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posted by janrinok on Sunday June 03 2018, @10:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the naughty-naughty dept.

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


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  • (Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @05:23AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @05:23AM (#688237)

    White lives only don't matter because of the poor choices white trash make, like starting the Traditionalist Incestuous Worker Party of White Nationalists and MIL fuckers like Matt Heimbork, or Heimbach, or Heimlich, a la manuevor. This is why we cannot have white supremacy, white folk be too fucking stupid, and over-sexed, and not in a good way.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @02:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @02:56PM (#688385)

    All opposition to identity politics is white supremacy. White supremacy is something that only those who were assigned the male gender at birth would ever aspire to. There are no womyn-born-womyn and certainly no feminist white supremacists. No siree! And it just so happens that white supremacists, now that we've ejected all womyn-born-womyn from the movement, happen to all fall into various categories of failed men. Just because we love sucking the gender dichotomy's cock and gargling the balls of heteronormativity. Additionally, using insults developed by the patriarchy to induct young men into systems of power known for repressing human rights when women want to have them could not possibly backfire.

    tl;dr you're not going to win hearts and minds by offering a slightly different brand of reactionary, right-wing nonsense.