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Tag: major league baseball
WATCH Jen Psaki Slam A Home Run Off Fox Reporter's Bogus Pitch

WATCH Jen Psaki Slam A Home Run Off Fox Reporter's Bogus Pitch

Even with Donald Trump out of office, his fervent lies and hysterias about voting fraud (and especially, mail-in voting fraud) live on. As Daily Kos has covered, the latest voter suppression effort propped up by these lies about voter fraud comes to us out of Georgia. As has now gone viral, a Black legislator, state Rep. Park Cannon, was arrested while trying to expose white Republicans celebrating the sweeping and extreme voter suppression law.

The optics of the voter suppression bill signing are actually worse than you might have imagined. Georgia has faced blowback in the form of calls for boycotts already, and big corporations based in the state, like Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola, have issued clarifying statements on where they stand on this legislation. The GOP has recently stepped up to battle Major League Baseball. And now? MLB has moved its 2021 All-Star Game from Georgia to Colorado.

All of this background sets the stage for a question from Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy at Tuesday's White House press briefing. Doocy asked Press Secretary Jen Psaki: "Is the White House concerned that Major League Baseball is moving their All-Star Game to Colorado, where voting regulations are very similar to Georgia?" A misleading, inaccurate question at best, for reasons Psaki delves into in her response. Her swift correction is really a must-watch.

Here's what Psaki has to say in the clip below:

Well, let me just refute the first point you made. First, let me say on Colorado. Colorado allows you to register on Election Day. Colorado has voting-by-mail where they send to 100 percent of people in the state who are eligible applications to vote-by-mail. Ninety-four percent of people in Colorado voted by mail in the 2020 election. And they also allow for a range of materials to provide, even if they vote on Election Day, for the limited number of people who vote on Election Day.

Psaki continued:

I think it's important to remember the context here. The Georgia legislation is built on a lie. There was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Georgia's top Republican election officials have acknowledged that repeatedly in interviews. What there was, however, was record-setting turnout especially by voters of color.

So, instead, what we're seeing here is for politicians who didn't like the outcome… They're not changing their policies to win more votes, they're changing the rules to exclude more voters. And we certainly see the circumstances as different. But ultimately, it's up to Major League Baseball to decide where they're holding their All-Star game.

Sorry, Wingnuts: You Don't Get To 'Cancel' Baseball This Year

Sorry, Wingnuts: You Don't Get To 'Cancel' Baseball This Year

Barring natural disasters or unforeseen health crises, chances are I'll watch around 150 Red Sox games during the 2021 season. Along with parts of other contests as the pennant races advance. And would have done, it's important to emphasize, whether deposed strongman Donald J. Trump likes it or not.

Boycott baseball? I literally can't remember not being a baseball fan. Home movies exist of me imitating the home run trot of Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman Howie Schultz, whom I've otherwise forgotten. One of my epic childhood memories is walking up a darkened stadium ramp at New York's Polo Grounds holding my father's hand into the astonishing green of the playing field and the actual, physical presence of Willie Mays—a mythic figure in my boyish imagination.

As for the All-Star game, I normally take a pass for the same reason I skip Spring training games. They're a relic of the radio era, when American League fans got to see National League standouts only at All-Star time. Apart from the honor, most players would rather have the day off. They're strictly exhibitions, not real contests.

Selfishly, I'd have preferred that Major League Baseball avoid political controversy altogether. To me, the game's a refuge, a few blessed hours when the daily ruck and moil of politics simply doesn't exist. But that could be my white privilege talking, to employ a phrase that also makes my feet itch.

Problem is, certain realities can't be avoided.

You can tell by the blundering, characteristically ungrammatical way former Boss Trump jumped into the controversy over Major League Baseball's pulling the 2021 All-Star game out of Atlanta to protest Georgia's new voting law, hyperbolically characterized by Joe Biden as "Jim Crow on steroids."

Continuing to whine about the 2021 presidential election that he lost by seven million votes, Trump complained, "For years the Radical Left Democrats have played dirty by boycotting products when anything from that company is done or stated in any way that offends them. Now they are going big time with WOKE CANCEL CULTURE and our sacred elections."

He produced a list of major corporations including Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines JPMorgan Chase, ViacomCBS, Citigroup, and Merck and demanded his supporters boycott their products.

'We can play the game better than them," Trump boasted. "The Radical Left will destroy our Country if we let them. We will not become a Socialist Nation." Then came the punchline: "Happy Easter!"

Last Easter, it will be recalled, Trump was doing PR for COVID-19, urging parishioners to crowd into churches in defiance of social-distancing.

As usual, this is upside-down. It's mainly the political right in the United States that has long practiced shunning those with whom they disagree. Think Dixie Chicks. Think Colin Kaepernick.

Even French fries became "Freedom Fries" after France's UN Ambassador warned President George W. Bush against the folly of invading Iraq. (Months later, a friend sent me a photo documenting a cynical joke I'd made: a vending machine in an Arkansas truck stop offering 50-cent "Freedom Ticklers.")

So don't "Cancel Culture" me; Republicans invented it.

As for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's phony victimization, there was nothing subtle about the staged iconography of his signing ceremony. Seven middle-aged white men posing in front of an idealized painting of a pre-Civil War plantation. The only thing missing was a Rebel flag.

Arresting a Black woman legislator for having the temerity to knock on the office door was an added touch.

Kemp, see, had incurred Trumpist wrath by defending the integrity of Georgia's presidential vote and its subsequent Senate runoffs—all narrowly won by Democrats. The purpose of the new law is to cover his political butt by making it marginally harder to vote, thereby suppressing Black turnout.

What other reason could there be for reducing the number of electoral drop boxes in Metro Atlanta from 94 to 23, and moving them inside government buildings shuttered after normal working hours?

For making it much harder to vote absentee?

For giving a legislative committee power to move precincts around and make it difficult for voters who show up at the wrong place to file provisional ballots?

For making it illegal to give water to voters waiting in long lines? As if Black voters don't cherish their hard-won right to vote and would give up and go home.

Yes, the amazing Stacey Abrams can probably overcome such cynical ploys all over again. So just in case, the new law takes election supervision away from honorable Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and gives it to a GOP-dominated legislative committee that is also empowered—get this—to remove county election officials for replacements of their own choosing.

Jim Crow? Not really. This is basically election reform, Kremlin-style.

Meanwhile, play ball! Because if Trump is fighting MLB and Coca-Cola, much less Citigroup and CBS, then Trump is losing.

All over again.

Atlanta Braves

Major League Baseball Pulls All-Star Game From Atlanta Over Voting Law

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert Manfred Jr. announced on Friday that the league is moving both the 2021 All-Star Game and the MLB draft out of Atlanta in protest of Georgia's new voter suppression law.

In a statement, Manfred said:

Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box. In 2020, MLB became the first professional sports league to join the non-partisan Civic Alliance to help build a future in which everyone participates in shaping the United States. We proudly used our platform to encourage baseball fans and communities throughout our country to perform their civic duty and actively participate in the voting process. Fair access to voting continues to have our game's unwavering support.

The move comes a little more than a week after Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp signed the new law, which requires ID to vote by mail, limits the use of ballot drop boxes, and gives the Republican-controlled state legislature more power over how elections are administered. It's led to fears among voting rights activists that voters in Democratic strongholds in the state will see rule changes that make it harder for them to vote.

Civil rights activists in the state had been pressuring companies to take a stand against the law or face boycotts.

Multiple major companies headquartered in Georgia, like Delta Air Linesand Coca-Cola, spoke out against the law.

However, MLB's decision to move the All-Star Game and draft from the state is the biggest move to date and could cost Georgia millions in tourism revenue.

Cobb County Chair Lisa Cupid said in a video statement this week that moving the All-Star Game out of the state would cause financial damage.

"Some are asserting that they will boycott our businesses and not travel to our state," Cupid said. "This would have a negative impact to us in Cobb County, as our top industries are retail travel and tourism."

President Joe Biden had said this week he supported moving the events.

"I think today's professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly," Biden said in an interview with ESPN. "I would strongly support them doing that. People look to them. They're leaders."

Georgia Republicans have dug in their heels in response to the criticism, slamming companies for speaking out and even trying to retaliateagainst those companies by attempting to yank a tax break from Delta as a form of retaliation.

Kemp called Biden's support for moving the All-Star Game "ridiculous." He's also lied about what Georgia's voter suppression law does, saying it was aimed at "expanding early voting, strengthening voter ID measures, increasing the use of secure drop boxes statewide, and making it easier for local election officials to administer elections."

Gabe Sterling, a Republican election official in Georgia, had slammed the MLB for contemplating moving the All-Star Game before the move was announced.

"I think it's morally reprehensible and disgusting that he's perpetuating economic blackmail over a lie," Sterling said in an interview with the right-wing outlet The Dispatch. "It's a lie. This is no different than the lie of Trump saying there was voter fraud in this state. And the people who are going to be most hurt by [a boycott] are the workers in all of these places that are going to be impacted."

Sports leagues have successfully forced Republican state legislatures into amending discriminatory laws in the past by threatening to move or moving major events.

In 2017, the NBA helped push North Carolina to amend a discriminatory anti-transgender bathroom law after it pulled its All-Star Game from the state. The NBA later reversed its decision after North Carolina Republicans amended the law.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Danziger Draws

Danziger Draws

Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.