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The Center for American Progress reports
Last month, the NFL announced a new policy for its players during the national anthem: Players are permitted to stay in the locker room during the anthem, but if they go out onto the field during it, they must stand. If any of the players takes a knee, the team will be fined.
Soon afterwards, a Wall Street Journal report confirmed what most have long suspected: That President Donald Trump's public outrage about NFL players protesting police brutality and systemic racism during the national anthem at football games heavily influenced NFL owners to change the rule, and discouraged them from signing players who would protest.
It's all terrible news for those in favor of free speech and peaceful protest, and for those against white nationalism and police brutality.
However, Mark Geragos, the lawyer representing Kaepernick in his collusion lawsuit against the NFL, [...] believes [...] that Trump's direct influence over NFL owners on this issue violates federal law. U.S. Code 227 [which] says that members of Congress or the executive branch cannot "wrongfully influence a private entity's employment decision ... solely on the basis of partisan political affiliation".
A few revelations from the last couple of weeks strongly support Geragos' case here, and it's important to remember that Geragos knows much more about the case than we do--he has taken the depositions of more than a dozen NFL owners, while the public only knows about the depositions that have leaked.
[...] Of course, influencing the private hiring decisions of a company isn't the only part of U.S. Code [227] that needs to be proved; it would also have to be shown that Trump did it for partisan political purposes.
That sounds trickier to prove, but in this case, that's not necessarily true. First of all, Trump's comments were made at a political rally supporting an Alabama Republican candidate for US Senate--an expressly partisan environment. And according to the WSJ, Trump told Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in private conversations that the issue was a "winning" one for him.
Previous: NFL: New National Anthem Rule; NY Jets CEO: Break the Rule and I'll Pay the Fine
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @12:53AM (12 children)
Worshiping symbols does not make you a patriot; it makes you a jingoist. People like Snowden are the real patriots, since they issues facing their country and try to improve it.
Kneeling during an anthem harms no one and does nothing. The only reason it's talked about so often is that the US is filled with fake patriot snowflakes.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @04:49AM (5 children)
No one is physically harmed, true. Unless they have bad knees.
What it does do, though, when performed on TV before a sporting events by the athletes, is piss off the paying customers. It doesn't matter if you or the team owners or the athletes think the paying customers are stupid for getting pissed off -- they're still pissed off. Pissed off customers stop being customers, and the team takes in less money.
This is about employees acting in a manner that directly results in less income to the employer. The employer is well within it's rights to order the employees to stop doing that while on the job. If the athletes wanted to do that outside the stadium after the game, the employer would have no right to restrict them from that behavior.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @05:22AM (3 children)
But that's the issue. Why does it offend them? If these were blue-haired college kids getting offended by something ridiculous, many people who are on the right would be mocking them for being oversensitive snowflakes. Yet, here, we see that the people offended by people kneeling during the anthem aren't getting similarly mocked by most of those same people. There is some serious hypocrisy at work here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @08:58PM (2 children)
The same reason that your "blue-haired college kids" get offended by MAGA hats. Because they see it as disrespectful to their core beliefs. It doesn't really matter why anyway. The facts that matter is that a large part of the core customer base of the product they sell finds it offensive. Team owners have run the numbers and believe that their business will be financially better catering to the ones who find it offensive instead of the ones who do not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @12:00AM (1 child)
And if the blue haired college kids started demanding that every MAGA hat wearing freak be fired or put in a prison camp, well then you'd have my support. For now the idiots getting all offended by people taking a knee are in the wrong. They should protest by holding up signs and boycotting the NFL. You being OK with this "its a business" excuse just makes me think that every protesting hippy should be allowed to destroy industrial equipment and trespass to prevent environmental pollution. You sure you wanna go down the anarchy path?
It is one thing for an employer to pass whatever rules they'd like, and obviously the NFL is trying to placate their moronic base, but it is something else entirely for the POTUS or congress critter to call for firing someone because they are offended. If you can't wrap your brain around this simple idea then you should emigrate to the Middle East and join those nutjobs.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @01:16AM
Awwwww.... Did someone get triggered?
Nobody demanded anyone be sent to prison camp. You're just fucking nuts. And if you think your "blue haired college kids" aren't demanding people be fired for less than that, you haven't been paying attention. Apparently Evergreen State College is demanding a prof be fired for showing up to work on a day they declared to be free of whiteness. https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/09/18/evergreen-professor-receives-500000-settlement [insidehighered.com]
You are completely crazy. How can any sane human being equate asking an employee to stand for a three minute portion of his workday with promoting the extrajudicial destruction of privately owned property by people as equally nutty as you? This is why sane people do not take you retarded "progressives" seriously. Until you learn to take your meds on a regular basis, you are going to have to be happy howling at the moon and hiding in your safe spaces.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday June 04 2018, @06:46AM
So what you're saying is that when big customer hits on the executive assistant, she'd damned well better put out? If she says no, he may not want to order as much.
Is standing for the Anthem in their job description?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:06PM
i agree with the whole fake patriot stuff. the whole country is full of idiotic slaves that fund the seditious scum at the irs and all the enemy agencies that shouldn't even exist. they pay property tax willingly like dumb fucks who can never own their own home/property. they let the government send volunteer soldiers to die in countries that didn't attack or threaten to attack us, etc. they cheer as monstrous pigs steal, kidnap and kill for unconstitutional(illegal) laws. they stupidly attack the small percent of people who actually bother to educate themselves and uphold their duty to the true purpose of this country. the list of seditious shit these people support is staggering in it's volume.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:36PM (4 children)
Yeah, I think I saw a thing about the difference between Nationalism and Patriotism:
Nationalism is having everyone salute your flag.
Patriotism is having a nation who's flag everyone wants to salute.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday June 04 2018, @06:45PM (1 child)
Patriotism is overlooking the flaws in your country in order to claim that it's the best country.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @08:20PM
PatriotismNationalism* is overlooking the flaws in your country in order to claim that it's the best country.Let me just fix that for you
*Nationalism practitioners often refer to Nationalism as Patriotism. Not surprisingly, being well educated is not a requirement, and is often an impediment, towards practicing Nationalism.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @08:24PM (1 child)
To add another quote and paraphrase Seneca,
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 05 2018, @02:11AM
Alas, poor Seneca! And all we have here on Soylentnews is Sulla!