Does anyone know what the lockout means in terms of the NFL draft. Is it just off now?
I really haven’t been paying attention- the greed of the owners just makes me sick. I love the Rooney family, but I think the norm when it comes to owners is Jerry Jones.
Don
Except for the Packers, of course.
Keith
I’m pretty sure it means good things…for John McCain.
2liberal
the draft will still take place. the lockout means no free agent signings and no trades involving players. there can be trades with draft picks.
Bob Kraft is a better owner than the Rooneys.
Bill H.
I’m not that thrilled with the players either. A pox on both their houses.
soonergrunt
Billionaires fucking over millionaires and the rest of us on the hook for stadiums and their maintenance.
Still, the Packers have been stand up guys in Wisconsin recently, so GO PLAYERS!
drkrick
According to the story linked below, the union and the league agreed that the draft could go on regardless of the status of the CBA. It would seem that freedom to pick your employer would be in place unless a union had bargained it away for you. Since the union has decertified, I wonder whether that agreement would be binding if someone challenged it, although the player involved would need to have a real hankering to be football’s Curt Flood to initiate the suit.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/633605-nfl-lockout-ncaa-tournament-carmelo-anthony-and-saturdays-top-sports-news/entry/52102-nfl-lockout-how-will-the-lockout-impact-the-nfl-draft-process
drkrick
@Bill H.:What’s your problem with the players? The negotiations have been about how much the players are going to give back to the owners – do you think they should just be asking how far forward to bend over? Decertification isn’t a walkout – it’s the owners who have chosen to shut down the league.
doofus
Just like in the rest of the economy owners want more of the pie. I’ll leave Forbes to make the case. http://blogs.forbes.com/sportsmoney/2011/01/10/numbers-show-nfls-economic-realities-for-lockout-unwarranted/#more-12946
Corner Stone
@soonergrunt:
I tend to dislike this formulation. Yes, the average football player makes quite a good bit of money. And if they can maintain that for a couple years they can make more than most of us do in a lifetime career.
But IMO, this is about the powerful and the powerless. Same as other collective bargaining situations.
Corner Stone
In other news:
Dozens of Cases to Be Dropped in San Francisco Police Scandal
“With a group of undercover police officers under suspicion of perjury and conducting illegal searches, the San Francisco district attorney said Wednesday that his office would drop dozens of drug and robbery cases and continue to investigate scores more for possible dismissal.”
Inevitable outcome of the amorphous “War on []” terminology.
stuckinred
Given that the average length of a Gridiron player’s career in NFL is 3 years, average Green Bay salary of $440,000 means that after tax they earn less than $1 million total career earnings
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_salary_of_an_NFL_football_player#ixzz1GPg9NNOR
JimF
And don’t forget medical damage, most players have issues for the rest of their life.
eemom
I think this is good news for antitrust lawyers.
Linkmeister
When the average career is 3 1/2 years, there are relatively few millionaires among the players. The QBs and RBs, the Corners and the DBs get the money and the ink, but the backups are more representative of the union (sorry, trade association) members.
Remember, the owners are also the guys who’ve managed to persuade most cities to raise taxes to build palaces for their teams, and the cities don’t even get the naming rights to said palaces. Then the owners sell luxury boxes to corporations for millions of bucks, the average cost to a family of four for a game is ~$400, and the owners have billions from CBS, NBC and ESPN paid upfront for TV rights.
Meanwhile, the players’ lives are shortened by several years and the retirement benefits are weak. I know whose side I’m on here.
The Dangerman
Seems to me they are slaying a Golden Goose; sure, NFL is hyper popular, but I suspect people will get used to watching more college football as a replacement in the interim.
doofus
Owners guaranteed of $4 billion even if the whole season was cancelled due to lockout. Players got no leverage. They are gonna lose this fight.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5268239
bostondreams
Isn’t part of the issue that the owners want to make extend the time in service necessary to qualify for post career health care coverage to 5 years, though the average career is only 3 years?
eemom
yeah, it is.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/633403-nfl-lockout-brady-manning-and-brees-file-antitrust-lawsuit-against-nfl
Barb (formerly Gex)
@drkrick: I say fuck the NFL. The players should band together and find a new set of owners, create a new league, and show the current set of owners exactly how necessary they are to the football product.
The NFL is just a cartel of rich guys who for some reason are granted almost slave-owning like rights over the people who work for them. I wonder how Bill H. would feel if he was only allowed to negotiate with one employer – take it or leave it. And to be asked, in a year where the long term effects of working for these owners will seriously reduce the quantity and quality of life you have.
Seriously, what do these owners contribute to the product? I know other rich people could run the businesses. Can the same been said about the players? How have the XFL USFL, NFL Europe, etc fared? People pay to see THESE PLAYERS, and they don’t give a fuck about the owners. The unfortunate thing is that the scale of the wages makes people get confused about the situation.
It’s fantastic the way the ownership class can get people to turn against one another. They’ve done a terrific job with sports, where the people who most enjoy the talents of the players are most likely to bitch about how much those people get paid for their talents.
James E Powell
@Corner Stone:
Or, at least, the very powerful against the not so powerful. And with the NFL and other sports, the players aren’t just the workers, their bodies, their health, are the product.
MikeJ
@Barb (formerly Gex): The new owners the players should go to are the cities. Every team should be owned the way the Packers are.
Citizen_X
There’s a great essay in The Awl about the lockout, wherein they do a great job of connecting it with our ongoing Galtian, grab-everything madness of the MOTU, via their “apocalyptic narcissism.” Here’s a taste:
Keith G
It seemes to me that this is pretty much what is happening in most other areas of American business, ie:
“I am going to make as much money as it is possible to make, then I will game the system and make even more, regardless on the impact on specific others or society in general.”
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Linkmeister: And most overlooked – there is a minimum salary and a salary cap but there is nothing forcing these owners to write the contracts they do. They write such big contracts because the market demand for those players supports it. And, with fewer restrictions on the freedom of the players in choosing their employers, the market would be even more competitive.
The owners are basically punishing the players for their own lack of self control and for the actual marketplace working in a way it should.
doofus
@Barb (formerly Gex): Player contracts are not guaranteed. Any player can be cut at any time and the contract is cancelled.
JenJen
Hey Cole… Habs at Pens on TV. :-)
As much as I’m dreading it, the NFL lockout/strike could be very, very good for hockey. Also too, it would ensure that the Bengals not have a losing season. Trying to look at the bright side, here…
The Dangerman
@Barb (formerly Gex):
Yeah, but the market is whacked out; Tom Brady (picked since it’s going to be Brady vs. The NFL in the antitrust courts) has a monopoly on being Tom Brady.
The Dangerman
@doofus:
I think the bonuses are frontloaded.
edit: of course they are frontloaded; I’m saying that cutting the player doesn’t take away that guaranteed money (see Bradford, Sam)
Barb (formerly Gex)
@The Dangerman: And your point is? Some items in our economy don’t have easy or cheap replacements. That is not an argument against the system.
Dave Winfield had a monopoly on being Dave Winfield. It didn’t make collusion to set salaries any more justified.
JenJen
@Citizen_X: Oh, that is awesome.
…wild-eyed Galt-grade assholes like Panthers owner Jerry Richardson or doughy boardroom zealots like Patriots owner Robert Kraft…
Steeplejack
@soonergrunt:
@Corner Stone:
Median NFL salary in 2009 was $770,000. Average career length is 3.5 years. Net: about $2.7 million–before agent’s cut (10-15 percent?) and taxes. And half the players aren’t getting that.
Stillwater
@Corner Stone: But IMO, this is about the powerful and the powerless. Same as other collective bargaining situations.
Agreed. I have no sympathy for the owners here. At the level of investment we’re talking about, even 10% return y/y is a helluva lot of money. For doing nothing but saying ‘our goal is to win a championship’.
And they haven’t won any sympathy by refusing to open up their books. If things were that dire, and they could prove it, the players would be more than willing to take appropriate salary cap/rookie signing cuts.
RossInDetroit
I hereby take back all of the nice things I said about Detroit over the last 2 days. The governor should take it over and send in the National Guard to restore order. Starting with the jack hole in a white Edge who just threatened my life at a stoplight for being tardy in yielding my lane to his reckless careering through heavy traffic.
Seriously. Screw them.
jwb
@Barb (formerly Gex): Not sure how contract law works in cases like this, but is this even a possibility? Since most players are already under contract, could the players create their own league or does the fact that the owners have locked them out open up that possibility?
Omnes Omnibus
@Stillwater:
Exactly. The players have a strong vested interest in a viable league. Does anyone know the status of 18 game season? IIRC that is a huge sticking point for the players.
Nutella
As usual, no mention of the third party in this: The taxpayers who have spent billions on stadiums and other subsidies for the benefit of owners.
Stillwater
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t know, but my footballaholic nephew says that an 18 game season will be part of the deal. Which I’m sure is what’s motivating alot of the benefits-related negotiations.
NJSteven
The draft goes on, but the players can’t be signed until a new CBA. No draftees, no free agents, no signing own players, etc.; the issue here is that franchises won’t be able to compile teams/rosters till this is all settled. As you know, NFL teams are much more year-to-year propositions than NBA or MLB teams with more long-term, secured contracts.
Also, in addition to Rooneys, props to Mara family of the Giants. Plus, the combo has given us Kate (127 Hours) and Rooney (Social Network) Mara.
NJSteven
The draft goes on, but the players can’t be signed until a new CBA. No draftees, no free agents, no signing own players, etc.; the issue here is that franchises won’t be able to compile teams/rosters till this is all settled. As you know, NFL teams are much more year-to-year propositions than NBA or MLB teams with more long-term, secured contracts.
Also, in addition to Rooneys, props to Mara family of the Giants. Plus, the combo has given us Kate (127 Hours) and Rooney (Social Network) Mara.
MattR
@doofus: A judge ruled that the frontloading of the television contract violated the CBA. It looks like that money is gonna end up in escrow and the owners lost their leverage, which I believe is one of the main reasons they asked for temporary extensions to the CBA to allow for another week of negotiations.
Stillwater
@MattR: Personally, I don’t think the owners really have any leverage left. Or at least rational leverage. They could still just not have a season to prove a point. Rich people do that sometimes.
MattR
@Omnes Omnibus: Supposedly the owners offered to maintain a 16 game schedule for 2 more years and then to require player approval for any expansion of the season beyond 16 games. That was one of many givebacks the owners claimed after the union decertified, but that was also part of the offer that included the players giving back $750 million to $1 billion. So I am pretty sure all those concessions go away if the owners have to give up on their demand for more money.
@Stillwater: Agreed. Losing that TV money means that Jerry Jones has to figure out some other way to make the mortgage payments on his new billion dollar stadium. The easiest way would be to have a football season.
Villago Delenda Est
A good example up there with asswipe Brit Hume’s “how will this affect my portfolio” comment on some disaster someplace. This is swell human being Larry Kudlow commenting on the situation in Japan:
This is why when the tumbrels are loaded up, the overwhelming majority of media talking heads need to be on the manifest.
MattR
As for the draft itself, IANAL but I dont see how it could possible be legal for 32 individual legal entities to come to an agreement about how to divide up new employees. I am guessing the current players in the NFLPA would not have standing to sue (and there may also be some unwritten agreement not to pursue this), but it seems that if someone like Cam Newton filed suit they should have a decent case. OTOH – the NFL did win in court the right to limit which college players were eligible for the draft, but that was under the CBA so I don’t know if/how that relates.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Kudlow has always been like this. If it doesn’t affect his pocketbook and/or coke supply, he jsut doesn’t care. This is not to negate any point you made regarding tumbrels and the loading thereof.
Corner Stone
@Stillwater:
I just don’t see how, unless they are fine with a seriously degraded product. With the size, speed and power of the players these days, there’s just no way they can maintain their top shelf product for 18 “real” games a season.
There’s already not enough NFL QB’s in the game or pipeline, and not that many people can be 220 pounds, run a 4.4 and learn all the things an NFL RB has to know.
As Bill Simmons snarked one day last season, “And the Saints playing the 8th string RB” (summary).
RareSanity
Although I know that all of the NFL owners are not assholes, it appears that most of them are.
I was watching an ESPN report on the whole thing yesterday, and saw a clip of one of the attorneys for te NFL, making the case that the owners had bent over backwards to accomodate the players, and the players seemed hell bent on going to litigation since the mediation began.
It was definitely a turning point for me. Because the first thing that came to my mind was, “You assholes seemed to be planning for lockout four years ago, when you cut your little side deal with the networks to still get paid even if there was a lockout!”
If the owners don’t want to accept that they are in a partnership with the players, then fuck ’em, fuck ’em in the ear. If they are crying broke so they need an extra billion and a half off the top, but are completely unwilling to open up their books and prove financial distress, fuck ’em again.
Now I see all of the representatives from the NFL and the owners emphatically stating, “it is going to get worked out in negotiations, not court”, and I know that they know if it does go to court, all the facts they trying hide, are coming out. I’ve decided that I want to see the class action suit go to trial, even if it means no NFL this year, so everyone can finally understand the complete scope of the lies the NFL and the owners operate under.
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: Ah, here’s the quote:
“Roger Goodell steadfastly insisting on an 18-week season after we just watched New Orleans try to win a playoff game with an eighth-string running back.”
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@Villago Delenda Est:
By coincidence I saw this comment live and mentioned it here on BJ. A couple of people asked me for a link and I didn’t immediately have it, but here it is. So I did hear what I thought I did, and Kudlow made his priorities clear.
Corner Stone
I agree a full airing of the books would be a good thing. But maybe not as awesome as we seem to think.
I have a friend who used to work for the Astros. After owner Drayton McLane went year after year proclaiming he was losing money I asked my friend about that.
He clued me in to just a couple ways McLane ran his “books” to show that loss.
Mainly shell entities, concession fees, tax breaks and a couple other items.
stuckinred
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Westboro Baptist Church, the controversial group that just won a free speech Supreme Court case, said it plans to protest at a funeral for seven Pennsylvania children who died in a fire Tuesday (March 8) night.
Villago Delenda Est
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
Kudlow’s attitude reflects the sort of short term thinking that totally dominates our discourse.
Sure, his wallet won’t be immediately effected. Longer term prosperity certainly will be, as a lost human life is lost prosperity potential.
But, doesn’t affect Larry right this minute in the form of something in his bank account, so who cares?
KG
As far as I’ve heard and understand, they are still planning on doing the draft.
In more depressing news, Zuffa (parent company of UFC) has bought Strikeforce (UFC’s main competitor). While they are saying there is no intention to merge the organizations, I’m sure that will happen somewhere down the line, a la WEC. I really dislike Dana White
RareSanity
@MattR:
There is a draft eligible player that is a party to the class action lawsuit, I think he’s from Texas A&M.
The kid has some brass ones because even if this whole thing gets worked out, I don’t think that owners would be quick to forget it.
Stillwater
@Corner Stone: I agree completely. I think it dilutes the labor pool, because of the increased injuries, which makes each game less interesting. But it also diminishes the value of any particular regular season game. I mean, one of the very real complaints about hockey, and NBA for that matter, is that the season is so long there isn’t any real incentive to win any one game. This shows up come playoff time, when you see what players can do when they really want to win.
Edit: This is just another reason I have no sympathy for the owners.
WaterGirl
@stuckinred: OT, but I have been wanting to ask you about your new MacBook Pro. I have a 3+ year old macbook pro and don’t want to purchase a new one that is incrementally different – since i can’t buy a new one whenever I want, I have been holding out for the next generation.
What I can’t tell is whether I’m seeing hype about a machine that is incrementally different, or whether the new one really is the next generation model (since we see that about every 3 or 4 years).
Now that you have yours, would you mind sharing your thoughts?
doofus
@MattR: Didn’t hear that. Good news.
MattR
@RareSanity: Yeah, Von Miller. But from what I have read, his involvement in the suit is to prevent the imposition of a rookie wage scale by the owners. Either way, I do agree that it takes some courage from Miller to attach his name to the suit.
BTW – absolutely agree with your other comments about the owners lawyer’s statements. I know both sides are gonna try and spin things, but it is just insulting to hear them outright lie like that. I guess they have been keeping track of what works in politics.
@doofus: IIRC, the ruling was essentially that the owners had made concessions to the networks in order to get that “lockout guarantee” and as such they were not maximizing revenue (to be split with the players) as the CBA demands.
KG
@Corner Stone: I for one simply refuse to believe that most, if any, professional sports franchise are actively losing money through anything other than mismanagement. In the NFL, the only team I could imagine losing money would be the Jaguars. Between TV deals, merchandising, and ticket sales, I find it nearly impossible. If Donald Sterling and the Clippers can make a shit ton of money being morbidly terrible for decades, then so can anyone else.
ETA: And if you consider that most owners have been successful in business prior to buying a team, well… they can’t be that stupid, I would think.
rikyrah
I think the union is trying to de-certify, because, if they are a union, then they go up in front of an arbitrator. but, if they go into actual court, it will give them access to the TRUE ‘books’ of the owners.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@jwb: I think they can just retire. If they unretire with the NFL – they come back under their old agreement. But I don’t see how that would hold in an entirely separate league.
RareSanity
@MattR:
I just hope it dosen’t hurt him in the long run. I hear that he’s pretty good and a projected first rounder.
Also, I want to second WaterGirl’s request for your impressions of your new MacBook Pro. I can’t really afford to get a new one. However, if the performance is pretty comparable to the previous generation, maybe I can get a sweet deal on “last year’s” model.
stuckinred
@WaterGirl: I like it. I have a 15″ from work and have used a 13″ macbook of my own for 4 years. The sd slot is nice and who knows what the thunderbolt will bring. Here’s a nice take from my man at Apple Byte.
Svensker
@Villago Delenda Est:
Srsly? He said that? What’d he follow up with? Stomping a puppy?
khead
It means the owners are going to end up in the one place they don’t want to be – Judge Doty’s courtroom.
Edit: Whoops. Shoulda paid closer attention to the original post. Thought it asked where we go from here in general – skipped the part about the draft. D’oh.
doofus
@MattR: With that kind of guaranteed revenue that the owners were holding I didn’t look too deeply into the balance of power. If the owners no longer hold that ace, then it’s a different fight. The player’s union still are likely underdogs here, but I will have to re-evaluate now that the ace may be a duece.
MattR
@KG:
GWB!
I would add that it would not surprise me to see a team like the Cowboys have one or two years where they lose money. But that would be more because they were spending more money than the rest of the teams, not because they were receiving less in revenue. (IIRC, the 49ers teams of the 80’s that won multiple Super Bowls lost money because the Debartolo family was willing spend the extra money and take those losses in order to win championships)
@RareSanity: I believe that Macbook Pro request needs to go to stuckinred.
stuckinred
Note to Clemson. Don’t go to OT with Carolina!
Svensker
@stuckinred:
We have young cousins who live in the area and they and their high school friends are all fired up to do a counter-protest protection wall. Since one of the cousins is 6’6″ and about 280, I’m thinking it would be a fun thing for them. :)
stuckinred
@RareSanity: I’m not sure what kind of deals they are cutting. I know the iPad 1’s got dropped $100 but there is no such offer on the MBP. For me the combination of increased performance, the new connection technology at the same price as the old machine was a winner.
KG
@Barb (formerly Gex): actually, during a lock out, the players could go play somewhere else (assuming the season doesn’t start on time), either the CFL or the UFL. But if they are under contract with an NFL team, then they have to go back to work in the NFL once a CBA is reached. See Question 7, here
Stillwater
@stuckinred: I’m still conflicted about this issue, and tend to agree with Alito (Alito?) in his recent dissenting SC vote on the matter. These people are so offensive, and their actions so utterly anti-social, that I can’t quite get my mind around protecting their rights rather than beating the shit outa them.
jeffreyw
Indictable
gopher2b
The NFL has an antitrust exemption because it negotiat(ed) with a union and the collective bargaining agreement, not antitrust laws governed. Once the union decertified, the NFL owners can no longer agree to lock out the players because that would be a clear antitrust violation. The players filed for an injunction yesterday to prevent the lockout.
It’s in the courts now. There could be a season or there could not be a season. No CBA, no union, and no lockout, however, means no rules. So the salary cap, tampering rules, trades, even — in theory — the draft are off.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@KG: Unless they retire – which I’m pretty sure I included in my post. I’m not sure how they are required to play for the NFL if they retire.
ETA: But thank you for filling what you obviously see as a huge void in my knowledge and understanding.
soonergrunt
The vast majority of the American public will see it exactly as I described it. Billionaires fucking over millionaires. Yes, it’s a union and yes there’s aspects of the super powerful taking from the not-so-super power powerful.
But don’t think for a minute that it’s going to do anything for extending the story of unions standing up for the regular guy who’s just trying to have a decent life in exchange for hard work.
Chancelot
I am a Cowboys fan and fully admit Jones’ faults but he built his stadium almost entirely on his own unlike the Rooneys. And he didn’t publish a ridiculous op-ed in the NYT about Janet Jackson’s nipple. Especially since Art got his money to buy the Steelers by running numbers for Gus Greenlee. The Rooneys are the bobo of sports owners. also, too I think the Steelers are a great football team and still hate them. I think the proto type you are looking for is Dan Snyder.
KG
@Barb (formerly Gex): they wouldn’t have to go back to the NFL if they were unrestricted free agents either. But yeah, I missed the earlier point about forming an entirely new league. I was thinking more along the lines of “the NFL will play again eventually.”
MattR
@gopher2b: I believe the next step will be that court will rule in the players favor and issue an injunction against the lockout. At that point, the NFL has to come up with a set of rules to govern the league. It could just be the rules from last year, or under a previous CBA, or something completely new. Once those rules are released, the players will file an additional suit against any anti-competitive rules (ie. salary cap/salary floor, restrictions to free agency).
However, I am not really sure what happens with things like the 18 game season or limitations on offseason workouts or inseason practices or drug testing rules. These don’t really violate antitrust law, but they were negotiated as part of the CBA in the past so I think the owners should be able to impose new rules as they desire (as long as they comply with all applicable state/federal laws)
WaterGirl
@stuckinred: That’s the thing – I know it’s getting a lot of hype, but it doesn’t seem to me that just adding thunderbolt would make it the next generation macbook pro I have been waiting for. But then I haven’t seen thunderbolt in action yet, which is why I thought I would ask you, who are lucky enough to have one of these. From your answer, it sounds like maybe the answer would be “this is not the
droidnext generation machine you’re looking for”.Also, even though I want one now, I am waiting on an iPad until the third generation. It sucks to be an electronic toy person on a limited budget!
RareSanity
@MattR:
Whoops, you’re right…
@stuckinred:
I was thinking more of Craigslist. Usually when the new model of something comes out, the previous model’s value goes down a bit on CL.
Mnemosyne
@RareSanity:
If you want to find a good deal on last year’s model, buy it from Amazon instead of Apple — their discounts are much steeper than Apple’s once the new models come out.
JPL
@Stillwater: IMO, Had they not received attention in the beginning they’d still be riding around in their old jalopy. They need to be ignored. Folks can line the street and block them from view.
Jay in Oregon
@Stillwater:
The only conflict I have about the Westboro Baptist Church is seeing how people who didn’t give a shit when they only protested the funerals of gays who had the unmitigated gall to die from AIDS or (in the case of Matthew Shepard) get beaten to death suddenly get all self-righteous when the WBC decided to expand their protests to dead soldiers, miners, and children.
On one hand, I hope that some of those people have had their eyes opened to what blind, unreasoning hatred does to people, and maybe give them some empathy for people who lose their loved ones to hatred and violence. On the other hand, I suspect that most of those people would happily go back to not giving a shit if the WBC were to revert to only demonizing dead gays and lesbians.
Jay in Oregon
@JPL:
I still think one of the best counter-protests would be to have a pipe and drum corps on hand between the WBC and their victims to play “Amazing Grace” for the duration of the funerals.
It’s almost enough to make me want to learn how to play the bagpipes.
piratedan
well here’s is an idea on the business parallels from sports columnist Bill Simmons:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/110304
@Chancelot: and I am a ‘Skins fan who agrees that Snyder is indeed a dickhead of the highest order but just like Jones, there are times when he does do the right thing and it doesn’t matter anyway, i.e. when he gave a half million to the Katrina relief fund and was castigated because it wasn’t more. These guys love you if they know you, otherwise, you’re just another sucker regardless of the team you root for. I have no sympathy for the owners on this issue, as soon as the old CBA was done, some of the more wealthy owners were pissed off at having to compensate both the players and there less well off ownership brethren and instead of being able to come to the table and trade off anything of value to the players, i.e. shorter rookie contracts and increased safety equipment, better funding of pensions and the like in return for the revenue, they gained the mistrust of the players. Just like any one else that has worked in Corporate America, I can show you financial spreadsheets all damn day but that doesn’t mean that you find out what you want to know.
stuckinred
@RareSanity: I took my old macbook to the local mac store and they said they’d give my $175. I was completely rebuilt under applecare 4 months ago so I’ll either hang on to it or do what you hope for, CL!
Bill H.
@drkrick:
Being offered a $10 million salary and refusing to attend camp because they want more.
RareSanity
@Mnemosyne:
Looks like for a 15″, Amazon has a low end of about $1600.
If I really pay attention to Craigslist, especially here in Atlanta, I can probably catch someone in a “gotta sell this today”, situation and get one for around $1200.
That’s right, when it comes to acquiring electronics, I turn into a free market, glibertarian, Galtian overlord…
New Yorker
Let’s see, the Mets season should be effectively over by Memorial Day, so there won’t be alternate sports to keep my attention through September and October, and I don’t care about basketball or hockey or college football very much.
Sigh….looks like it’s a lot of Netflix on Sunday afternoons this fall.
On the plus side, there won’t be any epic December meltdown for the Giants if the season is shot.
RareSanity
@Mnemosyne:
Looks like for a 15”, (online retailer starting with an A)* has a low end of about $1600.
If I really pay attention to CL, especially here in Atlanta, I can probably catch someone in a “gotta sell this today”, situation and get one for around $1200.
That’s right, when it comes to acquiring electronics, I turn into a free market, glibertarian, Galtian overlord…
* – Apparently using the ‘A’ retailer’s name and CL in the same comment, gets you a “go directly to moderation” card.
BobS
Doug Farrar at the blog Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports is a good source of information on the NFL labor issue.
MikeJ
@Bill H.: What’s the cutoff line for being able to negotiate your salary instead of taking whatever is offered? If people are forced to accept every offer how is the market supposed to price their talents rationally?
Yutsano
@New Yorker:
My only positive in this whole situation is the fact that our stadium is dual purposed, so scheduling of the sociallist football games should be easier from here.
RareSanity
@stuckinred:
One good thing about living in Atlanta is that along with Georgia Tech, there are quite a few other colleges and art and design schools , that keep a constant stream of Apple goodies flowing to CL…
Chancelot
@piratedan I pretty much agree with all you said. My point is if you can’t make money with an NFL team give it to me I will. If the owners are telling the truth what do they have to hide? And if financial spreadsheets can mean anything why not give them up? It’s just the 11th commandment of our plutocracy “Being rich makes you better.”
piratedan
@Bill H.: yeah, it works just like that and if a team backloads your contract so there is no signing bonus, they can say that they’re paying you all this money, but if you blow you’re knee out then you get a hundreth of that value and cut and then you’re on your own for continued medical care. Also, the number of players that sign 10m+ contracts are the highest 15-20 percent of the league. The compensation of the worker should reflect what the marketplace id offering. Many owners are clearing multimillions in profit every year and the league revenues have climbed, even in this economy, I have zero problem with entertainers being paid what they are worth.
Stillwater
@Bill H.: Being offered a $10 million salary and refusing to attend camp because they want more.
But this is a self-serving position. Look, these guys get alot of money, no denying it. But how much they make is precisely not the issue. How much compensation would you want relative to total revenue for a product based exclusively on your efforts? That’s the issue.
ETA: Or another way to say is that in this market, the labor is the product.
stuckinred
@RareSanity: I’ll stay in Athens, thank you very much!
Stillwater
@Jay in Oregon: Well, the hypocrisy is surely rampant here. But really, I just can’t get my mind around institutional tolerance for permitting the petty, pointless procurement of paltry political points at the price of personal, private, particularly precious …. can’t finish it. You get the point.
RareSanity
@stuckinred:
Athens is a great town…made many a road trip there during my college years!
Corner Stone
@Stillwater: You couldn’t get pernicious, prurient or puerile in there somewhere?
gbear
Completely OT: The guy reporting from Madison WI for Al Jazeera English is a bit of a dick. He tends to frame things as if the republicans are bargaining in good faith.
J. Michael Neal
Keep in mind that the real issue underlying the lockout is a fight among the owners. Some of them, led by Jerry Jones, are making the team part of a corporate structure that funnels the revenue to other entities. That monstrosity in Arlington isn’t owned by the Cowboys; it’s owned by one of his other companies.
That means that the concessions and parking monies don’t have to be included in the revenue sharing pot. What has kept the NFL operating the way it has is that most of the revenues are split among the teams. It’s meant that there isn’t much difference in small and large market teams in terms of profit making ability.
Jones’ stunts, and the others that emulate him, are endangering that. There is a growing stratification in the revenues among teams. One would think that such an explosion of actual capitalism would please the right wing nuts like most of the owners, but they’re crying for socialism.
Since they don’t have a good way to make Jerry share his money, they want the players to take a hit so that every one of them can remain profitable even if they are completely inept. That’s what this lockout is about. It’s very difficult for me to have less sympathy for the owners of sports teams than I usually do, but these clowns have found a way.
stuckinred
@gbear: you can’t be off topic in a open thread
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Villago Delenda Est:
What a mealy-mouthed scumbag. I’m sure his fellow cheerleaders are confused because he didn’t give them a heads-up before saying it so that they would have time to practice their neutral responses.
Fuck them all. They’re nothing more than paid mouthpieces and cheerleaders for the rich.
J. Michael Neal
@Corner Stone:
Related party transactions is the source of a lot of this. However, GAAP requires that an asset be recorded on a company’s books at fair value. Sure, the default assumption is that it’s fair value is what it’s sold for, but auditors tend to be very suspicious of related party transactions. There’s wiggle room there, but not nearly as much. There is *a* set of books in existence that shows whether a team is really making a profit. It’s just not the set of books that the owners show to each other for revenue sharing purposes or to the public to demand a new stadium.
I’m willing to bet that these are the books the players want to see and that the owners will fight to the death to hide.
That’s even before we get into the question of whether or not the various entities should be considered consolidated.
J. Michael Neal
Keep in mind that the real issue underlying the lockout is a fight among the owners. Some of them, led by Jerry Jones, are making the team part of a corporate structure that funnels the revenue to other entities. That monstrosity in Arlington isn’t owned by the Cowboys; it’s owned by one of his other companies.
That means that the concessions and parking monies don’t have to be included in the revenue sharing pot. What has kept the NFL operating the way it has is that most of the revenues are split among the teams. It’s meant that there isn’t much difference in small and large market teams in terms of profit making ability.
Jones’ stunts, and the others that emulate him, are endangering that. There is a growing stratification in the revenues among teams. One would think that such an explosion of actual capitalism would please the right wing nuts like most of the owners, but they’re crying for sockalism.
Since they don’t have a good way to make Jerry share his money, they want the players to take a hit so that every one of them can remain profitable even if they are completely inept. That’s what this lockout is about. It’s very difficult for me to have less sympathy for the owners of sports teams than I usually do, but these clowns have found a way.
Amir_Khalid
I am amazed to read of these goings-on at the NFL between team owners ad players. To my recollection I have never come across anything like it in all my years of following top-flight football (okay, soccer) in South America or Europe. It cannot be that clubs like Bayern Munich or Real Madrid or Manchester United are owned/run by a class of angels not found among NFL club owners. I’ve never heard of a soccer season at that level being canceled because of a breakdown in player-management relations.
Nor, for that matter, have I ever heard of a big soccer club demanding that the city pay for its stadium. I suspect that such a stunt would be suicidal from a public-relations point of view, because fans would see it as rich people gouging the taxpayer. Why don’t fans of American football see it the same way?
And now for something completely different: I read an excerpt from The Social Animal posted by the New York Times. Good God. After doing that, I don’t just want to call death to yuppie scum; I want whoever “edited” this wretched excuse for a novel, and whoever approved it for publication, to suffer the same fate as the girl in Drag Me To Hell.
Mark S.
Arab League backs Libya no-fly zone. Is this a game changer? Here’s a roundup of views on a no-fly zone.
gbear
Michele Bachmann is wrong about everything, all the time.
Joel
The players are the product. Some of the owners bring quite a bit to the table, in terms of building the league as a product, as well (Jerry Jones and his Cowboy franchise being one of these, to be honest). However, there are absolutely worthless owners like Richardson in Carolina. And unlike past-their-prime (or otherwise not talented enough) players, you can’t just cut those guys loose.
Yutsano
@Mark S.:
Fine. Let them enforce it.
Mark S.
@Amir_Khalid:
Well, in soccer, there’s no salary cap and when you’re done with your contract, you can go wherever you like. I find it ironic that European sports leagues are a lot more free-market than the leagues in America, where baby Jesus capitalism was invented.
soonergrunt
@Yutsano:
Absolutely!
Villago Delenda Est
@gbear:
When Bachmann uses the word “freedom” in a speech, it’s pretty much in the same sort of sense that the leader of a certain political movement in Central Europe in the first half of the 20th century used the word “socialism”.
Yutsano
@soonergrunt: I can hear the “but…but…” already if the US suggests they won’t be involved. More than a few Arab governments buy our shiny new toys. It’s about time they got off their duffs and used them for something productive.
Villago Delenda Est
@J. Michael Neal:
That sort of corporate structure game was also used by Wayne Huizenga in Miami to claim poverty for the Marlins, while stripping them of revenue streams that others included in their books in an honest attempt to account for all the ways MLB teams make money. Huizenga was profiting from those revenue streams but claiming the Marlins were in financial straits because he was essentially skimming his own operation to make it appear that way.
If a court order opened the books, the players would feast on these bastards.
JPL
@gbear:
This is from Boston.com. I’m shocked, just shocked that someone would be upset with AIDS signs.
soonergrunt
PFC Manning’s rebuttal Article 138, UCMJ complaint to Col. Dennis Choike, Commander, Quantico Marine Corps Base, regarding the latter’s denial of 1 March, 2011 of PFC Manning’s original Art. 138 complaint for redress dated 19 January, 2011.
I’m going to pop some popcorn and open a beer now.
PTirebiter
@Chancelot: God knows we suffer from a number of Jerry’s faults but greed is not one of them. Unless you think greed motivated his unwillingness to share more of his merchandising profits with owners that were too cheap to promote their own product. As a Cowboy fan, I’m always mindful of how much worse we could do than Jerry Jones. Daniel the Snide comes to mind.
soonergrunt
@Yutsano: As well as the Europeans, who are the ones pressing for this no-fly zone all the way.
Let them do it themselves if they think it’s so important. Italy has airbases less than an hour’s flight time from 90% of the Libyan population.
Somehow, I don’t think they’re going to put on their big boy pants though. It will be like has ALWAYS been–lots of tough talk about the “will of the international community” and the “rule of law” and then standing behind us.
JWL
I’m not a Steeler fan, but the Rooney’s certainly have to be considered the most decent owners in the league.
It hearkens back to Bobby Kennedy’s comment about George McGovern, i.e., that he “is the most decent man in the senate. Hell, he’s the only decent man”.
The players are the game. Period. I love the NFL, but if the players can hang together, I don’t care how long the owners choose to deny me football.
JPL
Here we go again another cooling system has failed.
#
2212: Some clarification: It is the number three reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 plant where officials have just announced that the cooling system has failed. This morning’s blast took place at the number one reactor at the same plant. “All the functions to keep cooling water levels in No. 3 reactor have failed at the Fukushima No. 1 plant,” a spokesman for the operator said.
licensed to kill time
four endless hours
no new thread
front pagers asleep or dead?
Loneoak
It’s nice to know that we can maintain an NFL open thread even in the off season.
Corner Stone
@soonergrunt:
I, too, can hardly wait to see Mike Kay’s selective redacting of this document to include “the”, “and”, “in” and “aye” to once and for all prove how correct he is in this matter.
Yutsano
@soonergrunt: France is not that far either, not to mention I’m certain Malta would love the economic boost of hosting a few European flight crews on their shores. Old Maltese tradition and all that. But it’s a lot easier to threaten someone with a stick when you send another person to actually swing it. I have zero doubt they’ll pressure us to do the major heavy lifting in all the military interventions.
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: And I’m sure Angry Clown Lady will pop by later to re-post someone else’s work in full and then add on a STFU or two in her own distinctive and inimitable style of writing.
Amir_Khalid
@Mark S.: If a US-enforced no-fly zone is a seriously flawed idea, and I’m convinced that it is, how would an Arab League-enforced be one any better? The League’s endorsement doesn’t solve the practical issues Robert Gates has raised, and I’m not sure it would bring around the permanent Security Council members — Russia and China — who object because they see it as interference in Libya’s sovereign affairs.
hilts
@Villago Delenda Est:
Rush Limbaugh is another asswipe down there with Larry Kudlow and Brit Hume
Limbaugh Asks If “Environmentalists” Will “Cheer” Or “Pretend To Be Saddened” By Quake In Japan’s Car-Making Region
h/t http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201103110015
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Ooooh. you are such a badass, CS.
Yutsano
@General Stuck: DNFTT. That is all.
soonergrunt
@Corner Stone: look, I don’t know how much of that is the unvarnished truth and how much is shaded and how much is high octane bullshit.
I do know that whatever is true on that document is certainly stupid and petty and morally wrong, and some of it may be illegal.
I also know that it’s utterly irrelevant to his guilt or innocence under the UCMJ, and that the only role it will play at court-martial is at the sentencing phase, should Manning be convicted.
Cat Lady
OT –
nestor
@Corner Stone:
Some Crowbar for you.
General Stuck
@Cat Lady:
They detected Cesium being released in the steam, so that pretty much confirms a meltdown, the only question is can they contain it to a partial meltdown, or does in become complete and a total unmitigated disaster.
eemom
@Loneoak:
There are those among us who think it sux.
hilts
Another genius from the Fox Business Network
“If a nuclear reactor survived this devastation,” Eric Bolling argued on Follow the Money on Fox Business Friday, “that’s a pretty good real-world test that we should give nuclear energy more of a test.”
h/t http://www.mediaite.com/tv/eric-bolling-despite-emergency-in-japan-america-needs-more-nuclear-reactors
Boudica
@PTirebiter: I’m grateful that Jerry Jones lets us use Cowboy Stadium for our HS football playoffs and that we were able to hold our daughter’s HS graduation last June there (graduation was to have been held outside, but a heat wave had us looking at temps of 107)…but I’ll never be a Cowboys fan.
General Stuck
@hilts:
Makes sense if your invested in nuclear disaster of epic proportions cleanup technology. If not, then get you some/ Fox Money
Loneoak
@eemom:
There are more than one blog on the intertubes.
Odie Hugh Manatee
If anyone is interested in seeing a clip of the tsunami damage that hit our community (Brookings, Oregon), a local put together some shots they took down at the harbor and posted it to YouTube. I know it’s nothing compared to the disaster that hit Japan but in our small community (about 6,500) it really drives home a tiny bit of what Japan is facing.
One person was killed in the harbor, they are seen bringing the body back up a piece of the remaining dock. I found out that seven boats that were swept out to sea, three sank almost immediately and four others are unknown but probably lost). I earlier misunderstood when I was told that only three sunk and the others were retrieved successfully. Nope. The commercial dock took the brunt of the damage but it still f’ed everything up down there.
The harbor was just rebuilt in the late 90’s so it’s good equipment that got wiped out, not old, worn out equipment. Getting it rebuilt was a royal fight here because it’s largely a retiree community who don’t like to part with their money for projects. But it was done and now the harbormaster is just sick about this mess.
Mentally scaling what happened here to what happened in Japan puts you in true awe of the devastation over there. I know how we feel and I am sure it’s a tiny fraction of what they are feeling.
It’s a sad clip to watch though. We live behind the first house shown up on a bluff in it.
RareSanity
@J. Michael Neal:
Is there some repository for which analysis like this is readily available? Preferably in internet form?
If it is your 100% original observation, then your ideas intrigue me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter…
eemom
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
link plz?
Mark S.
@hilts:
Wind power–the silent killer.
soonergrunt
@Odie Hugh Manatee: A link, sil vous plait.
Corner Stone
@Yutsano: What’s up with that?
Mike in NC
@gbear:
She was obviously thinking about the famous “Portsmouth Tea Party”, or was it the “Manchester Coffee Party”?
Remember, Bachmann is now a rising star among teabaggers for being “Sarah Palin with brains”. Jesus wept.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Oops! Forgot the link!
Corner Stone
@nestor: Thanks!
Barb (formerly Gex)
@MikeJ: Negotiation in modern America: Employers offer you something. Take it or FOAD.
nestor
@Corner Stone:
NP. I sensed a strong connection between you and that track.
Corner Stone
@nestor: Oh yeah, I like all their tunes. Thanks!
J. Michael Neal
@RareSanity: I can’t remember who I read as my source, but I saw analyses like that in several places, including ESPN. What has mystified me is that I haven’t seen any of them recently. Back when the owners invoked their right to reopen the CBA after this last season(fn1), that explanation was given for them doing so. That was in 2008. *Nothing* I have seen this year has explained it. I have no idea what’s up, other than the possibility that all of the major sports operations are too close to the league.
Of note, it’s also the players that object to all of the diverted revenues. They are supposed to receive a certain percentage of all revenues, and they don’t want the owners siphoning a large chunk of them out of the system. This is a part of what is going on when they want the CBA percentages to be based on gross revenue rather than net.(fn2)
(fn1) This is another thing to keep in mind when looking at the lockout. It was the owners that chose to end the CBA early. Had they not taken that step, it would (I think) another two years before this fight took place.
(fn2) You can’t look at the fact that the players are going to get a lower share of the revenues to mean, on its face, that they will be getting less money. The switch from net to gross means that it takes a lower percentage to get the same payout. The owner are trying to reduce the amount they pay the players, but it’s more complex than that.
Stillwater
@Corner Stone: Exactly. I thought he was helping you out there, bro.
Et tu, Yutsano?
Edited to correct an egregious spelling error.
J. Michael Neal
And I’m pissed. The Gophers just didn’t show up to play. Twenty four seconds into the game, All-American goalie Noora Räty bounced the puck off of her stick straight to a BC player in front of an open net. At 2:45 of the first, a couple of our defensemen handed the puck away. Noora misplayed another puck at 8:16. It was 4-0 after one period, and the Gophers never mustered the fortitude to mount any sort of comeback. 4-1 final.
I think they bought into their press and were already getting set to play Wisconsin next week. I ran my mouth here about them being the second best team in the country. I stand by everything I said, but you don’t want the team believing that, and they did. BC is a good team, fast as hell, but we handed this game away. No excuse for that.
Go Bucky! I do not want to watch those cheap fuckers from Duluth next week.
Yutsano
@Stillwater: Wait, I r cornfuzzled.
soonergrunt
@Yutsano: he wants to know why you told Stuck “DNFTT. That is all” apparently in regards to Corner Stone, thereby implying that Corner Stone is a troll, and possibly marking yourself as someone who thinks that PFC Manning should be tortured to death, instead of given a special one-off medal and made co-president for life.
Stillwater
@Yutsano: DNFTT. Do Not Feed The Troll?
Who that referred to is perhaps better left unsaid.
Stillwater
@soonergrunt: I’d like to think there are other options in between. But really, you’re either with is or agin us. Isn’t that the way it always goes?
soonergrunt
@Stillwater: You tell me.
nestor
@J. Michael Neal:
I still want to see a woman play goaltender in the NHL.
Stillwater
@soonergrunt: Well, if you keep in on the DL, you and I know that there are alot of issues involved here – protocols, permissions, expectations…
The military may be doing exactly what they are permitted, and in some sense, required to do. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that a guy has been held in questionable circumstances for what? 8 months now without a trial as if he were already convicted.
It’s complicated, just like all this type of stuff is.
S. cerevisiae
@J. Michael Neal: Bucky’s goin’ down tonight! So are the sled dogs from St. Cloud.
Go Bulldogs!
J. Michael Neal
@S. cerevisiae: I’d have been happy to root for the Bulldogs, but they played an utterly classless last ten minutes in the WCHA semi last week. A lot of taking runs at Gophers, cross-checks and slashing. Frankly, your women’s team ranks above North Dakota in terms of gratuitous mayhem, but not by a whole lot.
soonergrunt
@Stillwater: I don’t think the guy should be kept in any more restrictive confinement than that necessary to ensure that he shows up for trial. That’s the standard for pre-trial confinement.
Now, what the hell that means is kind of hard to say when I’m in OKC and the facility in question in Quantico, VA, but for some detainees, merely putting them in a cell isn’t enough. For some, taking away their clothes is too much. I know precisely dick about what the facts of the case are, and each of the primary sources has ample reason to lie, prevaricate, shade the truth, and what-have-you. Some of those sources are known to me, or very strongly suspected from previous acts/statements to be not entirely honest or knowledgeable. I might fairly be inclined to trust them less. Your mileage may vary.
Having said that, I think PFC Manning is guilty as hell and should spend his entire life in jail. It’s definitely good for him, and probably good for me that I am ineligible to the members panel.
Corner Stone
@soonergrunt:
This is interesting coming from you as at least I am aware of your previous posts dealing with the presumption of guilt.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: It is possible to believe, based on one’s knowledge of the facts of a legal case that the person committed the acts of which he or she is accused and yet believe in the legal presumption of innocence that requires the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. For example, I have always thought that OJ committed the murders, but I had no problem with the jury finding him not guilty because the prosecution did not meet their burden.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you counselor. I’m aware people can have opinions.
I was speaking specifically to sooner as this topic has been hotly debated in the past, including a personal backstory.
Not to say I exclude you from joining, which I obviously don’t. But that wasn’t a plea for others to refrain from judgment.
And there’s no way Nordberg did it. The gloves didn’t fit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I see where you are coming from on this. I had read it as a general observation. Not Nordberg, but John Walker from Capricorn One.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
the nfl is the toy box, its monopoly money they are playing with.
but it is an interesting means of getting at people’s perceptions of unions, management, who has what rights when.
my view.
the owners demanded concessions.
the owners insufficiently, and with much subterfuge, made their case as to why the concessions were needed.
concussions, 18 games, rookie cap, none of it matters.
the owners were demanding 1 billion, came down to 650 million, then at the last-minute, a convenient 32 way split of half of that, 325 million was offered.
thus painting the picture for some that the players were being intransigent, when the owners never made their case.
lets not forget, the beginning of this mess was the owners voiding the previous deal. it was always their duty to explain why. you would be amazed at how many otherwise reasonably smart people were washed out of the discussion by all the posturing between then and now.
Stillwater
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s right. And certainly I felt the same way about OJ. The difference, I guess, is that OJ wasn’t held pre-trial in circumstances that appear to be only justified as a form of post-conviction punishment. I grant that the evidence for all this, one way or the other, is pretty shaky. But Crowley’s comments yesterday certainly reinforce the view that Manning’s treatment isn’t conforming to certain procedural, or at least limiting, guidelines.
Edit: Also, OJ lost his ass in the civil case, so there’s justice after all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Stillwater: Given the respective burdens of proof in civil and criminal trials, I tend to think both juries got it right. With respect to Manning, to the extent that his treatment varies from that necessary to both ensure his appearance at trial and guaranty his safety and health, I would say that the treatment is improper and, quite probably, abusive. It appears that there is sufficient evidence of improper treatment that I would say he should be moved to a different facility.
General Stuck
@Stillwater:
Baloney, Crowley is almost certain to not have access to the DOD prisoner files or otherwise have access to knowing exactly what the conditions of Manning’s treatment are.
He most likely made that statement because Amnesty International got involved, and is an institution the State Department is sensitive to their concerns, and AI has not seen Manning or visited the jail, and the only way they could get information was likely thru the gang of four left wing bloggers, and possibly Manning’s attorney.
All of this shaken out, with a big insight from the guys father, looks like the most of mistreatment has to do with the continued POI status, and stringent enforcement of the regs for that status. The military is not going to put Manning in general population for the sake of his own safety, which is a move never done for those charged with the crimes he is charged with.
I had thought they were making him present nude for morning formation, but now that appears at Manning’s insistence, which probably doesn’t help Manning’s case for good mental health and lifting of POI status.
If there is one other charge of deviance from the norms of his status as to other prisoners with the same status, I don’t know what it is. Other than the reams of smoke and bullshit from the lefty bloggers, and Manning’s father put the lie to that nonsense.
Stillwater
@General Stuck: Whew! I’m glad you cleared that up for me Stuck. For a minute there I thought Crowley, being the Assistant SoS, might know what the hell he was talking about. Thanks for the tip that he gets his talking points from Amnesty International and not – you know – from governmental sources!
And I appreciate your taking the time to tell me how government works, and who knows what when and why. It’s really amazing to me how you – of all people! just this guy I know on the internet! – know more about this stuff than some lowly Assistant to the Secretary of State! Or anyone else for that matter!
Dude! I’m, like, honored!
General Stuck
@Stillwater:
So in other words, you got nothin”
Tell me, does Stillwater really run deep? bro
Stillwater
@General Stuck: Nothin but ridicule for your obstinate defense of a situation that you know very little about, and certainly less than Amnesty International or Crowley.
General Stuck
@Stillwater:
@Stillwater:
And did even read Manning’s 138 complaint? It is near entirely centered around the strictures of his continued POI status. How is a guy in State department going to have access to Manning’s psych records?
Amnesty International’s entire complaint is caveated with “appears” to be being mistreated. They have no other way of getting this info, other than the bloggers and Manning’s attorney. And I am not defending the “situation”, I am saying the sources of info we have been getting are likely bullshit. And I sure as hell trust Manning’s father more than a bunch of bloggers with agendas.
Crowley later clarified that he wasn’t speaking officially, and that his remarks were entirely personal ones, or, I don’t know what’s going on but it sounds bad. So you cannot claim what he said as “official government sources”.
What I am saying is that the POI status is what is at question, and whether it is justified is something you or I don’t know. If it isn’t justified, then the military is out of line and needs to be called on it. So I am all for AI, or any other entity, governmental or not, investigating this question. But all the other nonsense that has been thrown about, as deviating from POI regs for some kind of special punishment, there is no evidence of, other than bloggers of record for this case.
Ija
@Amir_Khalid:
I think the main difference is collusion. There is a greater degree of collusion among the owners of NFL teams compared to the European soccer league. I can’t understand why, what with that anti-trust law and all. But I guess if you own a football team and not a software company, anti-trust laws don’t apply to you.
piratedan
@PTirebiter: yeah Greed isn’t one of Jerry’s faults… you witness that stellar act of marketing and customer service regarding the Super Bowl? Guy has two years to get ready and they’re busy installing seats hours before the game? Okay, I’m sure that was all pro bono seating I guess…..
Mark S.
@General Stuck:
Where do you get that? This is what his lawyer said:
J. Michael Neal
@Ija: The NFL had an anti-trust exemption with regards to any labor related subject so long as there was a collective bargaining agreement, and would have continued if the union hadn’t decertified, as the assumption would be that there would be a new CBA containing the NFLPA’s permission to behave as a cartel.
General Stuck
@Mark S.:
Like I said, I am all for some sort of inquiry, possibly from the court or some other entity to make a finding on the appropriateness of the continued POI status as to existing protocols.
And I was specifically addressing the charge from bloggers and others that Manning was forced to show up nude for morning formation, which would have been a very fucked up thing for the military to do, and several folks on other threads claimed that was a bogus claim.
But put yourself in the brig commanders shoes for a second, and imagine making a mistake and taking Manning off suicide watch, and he offs himself. And in such a high profile case, a prisoner makes remarks like Manning did, even if not serious, what would you do? Take a chance?
Not to mention, defense attorneys are not exactly the go to folks for definitive truth about their clients situation. But it should be investigated by some other party, I agree it is enough for that to occur.
Stillwater
@General Stuck: That’s a damn good argument. Why don’t you write like that more often, instead of just reducing things to GG-this, or lefty-blogger that, or just going straight for ad hominem? Christ, that was enjoyable to read! You focused on the primary issue and made a case, without framing things in terms of a firebagger-prog-Obot flame war. Nicely done.
Wrt AI’s complaint being qualified, they can’t assert that mistreatment is occurring, since that’s something for a court to determine. Their familiarity with situations similar to this, as well as their access to myriad tyopes of source material, lends credibility to their claims.
Wrt Crowley, to think that he doesn’t know more about this than we do is to accuse him of a sorta institutionally catastrophic level of ignorance. That he back tracked isn’t surprisingly, since his remarks indicate (whether they are true or not) either knowledge and complicity on the part of the Executive, or fundamental differences in how State views Manning’s treatment.
As for primary sources having witnessed Manning’s treatment themselves, I agree there isn’t much, if any, reliable first hand testimony (and I have said as much). Finally, wrt the interview with Mannings father, in the midst of saying that his son is doing fine, he also concedes that his son is being held in solitary. And how much weight we ought to put on that interview is subject to opinion in any event.
Something’s going on here, we don’t know much, others know more. Given the evidence as I understand it, I think Manning’s being mistreated.
soonergrunt
@Corner Stone:
It works better if you include the sentence that follows:
Now, unlike PFC Manning, I didn’t brag to someone in detail as to how I committed the charged crime. Unlike Manning, I didn’t leave what by all accounts amounts to a huge amount of forensic evidence implicating me (and only me) in the charged crime.
If someone comes forward and admits that they committed the the security breaches for which PFC Manning is charged, I would rethink my position.
As to the presumption of innocence, I offer first the fact that when I mentioned such during the Roethlisberger false accusations drama, I was informed by many people here that this is the internet, and more specifically Balloon-Juice, and we aren’t bound by the same requirements (with the unstated but implied “and stop being such a prissy little bitch.”) I figure I should get to live to the same standard everyone else does.
I offer second the fact that I’ve already stated that I am not eligible to any members’ panel, should PFC Manning elect such with enlisted representation. Retired personnel are not called to serve on courts-martial. Rest assured that if congress and the President alter the UCMJ and about sixty separate Army regulations in the next sixty days or so, I’ll ask the Military Judge to dismiss me from the pool because I think he’s guilty as hell and cannot judge him fairly. There are people who think I committed the crime to this day. There’s not a whole hell of a lot I can do about that. Such is life.
None of the above should be taken for a minute to mean that I think that Manning, or any other military prisoner or detainee should be mistreated. To do so lowers us. It’s not enough to say “well, at least we’re not as bad as China or Pakistan.”
All prisoners, regardless of whether or not they’ve been convicted or they are awaiting trial or what have you are entitled to basic human decency, and showing decency and behaving in a professional manner is how we protect ourselves.
Those who would fight monsters must take care not to become that which they behold.
General Stuck
@Stillwater:
You shouldn’t praise, cause I still think you are a firebagging ass of the second or third order, and generally filled heaping high of mostly bullshit, and this comment does not change that opinion. but thanks. have a nice night. :)
Stillwater
@General Stuck: I still think you are a firebagging ass of the second or third order
What, no comment on my argument? WTF!
Mark S.
@General Stuck:
Fair enough. I’m inclined to think they’re fucking with him, hoping he’ll admit to secret clandestine meetings with Assange or something. I think the problem is that Manning can’t give them the goods on a conspiracy charge.
I do think Manning is guilty and will do an extended time in prison. I think he did it partly because he thought he was smarter than everybody else, but partly also because he was horrified by some of the shit we are doing over there. So I’m sort of ambivalent about the whole thing.
Barry
@drkrick: “It would seem that freedom to pick your employer would be in place unless a union had bargained it away for you.”
Are you seriously trying to suggest that the league wouldn’t be drafting players if there wasn’t a union?
Xenos
@Ija: We have anti-trust law, but the resources to enforce it have been gutted over the last 10 years, and there seems to be no political momentum to change that.