#hardballer

[pedroam-bang]

Hitman (2016)

[txttletale]

I don't understand why you're advocating against voting for Biden. Obviously, Biden and DeSantis/Trump are both very bad, but there's also obviously still a difference between them. If Biden's policy is 1,000,000 people die and DeSantis's policy is 1,010,000 people die, then surely those 10,000 lives are still well worth fighting for? I could understand if somehow not voting did something to undermine the whole system, to help prevent the 1,000,000 deaths, but it doesn't, as far as I can see.

not to get all game theory about it but if 'the left' (as in, the loose electoral demographic) just blindly vote for whoever promises the least deaths without having any red lines then there will never be any reason for the democrats (slash labour slash insert tepid imperialist european social democratic party here) to ever pursue a policy of less than 1,009,999 people dying. imo if someone is serious about voting as a harm reduction strategy then they (as part of a broader group, what an individual does as i always say is basically irrelevant) need to be willing to play hardball (i.e. have circumstances under which they will not vote and be vocal about this) or they will not actually get any harm reduced in the long run

[feroluce]

Had the cutest realization last night- so there's a saying we have in English meaning to get something done by any means necessary. It specifically includes dishonest methods, such as violence or lying. So when you're willing to resort to that kind of thing to achieve your goals, you say you're going to do something

"by hook or by crook"

[discoscoob]

Conor O’Neill is Tom Ludlow coded

[brookie-kookie1943]

Keanuverse Bracelet - Part Four…

Ready for another character bracelet? I am!

Warning: I’m a very amateur pony bead bracelet maker.

(I base the colors I use either off of their clothing or the aesthetic of the whole movie in general.)

I present to you…

See what they see?

Conor O’Neill! I based this off of his Kekambas jersey since his fashion in Hardball is pretty bland…

He’s our favorite gambler baseball coach!

RIP G-Baby…

Hope you like it!❤️

[oldgamemags]

Hyper #11, October '94 - Review of Donkey Kong '94, Pac Attack and Hardball '94.

[nellarw95]

Happy Birthday Keanu 🥳🎂🎈🎁🎉

Keanu Charles Reeves

September 2,1964

Buon Compleanno 🥳🎂🎈🎁🎉

2 Settembre 1964

[retrocgads]

UK 1987

[entomolog-t]

7 & 10 for the G/T asks please!

Hey Anon! I answered those ones here <3

I'll do two other ones for you :)

19.) Would you rather change size by emotion or be in control of the ability?

Ugh this one genuinely makes me so frustrated because yes I should want to be able to control an ability that is potential dangerous to myself and others but like - theres just such a deep rooted desire for it. I think part of it is this subconscious desire not to have to suppress or neglect feelings. And its some force outside of your own control so its not you scaring everyone from growing- or at least, its not your fault. Someone upset you and they deserve to feel bad.

Of course we dont for the most part consciously express those ideas but for a lot of us, there is that nasty impulsive desire that just seethes in the background (usually form unmet needs of repressing ones emotions).

Or even shrinking- being upset and having someone physically see how small they made you feel.

Theres some catharsis in that.

I don't think I would consciously choose to me an emotional shifter as much as I like it, but it is the one I desire more. I just don't think I could choose it for the right reasons.

25) Would you rather use a stuffed animal as a bed or open grasslands?

This might be one of the few examples where I'll go of the script of being giant aligned because while I love being outdoors and sleeping on a grass field sounds amazing- squishmallows exist and I would love to just toss myself onto one

[pedroam-bang]

Patrick Brown - Hitman Absolution Launch (2012)

[raurquiz]

#happybirthday #keanureeves #actor #neo #thematrix #reloaded #revolutions #resurrections #dracula #billandted #bogusjourney #facethemusic #constantine #johnwick #parebellum #sweetnovember #hardball #47ronin #thelakehouse #thedevilsadvocate #pointbreak #speed #replicas #toystory4

[discoscoob]

I love when he plays losers

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How (and why) Biden should overcome the Supreme Court to end the debt showdown

’m coming to the HowTheLightGetsIn festival in HAY-ON-WYE with my novel Red Team Blues:

Sun (May 28), 1130AM: The AI Enigma

Mon (May 29), 12PM: Danger and Desire at the Frontier

I’m at OXFORD’s Blackwell’s on May 29 at 7:30PM with Tim Harford.

Then it’s Nottingham, Manchester, London, Edinburgh, and Berlin!

Is it legal for Congress to default on the US national debt? It depends on who you ask. There are a ton of good legal arguments for and against, so perhaps it comes down to what the (degraded, corrupt, illegitimate, partisan) Supreme Court says?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/opinion/biden-administration-debt-republican.html

Put in those terms, it seems like the game was over before it began. Biden should just surrender, hand the most extreme wing of the (degraded, corrupt, illegitimate, authoritarian) Republican Party whatever it wants, even if doing so will push Biden’s approval rating even lower, dangerously close to the next federal election.

In this telling, the Republicans have already won. The decision to let the GOP steal three Supreme Court seats, combined with the decision not to end the debt ceiling charade when Dems had the majorities to do so, means that from now on, we live in the GOP’s shithole country, where the only “freedoms” that matter are the freedom to control others’ bodily autonomy and gender expression; the freedom to exploit labor; the freedom to censor ideas that challenge white nationalist, imperialist messages; and the freedom to menace with open-carry assault weapons:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/opinion/republican-legislatures-abortion-trangender-education.html

In other words, we’re screwed. Might as well dig a hole, climb inside, and pull the dirt in on top of us.

Fuck that.

There are clear majorities in support of the Build Back Better agenda, and even for the watered down Machin Synematic Universe version we got through the Infrastructure Bill. If the Dems could mobilize voters — by convincing them that they were committed to doing things rather than capitulating — they could win strong majorities in 2024. Even in the gerrymandered, antimajoritarian America, electoral wins are possible — they just require overwhelming turnout, rather than the 50.00001% “victories” favored by “data-driven” Democratic consultants (victories that leave the party incapable of governing, and let monsters like Joe Manchin hold the entire nation hostage).

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe doing things won’t mobilize voters. But if we’re already going to stipulate that without significant majorities, the real President of the United States is the three-headed monster (Gorsuch, Thomas, and Roberts), and the billionaires who yank their chains, then what do we have to lose?

There are a lot of things that Biden could try to get through the debt ceiling crisis without giving up on the promises he made to the American people and the programs the American Congress passed. Here’s a couple interesting ones, courtesy of Brad DeLong:

“The Federal Reserve might simply record a negative balance in the Treasury account,” then create an “overdraft” account and pay the US’s obligations out of it;

The Fed could tell retail banks trying to clear government checks that the checks didn’t clear, and the banks could tell their depositors, “ your Treasury check has bounced, but do not worry, we have credited your account, anyway, and will handle this, and please be very grateful to us.”

https://braddelong.substack.com/p/debt-ceiling-what-are-e-fallback

Of course, there are lots of other possibilities: Biden could issue an Executive Order to the effect that the Debt Ceiling violates the 14th Amendment. Or that it violates the Contracts Clause. Or he could order the Treasury to start issuing coupon-free bonds. Or he could just mint the coin:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/23/23734654/government-debt-default-trillion-dollar-platinum-coin

Yes, each of these would end up in front of the (degraded, corrupt, illegitimate, partisan) Supreme Court, who would very likely strike them down.

But writing for The American Prospect, Ryan Cooper argues that this could still be sound tactics:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-05-25-democrats-fear-supreme-court/

If Biden does something about the debt default, and the Supremes block it, then the default is their fault. What’s more, it’s a mess they absolutely do not want to get into, like deciding which of the US’s creditors will and won’t get paid when they sue over the default. And if the court won’t do it, will they give the president the power to “just pick and choose what gets paid? That would give him a de facto line-item veto over the entire budget, and the Court has already ruled that a law explicitly giving him that power is unconstitutional”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_v._City_of_New_York

Basically, if the Supreme Court kills Biden’s attempt to resolve the budget crisis, then it becomes the Supreme Court’s problem, as everyone owed a federal payment “say, Social Security beneficiaries or military contractors,” brings a case — “There would be tens of millions of such potential litigants.”

So what should Biden do?

Call their bluff.

First, mint the coin. If the court strikes that down, issue coupon-free bonds. If the court strikes that down, declare debt ceilings to violate the 14th Amendment. If the court strikes that down, declare it to violate the Contracts Clause. Keep doing it. Throw in every solution including the kitchen sink — but never give into the GOP’s demand for Biden to violate his promise to the American people and unilaterally tear up laws establishing programs that make our lives better.

This is what Lincoln did when the Supreme Court blocked his attempts to end slavery. It’s what FDR did when they blocked the New Deal. The court doesn’t have an army, it can’t force its decisions on the American people. It doesn’t have a bureaucratic workforce and it can’t take over the administrative branch — hell, they don’t even have the keys to the office buildings.

The Supreme Court’s power comes from its legitimacy, not force of arms, and while they may not act like it, the Supremes know in their bones that without legitimacy, they are nothing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/25/consequentialism/#dotards-in-robes

The justices in stolen seats have made it clear that they consider themselves to be “a de facto super-legislature that rules in favor of its own partisan policy objectives based on tendentious up-is-down reasoning or no reasoning at all.” This is an illegitimate proposition.

The Supreme Court can’t get any less legitimate. If Biden were to ignore the Supremes and make good law in the teeth of their pronouncements, it couldn’t make the situation any worse than it is today. The Supremes have set themselves against labor law, against climate resiliency, against bodily autonomy, against political accountability, against the rule of law itself. We should not — we must not — cede the power to overrule democratically elected lawmakers and the will of the people.

As Cooper says, Biden should tell the Supremes to go pound sand and then “raise holy hell in speeches and the press to make clear the grotesque irresponsibility of what is happening”:

Here’s an institution trying to cause a completely pointless national default, destroying untold jobs, businesses, and the credit rating of the country, whose elite members are all unelected, where five members of the majority were appointed by a president who took office after losing the popular vote, and one of whom occupies a blatantly stolen seat. Here’s an institution that has struck down anti-corruption laws by the bushel and is openly rolling in oligarch graft like Scrooge McDuck, while declaring itself to be immune from oversight. All that would add to the political pressure on the justices.

If Biden can’t do well for the American people they they will not turn out in the massive majorities that Democrats need to get minimal majorities. If Biden can’t do well for the American people, then Biden — who would lose an election to either Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump if it were called today — will turn America’s predators loose on its people for at least four more years:

https://jacobin.com/2023/05/2024-presidential-election-2016-donald-trump-joe-biden/

And let’s face it, it’ll be Trump. DeSantis is dead in the water. The GOP is the party of out-of-control, swivel-eyed loons who’ve been whipped into a terrorized frenzy by an evil, crapulent senescent Australian billionaire and his freak henchmen, like the taint-tanning frozen food failson. They aren’t going to elect “smart Trump.” They like “stupid Trump” (AKA “Trump”) too much.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Hay-on-Wye, Oxford, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/26/mint-the-coin-etc-etc/#blitz-em

[Image ID: A kitchen sink. The Supreme Court building protrudes from it. Behind the sink is a window. Joe Biden grins from the other side of the window.]

Image: Joe Ravi (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Panorama_of_United_States_Supreme_Court_Building_at_Dusk.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[leicamoments]

Eyes To The Heavens

I pulled into car park ‘A’ at around 8am, relieved to hear security on the Headingley Stadium gate confirm he was expecting me. Parking under a tree, I looked up at the sign that adorned the side of the building still trying to work out the logistics of the day in my head.

I was at Headingley to cover the Yorkshire Cricket Board’s Finals Day being held at both Headingley Stadium and a couple of miles away at Weetwood.

To be fair, it was already raining and the prospects for the day didn’t look good. Maybe there could be a chance of some cricket later, but recently the weather forecast has been unreliable, so I was simply going to watch the radar and see where the main rain was falling.

I chatted with Katie Stewart who was greeting the teams at reception, then met with Grace Pearson up in the Long Room, overlooking the Headingley pitch. I found out that the start was going to be delayed, so decided to head down pitch side to see what photos I could get in the meantime.

A quick discussion with the umpires and grounds people had, I headed around the boundary to get different shots of the stands and Pavilion – all to help with telling the story of the day.

A further delay and then word that the softball final had potentially got underway, meant that I hopped back into the car and headed to Weetwood Park. Depressingly, it rained while I made the short journey and was still spitting slightly when I made a real hash of parking the car into one of the narrow spots in the car park.

Unfortunately, the games hadn’t started, and I was informed that they were on the verge of calling the day off due to the continued poor conditions. However, we still had some team photos to capture, and we set about getting the various shots of the eight teams attending.

Eight photos and one big group shot later, the decision was to postpone the softball finals, so I headed back to Headingley as they had apparently started one of the hardball semi-finals there.

I got to the ground just as the first innings was ending…seemingly a monster innings of hitting as Sessay had managed to get over 150 in their ten sets. Wow! I felt really disappointed to have not been there to see that!

I grabbed shots of Sheffield Collegiate’s response and had no time to settle as the next game between Doncaster Town and Saxton got underway – trying to beat the menacingly dark clouds racing towards the stadium. Unfortunately, as the first innings of that semi ended, the rain returned and, well…that was that.

Cricket in September is always going to be at the mercy of the elements and so it proved on Sunday…the weather gods in this case prevailing.

Disappointment put aside, we managed to get a big group photo downstairs in the indoor training area, and Paul Cummins gave a few words of thanks to the assembled group of players, supporters and staff of the Yorkshire Cricket Board who had organised the day.

It was wonderful to see such a huge group of people at both Weetwood and at Headingley to support women’s cricket, I think it is a testament to all involved that the game is growing in Yorkshire so quickly, and I am looking forward to getting out to cover more games next season. 

From conversations had in the past day, I believe that the finals for the softball competition will happen at the beginning of the 2025 season. The hardball finals will be concluded on Sunday at Walton Park Cricket Club near Wetherby, starting at 11:30 for the remaining semi-final and then the final kicking-off at 1:30pm.

It would be great to have you pop along to support the teams!

[keanuquotes]

2001 Hardball