Day 788

• In what's going to be a moment unto itself, Dick Vitale will receive the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance and Courage at this year's ESPYs.  It's deserved 100 times over, but why am I getting an ominous vibe?    
• Another fan incident in the NBA Playoffs:  The Dallas Mavericks have had to toss out (and presumably ban) a fan for getting into it with Chris Paul's family.  Paul had to actually confront that fan during yesterday's Game 4.
  
• Adreian Payne, a former college basketball standout, died in a shooting this morning in Orlando.  He was fired from the NBA after a report of a sexual assault his freshman year at Michigan State -- he had played four largely-disposable years in the league after being a first-round draft pick of the Hawks.
• The NFL is going to try a Week 2 Monday Night Football doubleheader, with a twist.  Both games will be going on with some overlap.  Tennessee at Buffalo starts 7:15 PM Eastern, Minnesota at Philadelphia at 8:30.
• The NFL's next venture into making a 12-month news cycle, the schedule release, is this Thursday.
• If you want to know why even blog-readers believe Tom Brady lives rent-free in my head (and the influence he has over the NFL), his return forced a fairly complete remake of the Tampa Bay schedule for the 2022 season.  Howard Katz, the NFL's head of broadcasting, said he was actually concerned about the NFC package when Brady retired -- an indication that the conference was not viewed as that strong.  He's right.  The East is largely a joke, the North might be rebounding as Green Bay fades due to the Rodgers sabotage (but has a LONG way to go), and the South outside Tampa is a complete zero.   
• Another known game already is that Brady and the Bucs are going to Munich for an international game in November against Seattle.
• Brady was the #1 player in merchandising last year.
• Warriors coach Steve Kerr has tested positive for the coronavirus pre-Game 4.
• And another for the "OH GEE, WHAT A FREAKING SHOCK!" Department:  A lawsuit was filed alleging a group of athletes and others squandered the state of Mississippi for $20,000,000 in TANF (Food Stamps) funds.  Among the defendants:  Brett Favre and the entire DiBiase wrestling family:  Ted and Ted's sons Ted Jr. and Brett.  Former state Human Services Dept. head John Davis has been criminally charged in the scheme, in which Ted (Sr.) got $1,700,000 for church outreach as a preacher.  SO THAT'S HOW HE BECAME THE MILLION-DOLLAR MAN!  No wonder McMahon would've used the character on himself -- at least (allegedly at this point) as much a shyster!    
• ESPN has already given up on the Cincinnati Reds and is telling Reds fans to look forward to Bengals training camp.
• And Carlos Alcaraz defeated Alexandr Zverev to finish winning the Spanish Open, his fourth win of the season and rockets his ranking all the way to #6 in the world!  This in addition to winning last year's ATP U-21 championship year-end event.
  

Day 787

• Anyone who thinks they want to mess with former Bayley superfan Izzy Silyagi had better reconsider their position and FAST!  On top of her professional wrestling training, she also trains in MMA -- and, yesterday, in a NAGA tournament in Orlando, she actually won in a division for more experienced and heavier teen female fighters than her experience or weight would indicate.  Silyagi won in the gi-wearing 140-150 pound intermediate class -- I think, the last time she said, she MIGHT be 120!  And intermediate would indicate 1-2 years of grappling experience...
• For the victory, Silyagi received a specially engraved samurai sword!
• Today is the eighteenth and final day of the 2022 Relay For Life-Second Life Fantasy Faire.  The official total as of the end of Friday was over $76,000.  A major live auction is coming today.
• Entering said auction (more correctly, the final day itself), the Faire has raised $86,202.
  
• Speaking of Friday, the Jeopardy! championship of Mattea Roach finally came to an end, 23 wins, $560,983 -- but, in the final analysis, a championship not dissimilar to Jonathan Fisher's earlier in the season.  Fisher, the man who defeated Matt Amodio, went on a run no one could discern the reason how he became an ultrachamp.  Same principle here.  This now means 4 ultrachamps for the 2021-22 season...
• ... and Ken Jennings announces Mayim Bialik is returning for a few weeks.
• Speculation, however, is that, with Jennings being the only Jeopardy! Chaser not to return to ABC's The Chase this season (three new chasers, including the runner-up from NBC's Million Second Quiz and Jeopardy! fan favorite Buzzy Cohen, join Holzhauer and Rutter), he's going to eventually be announced as the full-time Jeopardy! host.
• ... with Michael Davies now agreeing to Executive Produce Jeopardy! going forward.
• Two thoughts:  First, The Chase apparently did "The Beast" Mark Labbett dirty -- he was not happy not to be brought forward into this season of the ABC show.  And I really hate to say it:  Does Buzzy Cohen really have the personality and the antagonism a Chaser has to intrinsically have?    
• If you want to see how bad things are in Oakland:  Even at 4-24, over 21,000 tickets were sold for Saturday's scheduled game in Cincinnati (which turned out to be Game 2).  A similar game in Oakland might draw 10-12K. 
• Bizarre day in the first day of the May sumo tournament.  Yokozuna Terunofuji and Ozeki Shodai and Takakeisho all lost.  Terunofuji was defeated by Komusubi Daiesho (hence, not a kinboshi for the latter -- "gold stars" can only be awarded to Maegashira who defeat a Yokozuna).  Shodai and Takakeisho both lost to Maegashira 2nd ranks Kotonowaka and Kiribayama.
• The third Ozeki, Mitakeumi, defeated Maegashira 1st rank Takayasu.
• For the first time in a while, none of the Ozeki face demotion (an Ozeki can only be demoted over a three-tournament process.  One losing record makes them kadoban, a second while kadoban demotes them and they have to go 10-5 or better not to have to start the climb to Ozeki all over again (which usually, similarly, takes three tournaments at an average of 11-4 or better).
• There is some discussion as to what happens if March champion Wakatakakage (who won his first match) wins this tournament as well.  Wakatakakage is a Sekiwake, the rank below Ozeki.
  

Live one in the NBA playoffs...

Adam Silver, what say you about this?

Someone wanted the Bucks to win tonight.

Day 786

• Carlos Alcaraz of Spain has created a sensation in his homeland.  At the Madrid Open tennis tournament, Alcaraz, on consecutive days, has defeated both Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
• It would be his third championship in five weeks -- winning another Spanish ATP 1000 tournament and the Miami Open.  He also won the Rio Open back in February.
• The Cincinnati Reds have won their fourth game of the season -- in 27 attempts.  Too bad it was a AA game against the Pirates, I guess it counts...
• A SCOTUSBlog editorial hypothesizes the worst case for human rights in this country:  That Justice Gorsuch has joined the Alito opinion, meaning that the hard right has the five votes needed to wipe out a century or more of civil rights advances enforced on the hardcore bigot conservatives with respect to women, gays, transgenders, abortion, and marriages.  Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch are currently fully concurring -- Barrett (who is believed all but certain) and Kavanaugh are waiting on Roberts' partial dissent. 
• The Pew Research Center with some abortion insights:  The bulk of support appears to come from hardcore Protestants (not Catholics, whose 56-42 opposition is within margin of error of the 61-38).  Support for banning abortion increases with less education and the older you get, but nothing like the 55-43 Protestant and 77-20 White Protestant support.  If you want to know where you future lies in ChristoFascist AmeriKKKa, here it is.  White Protestant Uneducated Older Males in a council over their property.    
• Some horses are appropriately named.    Rich Strike, winner of only a Churchill Downs claiming race as a two-year old and the longest shot in the field at an 80-1 shot, hit the lottery for immortality and won the 148th Kentucky Derby today.  Rich Strike was only entered into the Derby as an alternate and got in the race only yesterday morning when Ethereal Road was scratched from the 20-horse field.  In fact, Rich Strike was the SECOND ALTERNATE, drawn from a pool of alternates to enter the field on scratches.  If horse racing weren't so barbaric, this would be one Hell of a story!    
• The longest-odds horse to win the Derby in over a century -- the record is 1913's Donerail, who went off 91-1.
  
• Not a complete surprise that a longshot ran the table:  Bob Baffert is banned from this and next year's Derby as a result of drugging horses.
• Sonny Leon wins $186,000 for the ride.  The owners, etc. win about $1.6 million. 
• Favorite Epicenter came second.  Fourth-choice Zandon came third.
• Trying to find, for the record, the betting table:  

Rich Strike $163.60 to win, 74.20 to place, 29.40 to show.

Epicenter 7.40 to place, 5.20 to show

Zandon 5.60 to show

• Evidence that the Baffert ban took all the preferred horses out and left a very even field -- and a very robust chance that, regardless of the outcome, a correct wager could pay well.    
• Top five horse $1 wager paid off $741,000+.
• Every exotic wager paid four, five or six figures.  Even the exacta paid $4100.
• I'll give you an idea boxing is rigged.  Light-heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol ate Canelo for lunch tonight in Las Vegas.  Most experts had the much-higher regarded challenger winning, what, two rounds?
• Good news:  The judges did give the Russian the fight, and a unanimous decision.
• How they got it to 7 rounds to 5 on each card...  That's another question.  115-113X3.
  

Day 785

• Every out-of-market MLB game this weekend is free on MLB.com -- Mother's Day.
• Here is the attendance figure for each of the last six home games of the Oakland A's -- all of which they lost:

1. Wednesday:  4,838
2. Tuesday:  2,815
3. Monday:  2,488
4. Sunday:  14,945
5. Saturday: 6,707
6. Friday:  12,910

• That 46,663.  52,203 saw the Dodgers -- two nights ago against the Giants.  We aren't talking about if they fail payroll or other vital expenses, but when.   
• The exodus from the Raiders is continuing.  Team President Dan Ventrelle is out, and it does not sound as if the parting was nice.  It will be the third team president the Raiders have had in just over a year.  Sounds to me like something was found out about him Mark Davis does not want us to know about.
• Hostile work environment concerns, ignored, got fired for it.  No surprise at all, given the team employed Gruden until it had no choice but to do otherwise.  Lawsuit forthcoming.  
• Speaking of, Fred Savage is gone from the "Wonder Years" reboot.  Inappropriateness, etc. and so forth.  Wonder if, given the content (the reboot is a Black group from the 1960's), race had anything to do with it.
  
• SIX Eastern games were rained out today and tonight from the MLB schedule.   Games postponed in Cleveland, 3-23 Cincinnati, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York.  Most games postponed in any game in four years.
  
• Todd Boehly, a co-owner of the Dodgers, has backed the successful bid to take Chelsea Football Club.  Looking at somewhere in the $5,000,000,000 range.
• It appears Dan Bellino HAS, in fact, been forced to admit he baited the ejection of Madison Bumgartner.  Suspend him.    
• Earl Thomas has had an arrest warrant put out for him today. 
• It's not the one we feared -- still a sacrifice to the altar of football.  After several months of speculation, the father of Georgia high-school quarterback Robbie Roper revealed his son died of a rare condition, a complication after Robbie had shoulder surgery.  One of the main reasons the father finally spoke up was everyone thinking it could be mental health/CTE related.
  

Day 784 -- Cinco De Drunko for any non-Mexicans...

• Discipline is in for the latest NBA debacle:  Dillon Brooks gets a one-game suspension for putting Gary Payton II on the shelf for a month...  Which he'll gladly take, as will the Suns or any other future Warriors opponents, as their chances of winning the title just went up.    
• And Draymond Green is 25 grand lighter for his Les Fingers du Middle exhibition against the fans in Memphis.
  
• Memphis won 116-111 and the series is tied heading to California.
• Andre Iguadola is also out for the Warriors for the rest of the series.  This is how you beat the Warriors -- through the injury reports.  Has been the case the last four seasons.
  
• Jerry Jones got in a minor accident yesterday.  Minor injury, precautionary trip to hospital -- in short, the news coverage is probably scarier than what happened.
• Cynthia Cooper-Dyke, abusive conduct against players allegations at at least three colleges at which she has coached.  At least one player, lesbian sexual harassment...  Another said her words were like speaking to "prisoners in jail"...  That makes sense.  After all, dehumanizing athletes is a common ploy of coaches to get them down to primal animal instinct on the courts and fields.  (Regardless of race...)    
• The biographer for Phil Mickelson has noted that, by his discussions, it appears that, at one point, Mickelson blew $40,000,000 in gambling losses.
• Sergio Garcia appears ready to bolt for the alternate Tour -- his latest frustration, a lost-ball ruling at the Wells Fargo during a 3-under 67.  He's 4 back heading to Round 2.
  
• Tom Brady is at least jokingly admitting the Tuck Rule was a fumble (or at least may have been).
• Marco Baldelli, manager of the Twins, COVID-positive. 
• The Cincinnati Reds are now 3-22 after being swept by the Brewers this week.
• It appears the Chappelle attack was either staged, or it was a "enemy of my enemy" -- TYT reports tonight...  the attacker was MAGA...
• We could have a "viral attack" situation on it too...  Complex is reporting the attacker is a wannabe rapper who actually made a rap about Chappelle!  Hoo boy...   

The right-wing conspiracy view on the Roe reversal leak...

I read my enemies, so that when I know what they are trying to do to us, I know what I'm talking about.

So I do read Karl Denninger's The Market Ticker occasionally to get an idea of how Libertarians and like-minded Republicans want to see us killed.

He's one of the reasons I'm now convinced that, had we lived in his America, I not only am taken out at age 12, but with the full blessing of family and community -- and let's just say some "long pork" is cooked and consumed afterward.

He had his article last night regarding the Roe v. Wade reversal leak.  But that's not specifically what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about this forum post from a user "Bzelbob" from the Bigots Republic of Florida.

He lists several theories on why he believes some left-winger (another commenter purports Biden himself did it -- I'd like to know how he got his hands on it, this appears to be an internal document of the Court.  My theory that Justice Breyer did it, for whatever reason, would hold far more merit!) may have leaked this decision now.

So I'll go over the list and give my theories:

• Putin has won the Ukraine, and all the whining going with it.

Not sure I can buy that, because Putin, as a master strategist, has to realize he holds all the current cards.  Trump is almost certainly the next meaningful President, or another Russian asset.  He can use the nuclear threat to hold off the world until he is in a far better political position than he is now with Biden in office.

And here's the kicker:  Putin can take as much of Europe as he wants.  He can basically, should they choose, work with Xi to take the entire Eastern Hemisphere without much meaningful challenge ("I have nukes and I will use them...  Nyah nyah nyah."), and send the Western Hemisphere back to 15th century relevance.

Putin's version of the world is probably a duo-polar between Russia and China, with the Americas basically run by one or more Russian asset plants.

• Housing collapse due to White Flight from the blue cities.

Certainly, more than a few White Republicans are leaving the cities, and that is the clarion call of the American Right.  Eventually, for them to retake this country, they will need to either militarily subjugate or obliterate urban America.

The problem is:  Regardless of HOW they get there, the housing collapse spoken of must happen -- even by Denninger's thought process.  You would think, at some point, a personal-responsibility Libertarian such as Karl Denninger would be calling for the proactive death (as in, 2A shoot us first) of the Leftward at least 30% of this country (he has said that the country must reverse the leverage-economics expansion of the last 40 years -- that's the population increase thereto), and probably double that.

He speaks of shunning and starving the irresponsible -- not realizing that, past a certain point, "If I'm going to be killed, you're going with me!"  So there's going to be a Deagel Group-level (or close) kill-off in this country in the next not-that-many years (Deagel believes 70%, and 2 1/2 years left to get there).

• Stock Market Crash due to the Fed finally being forced to raise rates to the point the economy cannot be sustained.

We are probably far closer than we wish to admit to that proactive call -- because, if any degree of mathematical Dennigerian reality is imposed on this country, every benefit program dies instantaneously (you're probably looking 15-20% COLA into next year at this rate) and everyone reliant on them, shortly afterward (and then see the quote above for what happens next).

The call to end deficit spending is being made that the Federal Reserve is now forced to raise rates beyond that which anything can be sustainable.  At that point, a crash of the stock market, and far more, is similarly inevitable.

Not only that, but if I were ever to meet Denninger, I'd want a T-shirt made first that I could wear:  "Math lies.  I'm living proof."

• A full tally of the "Died Suddenly" becomes too large to ignore. 

That's another one I do believe will happen, and soon.  I've said, at least once, here that I believe we are deliberately underreporting COVID deaths in this country by at least a factor of five.

Yes, five million -- and data Denninger has presented on his own website is part of the reason why.  That "roll number" of the 16+ non-institutional population (which the BLS promptly cleaned up and "scrubbed" first of this year) is one reason.  I have also made note of the comparative at-birth life expectancy for the USA in a UN model without COVID vs. a CDC number with it.  (It's at least 2% lower.)  Several studies which indicate COVID is far more prevalent in our society than admitted are also used.

There are two reasons you won't see that situation happen unless and until forced:  The first is the same I said about China 2 1/2 years ago on Zerohedge before I was banned from there for being a liberal and willing to bash skulls:  The reality of the death toll, before we get to how, would cause a freak-out.

And then, ESPECIALLY in America with the recalcitrant Right, the moment that number is revealed, it would be thrown square in the laps of the vaccine, when it should be clear to anyone that the Right has wanted a significant kill-off, and this virus is giving them the opportunity of a lifetime, and the pussies don't even need to fire a shot.

• The long-predicted collapse of the health-care system...

If there's one thing Karl has demanded of the societally responsible in this country, it is to get out of the health care system, be healthy, or be offed because the system itself is not sustainable.

He may well be right (and, if he is, it's too late for me), on both sides:

One is the obvious fraud and entitlement programs and all that.  The other is the moment the gravy train stops for the medical profession, how many people in it just WALK, never having believed in the Hippocratic Oath and wanting to be a doctor simply to get paid?

• The supply chain completely breaks down...

How this has not happened in North America the last 2 1/2 years, I have no clue.

• I took this one out of order, and there's been at least another commenter who's made the theory as well:  Biden is about to step down and hand the Presidency to Kamala Harris. 

Doing so before the midterms (now and not a year or so ago) is a surrender, at this point.  And some believe it is a surrender the DNC is about to order.

You have several problems if you do that, of which I'll highlight three:  The first is that Harris is factually even less popular than Biden.  That means you have to have a savior from the Left ready to go in 2024, if you get that far.  (I'll get to the italicized in a second.)

The second is, doing it now means you concede a bloodbath in the midterm elections, which may functionally finish Harris' Presidency before it even starts AND reinstall Trump as late as January 3, 2023.  (The Speaker of the House does NOT have to be a member of that body.)  Any intelligent person sees what the situation is going to be from there.

The third, because of the first, is that it now only takes one bullet, past 1/3/23, to reinstall the likes of Trump, instead of two.

The only case for doing so now (or in similar timeframe) vs. before is the understanding that not only will you lose the Senate in the midterms, but that the mathematical impossibility of replacing the Vice President in a palatable manner (50-50 no tiebreaker vote means no replacement VP is installed) will no longer, then, apply.

I've never believed Biden would serve out his term -- I felt in 2020 he'd be long gone by now.  I never believed it was the intention to have Biden serve any feasible length of time!

• The commenter basically left a spot for "anything else which might come up of that level", and this is where I get to the italicized of if the Dems make it to 2024 at all:  How about a non-QAnon case for the revocation of the 2020 Presidential Election?

Joe Biden won 306 Electoral Votes in 2020, and every one of them was cast for him.

About 40% of the votes in the Pennsylvania election were cast by mail, a practice which the state courts of Pennsylvania have ruled in violation of the state Constitution twice now, including a ruling in early 2022. 

As a result, and since the Federal courts have long ruled the states are the arbiters of each individual elector slate's election, the 20 Electoral Votes in Pennsylvania are now functionally void.

There has been a long-standing argument in Georgia (involving the ACLU and people calling the Republican movement in the state "Jim Crow 2.0") that upwards of 200,000 voters on the Georgia rolls (yes, largely Black people) never should've been allowed on the rolls, including at least 20% of the entire voter roll of the Georgia city of Sparta.

Biden shockingly took Georgia by a miniscule 12,000 votes.

A friendly decision or two could void those 16 Electoral Votes, leaving Biden at the minimum 270.

Now, I can't go further than that without a far deeper dive of research, but I don't think I need to tell you, with the number of Republican states trying to restrict mail voting, etc., that the Republicans probably believe they would have a case to find more.

So what stops the following from occurring on January 3, 2023?

• The House names a new Speaker.  For the purposes of convention, let's say it's Donald Trump.
• Someone (let's just spitball it's Marjorie Taylor Greene) puts forth a binding resolution revoking the January 6, 2021 Congressional consent of the Biden Presidency and ordering the immediate Oath of Office of the newly-elected Speaker as the 47th President of the United States (or the 48th, if Harris IS put in office first).  This, on the basis of the intervening information that the Electoral Votes of Pennsylvania are void (even this, I will no longer dispute), Georgia probably is (this, I will dispute), and at least one other Electoral Vote to ensure the 12th Amendment majority is no longer upheld.
  
• At that point, the Congress adjourns sine die (without date, meaning they ARE DONE) until the transition is made, cutting off all further appropriations, etc. -- and daring Biden to sue into the same six-conservative Roberts Court which just revoked Roe and will take every civil-rights protection of the last 75 years with it!
• It also authorizes the new President (let's say Trump) to use whatever means the Commander in Chief requires.  Meaning martial law and probably a high-level military showdown.
  
• The Congress does not return until the new President is respected.

Let's say that is working in the backchannels of the Republican Party.  You think some liberal would not want to front-run that before it got any steam?