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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: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @01:34AM (15 children)
Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom to avoid a speech. But I see how NFL owners want to pretend they're the same. I guess those NFL watching "snowflakes" can't handle anyone disagreeing with their view of the country. A football game should be a "safe space" for patriots!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 04 2018, @01:46AM (13 children)
Your employer guarantees you free speech to customers while on the job? Interesting...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @02:24AM (9 children)
The Venn diagram of "national anthem" and "football" shows zero overlap.
Same deal with "employer" and "national anthem".
To get an intersection requires that you add "stupid".
This anthem silliness in which you nationalists so revel could be eliminated entirely from these events with absolutely no change in the sport of football.
From the starting kickoff to the final gun, everything would remain the same.
Anything that happens on the field between those 2 events (which is what an actual sports fan came for) is unchanged.
Now, if you want dancing girls and bad singers and airplane flyovers and any other nonsense, stay home and pull up YouTube.
...or do that stupid shit out in the parking lot before the game.
As has been mentioned upthread, forced patriotism completely misses the point.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 04 2018, @02:57AM (4 children)
Note that I complete disagree with the NFL owners' decision, and I think they should allow players to act how they think appropriate during the anthem. HOWEVER, from a legal standpoint (as much as I hate to admit it), Mr. Buzzard has a point.
That isn't anywhere near the legal standard for what employers may be able to do. Are the players in their uniforms before the clock of the game starts functioning as official representatives for their employer (the team)? Are they required to be there as part of their job? Yeah, probably.
And yes, employers can certainly choose to restrict the way you express yourself when you're participating in an official job function (even it's not what the "fans" care about) as a representative of who you work for. (Increasingly, legally employers have demonstrated they have the power to even fire you on the basis of how you express yourself publicly outside of your job... a trend I find questionable in some situations -- but we don't even need to go there for this case.)
Bottom line: unless there's something in the player's contract that grants him free speech rights explicitly, there's likely no legal thing preventing an employer for fining or otherwise punishing a player. Some may find it morally repugnant for players to be punished in this case, in which case, you are certainly able to use your free speech rights to disagree with the NFL or Trump or whomever you want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:48AM (3 children)
The owners could just as easily have said that they are going to stop with the anthem nonsense.
If the crowd expects a pre-game song, they could have chosen a different song.
I suggest This land is your land, This land is my land. [woodyguthrie.org]
I'd especially like them to sing the whole thing, in particular the part that says
I'd like to see them try that sing-it-all thing with The Star Spangled Banner.
Did you know that Francis Scott Key was a slaveholder?
Did you know that Key's poem is a racist celebration of slavery? [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [theintercept.com]
Just as the Union Army took Black enlistees seeking to fight against the pro-slavery side 1861 - 1865, the British Army in The War of 1812 accepted slaves whom they had freed and allowed them to be trained as combatants to fought against the pro-slavery side (USA).
That lot was the "slave" which Key was calling out for special brutality.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @01:25AM (2 children)
All we need is rainbows and unicorns. Tell you what chief, when you save up your pennies and buy a NFL team, feel free to sing "Somewhere over the Rainbow" for all I care. Until then, tough shit if you don't like their rules. The rest of your post was just irrelevant gibberish meant to make a lefty feel good about virtue signalling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @03:03AM (1 child)
I have no interest in professional sports.
I've previously mentioned the heinous plantation model in use there.
I've also mentioned billionaire team owners wanting a stadium built for them at city taxpayers expense.
Round up the lot of them and load them on the B-Ark.
In particular, I hate football of all stripes.
It's a brutal sport[1], ranking down there with boxing and that other beat-the-hell-out-of-a-dude savagery that has somehow come to be called a "sport".
[1] Ever hear George Carlin's comparison of baseball and football?
Now, being a Socialist, the ownership model that does strike me as not being completely horrible, is Green Bay's thing.
(From what I hear, in many ways[2], Wisconsin rocks.)
[2] Milwaukee has had several Socialists elected to city government.
Madison has a bunch of cooperatives.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @01:17PM
That's your interpretation of the model. I would argue it is a military model. Players are drafted prior to the playing season and trained intensively to work as a team. Players are traded (transferred/PCS) to other units which fit their talents during the duration of their contract/enlistment, although free agency somewhat mitigates that. And finally players are PAID for their efforts.
And if taxpayers are stupid enough to bite, it's somehow the owners at fault? You see taxpayers sometimes have different desires than socialist outcasts and misfits. Sometimes, they want a professional football team near them. Sometimes business owners want the income that flows from a nearby team. Just because you don't want it doesn't mean that the other taxpayers can't.
I'm not surprised. I don't much care for professional sports either, except hockey and F1 auto racing. From your apparent hatred though, I'd say you took a few too many swirlies in the locker room at high school.
Milwaukee: home to Jeffrey Dahmer. If you needed to give Wisconsin an enema, Milwaukee is where you'd have to shove the tube.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday June 04 2018, @08:42AM (3 children)
Demonstrably completely false - it's right there in black and white in their official policy statements and operations manuals.
Whether it *ought* to be that way is another matter, but whether you like it or not, it is that way. You've confused your opinion with, and presented it as, fact.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @10:19AM (2 children)
Ask a referee if what happens when the ball isn't in play qualifies as "football".
I'm quite certain he will say NO.
What you described is "business" or, as already mentioned, forced patriotism.
It has NOTHING to do with moving the ball between end zones.
(I played in football games when I was a kid and the national anthem was NEVER involved.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @01:28AM (1 child)
I'm sure you have a whole wall full of participation trophies too. Did you even keep score?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @03:17AM
Pick-up games, dude.
No uniforms, no pads.
I was puny for my age until I was about 12.
Before long, I learned that it was a brutal game.
As a kid, Daddy had his collarbone broken playing football in the same mode.
My older brother was always big for his age but Daddy wouldn't let him sign up for football teams.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @02:26AM
I think we should form a new kind of government where voters are the employer and customer of the head of state.
(Score: 1) by DeVilla on Monday June 04 2018, @02:51AM
Now that you mention it, I've never had a job where I would have been allowed to spout of and say any old thing I wanted to at of in front of customers. In fact, I think I could be dinged for something in my off time if it ends up reflecting back on the company.
I certainly have never been given a soapbox at any job to do it on national TV. Was that in the guy's contract? Maybe he can get a contract as a pundit?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @05:05AM
I'm not saying the owners can't fire the players. Let them do it, and see what happens.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday June 04 2018, @06:28PM
Patriotism is supposed to be an extra thing that some people have, not the default state. People being shamed for being insufficiently patriotic is pretty stupid.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @02:39AM
Partisan shouldn't enter into it at all. If any NFL owner says they didn't want to sign Kaepernick because of him being a lightning rod for negative attention from POTUS; that's a violation of the spirit of the first amendment. We can't have true freedom of speech if saying something the POTUS doesn't like causes a backlash that employers will consider toxic. For the sake of the importance of the issue, the burden of proof should be on the government to prove that its actions did not stifle speech. A true democracy, even a democratic republic, cannot survive the implication that political speech unpopular with any official will lead to loss of employment.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @02:42AM (3 children)
For this to be terrible news for those against white nationalism implies that this is a great success for white nationalism. I'd be interested to hear an explanation of how permitting player's to be absent for the national anthem in one league of one sport has substanstially brought the USA closer to a white ethnostate.
I don't watch football (UK) much at all, but I've never seen the player's abuse their position for political activism, can I safely assume Britain is well on the way to an ethnostate? They literally won and now the player's don't have to be there, they're just salty they don't get to hijack national TV for their personal political goals and have decried the owners not permitting them to abuse their position on the field as a step towards an ethnostate.
If a game show guest decided to use the show to push their own politics, I would expect them to be kicked off for not doing their job and abusing their position of power. Wearing political shirts on countdown ought be something under the producers control.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 04 2018, @06:57AM (2 children)
Explanation? Easy-peasy.
Out of sight, out of mind, the problem doesn't exists. If the problem obstinately persists, kill any messenger that speaks of it until noone will dare to mention it anymore.
And so, the road to decline is opened and unimpeded, with predictable results.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @08:29AM (1 child)
I now agree that it is a step closer.
I still don't think it's enough of a step to be worth being called ``terrible news'', but I can see where they're coming from.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 04 2018, @08:43AM
Rule 17 [wikipedia.org]: "The longer everything goes according to plan, the bigger the impending disaster"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @03:02AM (5 children)
Let's agree to split. Red and blue don't get along at all. Rules and laws mean shit now. Why waste all our political energy on culture wars? Split and be done with it. Lincoln made a mistake.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @04:58AM (2 children)
You have absolutely no idea how small of a group of conservative grifters you belong to, do you? Split? No, homey, we are going to take your shit, put you into an "educational environment", and improve your ass from the deplorable you are to the "fair-to-middling" human being you could become. Of course, we may fail. In which case there is always organ donation. Would you like a Motorcycle? Hmmm?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:59AM (1 child)
FTFY
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:52PM
Is that supposed to be some sort of jab at socialism? Cause I will 100% give one of you conservatards my motorcycle FOR FREE if it means you'll do something stupid and get some viable organs to people who won't destroy my country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:21PM (1 child)
it wasn't a mistake. it was intentional use of force to continue abusing the south.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @10:05PM
You have it completely backwards.
In his speeches, Malcolm X used to chastise Black people for voting for Democrats, noting that those in gov't weren't moving the puck (civil rights) very far very fast--if at all.
As a talking point, he'd mention the supposition that The South lost the war.
He'd then mention Southern Democrats, especially the ones who had become chairmen of congressional committees who were doing all they could to prolong segregation and red-lining and voter registration suppression, etc.
That bunch has switched parties but the prejudice is still there--and has continued to expand to include disempowerment of all of The Working Class.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Monday June 04 2018, @08:01AM
Wow, lots of emotion on this thread. But really, idea of NFL players kneeling during the anthem is a very simple thing at its root: The players are employees, their employers earn money from fans watching football games. A lot - maybe even the majority - of those fans are red-state conservatives. Kneeling during the national anthem pisses them off, which ultimately costs the teams money.
Telling the players not to kneel on the field? Those are instructions from employers to employees about acceptable behavior at work. There's no "free speech" issue to be found. The players have a job, and they must do it the way their employer tells them to. It's no different that telling your sales people to wear suits, or telling your phone support personnel not to use profanity.
It's about not pissing off your customers, and the employees don't get a vote.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @07:22PM (1 child)
"It's all terrible news for those in favor of free speech and peaceful protest, and for those against white nationalism and police brutality."
no, it's just a psychological weapon to equate anyone who is against kneeling during the anthem with hateful white supremacists with unrealistic goals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @07:36PM
Is it really a psyop if it is true? Maybe not quite the white supremacists angle, but most conservatives are a bit racist because they can't see past stereotypes and propaganda. They honestly think they are "telling it like it is".