We started off the day with a fierce storm: steady downpour, lightning, thunder — the works. Sounds like it’s beginning to taper off now.
Looks like the Minnesota Vikings suits have realized that lashing four-year-old children bloody doesn’t play any better than knocking women out cold on an elevator: Adrian Peterson has been barred from team activities.
President Obama is here in Florida to get a briefing on the plan to defeat ISIS. My guess is CentCom won’t follow Chelsea Manning’s advice, but perhaps they should.
Open thread.
Mustang Bobby
Have fun in the traffic when the president shows up. The presidential motorcade always messes with the traffic in Miami… but then, so does an errant mattress on I-95.
debbie
I just listened to George Atallah on NPR, defending the NFL Players Association decision to sue on behalf of Ray Rice. With that kind of compartmentalization, he could have a real future in politics.
Tommy
I hate to admit this because my parents are awesome, but I had a belt and a switch taken to my ass as a kid. I never thought it was child abuse. It was just the way it was.
Personally I’d never raise a hand to a child, but I do get that in the time my parents felt this was how things were done.
Joel
@debbie: They have to defend him — and should — he’s a member of the union, and the league was wholly inconsistent in their punishment.
Betty Cracker
@Tommy: My dad whipped our butts with a belt from time to time. However, it was through clothing, and we didn’t have bloody lacerations a week later as Peterson’s child did.
I think spanking is wrong. Period. But there’s piss-poor parenting, and then there’s criminal child abuse. My father’s actions were an example of the former, and Peterson’s are an example of the latter, IMO.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Sue? Appeal is more like it (from what I have read) and they would have been derelict in their duty to their dues paying members if they hadn’t appealed. What Goodell did in the beginning was stupid. What he followed up with was an insult, against all common sense, and against the law.
Betty Cracker
@Mustang Bobby: I hope the president enjoyed this morning’s storm from whatever fabulous penthouse suite he occupied overnight. There are two hotels in the Tampa Bay area that presidents typically stay in during their rare visits to our humble media market, and both have exceptional water views, naturally.
RaptorFence
Bit off topic, but I wanted to share this heartwarming story about a poor, conservative media conglomerate struggling to make it in the face of Obama’s tyranny.
“The company flirted with bankruptcy in the early 2000s but has grown rapidly in the past three years, more than doubling its station count through acquisitions.”
Its magic formula seems to be “sponsored content”…
MattF
Here in the DC area, one of the local TV stations has changed ownership. The WaPo notices a ‘subtle’ change in the news coverage:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/under-new-ownership-wjla-tv-takes-a-slight-turn-to-the-right/2014/09/16/a21ffa6e-3ac8-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html?hpid=z4
I don’t think ‘subtle’ is the word I’d use, but I’m a librul, so my opinion doesn’t count.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Is it just me?
In the last day or so, whenever I refresh the main B-J page I get a file “65433.swf” that automatically wants to download. I always discard it.
Is it some weird ad or something?
I’m using Adblock, Flashblock, and Chrome on Winders. It doesn’t happen with FF on the same PC.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
MattF
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: ‘xxx.swf’ is an Adobe Flash file, and needless to say, it won’t do anything good.
Betty Cracker
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I have not seen that, and I’m running Chrome on Winders too (Ghostery and FlashBlock).
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
The president probably caused the morning storm. /Florida wingnut
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Its a shockwave file so I assume ad in this case. I am not seeing it but who knows what crap my employer is blocking for me. I am surprised given you are buttoned up pretty well that you are getting it. My guess is someone thought they have a clever way to end-around those things & in your case they darn near made it.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
When you think of all the children who are being hit, abused, or tortured at this very moment — it’s almost too much to bear. Psychopaths have it easy.
Cervantes
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
It’s not only you. Just delete those files. Do nothing else with them.
debbie
@Joel:
So, because the NFL’s initial reaction was basically a slap on the wrist, nothing more should be done when Rice’s actions are found to be more vicious (leaving aside the issue of whether or not they’d seen the entire video at the beginning)?
BBA
@MattF: WJLA was already right-wing under Albritton. If even WaPo notices a change with the Sinclair takeover, that’s…something.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
If they had that kind of good sense, she wouldn’t be in Leavenworth in the first place.
OzarkHillbilly
Heh.
Two Cheers for Obama: Nobody Makes the Best Out of Bad Situation Like He Does
Moneyquote:
“Obama’s policy of containing and degrading ISIL with U.S. air strikes while he attempts to find local boots on the ground is far from an ideal policy. But as the rare failure of Republicans to second-guess the president suggests, it’s hard to come up with a better one.“
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Cervantes: Thanks.
It seems to be from Kaltura.com and it seems to be some sort of ad.
It’s curious that
Flashblock, er FlashControl 5.14.3, isn’t handling it correctly. Guess I need to look around for another option.Thanks again.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@debbie:
Those two phrases don’t square with each other.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker: He was at the Hilton Tampa Downtown.
Baud
@BBA:
Sinclair has a history of conservative activism, IIRC.
Thunderbird
Watching some of my FB friends bend themselves into pretzels defending both Rice (“She hit him first, she got what she deserved”) and Peterson (“I was spanked as a child, no big deal, maybe more parents should be doing this”) has really got me contemplating another mental health break.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: Then he had a nice view of the Hillsborough River (such as it is) and Tampa Bay, plus he’s just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from MacDill AFB. If he leaves right now, he can snarl traffic most grievously!
debbie
@Baud:
Look, I’m not disputing the NFL’s idiocy on domestic violence, I just don’t understand why increasing the punishment (or whatever you want to call it) is so wrong. Are you saying that Rice should in effect benefit from the NFL’s initial decision to look the other way?
Cervantes
@Thunderbird:
It may help to remember that Facebook’s marketing decision to call them (your) “friends” has nothing to do with reality.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: What new evidence showed that Rice’s actions were “more vicious”? He punched his girl friend so hard it knocked her unconscious to the extent that he had to drag her out of the elevator. This was known from the beginning, the only thing that changed is that people were suddenly able to see with their own eyes in full technicolor horror how violent and disgusting domestic abuse really is, thereby embarrassing the hell out of the NFL.
So the NFL should get a do-over because of embarrassment?
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, MacDill is how he flew in yesterday, as you know.
Baud
@debbie:
The NFL and the players have a contract. If the arbitrator determines that the contract says that there can be no increase in punishment absent new facts, then that’s the end of it.
Iowa Old Lady
@debbie: I think the NFL has to follow its contract. That’s what I’d expect from my employer. It seems to me that the real punishment should come through the courts anyway, not Rice’s boss.
JPL
Another Peterson child has a scar on his head because he hit his head on the car seat, while his father was whooping him. If only that four year old, stayed still, it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe it’s time that Peterson is not left alone with children.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
If the NFL were embarrassed by violence, would it exist?
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
That’ll never happen.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@debbie:
The NFLPA is saying (and correctly sadly) that the NFL had already determined Rice’s punishment & it is not right that he should get a second punishment for the same offence. The problem started when the ballless NFL wanted to soft peddle a vicious attack & got caught. I heard the guy on NPR & wanted to punch the radio but they have a point. The problem is so much bigger than Rice or Peterson or the other 2-3 high profile problem children they are currently aware they are harboring.
Its like the ACLU defending the Nazi Party. I hate that they are doing it but I understand they have to stand on the principal.
EDIT: @OzarkHillbilly:
BINGO! If the rotten bastards cared about anything other than money in the first place this would not be an issue. They thought they would be clever & finesse the punchout. Goodell & a bunch of other need to go, I doubt it will change the culture though.
Randy P
@debbie: My understanding (which isn’t very deep, not having followed it closely) was that they weren’t following their own policy. And re-punishing him with a penalty in excess of the policy was not legal. It’s as if a judge sentenced someone to 30 days for shoplifting, then found out that sentencing guidelines mandated a minimum of 1 year, so the judge calls the guy back into court and sentences him to death.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Bob is mostly right, I think.
Question here:
Iran’s position on ISIL is more ambiguous than that, by design. Just this week one of their supremos rejected all cooperation with the US.
Yes, we discussed this distinction here last week.
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: The NFL player doesn’t have to take the field though. I expect the NFL to change it’s rules though, or the number of viewers will fall.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@Cervantes:
The NFL revels in violence & its fans eat it up. But its a violence of relative equals. If one team of 120 pound girlfriends suited up & took the field against an NFL team the public wouldn’t stand for it. Up till the video came out a lot of the mouth-breathers had plausible deniability & many disinterested people had no clue. But the NFL owners & management knew damn well what happened. Instead of doing the right thing because it would hurt one team (and believe me each team wants to protect every other team because they all know they will get their turn in the barrel & want the same consideration) they screwed the pooch & ended up exposing themselves for the cynical, heartless, money-grubbing, abusive bastards that they are.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes: I think it is fair to say that it is not even possible to embarrass the worlds most exclusive club of rich white guys.
@Iowa Old Lady: Chances are there will be no prosecution (if she won’t cooperate, much harder) which leaves only the market place, which even if the NFLPA wins, I think he is toast. Not sure, but I think the Ravens can release him anytime they want and nobody else has to take him.
big ole hound
@Baud: That is the problem. Were they “new facts” or did the NFL office have them all along and figured they were hidden from the public. Goodell has to have all punishment powers taken away and a panel of say three determine all punishments for felonies plus all members of the NFL are suspended immediately following a felony arrest. This might make players, coaches and owners think twice before harming anyone. They have all been prima donnas for too long.
Soonergrunt
@debbie: It’s wrong because it’s illegal. It’s a violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFL Players Association.
If NFLPA doesn’t fight this, it will set a precedent for future relations with the league that it’s OK for the NFL and the teams to arbitrarily punish NFLPA members for violations of previously non-existent policies, or to arbitrarily change punishments at will. The NFLPA is defending the membership and the CBA by fighting this.
Cervantes
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]:
That is the point entire and whole.
All the rest is window-dressing.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes: I have heard/read that there are back door discussions and cooperation going on between the US and Iran that for domestic political reasons neither can admit to in public.
big ole hound
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]: Exactly. The only punishment a team will really fear is loss of draft picks. I cannot figure out how these sports teams have a tax exempt status. Maybe Congress should stop that shit and grab some money.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@OzarkHillbilly:
I thought he had already been to court & got a very light slap on the wrist. Something like an offender treatment program.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Creative ambiguity, yes.
Difficult when there are so many buffoons on both sides not lacking for microphones and TV cameras.
MattF
Why Scotland may actually vote for independence tomorrow:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/09/scotland_s_referendum_to_leave_the_united_kingdom_scots_are_voting_yes_for.html
Yeah, it’s a Slate link, but the author has actually gone to Scotland and used his own eyes and ears to figure out what’s going on. Worth reading.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@big ole hound:
Well no, if you take a start player away from a team, a guy like Rice or Peterson you lessen their chance of winning and reduce the market value of the property. Since there are many titanic egos winning is critical to many & money to all of them. If A turns a blind eye when B’s star get caught B expects the same ‘courtesy’ when his property misbehaves.
I do like the idea of campaigning to take away their tax exempt status though. That would get the NFLs attention in a big way. Anyone know if they can still take depreciation on salaries?
Cervantes
@big ole hound:
The League is tax-exempt. The teams are not, although they each run charitable foundations that are.
It will be a cold day in hell before the League loses its tax exemption.
(I’d love to be wrong about this.)
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]: No, not yet anyway. Very doubtful now that they are married.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@OzarkHillbilly:
That has certainly been suggested. Its is important for both sides to pretend to be uncooperative but important for both sides to cooperate. My guess is they will continue to refuse to have anything to do with each other while coordinating attacks on ISIS/L
Baud
@big ole hound:
Right. The arbitrator will have a lot of issues to work through. My only point is that the NFL is not some deity that can smite at will, but is bound by its contract with the players.
@big ole hound:
The individual teams are not tax exempt. It’s the NFL that’s tax-exempt. What I don’t know is how much “NFL” money is attributed to the teams (and therefore taxed) and how much is attributed to the NFL (and therefore not taxed).
chopper
@MattF:
How many cab drivers did he talk to?
Corner Stone
NFL Network speculating we won’t see AP in a Vikings uniform again, and maybe never again in the NFL.
He’s 30, an age most running backs start dropping quickly, and next year he has a huge salary cap hit against the Vikes bottom line.
Maybe he always drew his superhuman strength because his heart was pure. Now, not so much.
Gene108
Too much of Manning’s plan seems contingent on cutting off ISIL funding sources. If cutting off funds from ISIL were easy, this would have been done months ago.
Also, since outside actors are funding ISIL, even a failed ISIL state can continue to exist indefinitely. North Korea is basically a failed state that can barely feed its people, but thanks to Chinese aid will not collapse any time soon.
The Taliban, when they were running Afghanistan, had very little in terms of trade and international recognition, but they got support from Pakistan, and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia, that they would have held onto power, if not for 9/11/01 and the subsequent US intervention.
The best way to defeat ISIL and any other such Middle East groups is to quit being dependent on sweet, sweet Saudi and Persian Gulf crude oil for energy and transportation (we’d probably still need petroleum for plastics), so no one in the region would have the money to fund an ISIL or Hezbollah.
artem1s
@Thunderbird:
Denial is a wonderful thing and helps all us co-depends from dealing with the truth of our abusive relationships. It’s upsetting to see friends try to justify this behavior because you know it speaks volumes about what they accept as normal in their everyday lives.
MattF
@chopper: I agree it’s a mystery how Tom Friedman always finds cab drivers who agree with him. But I’d been unaware of the political context of the ‘Yes’ campaign in Scotland, and the Slate article is helpful with that.
Corner Stone
@OzarkHillbilly:
IMU, every contract has a “morals clause” in it, where conduct detrimental to the organization is justification for terminating the agreement.
BWTS, I think the NFL should lose their side when the NFLPA appeal works through. If that suspension is reversed, I wonder if any team could possibly consider…?
GregB
I can’t believe a good Christian like Adrian Peterson would beat children until they are scarred.
I mean, he wears a giant cross around his neck.
These are all secular humanist lies to defame another good God fearing man./
Gex
I have a problem with Goodell meting out a punishment, not because he thinks it is appropriate, but because he needs to protect his rep. The rules he made without the duress of the public seeing the second video are what he thinks are appropriate. The punishment he issued was about him saving face. Ray Rice didn’t cause the commish to fuck it up the first time. That’s on Goodell. If Goodell had made this the punishment for a first infraction, there’d be no lawsuit. It has nothing to do with the severity of the punishment. It has everything to do with due process.
But alas, it seems Americans really want their petty tyrants for expedience sake. I see it in the attitudes that expect a President to handle things Congress should. And I just saw someone complain that the NFL didn’t bar AP from being around children. Who the hell wants employers to have that kind of power???
OzarkHillbilly
@Corner Stone: That’s what I thought but was not certain of. Thanx.
Raven
News flash, if you are having a meeting about how to help military and vets in school start the damn thing on time!
Corner Stone
@GregB: The Lord works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.
I was intrigued by the texts he sent regarding whooping his other child that just came out (it’s hard to distinguish because he seems to have a few and he seems to probably have abused them all many times). He says in almost awe that the boy didn’t cry a single drop! And how he’d definitely have to put that one on a system!
And the woman says essentially, “He’s scared of you. He’s 4, he’s not playing mind games with you.”
Corner Stone
I’m curious about the mothers of AP’s children. Did they all think this was just good old fashioned East Texas parenting until the broken skin welts?
That can’t have been the first time he left marks on the child(ren).
mai naem
@Gene108: Oil may be their primary income but you forget that the Saudis and other oil rich countries have lots of money invested in the US and the rest of the west. The worlds a lot more interconnected. Lots of banking money. Lots of real estate. A lot of the trophy hotel properties in the west are owned by mideast royalty. And then there’s Dubai. Just a mideast Cayman Islands. Ever wonder why Benazir Bhutto was living in Dubai when she was in exile? Because all her banana republic $$$ was sitting there.
OzarkHillbilly
@Corner Stone: Domestic abuse is really hard to get ones head around. When I was fighting to get my son’s out of my ex’s failed abortion of a marriage, it drove me absolutely insane. I had to start going to counseling again.
The counselor actually asked me, “How did you let her drag you back in again?”
I wanted to scream at her: “What part of ‘He went after my son.’ did you not get!?!?!???”
mai naem
@Corner Stone: Doesn’t seem like they gave a crap as long as their baby mama $$$ continued to roll in. Their kids being beaten was just collateral damage.
Corner Stone
@mai naem: I think that may be a little harsh. Family dynamics are always more complicated than we want to acknowledge. I’m sure there is some degree there with financial stability involved in decision making.
But AP is a powerful, and I am sure intimidating, presence. It probably took a lot of guts for the mother to take her child to a doctor, knowing what would happen.
It’s easy for me to speculate that she should have done so much earlier, and to say that I would have. But I think there’s a lot more here.
OzarkHillbilly
@mai naem: Money plays a part, but it is a whole lot more complex than that.
Corner Stone
Holy crap. Tucson is supposed to get 3 to 5 inches of rain shortly. That isn’t going to be any fun.
OzarkHillbilly
@Corner Stone: Better head for high ground.
Corner Stone
@OzarkHillbilly: My dad and stepmom live just south of there. I told him to keep his damn boogie board in the closet this run through.
OzarkHillbilly
@Corner Stone: Heh. Words of wisdom…
Joel
@debbie: I would rather not see Ray Rice playing football, at least not before he does penance and shows genuine contrition. By the time that process plays out he would probably be at retirement age, so I suppose I’d rather not see him play football again.
But look at the issue from the union’s perspective: the league arbitrarily issued a punishment and then reversed course and arbitrarily issued another punishment at a later date when faced with a PR backlash. The NFL is not like any other employer — the employees are public figures for one — but that is pretty fucked up from an employee perspective. In the context of the Josh Gordon, Wes Welker, and Orlando Scandrick non-PED suspensions, the short lifespan of an NFL career, and the short lifetime of an NFL player, the union can’t let that precedent stand. Otherwise, the players really *are* disposable.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Your browser doesn’t know what to do with it, so it’s downloading it. It appears to be html5, which a number of Flash blockers don’t know how to block. I’ve been seeing it in connection with the Gillibrand video from a couple of days ago. Just deleted nine copies from my download folder and am very close to firewalling everything coming from kaltura.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone:
Proverbs 13:24:
.
Iowa Old Lady
@debbie: Yeah, the inaction in the court is the real problem.
And as several of you have said, that does leave it to the public to express outrage, which in turn leaves the NFL scrambling. Good.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Makes sense. Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
kindness
California here. Yo Florida…can you send us some of that wet stuff please? We’re tired of fires, dust and dry.
Cervantes
@MattF:
Re tomorrow’s vote in Scotland, here’s another article you might appreciate.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@Corner Stone:
As I recall the child that was killed by momma’s boyfriend last season had never spent any time with his dad, AP. It makes one question both parents motivation in having the kids. Nobody has mentioned the form of relationship between these kids mother(s?) and father. That leaves a lot of room for ugly speculation like is it all about the money for her(them?) and machismo for him? I have come to hate the whole culture of sports in this country and shit like this whole violence debacle on top of unprincipled ‘seed scattering’ just just adds fuel to the fire.
CONGRATULATIONS!
It’s like some of you have never watched a football game or talked to a football fan in your life. Far from being appalled, Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson are living the dream on behalf of these folks.
Corner Stone
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]:
And I recall at that time that I was horrified for AP and could not even begin to imagine how he could continue to play football like the next day.
Now it’s starting to make a little more sense.
Joel
@Corner Stone: IIRC, he didn’t even know he was the father of the child for quite some time. A messy/horrible situation all around, really.
JR in WV
@Corner Stone:
You think they might all hope to get child support if they don’t piss him off? Maybe?
ETA: I know and you know that the system would try to compel him to support his kids, but it is so much easier if he isn’t struggling to not pay child support…
I hate it when parents don’t even know they have a kid. But I can see how it could happen, party, go away…
Corner Stone
@JR in WV: Legally it doesn’t matter if he hates their guts, he’s still responsible. But with his wealth he could probably make it incredibly difficult for them to use the legal system to compel him.
So keeping him sweet may make that better and may even bring other perks he’s not required to provide.
I’d agree there’s no doubt that some portion is financially motivated. But seeing your child returned damaged and then getting texts that he was whooped that badly because he shoved another child…
AP is just a scumbag.
ETA, Ah, I see your edit tracks along with my basic thought on this. Agreed.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
1)
The union is doing the right thing.
2)
I hope both Ray and Peterson never play again, and I hope Peterson goes to jail for many many years.
Tone In DC
@MattF:
I did notice that.
I think that many news outlets have taken a turn to the right over the last six years or so. In a similar vein, many members of the American press have rediscovered their adversarial journalistic bent over those same six years.
Funny how that works.
Elie
We are finally sending substantive help to Africa for Ebola. I liked the President’s announcement about this overdue assistance but I was proud of us and the men and women who will be trying to help a lot of people who are very sick.
What made me truly sad on reading the column in the Times about it was the comments. Jeez — so many people were resentful and miserly — unwilling to help those people. “Why don’t they build their own clinics/hospitals?” “the President is mis-using the military — they don’t know how to do this”… so sad. The military is going to be used for logistics — to build and put together 17 facilities in Liberia. While they may send some medical assistance, the CDC, Public Health Service and WHO are providing medical workers and trainers with the goal of training 500 Liberians per week to give care. It is noble, necessary and too small, but a beginning and the US is demonstrating leadership of the best kind, IMHO.
The other thing that I wanted to weigh in on was the bitching by the family and friends of the two murdered journalists accusing the White House of bullying them and not doing enough — not paying ransom for their sons. I am truly sorry for their losses, but feeding ISILs coffers for their two grown sons who made career and life decisions, is not the way we should go. While I appreciate their grief, I hope that all other journalists, especially freelance, and aide workers realize that there is risk that cannot be mitigated and appropriately prepare their families. It is unfair to beat the administration about this. BTW, Foley was captured before and managed to get released. He definitely pushed his luck. These are adults making adult decisions. Even with that, the US sent in a special ops team to try to rescue Foley — risking the lives of that team to do so.
Thanks, just had to get these two things off my chest…
Betty Cracker
@Elie: I don’t blame the journalists’ families in the slightest; I can’t imagine what horror they’ve endured, and of course every parent is always going to think saving their child is the most important thing in the world.
But like you said, the administration has to make decisions based on what’s best for the country and can’t center policy on saving individuals who understood the risks they were taking. It sucks, but that’s the reality of the situation.
Cervantes
@Tone In DC:
Right, but they’re just stretching for a bit, in between extended periods of being on bended knee.
Origuy
The union has the obligation to defend him, just as the Ferguson FOP has the obligation to provide legal defense for Darron Wilson. The difference I see is that, AFAIK, no one in the NFLPA is speaking out to justify Ray Rice. The leader of the FOP hasn’t been so quiet.
Elie
@Betty Cracker:
Its not that I “blame’ the families per se, but how about respecting your son’s lives and decisions enough to hold your head up and accept their choices. I think its frankly a little unseemly (can’t think of a better term). Its like they want it both ways: sons taking high risk profession but someone else has to cover the risk for them and gets blamed if things don’t come out well. The Europeans pay ransom and all it does is feed more hostage taking and the coffers of ISIS. Sorry, grief aside, this is wrong. To my knowledge no other families have done this when their adult sons were killed by terrorists. Unfortunately, we have had a few.
SFAW
Yet another OT in an OT:
Happy 84th birthday to Olson Johnson!
Betty Cracker
@Elie: It’s a situation akin to when families of domestic murder victims advocate for quicker, more gruesome applications of the death penalty. I don’t agree with them — at all. But I can understand where they’re coming from and am not 100% confident I wouldn’t react in the same way under such ghastly circumstances.
LAC
@Gene108: here I thought she was this poor confused sweet kid over her poor little head and that is why she did what she did. Who knew she was this terrorism strategist?
Elie
@Betty Cracker:
The difference however is that they are blaming the administration rather than accepting their son’s life choices. The victims of rape or domestic murder are truly “victims” in the full sense. The journalists are lion tamers walking into the lion cage. The lions tore them to pieces. Tragic but a risk of the job. Not so for the victims of domestic violence. They didnt expect to be murdered by their spouse and marriage is not ordinarily a state of being where your life should be expected to be at risk.
Keith G
@Elie: They are in pain. They are going to strike out at something. If they’re not happy with the way the government pursued this then they are going to target the head of the government in their striking out.
Being on the receiving end of such criticisms whether they be rational or not is part of the job description of someone in authority. Obama understands this and I’m sure he’s able to accept what’s happening here for what it is.
Betty Cracker
@Elie: I meant “domestic” in the sense of murders committed by Americans against Americans, not in the “domestic violence” sense — sorry for the confusion. The point is, grieving families can’t be expected to react to such horrors in a completely rational way. Or at least, I don’t expect them to.
Bob In Portland
Know for whom you’re rooting.
Bob In Portland
Nothing like cleaning up the political process:
If you were anti-Nazi after WWII you are not pure enough to serve in Kiev’s current government.
But there are no Nazis, just guys nicknamed “Panzer”.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
I agree, Bob, you should be fully informed about the people you’re rooting for:
The Orthodox Church’s role in Russia’s anti-gay laws
I guess advocating for the imprisonment of gay people is okay by you as long as you can tell yourself they’re not actual neo-Nazis, they’re just advocating for the same policies that neo-Nazis want.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: I’m an atheist. All religions create an “us versus them” dynamic, whether God told you to be nice or to be mean, to hate gays or not eat shellfish. But I’m not rooting for anything more than for the US to leave the region alone and stop warring against Russia (because our permanent government wants their petroleum).
If you read the full article you would see that the author has no love for the abuses of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Now the Kiev government is eliminating people from serving in the government by religion, by whether they served in past governments they didn’t like, even if someone opposed the Nazis in WWII. (See the other article.)
So keep cheering, Mnem. It’s never black v. white, but your nationalist heroes are looking quite dingy.
You will admit that there are fascists in the current Kiev government, right?
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Out of curiosity, can you see any other possible reason for them to want to exclude former Soviet officials? Anything at all? Or is it purely based in pro-fascism and the only possible reason they would hate the Soviet Union is because the Soviets fought the Nazis?
As soon as you admit there are fascists in the current Moscow government. But I know you never will.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: Depending on how you define fascist, you could say that there are fascists in our government. In fact, the present-day US fits quite nicely in the classic definition of fascism. By classic, I mean this:
Following your link, yes, there are fascists in Russia. There are fascists in probably every country in the world. I see nothing in the link saying that there are fascists in the government, although I imagine there are.
So let me say that I am absolutely against the US financing fascists in Russia or Ukraine. You?
So let’s agree on something. You are against fascists who may be in Russia, but you are happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with the fascists in Ukraine, and are happy that your tax dollars went towards putting a fascist regime in power in Ukraine. You’re happy with our State Dept. supporting people who want to purify Ukraine by eliminating the Moskal Jewish mafia.
You’re hopeless. You have no clue.
Bob In Portland
There is this terrible disconnect I keep running into here at BJ. Mnem’s most recent post expresses it exactly.
Mnem apparently hates and fears Russia. And that seems to trump our country supporting fascists, actual genuine fascists with a history that stretches back to throwing Jews in the back of trucks and gassing them, because the sons and grandsons of the followers of Hitler are better than people who are ethnic Russians because maybe they’ve kind of modified those swastikas a tad.
I cannot penetrate the idiocy of ignoring what our country is doing because of people’s well-fed hatred of Russia.
Mnem is incapable of grasping that there is a difference between, say, Franco being a fascist and the CIA enabling Pinochet to take over Chile in a violent fascist coup. But lookee here, there are people in Russia who are fascists, and although we have Nazis and fascists wandering our countryside killing people, that doesn’t seem to count for anything because if our government were fascist she would have noticed.
No one here blinked when the big report on MH17 came out saying virtually nothing. It’s okay, you already know. You were told.
Nice little debating society you’ve got here.
Cervantes
@Bob In Portland:
There was an expressed antipathy toward Franco in the beginning, partly for public consumption but, during the two Eisenhower administrations we gave Franco about $1.5 billion in overt economic and military aid; indeed, he was always among the top three recipients of US aid in western Europe during those years.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Poor Bob. You just can’t stop projecting your hatred and fear of Ukrainians onto other people, can you?
For the record, I don’t hate Russia or the Russians. Nor do I fear them. But they are bullying their neighbors and you’re perfectly fine with that even though you claim to decry the exact same behavior from the US. You claim it was wrong for the US to try and overthrow the government of Venezuela by claiming it was illegitimate, but you’re fine with the Russians trying to overthrow the government of Ukraine for the same reason. And the only reason you have is “neo-Nazis” and your blind, irrational hatred of “Ukies.”