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Trumpeting their true colors

Pat Ryan 2 Comments

On Wednesday morning, still working from home most days because of COVID-19, I saw an email from the boss a few steps above me on the food chain warning us all of some new procedures to be followed if we had to physically go into the office.  I emailed my supervisor to ask if this new “help” from management was really something new for us and he said we’d talk about it in our regular meeting that afternoon; I replied “Meeting?  But I planned to watch Congress count the electoral votes this afternoon.”

I didn’t get to bed until 3:00 the next morning.

The election results have been clear: Joe Biden won, fair and square.  Recounts, and recounts of recounts, in many states, all showed that Biden won enough states to give him 306 electoral votes—the same amount Trump got in 2016, when he characterized it as landslide victory.  More than five dozen court cases challenging vote totals and voting laws in several states all sustained that result.  None of the accusations of fraud led to evidence of enough illegality that would change the result.  Many of the legal challenges were comically inept in their composition.  Republican governors and legislatures and secretaries of state did not bow to the siren song of a plea from the president to “find” the outcome he desired—they followed their laws and certified the legal winner.  The Electoral College certified those results.  Now it was up to Congress to add up the totals.  A formality.

There were stories online about a rally near the White House that morning where the president was reportedly repeating his regular grievances and his lies about the theft of his re-election, and I ignored that as just so much more of the same old same old, the blah blah blah that I and so many others have become so tired of, and so inured to, that I was so looking forward to, so very soon, not having to hear any more.  I was oblivious to the news that Trump supporters had a plan for the day:

The advance publicity for the “March for America” had been robust. Beyond the repeated promotions in tweets by the president and his allies, the upcoming event was cheered on social media, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

But woven through many of the messages to stand up for Mr. Trump — and, if possible, block the congressional certification of the election he claimed he had won — was language that flirted with aggression, even violence.

For example, the term “Storm the Capitol” was mentioned 100,000 times in the 30 days preceding Jan. 6, according to Zignal Labs, a media insights company. Many of these mentions appeared in viral tweet threads that discussed the possible storming of the Capitol and included details on how to enter the building.

To followers of QAnon, the convoluted collection of conspiracy theories that falsely claims the country is dominated by deep-state bureaucrats and Democrats who worship Satan, the word “storm” had particular resonance. Adherents have often referred to a coming storm, after which Mr. Trump would preside over a new government order.

I’d seen the news that Vice President Pence had announced he would not/could not/had no authority to overrule the states and decide which electoral votes could be counted and which tossed aside.  After four years of his incredible obsequiousness to Trump I was surprised that he was acting like his own man but grateful to see it—I assumed now it would just be a matter of waiting through the speeches challenging the votes in a few states, and then the curtain would fall on the last scene of a dreadful play.

In blissful ignorance of what was to come, I tuned in for the start of the joint session of Congress but instead saw video of hundreds of people at the doors around the Capitol—no wait, it’s thousands, in fun colorful hats and shirts and carrying flags and such.  They looked to me like they were having more or less friendly exchanges with the police and security officers while they demonstrated their insistence that Trump had not lost the election.  Inside, Pence started the roll call of states to tabulate the electoral votes…and outside, the crowd was slowly moving up the steps of the Capitol.  And when some of them seemed to have made it inside, I assumed that police had let them in…there was no sign of any confrontation, and no reporting that there had been any.  But that changed.

A bloodied officer was crushed in a doorway screaming in Wednesday’s siege, which forced lawmakers to go into hiding for hours and halt their voting to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Another officer tumbled over a railing into the crowd below after being body-slammed from behind. Members of the media were cursed, shoved and punched.

A vast number of photos and videos captured the riot, which left five people dead. Many of the images were taken by the rioters themselves, few of whom wore masks that would have lowered not only their chances of contracting the coronavirus, but their chances of being identified. Some took pains to stand out.

My favorite amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees, among other things, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  (Emphasis added.)  When those people forced their way into the building, a peaceful protest turned into a criminal act.  And what I remember thinking as I watched on Wednesday, and knowing as little as I did then about the details, was that the Capitol police—clearly outmanned, and maybe outgunned—were smart to be taking a patient approach.  Rather than open fire, causing more casualties and who knows what kind of potential escalation, they were letting the baby cry itself out.  They even escorted some of the protesters out of the building.  There were no reports of large numbers of people being arrested, or of being injured.  The vote counting concluded.

While the U.S. Capitol was under attack by thousands of people intending to subvert the outcome of our election, some of them meaning to capture and possibly execute representatives of our government, President Sentence Fragment watched from a catered party tent at the White House before moving inside and staying glued to the TV.  He didn’t call out the National Guard, or any law enforcement agencies to assist; until pressed by his advisers he didn’t make any effort to get the protesters to stop, and when he did he told them he loved them; he didn’t make a phone call to find out if his vice president was safe and unharmed; and while the invasion was still going on he continued calling members of Congress trying to convince them to change the outcome of the election.  He is still insisting the election was stolen from him, and said he will not be attending Biden’s inauguration.  Good.

Since the events of Wednesday there are Trump supporters who are calling for him to resign, or to be impeached (again), or for Pence and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.  Inasmuch as he has proved, yet again, that he cannot be trusted to obey the law or even to control his own impulses, I’d support any effort within the law to remove him from office.  The voters have done what they can, and he will be gone soon.  Others argue that the nation needs to heal, and any effort to remove Trump now will damage that effort.  That’s bullshit.

https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1348052771271028739

If we do nothing, if we turn away from this shameful event—this terroristic attack on our nation’s capital, nothing less than that—we will be tacitly encouraging it to happen again.  If we do not hold lawbreakers accountable for their actions, they won’t have any reason not to do it again.  We punish our children so they learn to behave, the same reasoning applies to entitled adults.

I don’t want to leave without touching on another important aspect of what we saw Wednesday.  It is fair to ask why it appears that these protesters—these white protesters—were treated so gently by law enforcement.

Can you imagine a scenario where an African-American mob storms the Capitol and the lawn is not littered with bodies and blood? That happens to Black people when they ask for equal justice, much less if they tried to overthrow the government. Yet this mostly white mob had the run of the building. What a shameful and wretched spectacle. What an embarrassment.

It’s another important aspect of the things we learned last week, thanks to Donald Trump.

For four years, Trump has made war on the constitutional order, on the institutions of American democracy, and on anyone who stood in his way. Almost all of the Republicans on Capitol Hill let him do it. They aided and abetted him. They voted to acquit him of impeachment charges. They endorsed him for reëlection and even acceded to his request not to bother with a Republican Party platform. The Party’s ideology, henceforth, would be whatever Trump wanted it to be. When Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, bragged about Trump’s successful “hostile takeover” of the Republican Party, he was, in a toxically untruthful Administration, for once telling the truth.

We’re not done yet

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

Donald Trump lost the election, bigly.  There is no honest, reasonable question about that any more, not even among judges with a conservative philosophy, or ones who were nominated by Republican presidents.  Even those nominated by this Republican president.

Last month more than 84.1 million Americans voted for someone other than Trump; another 80.8 million eligible voters voted for no one at all.  That’s 165 million Americans who, given the opportunity to sign up for another four years of Trump as president, said, no thanks.  Almost 70% of Americans of voting age.  A landslide.

But 74.2 million of our fellow Americans did vote for him.  That’s more than voted for him in 2016, more than voted for any candidate for president in any year other than Joe Biden this year.  Almost 47% of the people who voted in this election, almost one-third (31%) of all eligible voters, took the time to stand up and say “Thank you sir, may I have another?”.

(The Electoral College totals—306 for Biden, 232 for Trump—reflect a larger percentage for Biden than do the popular vote totals, but that’s the nature of the Electoral College.)

It’s wishful thinking to assume that those 74.2 million people will now just shrug, say “oh well, you win some and you lose some,” and try to resume their normal lives, or whatever passes for normal in the age of COVID-19.  Some will, but we’ve seen evidence of thousands who’ve turned their backs on demonstrable truth and maintain what I’d describe as an irrational belief in Trump as their hero, as the guy who’s fighting for the little man.  Irrational in that there is not only no evidence that Trump has tried to help the average American but ample evidence that he doesn’t give a damn about the little guy and is only ever in it for himself.

Yet, they persist.  Rather than reassess the field for 2024, MAGA Nation is far more likely to (1) want Trump to run again, or (2) support one of his children, or worst of all, (3) support another fascist and authoritarian candidate, one who is smarter than Trump and who would do more and lasting damage to our democracy if he becomes president.

It is fear of those voters—the base—that has prevented leaders of the Republican Party from more than a low-key, tacit admission that Trump lost and Biden won.  Those people have demonstrated that Trump is who and what they support and that they will punish any variance from full-throated support of Trump.  As long as Trump keeps up a public face of contesting the election results—even though he probably understands that he cannot win and stay in power—no Republican sane enough to recognize that reality can publicly acknowledge real reality.

There is no shortage of people and groups now distancing themselves from the party of Lincoln, from the party of Reagan.  They make a persuasive argument that an organization that maintains loyalty to someone as off his rocker as Donald Trump has abandoned the tenets of principled Republicanism and principled conservatism.  One is The Lincoln Project, founded by longtime Republican officials and operatives and which was not shy about its support of Biden: “President Donald Trump and those who sign onto Trumpism are a clear and present danger to the Constitution and our Republic. Only defeating so polarizing a character as Trump will allow the country to heal its political and psychological wounds and allow for a new, better path forward for all Americans.”

Another, which I just discovered in a story in The New Yorker, is Veterans for Responsible Leadership.  Organized by Naval Academy graduate and former Navy SEAL Dr. Dan Barkhuff, this group is giving military veterans who can’t stomach the treachery of Trump a place to go to fight back.

Barkhuff is a conservative. He voted Republican until 2016, when he saw insurmountable character deficiencies in Donald Trump. He noted that, as [James] Stockdale endured torture as a P.O.W., Trump, who dodged the draft, was “enjoying the comforts” of the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce. As troops risked their lives in Afghanistan after 9/11, Trump was bragging about grabbing women “by the pussy.” The thought of Trump becoming President disgraced the friends that Barkhuff had lost to combat and the peers he had watched make “countless small choices: to be truthful, to stay committed to a code of honor and duty, and to choose a harder right over the easier wrong.” Barkhuff thought it reasonable to expect any leader to respect courage, self-sacrifice, and service. He did not vote for Trump.

When Trump took office, Barkhuff decided to give him a chance, hoping that the President “would rise to the level of the office.” But, Barkhuff told me, Trump was “worse than I thought he would be—and I thought he was going to be terrible.” Barkhuff often expressed his dismay on Facebook, where his posts were seen only by his relatives and Navy pals. When he discovered that other veterans shared his concerns, he created a page—Veterans for Responsible Leadership—where like-minded members could vent.

Service members are trained to remain apolitical when in uniform, but veterans are free to espouse their views. The V.F.R.L. members chatted online about diversity in the military (“transgender people should obviously be allowed to serve”), athletes kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice (kneeling “is NOT disrespectful to our troops”), and the President’s divisiveness (“Trump wins only by creating controversy and firing up people. . . . It’s dictatorship 101”). Most of the members were Navy vets, yet V.F.R.L. hoped to recruit from all branches and ranks. Glenn Schatz, one of the V.F.R.L. leaders and a former nuclear-submarine officer, told me that the Trump Administration’s assault on established norms called veterans back to service. “Once you’re out of uniform it’s your obligation to speak up when you see the Constitution being violated,” he said.

(snip)

In the 2018 midterms, V.F.R.L. backed one candidate, Dan McCready, a Democrat and former Marine Corps captain, in North Carolina, who ultimately lost his congressional race. By 2020, “there were no Republicans left to support,” Barkhuff told me. “They had all gone all in on Trump.” V.F.R.L. did not endorse the high-profile veterans Tom Cotton, of Arkansas, or Dan Crenshaw, of Texas, because, the organization argued, by aligning themselves with Trump, they had “sacrificed foundational principles for political expediency.”

(snip)

On July 3rd, Barkhuff, in a post on V.F.R.L.’s Facebook page, tried to capture the scope of the criticism surrounding Trump’s handling of military issues: “Since his inauguration Donald Trump has, in no particular order: lost active duty troops on missions he personally approved and blamed it on ‘his’ generals . . . , refused to believe the intelligence reports given to him by the Central Intelligence Agency . . . , minimized the TBI’s (traumatic brain injuries) sustained by troops in Iraq during an Iranian missile attack as ‘headaches’, deployed active duty troops to our southern border to stop a ‘caravan’ of migrants immediately before the midterm elections, called a collection of his generals including General Mattis a bunch of ‘dopes and babies.’ ”

Barkhuff asked if he had forgotten anything. Dozens of replies piled up, highlighting other affronts: Trump had disparaged Gold Star families; publicly ridiculed Senator John McCain, a former P.O.W., for being captured in Vietnam; appeared to make unilateral policy decisions by tweet; asked for a military parade; and inappropriately involved Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a photo op. Later discussions would mention Trump retweeting a post from an account linked to QAnon conspiracy theories, alleging that the seals never killed Osama bin Laden. (Robert O’Neill, the former seal who said he fired the kill shot, had to tweet assurances that the bin Laden operation had happened, and that the target was dead.)

Please read the article, very much worth the time.  You can get the short course in this pre-election spot that Barkhuff recorded for The Lincoln Project.

I take comfort in knowing that there are people all across the political spectrum in this country who really do see Trump for what he is, who haven’t and won’t fall for the charlatan with the easy answers to the very real and serious problems our country faces.  Our next step is to realize that the problem hasn’t been solved just because we voted him out of office.  There are still 4+ weeks before Biden is sworn in, and Trump’s not done yet…even his enablers in the White House are starting to be concerned.

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1339306575278698496

The gaslighting lamp is now off

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

Here is a thought I hope we all agree with:

“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof.”

If your response was to say, “Wait, who said that?” then I would argue you’re missing the point.  Is there any set of circumstances in which that sentiment would not be correct?

As far as the current election for president is concerned, I am thankful that there are fewer and fewer steps left on the road to us not having to listen to any more of Donald Trump’s fact-free claims that massive voter fraud cost him re-election.  Yesterday a federal appeals court rejected the Trump campaign’s latest effort to overturn the vote in Pennsylvania.  Decisively, succinctly, and leaving no apparent room for reasonable rebuttal.  And for those who believe this matters—or matters most—all three judges on the panel who returned this unanimous decision were nominated to this court by Republican presidents; the one who wrote this opinion was nominated by Donald Trump.  The summary is elegant in its clarity:

“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.” (emphasis added)

It’s the same story in most of the dozens of lawsuits: the campaign has provided no evidence of the widespread fraud it claims has taken place.  But it continues to make the claims, perhaps hopeful to eventually run into a judge who isn’t too particular about evidence of a crime.  Classic Trump: it’s true because I say it is true, and how dare you question me!

This ruling came a day after the president made his first appearance since the election at which he responded to reporters’36195502-8995371-image-a-10_1606540742101 questions.  The headline out of that was his response when asked if he would leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden; he said he would, and “you know that.”  The fact is, we know nothing of the sort, and we still don’t know it just because he said it.  Because (as I have mentioned from time to time) Donald Trump lies.  About everything.  People who should know better—by which I mean, everybody—saw that performance and came away saying, whew, finally, Trump has promised a peaceful transition of power.  Huh?  Why would you take Trump at his word about this now?

(More broadly, I still don’t get why so many Americans trust him on anything, and are so militant in their defense of him when someone points out a clear falsehood.  The evidence of their own eyes and ears and nose and fingers and memory doesn’t matter to the believers: they stare straight at a patch of black color that Trump has said is white, and they will proclaim without hesitation that it is white…and not, mind you, that they see it to be white, but that it IS white, that there is no wiggle room about it nor any possibility that the color in question could be anything but the color that Trump said it is.  What happened to these people, that they would reflexively support a man who so demonstrably does not support them, and who in his own life does not live up to the personal standards these people have so loudly proclaimed are absolutely necessary for a president?)

I think we need to focus on a point Brian Klaas made yesterday:

https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1332313317269000192

“It’s not up to him.”  It’s up to the voters, and they made it pretty clear who they want to be the next president.  Yes, Trump won an historic total of popular votes…but Biden won more, more than 6 million more (and counting), and Biden has won a clear majority of the electoral votes, too—the same number that Trump won four years ago to secure that election.

It was one thing for Trump to win a first term, primarily (I believe) on the votes of people who were not thrilled with him but could not stomach voting for his Democratic opponent.  I’m much more troubled for America’s future when I realize that 74 million Americans voted for Trump this time, knowing what he’s done during the last four years!  The Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has been considering the question, and he generated some thoughtful replies (read the thread):

https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1332338636516454404

…voting for a corrupt, dishonest, incompetent guy who barely conceals his contempt for his own supporters.” I honestly have no idea how we’re supposed to deal with this. To say that many Trump supporters basically engaged in a massive self-own sounds condescending; yet what could be more condescending than pretending that this isn’t exactly what happened?  Again, I have no answer to all of this. I don’t think there are magic words that will make all this resentment disappear; policies that help working Americans might help, but should be done mainly bc they’re the right thing to do. Anyway, I don’t know the answers; all I can suggest is to be honest and promote good policies, knowing full well that the political rewards may be elusive.

Or is it, maybe, as simple as this:

https://twitter.com/PTetlock/status/1176841067808862210

Finally, there was one

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

Two weeks.  It’s been almost two weeks now since Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred issued his report finding my Houston Astros guilty of cheating in 2017 and 2018 for using technology to steal signs from their opponents, and only now has the first of the 2017 Astros manned up to make a substantive comment.  It’s a now-former Astros player, and a pitcher at that, so it’s a guy who conceivably wouldn’t have been involved in stealing signs and sending signals to the batters but he might have been, and he reportedly did not elaborate on what his own role in the operation was (or was not).  But still, good on you, Dallas Keuchel.

Keuchel signed with the Atlanta Braves as aKeuchel free agent in 2019 and just last month signed with the Chicago White Sox for this year, which is why he was at “Sox Fest” in Chicago on Friday and was asked about the cheating scandal.  Unlike all of his former teammates, including Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman who refused to admit or deny involvement or express any remorse when questioned during an Astros fan event one week ago, Keuchel responded.

“First and foremost I think apologies should be in order for, if not everybody on the team,” then himself, Keuchel told reporters during a scheduled media session. “It was never intended to be what it is made to be right now. I think when stuff comes out about things that happen over the course of a major-league ball season, it’s always blown up to the point of ‘Oh, my gosh, this has never happened before.’ ”

(snip)

Keuchel wouldn’t go into detail, but he implied other teams had similar schemes during the 2017 playoffs, saying, “Everybody’s using multiple signs. … It’s just what the state of baseball was at that point in time. Was it against the rules? Yes it was. I personally am sorry for what’s come about the whole situation. It is what it is and we’ve got to move past that. I never thought anything would’ve come like it did. I, myself, am sorry, but we’ve just got to move on.”

It’s not sackcloth and ashes, but it’s a start.  Major League Baseball investigated and concluded the Astros cheated; so far not a single person associated with the team has said that the commissioner’s office is wrong, that the Astros are not guilty of the charge.  Not the manager or the general manager, who were both fired for not stopping the cheating; not any of the players who are accused of having been behind the scheme.  No one.  The owner said that once the players get to spring training next month and all have a chance to discuss how to handle this, they will apologize.  Yeah, that sounds like it’ll be pretty sincere.

My bet is the players are going to be plenty sincere when they agree with one more thing Keuchel told the Sox fans Friday: that what is really unfortunate is that former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers violated the sanctity of the clubhouse when he went on the record about the Astros cheating and sparked the MLB investigation.

“That’s a tough subject because it’s such a tight-knit community in the clubhouse,” Keuchel said of Fiers. “In baseball especially, you’re playing 162 games in the regular season, plus spring training and the maybe in the playoffs if you’re lucky, so you’re pushing 185 (to) 200 games. It sucks to the extent of the clubhouse rule was broken. That’s where I’ll go with that, I don’t have much else to say about it.”

But then later, he added, “A lot of guys are not happy with the fact that Mike (Fiers) came out and said something. But at the same time, there is some sorrow in guys’ voices — I have talked to guys before. This will be going on for a long time. I’m sure in the back of guys’ minds this will stick forever.”

Not just in the players’ minds, you know: people are not going to just forget that these Houston Astros cheated the year they won the World Series, no more than they’ve forgotten the way the Chicago Black Sox colluded with gamblers to fix the outcome of the 1919 World Series.  And no, I don’t think that comparison is over the top.

Keuchel’s feeling that “It is what it is and we’ve got to move past that” is understandable, and true to an extent.  It’s hard to admit you did wrong, and it’s natural to hope we can all give a tacit nod without the guys who broke the rules having to say so in so many words.  They want to move forward, and so do the rest of us.  But we can’t move forward and start rebuilding trust if “we” don’t acknowledge the bad thing that has happened, and in this case by “we” I mean “you.”  I need you to say to all the rest of us that you acknowledge you intentionally broke the rules, and that you’re sorry for doing so if you really are, and that you’ll try to do better.  Then, we take the first steps of moving on.

Just don’t expect a lot of sympathy for having been “victimized” by a guy who broke a clubhouse rule to come clean about the team cheating.

It can’t get any worse? The hell you say

Pat Ryan 2 Comments

Now, a brief interruption of this blog’s on-going obsession with the intolerable behavior of our #IMPOTUS, to offer evidence of the complete falsity of that old saying: it can’t get any worse.

Despite national championships from its professional basketball and baseball teams, and never even once from its NFL team, Houston is a football town in a football state.  Always been that way.  The Houston Oilers were the champions the first two years of the American Football League and never won it all again, but they were still the darlings of this town.  Even when they set a league record for blowing the biggest lead ever in a playoff game (a record that still stands!), the people generally got over it by the start of the next season.  (Didn’t forget, mind you, but bravely pressed on.)  Their owner was hated, but the team was loved, and in 1997 when the hated owner made good on his threat and packed the team off to Tennessee, general melancholy set in among the folks left behind to mourn.

For many, a reason to live again came with the NFL expansion Houston Texans, who started league play in 2002 in a shiny new stadium that made the Astrodome look…well, just sad.  Like most expansion teams (except the Oilers), the Texans were terrible; and yet, they have never not played before a sellout crowd in their home stadium.  Because Houston is a football town, and the Texans are our team no matter what.  In the past few years they have pretty regularly won the division in which they play, but have a losing record in the playoffs and have never gotten to the conference championship game and had a chance at the league championship game (which dare not speak its name).  This year they had a come-from-behind victory in the first round of the playoffs which got them to a second round game against a team they had beaten during this regular season, and they started that game this past Sunday with a 24 point lead in the first quarter and so it looked like everything was going to go right this time.  Right up until it didn’t.  They gave up the whole 24 point lead, and more…much more; they were an utter embarrassment, far worse than most people predicted: I mean, c’mon, what kind of team allows the opponent to score touchdowns on SEVEN CONSECUTIVE POSSESSIONS?!?!

Today, there was general malaise, a lot of moping around, at least among those who weren’t still screaming at the execrable performance from Sunday or receiving treatment for their high blood pressure resulting therefrom.  Disbelieving stares were exchanged in offices between co-workers who just couldn’t believe what they had seen on Sunday.  The weather today also stunk, in the 50s and low 60s, drizzly and rainy all day long, nothing to help lighten the mood, even just a little.  So when the bad news came today about the Houston Astros—and it was bad—it reminded me of the line from “Body Heat” when Ned Racine said “Sometimes the shit comes down so heavy I feel like I should wear a hat.”

Major League Baseball has apparently had its eye on the Astros for some time now, due to allegations that the team was breaking the written rules of baseball by using technology to steal the other team’s signs.  Late last year, pitcher Mike Fiers was quoted saying that when he was an Astro in 2017—the year they won their one and only World Series championship—there was an elaborate plan to signal the batters so they would know what pitch was coming.  That sparked a new investigation…today, Commissioner Rob Manfred released the report:  in summary, it said that, yes, the Astros cheated; they cheated even after all the teams had been specifically warned not to do this very thing (after an investigation into allegations against the Boston Red Sox); that although the front office wasn’t behind the scheme the folks up there should have known and done something about it; and that the field manager, who knew what was going on but disapproved, didn’t stop it, either.  (I’m still chewing on that: how does a manager who disapproves of his players conspiring to steal signs and sending signals to their teammates by beating on a trash can not put a stop to it?)

As punishment: the Astros lose first and second round draft choices in 2020 and 2021, pay a five million dollar fine, and the general manager and the field manager are each suspended without pay for all of the 2020 season!

Wow.  Let me start right there — wow: big fine, four top draft picks gone, and the loss for a season of the general manager who transformed a train wreck into a winner and the manager who made it work and was widely regarded as one of the best in the business these days.  Thinking that this was about as low as we could go, right…nope:

The owner fired the GM and the manager!  Baseball suspended them but Jim Crane fired them both: “I felt that, with what came out of the report, they both had responsibility.  Jeff [Luhnow] running the baseball operation and overseeing AJ [Hinch]  and all of those people associated with that. And AJ, on the bench and was aware, if you read the report, it’s pretty clear. AJ didn’t endorse this, and neither did Jeff. Neither one of them started this, but neither one of them did anything about it. And that’s how we came to the conclusion.”

We’ll see if Crane is right, if his extreme punishment is enough to convince the fans in this town that his team is serious about playing by the rules, and they keep on creating traffic jams on the concourses at Minute Maid Park.  We’ll see who the team hires to take over for Luhnow to run the baseball operation and who replaces Hinch in the dugout, with only a month to go before pitchers and catchers report to training camp.

One thing is for sure. though: I will not assume that the worst is over.