Don

I mean he'll just get on there and trash the MLBPA and their leadership, right? Seems like a pretty easy playbook. I don't agree with it at all of course, but just keep repeating "We've made reasonable proposals that the union refuses to accept or negotiate from due to misguided leadership." Just hammer it. Answer every question just like that.

I don't know that past stoppages have been this black and white obvious. Based on the CBA, the owners - unlike other leagues - take on the risk and receive the benefits. To date, that has worked out exceedingly well for them. Now that it isn't, they want to not only take what the players gave up (pay for all games not played), they want more (a significant reduction of pay for games played). And now that they realize they're going to lose a grievance for negotiating in bad faith so they hold the season hostage to try to strong arm the players into playing ball.
It isn't entirely certain whether the owners would lose money with full pro rated salaries at, say, 82 games, because they won't reveal their financials. But honestly, that isn't the players' problem because the owners agreed to the effing CBA that says they bear the burden of both gains and losses! The players haven't been seeing the gains because the owners haven't been raising salaries at the level that the owners have been realizing gains.
It's a total joke, and too many fans are laughing when they should be holding the league responsible for screwing the fans over. The players shouldn't give in because, even if there is no baseball in 2020, once they do, not only will they be letting the owners get away with breaching the CBA, but they'll also be setting a bad precedent for negotiations of the next CBA (post-2021). They shouldn't do that.

I think the Reagan-era rebranding of the Republican Party as the party of evangelical Christianity plus law and order had a lot to do with it too.

I'm pretty sure they are.

Yep, the police force is famous for its tendency to swiftly reprimand, suspend, and fire cops for illegal and violent behavior. It's also well-known for being an institution where members hold one another accountable and put truth and justice over blind loyalty.

Yeah, I guess I just don't think the fact that people do commit crimes should have an effect on police brutality. They are just two completely separate issues in my mind. Sure, I'd like it if people committed less crimes. But at the end of the day, cops still need to be held to a certain standard in how they deal with people, regardless of what those people have or haven't done, and regardless of whether or not the cop is having a tough day.

Yep I’d double down on legal action if I were the players. 

It's sad that there are so many people who are more upset about the response to injustice than the injustice itself. White privilege is a safe and comfortable place to be.

Shit man. That’s just terrible. It’s so difficult when those random things happen. I know that long term co-workers become real friends, and I’m sorry for your loss. I’m hoping his family is reasonably ok.

Manhattan was/is an awesome place to live for someone in their twenties.

The little Apple. I miss FT Riley

This is some bullshit.  Some of y'all still defend this man?

That bit is hilarious. Dude does have an odd voice, which I think he addresses in one of his specials actually. He's more a storyteller comic for sure, but the writing, pacing, and delivery are all just so polished. He's one of the four or five guys doing standup that I get legit excited for when I hear a new special is gonna come out. 

They should fire all 59 and if the police union stops it the mayor should go on television explaining how the union did not allow them to remove these unfit cops from their rosters.

Oh, they’re still on the force.

Fishbulb says this guy's character is irrelevant in regard to the action taken against him... You respond with "lol maybe to you". That just leads me to believe that you disagreed with Fishbulb's claim that the guy's character is irrelevant. 

I think she filed like REAL QUICK after the incident became public. Either it was in process before all this happened, or it’s the fastest divorce filing I’ve ever heard of. The incident happened last Monday, and I remember hearing this on Thursday or Friday of last week.

my takeaway from this is that i no longer want to hang out with don in a crowd. yikes.

I think she filed like REAL QUICK after the incident became public. Either it was in process before all this happened, or it’s the fastest divorce filing I’ve ever heard of. The incident happened last Monday, and I remember hearing this on Thursday or Friday of last week.

I just enjoy drinking with sketchy people.

I just enjoy drinking with sketchy people.

My teen years were very dark, my mental state got considerably worse after I had begun puberty. I don't want to go into detail.
So the difference between gender and sex can be confusing, I want to validate that it's hard to fully understand, and it doesn't help that a lot of trans people are uncomfortable talking about this individually because we're so on guard from people using some variation we have as ammunition to invalidate us. I'll start off using myself as an example: I expressed very feminine early on in my exploration, which is very common for trans women. I was trying to be recognized as the gender I identified with despite not having as much time to physically transition yet, and people were more likely to recognize what I was going for when I was hyper-feminine. Trans women (or men) can vary in their gender expression just as much as cis people do, and if you take me for example, I still dress casually feminine a lot of the time, but as I've grown more comfortable with my body, I've started to dress a little more "dykey," and I would dress that way more if it didn't lead to me being misgendered sometimes. When I think about my situation, I identify as a woman, and will want to embody that socially and aesthetically to varying degrees (just like cis people do), it feels more comfortable to me than any other alternative, but if you ask me what's more important to me than anything, it's my body. It's my bone structure, my muscles, my shape, my facial/body hair, my voice, my genitals, my size, it's what I see when I look in the mirror and how I sound.
However, not all trans women feel the same way. For some, gender is more important than body stuff (gender being social behavior like makeup, clothes, hairstyle, getting social gender affirmation, speaking in more passive language, and mannerisms.) And, some people have just body dysphoria, and the gender stuff doesn't really matter to them all that much, but they still identify as a woman. Then there's non-binary people, people who don't identify as one of the binary genders. I'm not sure if genderfluid people typically consider themselves non-binary, but they are people who kind of bounce around in their gender expressions based on how they feel. And someone can be physically transitioning and be non-binary, because it seems gender/sex dysphoria have those two main components to it, the gender one and the sex one (I'm using that word to represent bodily sex characteristics.) And the balance of those components vary from individual to individual. The identity stuff is harder to understand, because it's not always so clear where sex identity ends and gender identity begins. Okay, I'm tired of explaining things, that's all you get for now. As far as your niece goes, all you have to do is give her some space to figure it out, it's a process, and not an easy one. It really sucks being evaluated all the time.
Disclaimer: This is my understanding of things, not all trans people agree with what I've said here, some have different views of things.

You must be a real Ahole.
I'm good with that.

Yeah, I'm into women, cis and trans. I don't think it will change. 
I met her after actually. She's absolutely fine with my transition.