Marlins Fans, It’s Time to Root, Root, Root Please Clap for the Home Team!
The era of “Let’s Make Some Noise!” is ending for the Florida Marlins baseball team. Instead, get ready for… “Please clap.” Yes, Jeb Bush could end up being a part owner of the franchise:
Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has reached an agreement in principle to sell the team to a group led by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and including former New York Yankees star Derek Jeter, pending Major League Baseball approval and other details still to be worked out in the drawing-up and execution of a contract, an MLB source said Tuesday.
According to the source, Bush’s group has agreed to pay $1.3 billion for the team.
The source said the Marlins and the Bush group are very optimistic a deal will be finalized, but the process could take months to conclude.
Bush plans to be the Marlins’ “control person,” the individual who would have ultimate control over franchise decisions, according to the source.
Somewhere, George W. Bush is thinking, “Boy, everything I do, my kid brother has to try to do too!”
Under Jeb’s ownership, the Florida Marlins right fielder will play in right but not too far on the right, not too far from centerfield. He will attempt to persuade umpires that any high inside pitches that come close to hitting the batter do not represent an improper crossing of a boundary, but instead “an act of love.”
‘Just Like ISIS’? Come On, Man.
Gubernatorial primaries are coming up here in Virginia on June 13. On the Republican side, Ed Gillespie’s the favorite over Corey Stewart and State Senator Frank Wagner.
With less than two months remaining, Stewart is… well, this looks like a “Hail Mary” pass:
“Exactly like ISIS”? Exactly like ISIS? Wouldn’t we all agree that if you’re not killing anyone, you’re doing a poor imitation of ISIS?
This is the kind of hyperbolic attack on a lawmaker over terrorism that might even get Representative Peter King to say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Even Alex Jones might say that’s going too far.
This stems from a decision down in New Orleans…
New Orleans on Monday began removing four monuments dedicated to the era of the Confederacy and its aftermath, capping a prolonged battle about the future of the memorials, which critics deemed symbols of racism and intolerance and which supporters viewed as historically important.
Workers dismantled an obelisk, which was erected in 1891 to honor members of the Crescent City White League who in 1874 fought in the Reconstruction-era Battle of Liberty Place against the racially integrated New Orleans police and state militia, Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a statement.
The monument, which was sometimes used as a rallying point by David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, has stirred debate for decades. Local leaders unsuccessfully tried to remove it in 1981 and 1993.
The workers were dressed in flak jackets, helmets and scarves to conceal their identities because of concerns about their safety. Police officers watched from a nearby hotel.
Before you start saying, “wait, this is part of history, it ought to be preserved, even if it offends people,” note that the Battle of Liberty Place Memorial has the inscription:
“United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers but the national election of November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state.”
Yeah, I can’t begrudge citizens of any color for wanting to remove a public memorial declaring the importance of recognizing “white supremacy.”
Think of all the great Louisiana citizens who don’t have a comparable public monument, who have great accomplishments in history or played a role in the city’s comeback from Hurricane Katrina: Fats Domino. Tennessee Williams. Doug Williams. Hank Williams and Hank Williams Jr. (Heck, you need a monument just to the various famous Williamses from Louisiana.) Paul Brudhomme. Anne Rice. Drew Brees. Harry Connick Jr. Bobby Jindal.
There’s no shortage of Confederate monuments in Virginia, but none have garnered quite as much controversy as the ones down in New Orleans. (Richmond added famous African-American tennis star Arthur Ashe to Monument Avenue.) In Alexandria, they renamed their portion of “Jefferson Davis Highway.” (I suggested renaming the highway after two famous Virginians, Thomas Jefferson and former local Congressman Tom Davis. Then the city could save a lot of money by just adding hyphens and making the signs say “Jefferson-Davis Highway.”)
Denouncing the removal of Confederate monuments seems like an odd move; it’s hard to imagine this is front and center in the minds of Virginia Republicans right now. As Liam Donovan pointed out, Virginia is a state of transplants; just under half of all voters in the state are native Virginians.
Cue The X-Files Theme…
Watch your head. The online conspiracy theorists think something big and bad will happen today.
In defense of the tin-foil hat brigade, a couple of unusual events are aligning today. In Washington, D.C. and the surrounding suburbs, “law enforcement officials and other first responders will participate in a full-scale exercise on April 26 designed to prepare for the possibility of a complex coordinated terror attack in the National Capital Region.”
The entire U.S. Senate is invited to the White House today for a private briefing about North Korea, the sort of briefing that is usually held on Capitol Hill.
North Korea conducted its largest-ever artillery firing drill this morning.
It’s a big time of year for emergency drills, apparently. FEMA just finished “Gotham Shield,” practicing for a nuclear attack on New York City. Today is emergency drill day for Raritan Bay Medical Center, Rockland County, New York, Slippery Rock University, Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, and the state of South Dakota is holding a statewide tornado drill. I hardly suspect that a shadowy conspiracy is organizing these drills in these far-flung locations because of advance knowledge of an impending disaster.
In all likelihood, the sun sets on April 26, 2017, with no disaster or terror attack striking, and we can all chuckle at the paranoia and fevered imaginations of those online commentators…
…probably. Right?
ADDENDA: You will want to read the symposium of tributes and farewells to our friend, Kate O’Beirne, from dozens of conservative figures, friends, and media voices.
I am told that in lieu of flowers, the family is requesting contributions to Oakcrest School.