[he] admitted he was under the influence of cocaine two-thirds of the time he was on the mound.

The other part of his interview that I thought was curious, was this statement:

Boyd contends he was blackballed from baseball and his career cut short because he was different.

“The reason I caught the deep end to it is because I’m black. The bottom line is the game carries a lot of bigotry, and that was an easy way for them to do it,’’ Boyd said. “If I wasn’t outspoken and a so-called ‘proud black man,’ maybe I would have gotten the empathy and sympathy like other ballplayers got that I didn’t get; like Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Steve Howe. I can name 50 people that got third and fourth chances all because they weren’t outspoken black individuals.’’

Blackballed? Because he's black? Because he was outspoken? Interesting. He compares his career to three other former players who also had documented drug issues, Strawberry, Gooden and Howe. Boyd is claiming his career ended because he was outspoken and still appears bitter that he was not given the number of chances that those three were given. In fact, Steve Howe was suspended from baseball nine times, including once when he was banned from baseball for life by the commissioner's office, only to have that ruling overturned by an arbitrator.

But let's take a look at the stats for what might be the real reason that Boyd was never invited back to the major leagues. According to baseball-reference.com, his final season was split between the Montreal Expos and Texas Rangers, finishing the year in Texas. After his trade to Texas in July of 1991, he won two games and lost seven while recording a 6.68 ERA and allowing more baserunners per inning than at any other time during his career. At age 31, it appeared his career was in decline.

He compares himself to Dwight Gooden, a perennial all-star and someone who may have been on a path to the baseball Hall of Fame. He won a Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in baseball and won a Rookie of the Year award and continued to put up great seasons. He was widely known as one of the best pitchers in baseball. He was referred to as "Doctor K" for his prowess at striking out opposing hitters. There should be no question as to why Gooden would have received multiple chances, but he too was out of baseball when his skills declined at age 35.

Boyd also mentions Darryl Strawberry, one of the most feared hitters in baseball during his career. Another player on a path for baseball's Hall of Fame when it appears alcohol and drugs caught up with him after his 1991 season. Up to that point, he was one of the best hitters in baseball and then suffered a quick decline. When you've shown to have the elite talent that a player like Strawberry had during the 1980s, teams will give you multiple chances in hopes that you can reclaim that glory.

That leaves Steve Howe. Howe is definitely a more tricky case. Unlike Strawberry and Gooden, Howe was white and Howe was not an elite starting pitcher. Howe is the first name that most people bring up when they spoke of what was wrong with baseball's drug policy during the 80s. He was given multiple opportunities, but he is someone who also earned the Rookie of the Year award and was one of the best relief pitchers in baseball until 1983, when he checked into a drug rehab program. He had a pretty bad season in 1985 after missing all of 1984 for a drug suspension, but followed up with an above average 1987 season. He missed the next three seasons and then came back with the Yankees in 1991 while putting up great results. Once it seemed his talent had completely left him, the Yankees released him for good in June of 1996.

If you look at the career paths and statistics of the players that Boyd mentions, you can clearly see that he was not in their class as a player. Boyd was what one may refer to as an average major league pitcher, never winning any awards or appearing near the positive end of any statistical leader boards. It seems that players like Strawberry and Howe did at least make an attempt at rehab and Boyd admits that people did reach out to him and try to help him too:

“I never had a drug test as long as I played baseball,’’ he said. “I was told that, yeah, if you don’t stop doing this we’re going to put you into rehab, and I told them . . . I’m going to do what I have to do, I have to win ballgames. We’ll talk about that in the offseason, right now I have to win ballgames.’’

Note what position the President's games put us in: We're not arguing about the morality of contraception (including abortifacients). We're not even arguing about the legitimacy of the government's declaration that everybody should have access to them free of cost (at least free of immediate cost to them). We're merely arguing about who else must pay — who has to chip in for the pills that address pregnancy as an illness to be treated and against which to be inoculated.

One hopes that the administration's initial overreach was enough to awaken the bishops and others to the reality that a deal with the Devil is always, always conditional on his ability to force you to the next-least-moral space on the playing field.

Now Mabus has named a new vessel after retiring Representative Gabrielle Giffords. The logic behind this is difficult to take issue with--except it still flies in the face of past precedent. The Giffords will be an LCS, a littoral combat ship (these are pretty cool looking ships!), which have been named (with the exception of the first two) for smaller cities; a convention Mabus followed until now.

Ship naming has always been subject to some level of politicization. There is a Virginia-class attack submarine named after former senator John Warner and the aircraft carriers are usually named after presidents except when they're not! Then there is the Bob Hope Class of vehicle cargo ships which are all named for individuals who have received the Medal of Honor (as are several other AKR class vessels). Well, except for Mr. Hope of course. Another example of inconsistency more familiar to Rhode Islanders would be the Seawolf class attack submarines named Seawolf, Connecticut and Jimmy Carter.

Yet, these exceptions have occurred over a period of years and decades. Mabus is set apart because he has a pretty high batting average in flouting ship naming conventions during his 3 years as Navy Secretary. Mabus started his tenure by naming a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship--traditionally named after cities--after the recently deceased Democratic Representative John Murtha.

Next up is the T-AKE Class of naval support vessels, the Lewis and Clark Class, which had been named after explorers and pioneers*--until Mabus took office. Then the Medgar Evars and Cesar Chavez were named to join the likes of Sacagawea, Alan Shepard, Amelia Earhart, Mathew Perry, Washington Chambers et al. In his defense, Mabus' supporters argue that Chavez, a Navy veteran, was a "pioneering" organizer of migrant farm workers. While it's harder to criticize Mabus for naming the Evers (also a Navy veteran), it is pretty clear that he has broadened the original definition of pioneer since the keels were first laid for this class of ships. Overall, I counted 4 out of 7 ships that have been named by Mabus that didn't appear to follow prior convention. Is this going to sink the Navy? No. Yet, it does appear to be an unprecedented level of politicization by one Navy Secretary.

*Incidentally, the description of the AKE class naming convention has been "retcon'd": there are a lot of articles supporting Mabus saying these ships were originally to be named after explorers, pioneers and “visionaries.” The "visionary" qualification is a recent appellation. The original intent was to name them only after explorers.

Q1: You have been quoted on the Buddy Cianci radio show as saying that some sitting Rhode Island Mayors should approach the state government and ask to become the receivers for their cities. Is this indeed a course of action that you advocate?

Central Falls Receiver Robert Flanders: It depends on a number of factors, including whether the State (i.e., the Governor's office and legislative leadership) would be likely to have some measure of confidence that that particular sitting mayor would be able to and willing to take the sometimes politically unpalatable actions that might be needed to restore the City to fiscal solvency and whether the mayor in question has the credibility, capacity, political will, and respect needed to accomplish such a goal and to work cooperatively with the Director of Revenue, the Governor, and other stakeholders to do so.

Q2: Conflicting accounts of the rescinding of the recent parking ban in Central Falls have been presented to the public. Most recently, W. Zachary Malinowski of the Providence Journal attributed the rescinding of the ban to the Governor of Rhode Island and not the Office of the Central Falls receiver (February 4 Providence Journal, "The next day, Governor Chafee, reacting to a public outcry, suspended the parking ban"). Could you clarify the process by which the parking ban was rescinded?

RF: The Receiver suspended enforcement of the parking ban, after obtaining input from the Governor's office, local elected officials, and a number of Central Falls residents.

Q3: In Federalist 47, Montesquieu was quoted by James Madison: "There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates". Do you believe it is a wise course of action to tell the people of Central Falls, of Rhode Island, of the United States and of the world that fiscal crises justify restructuring of government in a way that removes what some of the great thinkers of the Western political tradition believe to be an essential safeguard to liberty?

RF: To my knowledge, no one associated with the Receivership is telling people that or saying that, nor have they said that. Rather, what state policy makers decided when they enacted the Fiscal Stability Act (providing for the appointment of various levels of state fiscal oversight when a city or town experiences extreme financial difficulty) is that fiscal emergencies call for extraordinary temporary measures to correct a problem that threatens to cause a City or Town to default on its obligations and/or to run out of cash. When the emergency and crisis ends, then the temporary and extraordinary measures used to deal with that situation also end. The Rhode Island Supreme Court recently upheld the constitutionality of this statute in the teeth of arguments such as those that your question adopts, expressly rejecting them as legally unsound. A corollary to the quote in your question is that there can be no liberty when the executive and legislative branches of a state are powerless to prevent a city or town (and therefore the residents who depend on its viability) from experiencing utter financial ruin.

The best city in New England? #2 overall Portland, Maine (ahem, that's where I met my wife, so I concur!). For the rest of New England, Boston ranked #3 followed by Manchester, NH (#13), Burlington, VT (#15), Providence (#25) and then #49 Bridgeport, CT (Bridgeport? What about New Haven? Stamford?). To come up with this rankings, the magazine examined "data on datable citizens: the ratio of single women to single men, the percentage of college-educated women, the percentage of gainfully employed single women (all from the Census), and the number who work out (Experian Simmons)."

(Under the fiscal stabilization law, the state can move to immediately suspend municipal democracy in a community, without first passing through an "overseer" or a "budget commission" process first)...

In the event the director of revenue determines, in consultation with the auditor general, that a city or town is facing a fiscal emergency and that circumstances do not allow for appointment of a fiscal overseer or a budget commission prior to the appointment of a receiver, the director of revenue may appoint a receiver without having first appointed a fiscal overseer or a budget commission.

1. You have been quoted on the Buddy Cianci radio show as having said that some sitting Rhode Island Mayors should approach the state government and ask to become the receivers for their cities. Is this indeed a course of action that you advocate?

2. Conflicting accounts of the rescinding of the recent parking ban in Central Falls have been presented to the public. Most recently, W. Zachary Malinowski of the Providence Journal attributed the rescinding of the ban to the Governor of Rhode Island and not the Office of the Central Falls receiver (February 4 Providence Journal, "The next day, Governor Chafee, reacting to a public outcry, suspended the parking ban"). Could you clarify the process by which the parking ban was rescinded?

3. In Federalist 47, Montesquieu was quoted by James Madison: "There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates". Do you believe it is a wise course of action to tell the people of Central Falls, of Rhode Island, of the United States and of the world that fiscal crises justify restructuring of government in a way that removes what some of the great thinkers of the Western political tradition believe to be an essential safeguard to liberty?

The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a new "public advocate" charged with listening to immigrants' concerns about its law enforcement policies — but Republicans said the position amounts to an official mouthpiece for illegal immigrants being deported.

Further words fail me. Take it, guys.

Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that meant elevating the concerns of illegal immigrants.

“It’s outrageous that the Obama administration has appointed a taxpayer-funded activist for illegal and criminal immigrants who are detained or ordered deported. The administration all too often acts more like a lobbying firm for illegal immigrants than as an advocate for the American people,” Mr. Smith said.

Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, said the appointment of a taxpayer-funded legal representative for illegal immigrants “continues to ignore the rule of law, which begs the question: Where is the rule of law czar?

“President Obama refuses to enforce immigration law, sues the states that do so and now he’s appointed a czar for illegal immigrants. The president is making a conscious decision to evade Congress in order to appease his base,” Mr. King said. “The president must realize that his job description does not include being an advocate for illegal immigrants. It is defined by his obligation to ‘preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’”

(a) Findings- Congress finds the following:

(1) There are 926 ports served by federally maintained channels which handle more than 2.2 billion tons of cargo annually, and this figure is expected to increase.
(2) More than $1.1 trillion in foreign commerce enters the United States through the Nation's ports annually, and this figure is expected to increase.
(3) Expansion of the Panama Canal system in Central America will likely be completed in 2014, and this will present opportunities and challenges for the Nation's economic well-being.
(4) Insufficient maintenance dredging of the Nation's navigation channels results in inefficient water transportation and harmful economic consequences.
(5) In 1986, Congress created the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to provide funds for the operation and maintenance of the Nation's navigation channels.
(6) The fiscal year 2011, Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund equity grew by 13.7 percent from fiscal year 2010 (to $6.42 billion) and total annual receipts increased 17.3 percent (to $1.6 billion).
(7) Despite growth of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, expenditures from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund continue to decline.
(8) Despite growth of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, federally maintained channels are only at their authorized widths or depths 35 percent of the time, thereby restricting access to the Nation's ports for both imports and exports.

(b) Sense of Congress- It is the sense of Congress that--

(1) the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund is not being used for its intended purpose and charging maritime commerce a harbor maintenance tax while failing to provide the service for which it was established is unfair and places the Nation at economic risk;
(2) the Administration should request full use of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund for operating and maintaining the Nation's navigation system; and
(3) Congress should fully expend the amounts in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to operate and maintain the Nation's navigation system.

More broadly, this is a clear example of government inefficiency. I wonder how many other special programs are in place that assess the private sector fees for a purported "beneficial" reason and then fail to follow up. Meanwhile, the money piles up because of typical bureaucratic malaise. In the mean time, that money could have gone towards other, more immediate and beneficial things that those in the industry could have identified for themselves. At this point, maybe a better solution would be to offer them a refund!

It’s obvious that the Obama administration does not believe that tax rates on investment are a factor in investment decisions, or that marginal rates on real income affect how hard and how much people work....In all the arguments over incentives and tax fairness, there has been little mention of, well, cash. I’ve read long, learned dissertations on work effort, impassioned pleas for incentives to encourage a rekindling of animal spirits, and exotic calculus in service of whatever agenda an economist possessed before the study was undertaken. But cash is rarely mentioned.

As a small businessman, I can’t argue that I worked harder or longer the year after the Bush tax cuts were passed. I would imagine that my effort was pretty much the same as the year before. The same goes for my investment plan. I invest everything left after living expenses and taxes, no matter what the capital gains tax rate is. I have no plan to sell my farmland or my business. Like Warren Buffett, I’m not selling, so the tax rate on any expected gain doesn’t matter to me.

The only question that matters to the growth of my business is this: how much cash does the tax man leave me?

When we expanded our farm recently by purchasing a neighboring place, the lender required at least 35 per cent of the purchase price as a down payment. That would be cash. It mattered not the capital gains tax rate, the cost of capital, the expected return, or what Obama considers fair. Business is hard and cash is king.

My wife and I had built the cash reserves necessary to make that down payment on our new farm over a period of years–years, interestingly enough, when the government taxed business and investment income at rates far lower than those envisioned by the present administration. With higher tax rates, it would have taken me many years longer to build the capital necessary to expand my business....My family businesses don’t add much to the overall economic prosperity of our nation. They’re small, not terribly profitable, and are hardly giant engines for job creation or on the cutting edge of innovation. They do, however, employ nine family members throughout the year, with another dozen or so employees during the busy season. Without sensible tax rates on both labor and capital, we can’t build the equity we need to expand in good times and survive the bad times. That’s why tax rates matter.

The central theme to the release is Cicilline is trying to paint Doherty a certain way, based on his assumed associations and other instances of putting words in his mouth. Rather than turning this around and trying to judge Cicilline for who he associates with, let's take a look at who Cicilline is and what he says.

The more Paul Ryan (remember him? He’s the guy that wrote the bill to end Medicare)

the Ryan plan would totally reverse the course of recent fiscal history by lowering federal health care spending from 8% of GDP today to just 5% by 2050. If we remain on the current course, the spending would jump to 14% in that time frame.

Next up from Cicilline:

Eric Cantor (the chief cheerleader for shutting down the government last summer)

Overall spending levels in the new measure would conform to the outlines of an agreement reached in Congress earlier this year.

"I hope we abide by that deal and move forward in a bipartisan way," Cantor told reporters.

Let's continue with the Cicilline's words.

Brendan Doherty’s plan to slash corporate taxes, end the capital gains tax and change Social Security benefits for anyone born after 1960

You can tell a lot about a candidate by who they choose to associate with.

Back to Cicilline's press release:

Doherty’s loyalty is being rewarded and national Republicans recently sent out a press release hitting David that was later called a “Pants on Fire” lie by Politifact.

Ok, lastly:

We can only expect more of these desperate attacks

Most political analysts will tell you that people hate negative campaigning, but they all say it works. I'd agree. However it really only works when your negative ads are also true. If they're not going to be true, it's just going to backfire. This press release backfired on Cicilline in a big way.

Mr. ‍Obama belatedly decided to give his blessing to so-called super PACs, which can accept unlimited donations from corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals. Both ‍Obama‍’‍s campaign and the White House maintain that the president does not support today’s rules but realized belatedly he must play by them to give himself a competitive chance at a second term.

Campaigning for Democrats before the 2010 midterm elections, ‍Obama railed against corporate interests spending money directly to sway federal elections, calling it a “threat to our democracy.”

I'm not offering any opinion on the Super PACs themselves, as yes, I know Republicans including Mitt Romney are using them, that's not the point. The point is the president purposely made this a campaign issue two years ago and campaigned against it. Now he's getting into bed with it. I guess I'll just finish with a quote from the House Speaker Oompa Loompa

“Just another broken promise”

ADDENDUM: As commenter David P reminds us, this isn't the first time that Barack Obama reversed course on his campaign finance stances. Remember in 2008, he pledged to stick to the public financing and then later changed it mind, allowing him to raise many millions more.

The perpetrators are all Hispanic and the accusers are mostly not. This underlines what is most likely at play in Rhode Island— anxiety over the state’s changing demographics. Since 2000, the state’s white population has declined by 55,000, while its Hispanic population has increased by 45,000, or nearly 50 percent. The immigration boom, coupled with a 10.8 percent unemployment rate (the third-worst in the country), has contributed to the open hostility toward Hispanics.

Voter ID proponents subtly capitalized on these fears. The bill’s main House sponsor, conservative Democrat Jon Brien, has “anti-immigrant credentials like no other,” says Latino activist Pablo Rodriguez. Brien has argued that illegal immigrants are usurping government resources, taking American jobs, and now, voting.

A couple of established Latino state representatives voted for the bill, suggesting that they too may have concerns about the political influence of newly arrived immigrants.

Besides, as Providence College professor of political science Tony Affigne told me, minority legislators who voted for the law weren’t necessarily fabricating their tales of voter fraud—they were just ascribing too much importance to them. “I’ve seen [some voter fraud] with my own eyes,” Affigne told me. “But it’s certainly not the kind of problem that [necessitates] a statewide draconian law.” One state legislator agreed, telling me, “I think they’ve fallen for the urban legend stuff,” adding that, because of their naïveté, they’re “being used as pawns by the anti-immigrant conservatives.”

How does this alleged voter fraud work? According to [State representative Anastasia] Williams, a candidate hires a “recruiter,” who obtains a list of likely non-voters, and then pays willing foot soldiers to cast ballots in their place. A large Hispanic man who calls himself “El Macho” and works for the Providence Water Supply Board is rumored to be the most prominent recruiter. George Lindsey, a prominent South Providence African American, told me that candidates have long paid El Macho five or six thousand dollars per election. “What he’ll tell you is he’s basically a hired gun.”

That’s why the four state leaders who pushed through the new pension law should start formal negotiations with union leaders on an alternative overhaul of the system before they lose in court, according to Bob Walsh of the National Education Association Rhode Island.

“The legislative victory that the folks who supported changes in the pension system achieved is going to be short-lived – because it was illegal,” Walsh told WPRI.com on Tuesday. He suggested state leaders should appoint a neutral mediator such as former R.I. Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Williams to start talks between the two sides.

Surrender, Dorothy!

The complication here is that the specter of yet another unfavorable court ruling may not be as threatening as Mr. Walsh believes. The problem, as we have discussed, is not the unfavorable ruling itself but the reality of its aftermath. Courts can rule all day long that the original, promised benefits - however extravagant and inequitable - are legal. But the court cannot create the ability to pay the benefits if the employer (the state and/or the municipality) simply lacks the means to do so.

The pension reform passed last session by the G.A. fell far short of real reform and represented a substantial victory for labor, as witnessed, in part, by the support it garnered from pro-labor legislators.

It appears that Mr. Walsh is hoping to expand on that victory. If, however, the state were so ill advised as to act on Mr. Walsh's suggestion, the most likely end result - the promulgation of another precursor to one more perfectly legal and unenforceable ruling - would be an ephemeral victory at best.