you’re something else,” she turned back to the other boys and motioned for them to follow her upstairs. “We’ll see you in a few! Tell Will and El we said hello; I know you’re gonna call Will the moment we’re gone.”

Mike looked over at his friends on the staircase, a little guilty as his thoughts had indeed turned to possibly calling Will, and he smiled softly at their warm gazes. “I’ll be sure to pass along the message.”

[mongoose232323]

How Stupid Are These People?

Joe Biden Won The Presidential Election In

November And Was Certified As President

On Jan. 6th.

BUT YET HERE WE GO AGAIN

BREAKING NEWS

After THREE RECOUNTS

And Not Finding ANYTHING Wrong

The Arizona GOP Has Now Demanded

AN OAN SPONSORED FOURTH RECOUNT!!

From The Article

An audit of the vote in Arizona’s most populous county was meant to mollify angry Trump voters. But it is being criticized as a partisan exercise more than a fact-finding one.

It seemed so simple back in December.

Responding to angry voters who echoed former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, Arizona Republicans promised a detailed review of the vote that showed Mr. Trump to have been the first Republican presidential nominee to lose the state since 1996. “We hold an audit,” State Senator Eddie Farnsworth said at a Judiciary Committee hearing. “And then we can put this to rest.”

But when a parade of flatbed trucks last week hauled boxes of voting equipment and 78 pallets containing the 2.1 million ballots of Arizona’s largest county to a decrepit local coliseum, it kicked off a seat-of-the-pants audit process that seemed more likely to amplify Republican grievances than to put them to rest.

Almost half a year after the election Mr. Trump lost, the promised audit has become a snipe hunt for skulduggery that has spanned a court battle, death threats and calls to arrest the elected leadership of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.

The head of Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based firm that Republican senators hired to oversee the audit, has embraced Mr. Trump’s baseless theories of election theft and has suggested, contrary to available evidence, that Mr. Trump actually won Arizona by 200,000 votes. The pro-Trump cable channel One America News Network has started a fund-raiser to finance the venture and has been named one of the nonpartisan observers that will keep the audit on the straight and narrow.

In fact, three previous reviews showed no sign of significant fraud or any reason to doubt President Biden’s victory. But the senators now plan to recount — by hand — all 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County, two-thirds of the entire vote statewide.

Critics in both parties charge that an effort that began as a way to placate angry Trump voters has become a political embarrassment and another blow to the once-inviolable democratic norm that losers and winners alike honor the results of elections.

“You know the dog that caught the car?” said Steve Gallardo, the lone Democrat on the Republican-dominated Maricopa Board of Supervisors. “The dog doesn’t know what to do with it.”

After a brief pause on Friday ordered by a state court judge, the audit continues without clarity on who will do the counting, what it will cost and who will pay for the process, which is expected to last into mid-May. The One America network is livestreaming it, and Mr. Trump is cheering from the sidelines.

In an email statement on Saturday, he praised the “brave American Patriots” behind the effort and demanded that Gov. Doug Ducey, a frequent target of his displeasure, dispatch the state police or National Guard for their protection.

Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, a Democrat, was less enthused.

“My concern grows deeper by the hour,” she said in an email on Friday. “It is clear that no one involved in this process knows what they are doing, and they are making it up as they go along.”

The Senate president, Karen Fann, said in December that the audit had no hidden agenda and could not change the settled election results in Arizona, regardless of what it showed.

“A lot of our constituents have a lot of questions about how the voting, the electoral system works, the security of it, the validity of it,” she said, and so the senators needed experts to examine voting processes and determine “what else could we do to verify the votes were correct and accurate.”

Other state legislatures have looked into bogus claims of election fraud. But the Arizona audit, driven in part by conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines, is in a league of its own. Experts say it underscores the sharp rightward shift of the Legislature and the state Republican Party even as the state edges toward the political center.

“I get why they’re doing it, because half of the G.O.P. believes there was widespread fraud,” said Mike Noble, a Phoenix pollster who got his start in Republican politics. “The only problem is, a majority of the electorate doesn’t believe there was widespread fraud.

“The longer they push this,” he said, “the more they’re alienating people in the middle.”

In Arizona, the state party is headed by Kelli Ward, a former state senator who has rejected Mr. Biden’s victory and supports the audit. Under her leadership, the party in January censured Mr. Ducey, former Senator Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain for being insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump.

The 16 Republicans in the State Senate reflect the party’s lurch to the right. November’s elections ousted the Senate’s two most moderate Republicans, replacing one with a Democrat and another with a Republican who claims lifetime membership in the Oath Keepers, the extremist group that helped lead the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Another self-proclaimed Oath Keeper, State Representative Mark Finchem, proposed in January to give the Legislature the power to reject presidential election results and choose new electors by a majority vote. (The proposal went nowhere). Mr. Finchem since has become a vocal backer of the audit.

“The people in the Legislature are more prone to believe in the conspiracy theories and are more prone to espouse them” than in the past, said Barrett Marson, a Phoenix campaign consultant and a former Republican spokesman for the Arizona State House.

Ms. Fann, Mr. Farnsworth and Mr. Finchem did not respond to requests for interviews.

The Senate’s rightward drift is simply explained, political analysts say. Most of the 30 Senate districts are so uncompetitive that the Democratic and Republican primaries effectively choose who will serve as senators. Because most voters sit out primary elections, the ones who do show up — for Republicans, that often means far-right Trump supporters — are the key to getting elected.

Responding to stolen-election claims, through tougher voting laws or inquiries, is by far those voters’ top issue, said Chuck Coughlin, a Republican campaign strategist in Phoenix.

“They’re representing their constituency,” he said. “The whole process was built to produce this.”

The senators warmed to the notion of a Maricopa County audit from the first mention of it in early December.

Before long, they sent subpoenas to the county seeking the 2.1 million ballots, access to 385 voting machines and other equipment like check-in poll books, voting machine passwords and personal details on everyone who voted. The supervisors resisted, calling the election fraud-free, and said they wanted a court ruling on the subpoenas’ legality.

The reaction was immediate: The four Republicans and one Democrat on the Board of Supervisors were deluged with thousands of telephone calls and emails from Trump supporters, many from out of state, some promising violence.

“All five supervisors were receiving death threats,” said Mr. Gallardo, the Democratic supervisor. Two police officers were posted outside his home.

** Long Article, To Read Rest Click On Link**

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/us/Election-audit-Arizona-Republicans.amp.html

[deafeninginternetduck]

Election 2020 live updates: Biden is first candidate in US history to cross 80M votes

USA TODAY'S coverage of the 2020 election continues this week as states certify their vote counts after President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the hard-fought presidential race. President Donald Trump has yet to concede the race as Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris prepare to take office in January.

Be sure to refresh this page often to get the latest information on the election and the transition.

Biden crosses 80 million vote threshold, first candidate to do so in history

President-elect Joe Biden surpassed 80 million votes, the most votes a candidate has received in U.S. history.

He exceeded President Barack Obama’s record by more than 10 million votes, when the former president won the 2008 election with more than 70 million votes.

Neither Obama in 2012, nor President Donald Trump or Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, broke this number.

Trump also broke Obama’s 2008 record by surpassing 73 million votes this election, but still fell short of Biden.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Tuesday indicated that the Biden/Harris ticket had gained roughly 51% of the popular vote with 80,070,466 ballots, while Trump/Pence received 47.1 percent with 73,890,413.

The record-breaking numbers are an attestation to how many more Americans participated in the election compared to previous elections. Additionally, the number of voting-eligible Americans has grown, as did voter enthusiasm.

Because some municipalities are still counting ballots, Biden’s record-breaking win could continue to grow. For example, Maine just reported its military and overseas ballots, which Biden won by nearly 80%, and there are still outstanding ballots in New York and California.

– Savannah Behrmann

Biden can now receive President’s Daily Brief; transition team talking to every federal agency

The Trump administration has cleared the way for President-elect Joe Biden to begin receiving the same daily intelligence briefings that President Donald Trump receives.

“Following the statutory direction of the Presidential Transition Act, ODNI will provide requested support to the transition team,” according to a ODNI spokesperson. “This afternoon the White House approved ODNI to move forward with providing the PDB as part of the support to the transition.”

The briefing is a top-secret document that includes national security and intelligence assessments.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Biden said he has not started intelligence briefings but would soon.

This comes a day after Emily Murphy, the head of the General Services Administration, said she'll allow Biden to begin his transition to the White House. The GSA holds the keys to transition funds and tools, but Murphy had delayed issuing an official determination recognizing Biden's win, as the Trump campaign filed a flurry of lawsuits challenging the results.

Additionally, a day after the GSA ascertainment, the Biden transition team is now communicating with all federal agencies.

– Deidre Shesgreen and Savannah Behrmann

Trump pardons 'lucky' Thanksgiving turkey

This time there were no jokes about recounts and fair elections.

President Donald Trump emerged from the White House briefly on Tuesday to partake in an annual holiday tradition – the pardoning of the National Thanksgiving Turkey – but passed up an opportunity to use the ritual as a commentary on the presidential election earlier this month.

Trump, with first lady Melania Trump at his side, used the Rose Garden ceremony to grant a full pardon to a lucky gobbler named Corn and to celebrate the soaring stock market and the “strength, loyalty and faith” of Americans amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

“What we’ve endured and been able to endure, with the vaccines now coming out one after another – it’s an incredible thing that happened,” he said in a rare public appearance since losing the presidential election to Joe Biden earlier this month.

Trump’s serious tone was a marked a contrast to his previous turkey pardonings, which he used to make light of his political situations.

Read the full story.

– Michael Collins

Arizona Republican Gov. Ducey: 'Joe Biden did win Arizona'

Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey acknowledged Tuesday that Democrat Joe Biden carried Arizona, nearly three weeks after the Associated Press called the state for Biden and nearly two weeks after several other major news outlets did.

During a Tuesday morning appearance on Phoenix station KTAR's "The Mike Broomhead Show," Ducey said he expected the state to certify Biden's win and all other election results Monday.

"I've said several times: Arizona is a good government state," Ducey said. "I trust our election system. There's integrity in our election system. Joe Biden did win Arizona."

Ducey previously had declined to recognize the president-elect's Arizona victory. Less than a week ago he said he would accept the results only after all related lawsuits were resolved.

– Maria Polletta (Arizona Republic)

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey:'Joe Biden did win Arizona'

Nevada Supreme Court certifies Joe Biden’s election victory

The Nevada Supreme Court made President-elect Joe Biden’s election win official Tuesday, becoming the latest battleground state in the past day to certify election results that all but end President Donald Trump’s long-shot path to overturn the election.

The unanimous certification by the seven nonpartisan justices sends results to Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak that will deliver six electoral votes from Nevada to Biden.

It comes after Pennsylvania certified Biden’s win there earlier Tuesday and one day after Michigan certified Biden as the winner.

Biden won Nevada by 33,596 votes, 50.1% to 47.7%.

Nevada was one of a handful of states that Democrat Hillary Clinton won in 2016 that the Trump campaign targeted with resources to try to flip.

The Supreme Court’s action received added scrutiny as Trump levels baseless claims of voter fraud to falsely claim the election was stolen from him.

Nevada was one of nine states that automatically mailed absentee ballots to all 1.82 million active registered voters, a move that garnered unsuccessful legal challenges from the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign later tried to stop the counting of the record 1.4 million votes cast in the election as part of a wide range of unsuccessful lawsuits targeting Nevada and other states the president lost.

– Joey Garrison and Associated Press

Trump touts market, avoids election in brief appearance

President Donald Trump touted the record 30,000-point milestone on the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a “sacred number” during a brief and sudden visit in the White House briefing room Tuesday.

The president took no questions during remarks that lasted under two minutes and never mentioned the election. He was joined by Vice President Mike Pence.

“We’ve never broken 30,000,” the president said. “That’s a sacred number – 30,000. Nobody thought they’d ever see it.”

Trump walked off the podium without responding to questions about whether he would concede the Nov. 3 election. His appearance came a day after his administration began the formal transition process to usher President-elect Joe Biden in office.

The Dow traded above 30,000 points for the first time, Trump said, because of progress on the COVID-19 vaccine. Others pointed to the General Services Administration formally beginning the transition to Biden, a sign of a peaceful transfer of power. Other analysts said investors were encouraged by Biden's selection of Janet Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair, as his Treasury Department secretary.

– John Fritze

Asian American lawmakers push for Asian Americans in Biden’s Cabinet

Members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus called on President-elect Joe Biden Tuesday to include Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in his Cabinet and administration as his transition team rolls out its first Cabinet picks.

Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., the caucus chairwoman, told reporters the Asian American community had “made a difference" in key battlegrounds across the country, and it was “worrisome that for the first time in 20 years, there may not be a single Asian American nominated to the Cabinet."

“We cannot ensure every communities having their needs met if they do not have a seat at the table,” she said.

She mentioned several potential Asian American contenders for Cabinet positions including:

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., for Defense secretary

Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy for secretary of Health and Human Services

California Labor Secretary Julie Su for secretary of Labor

Chief trade counsel of the House Ways and Means Committee Katherine Tai for United States Trade Representative

Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang for Commerce secretary

The Caucus sent a letter to Biden on Nov. 21 urging him to include Asian Americans in his Cabinet, but had not yet received a response, Chu said. Biden's transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

– Nicholas Wu

Pennsylvania certifies election results finding Joe Biden the winner

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday announced his state certified its election results, ensuring that its 20 Electoral College votes will be awarded to President-elect Joe Biden.

“Today, @PAStateDept certified the results of the November 3 election in Pennsylvania for president and vice president of the United States,” Wolf tweeted Tuesday morning. “As required by federal law, I’ve signed the Certificate of Ascertainment for the slate of electors for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”

The certification took place as President Donald Trump and his legal team continue to challenge the results by alleging widespread fraud in Philadelphia without proof. Biden is leading Trump by more than 81,000 votes.

A Pennsylvania federal court on Saturday denied Trump's request to block certification of the state's election results to give his lawyers time to find evidence to support their claims of a fraudulent election system and improper ballot counting.

Trump in PA:In scathing ruling, judge dismisses Trump campaign's effort to overturn election results in Pennsylvania

In a scathing ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brann criticized the Trump campaign's lack of evidence to support its argument to potentially disenfranchise every voter in the commonwealth who cast a ballot – nearly 7 million.

That prompted Sen. Pat Toomey, R-PA., a Trump supporter, to recognize Biden as the winner of the Keystone State in the Nov. 3 election.

“With today’s decision by Judge Matthew Brann, a longtime conservative Republican whom I know to be a fair and unbiased jurist, to dismiss the Trump campaign’s lawsuit, President Trump has exhausted all plausible legal options to challenge the result of the presidential race in Pennsylvania,” Toomey said in a statement Saturday.

– Ledyard King and Kevin McCoy

Most Republicans would vote for Trump in 2024, poll says

Most Republican voters would vote for President Donald Trump in a 2024, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

Asked who they would vote for if the 2024 Republican primary was held today, 53% of Republican and Republican-leaning independents said they would for Trump. Voters also said they would vote for Vice President Mike Pence, who came in second with 12%, and the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr. received 8% of support.

None of the other options, which included Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, received more than 4% of support from Republican voters.

The poll released Tuesday comes a day after Emily Murphy, the head of the General Services Administration, said she would give President-elect Joe Biden access to the transition funds and resources after withholding them from Biden and his team.

Trump tweeted his support for Murphy after her decision on Monday, also saying that “I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols and have told my team to do the same.”

The poll of nearly 2,000 voters occurred Nov. 21-23 with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

– Sarah Elbeshbishi

Trump to take part in turkey pardon as GSA begins Biden transition

The White House turkey pardon on Tuesday is likely to garner attention as all eyes will be on President Donald Trump after the administrator of the General Services Administration said she would allow President-elect Joe Biden to begin his official transition.

More:Trump administration clears the way for President-elect Biden's transition to officially begin

The official turkey pardoning ceremony at 2 p.m. EDT will be the president's first public event in days. Trump has been mostly out of the public eye since losing the election earlier this month.

The GSA letter marked a formal recognition by the Trump administration that Biden won the Nov. 3 election, even though the president has refused to concede and continues to make baseless allegations of voter fraud.

In a pair of tweets, Trump took credit for Murphy's decision, saying he greenlit the transition because it was in the "best interest of our country." But he also said he would continue contesting the results.

Trump has used previous turkey pardons to make light of his current political situation. Last year, in the midst of the House's impeachment inquiry, Trump cracked jokes about efforts to impeach him. In 2018, he joked abut Democrats issuing the turkey subpoenas.

Trump will issue a presidential pardon to the turkeys, Corn and Cob, at a ceremony in the Rose Garden, as part of the annual holiday tradition that was made official in 1989 under former President George H.W. Bush.

Biden's transition website is now government domain

As one of the first signs of the GSA's ascertainment of the election, president-elect Biden's transition website now exists under a government top-level domain.

The Biden team now has buildbackbetter.gov, which redirects to the existing transition website.

--Savannah Behrmann

[confrontingbabble-on]

The International Bulletin of Missionary Research reported that Christian religious leaders will commit an estimated $34 billion in financial fraud...

Researchers from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity estimate that Christian religious leaders will commit $90 million in financial crimes daily and the fraud is growing at a rate of 5.97% each year. If the researchers are correct, religious financial fraud among Christians will almost double...to $60 billion annually by 2025. 1

Dr. David Barrett, the first editor of the World Christian Encyclopedia and a researcher for the Center, has been studying religious financial fraud for more than 20 years.

Barrett and Johnson in the reference book “World Christian Trends” reported, “Probably 80% of all cases are kept private or swept under the carpet, but each year a rash of megathefts (over $1 million each) is uncovered and publicized in the secular media.” 3

Here is a small sample of religious financial scandals from around the world:

Brazil: Bishop Edir Macedo, head of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, and 9 of his associates have been charged with embezzling more than $2 billion. 4

Canada: Televangelists Ron and Reynold Mainse allegedly recruited investors in a Ponzi scheme. 5

China: A whistleblower goes to jail for speaking out after donations for earthquake victims were stolen. 6

Italy: Police confiscated 23 million euros in a Vatican bank account as part of an investigation into money laundering. 7

Ukraine: Pastor Sunday Adelaja charged with fraud in promoting a business venture to his congregation that lost $100 million. 8

United Kingdom: Church treasurer Derek Klein embezzled funds to pay for a stamp collection. 9

United States: Trent Huddleston, former senior accountant at Oral Roberts University, alleges that more than $1 billion was money laundered annually by members of the Oral Roberts University board. 10

Common Funding Sources of Religious Thieves

The Offering Plate — In 2002 NBC Dateline aired an exposé on Benny Hinn. Mike Estrella, a former Benny Hinn Ministries employee responsible for counting the money given at Hinn’s crusades, said that he observed Gene Polino, Hinn’s CEO, embezzle thousands of dollars from the crusade collection buckets.11 Wikipedia describes this practice as “skimming” which “refers to taking cash ‘off the top’ of the daily receipts of a business …” 12This form of fraud is hard to detect but occassionally the skimmers are caught. A member of St. Ita Catholic Church’s finance committee marked a $100 bill before placing it in the offering plate. The bill disappeared before the church could deposit it in the bank. A priest later acknowledged taking the money. 13

The Ministry Checking Account and Credit Card — Jason Reynolds, the finance director of National City Christian Church, used the church credit card to acquire a Lexus SUV and Land Rover. He also embezzled over $200,000 by writing himself checks. 14

Investments — In 1999 the Baptist Foundation of Arizona filed for bankruptcy after accumulating $530 million in liabilities. Dishonest administrators engaged in a cover-up to hide bad investments. William Crotts and his associates set up more than 90 dummy corporations to hide financial losses and used a ponzi scheme to cover old investments. 15 New Church Ventures was the largest dummy corporation formed by the BFA and held $173 million in debts. New Church Ventures had zero employees and provided no funds for building new churches even though that was its stated objective. 16The Phoenix New Times investigated Jalma Hunsinger, the president of New Church Ventures, and reported on strange insider deals and flipped property fraud. The owner of the Simms Tower offered this $1.9 million building to the BFA for $1 as a tax write-off because the building was contaminated by asbestos. When the Foundation turned down the offer, Hunsinger acquired the building and used it as collateral for a BFA $6.8 million loan. 17

In 1987 filmmaker Harry Guetzlaff‘s production company was failing. Out of desperation he pledged money to televangelist Robert Tilton in hopes for a financial blessing. When Guetzlaff lost his home and approached Tilton’s organization for help, he was denied any assistence. Guetzlaff went to the Trinity Foundation and told his story to Ole Anthony, director of the Foundation. Anthony launched an investigation into Tilton’s direct mail operation and assisted the ABC News program PrimeTime Live on a TV exposé.18

The Trinity Foundation has investigated religious financial fraud for 23 years. Trinity investigators have gone through the trash of televangelists to obtain evidence, worked undercover inside ministry offices, assisted TV news programs and newspapers in developing investigative reports, and operated a phone line for victims of fraud (1-800-229-VICTIM).

The 2004 Internal Revenue Manual of the IRS noted that some churches are being used fraudulently to avoid taxes:

“While desiring to protect churches from undue interference by the IRS, Congress, in enacting IRC § 7611, recognized that an increasing number of taxpayers had used the church form primarily as a tax-avoidance device.” 22

Realtor and banker George Michael of Lake Bluff, Illinois, claimed that he converted his 15,000 square foot lakefront mansion worth $3 million into a church so that his disabled wife would have a place to worship. Michael’s neighbors and local government officials claim the home was not a church and that Michael was attempting to avoid paying more than $70,000 in property taxes. After the Illinois Department of Revenue granted a religious tax exemption, local officials went to court to have the tax exemption removed and won in court on July 6, 2009. 23

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, “IRS rules do not bar transactions between a nonprofit group and a business that is owned or controlled by the same person, a practice known as self-dealing.” 24 Self dealing is one of the key methods that fraudulent nonprofit executives use to enrich themselves. Here’s an example of how it works:

A televangelist owns a for-profit company that publishes all of his books and DVDs. Then he sells the books and DVDs at full retail price to his nonprofit rather than at a discount or wholesale price. A televangelist can use this technique to excessively profit from his nonprofit organization.

Pastors Mike and Elaine Millé of White Dove Fellowship in Harvey, Louisiana, purchased property costing $850,000 in August 2007 and sold the property to their church about 90 days later for $1,229,112 for a profit of $379,112. This transaction is not just an example of self dealing, it is also flipped property fraud. After learning of the transaction, the Trinity asked the IRS to investigate the Millés and White Dove Fellowship. 25

Excessive Compensation

Nonprofit organizations in the United States can lose their tax-exempt status and be required to pay excise taxes if employees receive excessive compensation. Yet this rarely happens. When the Charlotte Observer investigated compensation for charity executives, it reported, “Most years, fewer than 10 of the nearly two million U.S. nonprofit leaders are penalized for receiving excessive compensation.” The newspaper also noted that there is “roughly one enforcement agent for every 4,000 tax-exempt groups nationally” so very few nonprofit organizations get audited. 26

The Charlotte Observer reported that televangelist David Cerullo of The Inspiration network “was paid nearly 1.7 million” in 2008. However, the newspaper left out that Cerullo received $331,881 in nontaxable benefits that year. 27

Cerullo has the highest compensation of any religious broadcaster in the United States that files 990 forms with the IRS. Churches are exempt from filing so some megachurch pastors and televangelists are refusing to make their compensation public. Kenneth Copeland doesn’t disclose his income but has bragged that he is a billionaire. 28

In 1921 the United States federal government established a tax exemption for ministerial housing expenses to help poor congregations provide housing to clergy. 29

This exemption is now being abused to provide religious leaders with large tax-exempt housing benefits. When Crystal Cathedral filed for bankruptcy, its financial records revealed “$832,490 in tax-exempt housing allowances given to eight people …” 30

WFAA reported that Ed Young of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, “was paid $240,000 a year as a parsonage allowance; that’s in addition what sources say is a $1 million yearly pastor’s salary. 31

A lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation could result in this housing allowance being ruled unconstitutional in 2011. 32

Insurance Fraud

The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud produces a Hall of Shame list each year to bring attention to insurance fraud. Pastor Gerald Rayborn was featured on the 2004 list for burning down his church for $800,000. 33

Dennis Jay, the Coalition’s director, reported in Claims Journal that “Rev. Roland Gray helped stage nearly 200 car crashes plus phony slip-and-fall injuries in restaurants and hotels. He recruited parishioners and even his brother, who also was a minister.” 34

After obtaining seven life insurance policies for a blind man, pastor Kevin Pushia hired a hitman for $50,000. Pushia plead guilty. 35

Fraud Among Nonchristian Religious Groups

Rabbi Saul Kassin, head of America’s largest Sephardic synagogue, was arrested in 2009 with four other rabbis for money laundering almost $3 million. 36

Salman Ibrahim established credibility among Chicago Muslims through his involvement in the Shariah Board of America. Ibrahim formed Sunrise Equities Inc., as an Islamic investment company, and paid dividends rather than interest which is prohibit by the Koran. Investors lost $30 million when Ibrahim disappeared from the United States. 37

Religious con artists have been effective at targeting Mormons, costing their victims $1.4 billion. 38

Read in full...https://signposts02.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/an-overview-of-religious-financial-fraud/

[grimmbrookhq]

HANSEL ▶ HARLYN ROUSSEAU ( CO-OWNS THE CANDY HOUSE ● 28 ● SEAN TEALE ● OPEN )

Harlyn’s childhood was good, happy even, with a father, mother and sister who doted on him. He was never great at art itself, like his father or sister were, but he had a mind like an encyclopedia, absorbing all the facts Arlo Rousseau ever spewed about France or dates or artists and paintings. He learned Spanish from his mom and French from his sister and dad. He loved to hear everything about anything.

But when Catalina died, he was barely eleven and it was hard to get Harlyn to be as attentive. There was a mom-sized hole in his heart. Arlo saw that staying in Connecticut was doing nothing for their family so he moved their little unit to Grimmbrook, where Harlyn’s mom had grown up. When they started homeschooling, he sparked up again, enjoying the freedom that came with him and Gabrielle choosing courses that interested them while helping their father start and run a gallery. 

Harlyn worked as a guide, charming gallery-goers and prospective buyers. Still, he always missed his mother and despite Gabrielle being the closest thing to one he had for several years, when Isla came into their life, she filled the hole more completely. She brought him toys and candy, and took him for ice cream and to the movies. He was just thirteen and wanted a mom. So when Gabrielle told him what was going on, his heart broke but he trusted his sister, and together they came up with a plan, young though they were. They managed to find an artist a few towns over not much older than Harlyn, but talented enough to pull off their plan. He oversaw every little detail as the artist recreated a perfect fake of a piece Isla had been eying. When it was stolen, they found someone to track it down before presenting the information to their father. Isla was gone from their lives the very next day, with a warrant out for her arrest. 

The experience made the two realize that they could do something with this, despite their age. They started a side hustle, working in tandem for years as they helped at the gallery. When their father left for France, they were both old enough to take their business to the next level, which is exactly what they did. 

CONNECTIONS ▶

GABRIELLE ROUSSEAU: His older sister and business partner. He knows she views them as equals despite their age difference but he still looks up to her and admires how she conducts business. He also doesn’t take it lightly that she’s always been there for him, and she’s never steered him wrong. They bounce ideas off each other and always run plans by the other – even if they know they’ll be in agreement. Transparency between them is important to keep The Candy House running smoothly. He’d do anything for Gabrielle and knows she feels the same about him.

LIAM PHOENIX: Harlyn first saw him at The Cage and knew that if there was anyone who’d do a good job at heading up The Candy House’s security, it would be him. He pitched him a lowball offer, thinking that if the guy was fighting in The Cage, he probably didn’t have a ton of prospects but in the years since, he’s gained Harlyn’s trust and rose up. They spend a lot of time together, going over plans and logistics, especially when there’s a rare piece coming through The Candy House. He trusts that Liam will get the job done. 

REGINALD ROSE: Though they were different ages when they moved to Grimmbrook, both came from families that never quite fit in. They became friends at the library and despite Reginald not knowing what Harlyn really does now, they’ve kept that friendship going since. Sure, he feels a bit bad to keep a secret like this from Reggie but doesn’t want to get his friend involved in something he didn’t ask for. 

ALANA LOPEZ: She’s come through to admire art and, well, Harlyn can’t help but admire her. Though he’s not really front-of-house, he usually finds a way to give her a tour or offer a tidbit about the work she’s looking at. When he heard the accent, he broached a conversation in Spanish and the two hit it off, but not as much as he’d have liked. He ignores Gabrielle’s eye roll whenever he talks to Alana, and figures that friendship isn’t a bad place to start. Especially not when he doesn’t really have a ton of time for deep connections with work, both front and back of house. 

TYLER DECKER: Harlyn used to be friends with Tyler’s ex, Mike. He heard about the accident and thought it was grade-a shitty work for Mike to ditch town after killing a couple and leaving someone else to die. Sure, Harlyn isn’t exactly a saint, and money’s a big motivator for his work, but he’s not that bad. Out of curiosity, he used his network to get tabs on Mike and has considered using it as a bargaining chip to see if Tyler has any dirt to on his boss. Though not exactly against The Deadly Seven, Harlyn would be a fool not to see the gang as a possible future threat to The Candy House. At the end of the day, any other criminal activity in town has the potential to eventually undermine their operation.

[itsworn]

Hemi-Powered 1941 Willys Coupe Is Survivor of Gasser Wars

Survivor.

That word gets used, and misused, a lot in the car hobby. It seems just about any hulk that hasn’t completely returned to its elemental state gets called a survivor. To our way of thinking, though, this ’41 Willys has earned the title.

For one thing, you’re looking at all original sheetmetal. Even the tilt hood is made from the car’s factory front-end parts. There’s no fiberglass here. Some rust repair, sure, covered by fresh primer carefully blended with the 1950s-era red racing paint. The nice-looking trim? Original. Just needed some polish.

What makes the Willys’ condition even more remarkable is the fact that it was drag raced and sold off—not once, but twice—before sympathetic hands sought to preserve it.

After being in Randy Gribble’s hands for nearly 30 years, this veteran of the Midwest gasser wars has found a new home with Gil Muro and his cohorts at the Hot Rod Ranch. “Where I’m from, it’s hard to get California coolness,” says Randy, who’s based in South Dakota. “We don’t have a lot of drag racing out here. We build jalopies for dirt track racing. I’m having more fun knowing Gil is doing something with it.”

  The car’s guardian angel was Randy Gribble, who owns Lake City Rod & Custom in Watertown, South Dakota. He remembers the day, back in 1990, when he and a friend were driving home from a drag race in Omaha. He was leafing through the local Deals on Wheels ad paper while his buddy drove.

That’s where he saw an ad for a Willys. “I had Willys fever,” he says, ticking off several of the diminutive hot rods he’s owned over the years, many of which he had to sell to fund the purchase of land for his shop.

“I made my friend pull off the interstate and find a phone booth. It was a Sunday afternoon. I called this place in Greeley, Colorado, a car lot there, and left a message. On Monday they called back, and I made a deal over the phone.”

A couple weeks later the car showed up at Randy’s place. “My first thoughts were, had I seen the car in person I might have passed on it,” he admits. “But I didn’t have a lot of money. I still don’t. Some things never change. And I wanted one really bad.”

What’s known about the Willys’ racing history starts in the Denver area in the 1950s. Back then it was powered by a Pontiac engine, and after he bought the car Gil turned up an old photo of the Willys with just the Pontiac logos on the doors. Dave Mader and Jerry Morris added their names, and another Pontiac mill, when they raced it in the Kansas area in 1959-1964.

  The Willys “didn’t look as good as its picture,” Randy says. “The grille was busted out in the center. It had old painted silver wheels on back when the picture showed chrome wheels. The frame was chopped up and rusty, and someone had put an aluminum floor in with sheetmetal screws. But it was an all-steel Willys coupe, and I was in love.”

Randy had opened his business 10 years before and was going full-steam on customer projects. That meant relegating the Willys to after-hours status, worked on “a little at a time each winter.” Being in the business, and a collection of parts from his own race car projects, provided opportunities to add choice parts to the car.

The Willys wears 1950s-vintage red paint over what looks like factory white, but there are worn-through areas and places, like this, where all the paint is just gone. Look close at the door and you can see an eighth inch or more of what initially looked like filler under the paint. Closer examination revealed it to be lead.

The Willys’ chassis was so beat up that he “started over” using the frame from “another car I pulled out of the weeds,” a ’41 sedan that would also donate its steering column and dashboard. He and his son burned up two battery-powered screwdrivers getting all the sheetmetal screws out of the floor. Randy had a ’57 392 Hemi, left over from a blown-alcohol nostalgia dragster he sold, that he thought “would be perfect in the Willys.” He found a Don Long chromoly straight axle at a swap meet in Phoenix. “It came off an old gasser that they were mistakenly turning into a street rod,” he says, laughing. “It had Willys spindles and everything, and the perches were perfect for Willys springs.”

It would be years, though, before Randy learned about any of the car’s history. That journey began with a chance encounter, much like spotting the car’s ad in the first place.

“I wish those windows could talk,” Randy says of this odd wear pattern in the paint. His best guess: While the Willys was in storage, a dangling chain, maybe in the garage rafters, would blow around in the wind and hit the car as it was swinging.

“You Got My Old Car”

“I was on my way to the L.A. Roadsters show and was invited to Mike DeVriendt’s open house,” he remembers. “He used to have the So-Cal Speed Shop in Colorado, and that’s the area where this car came from. I was talking to Mike about buying the Willys through the ad, and we realized he sold that car to me. This was 20, 25 years later.”

Mike told Randy he had purchased the Willys from a salvage yard south of Wichita. That piece of the puzzle led Randy to contact his friend, Don Baxter, who ran Baxter Ford Parts in Lawrence, Kansas, to see if he knew anything about the car. Don recalled seeing a Willys with Indian-head emblems on the doors, and remembered a Pontiac engine with a chain-driven blower under the hood. That detail stood out, as “it was the first one with chain drive that he ever saw,” says Randy.

Also lettered on the car were two names, which Randy and a friend punched into an internet search engine four or five years ago. They found a number, dialed it, “and there’s Dave Mader on the phone,” Randy recalls. “I told him what I had, and he said, ‘You got my old car. Me and the sheriff will come get it. That car was stolen.’”

The engine in the Willys is a ’57 392 Hemi that Randy had as a spare for a blown alcohol nostalgia dragster. In the 0.030-over block are flattop forged Ansen blower pistons, Manley rods, and an Engle L153 roller cam. The headers are from Hedman; Gil “cleaned them up and put a good coat of VHT on them.”

It took a second for Randy to realize Mader was joking. Sort of.

Dave Mader and Jerry Morris were friends who bought the Willys in the late 1950s from an ad in a magazine. A drag race car from the Denver area, it had been powered by a Pontiac engine, which explained the logos on the doors. When Mader and Morris bought the car the Poncho mill was toast, so they put another Pontiac in the car, topped by the chain-driven supercharger Don Baxter remembered. They raced it from 1959 to 1964, when Mader was sent to Vietnam. He left the Willys in the care of his partner, but when he came back from the service he learned that Morris had taken the car to a junkyard. “It sounded like Morris was in bad health,” Randy says, “but he still had the original title to the car.”

Randy asked Mader if he had any photos from their racing days. “We could hardly afford gas for the car,” Mader told him. “We didn’t have a camera.”

Gil had the vintage Mickey Thompson valve covers from “another Hemi project,” under which are triple-nickel 354 heads that were ported by Lockerman Porting Service. The heads are from “Mark Williams’ last front-engine dragster,” Randy says. “It was a normally aspirated, nitro-injected, A/Fuel car back in the day.”

(We would love to hear from any Deluxe readers who may have seen the car race or have photos of it, from the Mader/Morris years or even before, when it was in Denver. It should be easy to spot in your scrapbook. How many Willys decorated with Indian heads can there be?)

Mader asked him if it still had its Pontiac engine and Olds rearend. “No,” Randy told him, “no motor. Just the Pontiac emblem on the doors, and a Tri-Five rearend to roll it around.” Randy said Mader “wasn’t all that happy” to learn Randy put a Hemi in the car. “He wanted a Pontiac back in it,” Randy says, admitting, “I should have done a Pontiac motor. And if Gil and I didn’t have all this Hemi stuff, that’s what he’d be doing now.”

Gil provided the parts for the Hemi’s induction system: Twin 750-cfm Holleys feeding a 6-71 supercharger on a Cragar blower intake. He’s still tinkering with the motor, so we weren’t able to hear it fire. Among the mods already planned are different pulleys “to overdrive it to get more power.”

Lightening the Load

That would be Gil Muro, who with his brothers and other family members operates Hot Rod Ranch in the central California town of Lompoc.

Randy knew Gil from the March Meet. “I used to race there when the Goodguys were doing it. Gil bought a few parts from me at the swap meet.” Over the years, the two stayed in touch, so Gil had Randy’s number handy when he saw on Instagram that the Willys was for sale.

“I put so many projects ahead of this thing, just worked on it when I had the time, when I felt like it,” Randy says. “Pretty soon, it had been 28 years. I’m 64 years old, and I’m thinking about lightening the load a bit. That’s one reason why I got rid of it.”

Randy fashioned the tilt front end when he realized “I had to have it flip to work on the motor. I couldn’t work on it if just the hood opened.” But he wanted to retain all the factory front-end parts rather than graft on a fiberglass nose. So he bolted the stock hood and fenders together and fabricated the aluminum brackets that join the front end to the frame. The frame, by the way, looks just as pretty under the car as it does here. Gil smoothed and painted the whole thing.

Plus, he explained, he had taken the car to the point where it was ready for bodywork. “I’m not a body man,” he admits. “I would have had to hire that done.” He also faced a decision about the paint. He had a lot of lengthy discussions with a friend, Craig “Spud” Godfrey, about whether to preserve the historic paint or re-paint the car. “Spud would have been the one to repaint it if I decided to go that way,” Randy says. In the end, he felt the body should stay in its as-raced condition. “But there’s so much bad there to be fixed, it would take someone like Gil to save the old paint.”

Gil immediately recognized the car’s potential. “It’s really rare to find a ’41 Willys that’s all steel and even has the original trim.” Like Randy, he wants to get the car running while keeping it as original as possible. “Really what we’re doing is helping Randy finish his dream.”

Randy found the Willys’ front suspension at a swap meet: a spindle-to-spindle setup using a Don Long chromoly straight axle. When Randy got the car it had “an original Willys axle in it that had a little drop to it,” he says, “but this axle has the gasser history that I wanted.” He re-arched the front springs to give the nose a little altitude (and attitude).

Wilwood front disc brakes are among the car’s few contemporary components (along with a fuel cell in the trunk), all there for safety, says Gil. “Old Airheart brakes would be cool, but I wanted some real stopping power considering how fast this thing will be.”

Randy removed the Tri-Five Chevy rearend that was under the Willys when he bought it and replaced it with this ’57 Pontiac rearend, filled with 4.88 gears, a spool, and 35-spline Old Henry’s axles.

When he took out the Chevy rearend, Randy found ladder-bar brackets and fabricated these “based on the look I wanted and where I thought they should come out. I studied a few old HOT ROD magazines and saw what they were doing.” The bars are made from 1 1/4-inch DOM with quarter-inch-wall tube. “I did step up to regular Art Morrison ladder bar ends, good solid rod ends,” Randy said.

The original floor had been cut out and replaced with a floor that was attached with sheetmetal screws. Plus, “the whole A-pillar structure was in pretty poor shape,” Randy recalls. “I had to put a lot of substructure back in there.” To offset that weight, he made new floor pans from 12-gauge aluminum, supported by “two c-channel frames, one inside the other. It should be pretty strong.”

More of Randy’s fabrication work: The steering column came from the donor sedan that provided the Willys’ frame, but he fashioned the pedal assembly to look like vintage Ansen parts. “The pads are real Ansen, but I made the pedals.” The bracket that supports the pedals ties into the column “where the Willys’ shifter post used to be for the three-on-the-tree shifter.”

They look like old racing buckets because they’re supposed to, but the seats are actually aftermarket high-back buckets Randy found at a swap meet. “I tried to make them look old-timey by cutting the headrests off.” Between the seats is a B&M Series 60 shifter controlling the car’s clutch Turbo 400.

A big Sun tach and Stewart-Warner gauges monitor the goings-on, but Randy also left room for this ’41 Willys dashboard, another transplant from the sedan parts car. “It’s an original dashboard, just not original to this car,” he explains. “My friend Spud detailed it for me.”

The fat 12-16 M&H Racemasters are reproductions, but inside them are gennie 16×11 Halibrand mags. The front rolling stock is all repro: Halibrand kidney-bean lookalikes from Summit Racing Equipment mounting 5.00-15 BFG Silvertowns from Coker.

Paragon Plastics cut the Plexiglas side and rear windows for Gil.

Randy radiused the wheelwells; Gil patched the rust around the lower edges, then sprayed the work with primer. One reason the original trim stayed in such good shape is because Randy took it off and stored it for the nearly 30 years he owned the car.

It’s still a work in progress, but probably by the time you read this the Willys will be back on the street— and maybe even the dragstrip. As the process nears completion, Gil wanted to acknowledge the people who helped him. “I want to thank my entire family, especially my wife Charryse and my kids, Bella and Cruz, for all their support. I’d also like to thank all the guys who helped on the car: Russell Smith, Jesse Alarcon, Dave Andrews, Chris Barker, Steve Gaboury, Harold Davis, and Dusty Albrecht.”

The post Hemi-Powered 1941 Willys Coupe Is Survivor of Gasser Wars appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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[usatrendingsports]

We constructed a workforce utilizing probably the most underrated gamers in MLB and it is … underrated

Calling something “underrated” or “overrated” is all the time robust. The phrases are 100 % subjective and in addition considerably nebulous. How are we defining how the merchandise in query  is “rated” (RE: Considered by the plenty) and the way will we resolve that the entity is both higher or worse than the widespread view? Once more, it is troublesome. 

It is also enjoyable for me and then you definately, my expensive readers, get to yell at me for the way a lot I suck. It is a win-win, so I am trudging ahead with the All-Underrated MLB Crew right here on Tuesday and going with the All-Overrated MLB Crew on Wednesday. 

Some vital issues to recollect earlier than we dive in: 

Once more, that is subjective. These are gamers I consider do not get as a lot credit score as they need to from the final group of baseball followers and media. A very powerful factor to recollect these subsequent two days — which many will ignore and nonetheless yell at me — is that “overrated” doesn’t suggest “suck.” Most overrated gamers are good, in any other case folks would not assume they had been nice. 

An underrated participant can nonetheless be a worse participant than an overrated participant. If we ranked gamers on a 1-100 video-game-like scale and a participant was extensively seen as a 90 and I really feel like he is an 80, I feel he is overrated. A participant will be extensively seen as a 70 and I’ve him as a 75ish, then he is underrated but in addition worse than the overrated participant. An underrated participant will also be one of many best possible gamers in baseball, if he nonetheless is not getting as a lot credit score as he ought to. See? It is not troublesome. 

These are for proper now. There’ll seemingly be gamers on the All-Overrated record with unbelievable profession our bodies of labor, however that does not imply they’re nonetheless superior. We’re taking a look at 2017 efficiency with our eyes on 2018. 

Going again to level one, not solely is that this subjective, however it’s solely me. Matt Snyder. This is not “CBS Sports activities” rating these guys. Please do not blame my glorious colleagues for my poor style. You may yell at me through e-mail (matt.snyder@cbsinteractive.com) or Twitter (@MattSnyderCBS). Deliver it. 

And now, onto the far-less-polarizing All-Underrated Crew!

Catcher – J.T. Realmuto, Marlins

The one catchers forward of Realmuto in WAR final season had been elite-level Buster Posey and Gary Sanchez. Willson Contreras would have topped Realmuto, too, had he not misplaced six weeks to a hamstring harm. Previous these three studs, there is a cheap argument that Realmuto is the next-best all-around catcher heading to 2018. And but, such an announcement can be met with laughter amongst many alternative teams of followers and media. 

Additionally thought of: Tyler Flowers, Braves; Mike Zunino, Mariners; Austin Barnes, Dodgers

First baseman – Matt Carpenter, Cardinals

Carpenter battled accidents to one thing like 5 totally different areas of his physique in 2017. He mightily battled a shoulder harm. He nonetheless managed to play 145 video games, coming by means of with 31 doubles, 23 homers and 109 walks. A perpetual pest on the plate, he was third in pitches per plate look. His common dropped 30 factors to .241, although, so he is develop into far an excessive amount of of an afterthought nationally. He’ll bounce again with an excellent 2018, assuming that shoulder is again to close 100 %. 

Additionally thought of: Jose Martinez, Cardinals; Brandon Belt, Giants

Second baseman – Cesar Hernandez, Phillies

He broke out in 2016 after which acquired just a little higher final yr. Hernandez hit .294 with a .373 on-base proportion. He had six triples, 15 stolen bases and scored 85 runs regardless of solely taking part in in 128 video games. He is a rattling good leadoff man in an period the place there are more and more fewer prototypical leadoff sorts. 

Runner-up: Jed Lowrie, Athletics

Shortstop – Andrelton Simmons, Angels

We have lengthy identified about Simmons’ prowess with the glove, however I am unsure he will get almost sufficient credit score for it among the many nice plenty. In a sea of extremely proficient defenders at shortstop, he is head and shoulders above everybody else. Provided that it is shortstop, his groups acquire unbelievable worth from this alone. Simmons being an above-average hitter final season (103 wRC+ for instance) whereas stealing 19 bases simply made him that rather more invaluable. 

Essentially the most underrated participant in baseball? It’d effectively be Simmons.  USATSI

I do know many do not like utilizing it — and, by the way in which, nobody with a mind makes use of solely one stat — however solely Jose Altuve, Aaron Choose, Giancarlo Stanton, Joey Votto and Nolan Arenado racked up extra WAR (baseball-reference.com model) than Simmons final season amongst place gamers. From this view, Simmons is probably the most underrated participant in all of baseball. 

Runner-up: Orlando Arcia, Brewers

Third baseman – Alex Bregman, Astros

Seeing the Champs get an entry on the All-Underrated Crew is a little bit of a shock, however I really feel like Bregman is overshadowed by the Astros “large three” superstars (Altuve, Carlos Correa, George Springer) and goes locations all on his personal. He additionally acquired off to a tough begin in his first full big-league season and did not actually flip it on till July. From July four to the tip of the season, Bregman hit .321/.378/.548. On the season, he confirmed a pleasant power-speed combo with 39 doubles, 5 triples, 19 homers and 17 steals. He had some big postseason hits, too, as everyone knows by now. Do not rely him out from becoming a member of the aforementioned trio of superstars on the defending champions. 

Additionally thought of: Travis Shaw, Brewers; Jake Lamb, Diamondbacks

Outfielders – Mike Trout, Angels; Byron Buxton, Twins; Domingo Santana, Brewers

Oh boy. Right here it comes. 

How can Mike Trout be underrated when everybody says he is the very best participant in baseball?!?!?!

Simple. He is traditionally underrated proper now. I wrote as a lot final Might he is completed nothing to alter any of what I wrote. He is been enhancing himself for years, too. Keep in mind when strikeouts turned an issue in 2014? He walked greater than he struck out final season, persevering with a development of enhancing himself at plate self-discipline whereas additionally not dropping any energy (he had a career-best .629 slugging proportion final season). 

We’re within the midst of watching an inner-circle all-time nice and he nonetheless has a number of years of prime left. Many are lacking out for no matter purpose. Allow them to, however that is additionally what makes him underrated. 

Buxton seemingly will not be underrated for lengthy. For now, although, the plenty of informal followers may see the .253 batting common final season together with the 150 strikeouts towards 38 walks and scoff at his relatively-gaudy WAR determine. We have to concentrate to all the pieces, although. Keep in mind the defensive dialogue on Simmons above? Buxton led all middle fielders with 24 defensive runs saved final season. Kevin Pillar was second at 15 and nobody else had greater than 10. In case you don’t love defensive numbers, simply watch him and use the attention check. I promise he’ll go with flying colours. He additionally provides extra worth on the bases than anybody in baseball. He stole 29 bases in 30 probabilities. He additionally led the majors in taking the additional base 71 % of the time and was not picked off all season. He solely made one out on the bases whereas trying to take a base, and that was the one caught stealing. He is an wonderful baserunner. 

Buxton’s worth extends far past what he does with the bat.  USATSI

As soon as he begins hitting for common and chopping down on the strikeouts, we’re speaking upper-tier celebrity. For now, although, he’s a good-to-great participant who will get ignored. 

Amongst non-die-hard followers who do not cheer for an NL Central workforce, I am guessing Domingo Santana will get a “who?” if his identify is talked about. He additionally hit .278/.371/.505 final season whereas being considered one of eight gamers within the bigs with at the least 30 dwelling runs and 15 stolen bases. Santana was solely in his age-24 season, too. The Brewers have an excellent one right here. 

Additionally thought of: Mitch Haniger, Mariners; Tommy Pham, Cardinals; Marcell Ozuna, Cardinals

Designated hitter – Corey Dickerson, Rays

By nature of this train and the place itself, it is robust to search out guys who qualify as underrated DHs. Dickerson is coming off an excellent yr, hitting .282 with a 120 OPS+ and 27 homers. We’ll take him. 

Beginning pitchers – LHP Robbie Ray, Diamondbacks; RHP Jimmy Nelson, Brewers

Look, chances are high that when you’re studying this, you’re a fairly large baseball fan. I’ve no delusions in any other case. It is the center of December and that is an MLB web page. As such, it is totally attainable you additionally play fantasy baseball and subsequently do not perceive how Ray — and even Nelson — could possibly be right here. 

Let’s do that. Image strolling right into a sports activities bar in a random metropolis (cannot be anyplace near Phoenix or Milwaukee, both) and carrying on a dialogue of the highest 20-or-so pitchers in baseball. Point out Ray and Nelson. See what response you get. 

My guess is this may show they’re each underrated. 

Ray is coming off a season the place he would have completed prime 5 in Cy Younger voting if he hadn’t taken a line drive off the top. He nonetheless went 15-5 with a 2.89 ERA and led the NL with 12.1 strikeouts per 9 innings (218 in 162). 

Jimmy Nelson harm himself sliding right into a base at Wrigley Subject late within the season and can miss a bit of 2018. This can be a big deal for the Brewers, even when many outdoors the “NL Central” area do not know it. He made big strides ahead in 2017, specifically rising his strikeout charge, enhancing his command and chopping down on walks. He turned a frontline beginning pitcher. 

Runners-up: Aaron Nola, Phillies and James Paxton, Mariners

Reduction pitcher – Raisel Iglesias, Reds

The nearer on a nasty workforce is not actually going to show many heads outdoors fantasy baseball circles, however Iglesias is pure filth on the mound. He is getting higher as he continues to realize consolation as a late-inning reliever (he initially came visiting from Cuba as a starter and skipped the minors). I feel my favourite stat on Iglesias is that he labored 18 outings of a couple of inning final season, changing all 12 of his save probabilities in such conditions. The Reds had been 17-1 in these 18 video games. Simply assume how a lot of a rock star he’d be within the playoffs!  

Runners-up: Brad Hand, Padres and Corey Knebel, Brewers

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ATLANTA | Mike Budenholzer out as coach of Atlanta Hawks

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ATLANTA | Mike Budenholzer out as coach of Atlanta Hawks

ATLANTA — Mike Budenholzer wanted to coach elsewhere. The Atlanta Hawks finally agreed it’s a good idea.

The Hawks and Budenholzer mutually agreed to part ways Wednesday in a move announced by the team in a three-sentence statement.

The decision was not totally unexpected as Budenholzer was granted permission to interview with other teams even though he is under contract with the Hawks for two more seasons.

According to multiple reports, Budenholzer interviewed with the Phoenix Suns for their vacant coaching position last week before withdrawing his name from consideration. Budenholzer now may be a top candidate to coach the New York Knicks.

Budenholzer was 213-192 in the regular season and 17-22 in the playoffs in five seasons with Atlanta. The Hawks were an Eastern Conference-worst 24-58 this season.

The Hawks’ free-fall from a franchise-record 60 wins only three years ago to the bottom of the conference this season was startling. The team’s streak of 10 straight playoff seasons ended, but Budenholzer still carried the respect needed to earn interest from other teams looking for a coach.

Even this season, when the Hawks tied with Dallas for the NBA’s third-worst record, they were rarely blown out. They lost 21 games by fewer than 10 points, with only seven losses by 20 or more points.

Always passionate on the bench, at times to the point of earning rebukes from officials, Budenholzer showed no sign of giving up on the team.

“I love what I do,” Budenholzer said on April 11, one day after the end of the disappointing regular season. “I love this team. I’m focused on what we just did and how we can get better going forward.”

Golden State coach Steve Kerr, who played for the Spurs when Budenholzer was Gregg Popovich’s longtime assistant, said last month he has borrowed from Budenholzer’s strategy.

“I didn’t really pick his brain but I definitely picked his playbook,” Kerr said. “I really did. Some of that is through Pop. They ran a lot of the San Antonio stuff when they got here to Atlanta. That’s the derivative. … He’s taken a lot of that San Antonio stuff and expanded on it and I’ve definitely stolen some stuff from him.”

Budenholzer was named NBA coach of the year for the 2014-15 season, when he led the Hawks to their first 60-win season, a division title and their first appearance in the Eastern Conference finals.

He was promoted to president of basketball operations but then gave up that title when Travis Schlenk was hired as general manager in 2017. The loss of power may have been the first step in Budenholzer’s exit.

The Hawks’ inability to retain such top players as Al Horford and Paul Milsap led to the team’s rapid decline. The Hawks fell to the bottom of the conference while leaning heavily on rookie center John Collins, second-year forward Taurean Prince and point guard Dennis Schroder.

The Hawks have scheduled a news conference with Schlenk for Thursday.

Schlenk declined an interview request from The Associated Press.

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By CHARLES ODUM, AP Sports Writer, By Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (A.S)

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