E. Lynn Harris Dies

A Request for Congress to review NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s Powers and Policies

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Ryan B, Host of Water Cooler Moment

 

Syndicated Radio host Ryan B, asks all his listener to contact the House Government Reform Committee and House Judiciary Committee to investigate the unlimited and unfair powers of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

 

“I don’t understand why or how NFL commissioner Roger Goodell should enjoy unlimited arbitrary unitary executive power with no written rules for players or owners.” said Ryan B.

 

Goodell can impose any ruling or handle an issue anyway he feels without any appeal.  The players might as well be innocent prisoners in Guantanamo subject to torture under the Bush administration remarked Ryan B.

 

“It reminds me of the good ole days of slavery whatever the slave master said was the law,” said Ryan B.   Goodells’ bizarre behavior is reflected by the conditions he has imposed on Michael Vick in order to return to the Slave Master’s Playing Field. The things he requested of Vick are outrageous. It’s as if Goodell still has a slave deed on Vick.

 

“Michael Vick will have to live  his private life the way Master Goodell wants him to live it as if Goodell has a slave deed somewhere that we the ticket holders and buyers don’t know about” says Ryan B.   There are no written rules for punishment but only what comes from the mind of Goodell and considering that it does not appear that any similar punishment has ever been inflicted on a Caucasian player this looks like a racist thing to me. Ryan B goes on.

 

Since April of 2007 Master Goodell surf ruling hand shows that his personal conduct policy has no checks or balances it is what he wants when he wants it.  “It scares me it reminds me of the stories my grand mother and great grand mother told of the slave master” said Ryan B.

 

I would hate to have to say in this case of Michael Vick it seems like to me Mr. Goodell has removed his suit in exchange for the white suit and let’s not forget that white hat of course with that fully being my personal opinion.

 

There are no guidelines that state exactly what punishment a specific violation will bring.  That gives Master Goodell an excessive amount of leeway.  Remember back in the day in the fields?  Goodell also hears every appeal made by the suspended party rather than an arbitrator in what would be a much fairer process. 

 

 

 

So I will be asking the House Government Reform Committee and the House Judiciary Committee to take a close look at self ruling NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Powers over team unions, player and owners.  I’m asking all my listeners and readers to do the same call there congress person and contact the House Government Reform Committee and Judiciary Committee to put an end to modern day slavery of all players of any race.  

 

We have enough czars making our decisions for us and taking away what should be individual rights and ability to contract.  He is as bad as Ben Benecki.  Give away trillions of dollars and refuse to tell us about it. 

 

Give anyone unlimited and unchecked power and it will be abused.  The whole system of checks and balancers that used to protect citizens has vanished and this is just another symptom of it.

 

 

“Did we all forget that Michael Vick served jail time for his crime and was punished I don’t remember anyone being punished for slavery or being a slave master or for stealing trillions of dollars and giving it away to their buddies…  I guess some people would like to see him down in a line asking for food stamps and a check.

 

If the man is good enough to play ball and people are willing to pay to see him and a team is willing to pay him to play whose business is it what he does with his money and who lives with him as long as he obeys the law?

 

“I don’t think Martha Stewart nor Rush Limbaugh had to wait any specific amount of time or be place under a slave deed for their transgressions which were in reality more serious than Vicks.  But then they are of the privileged caste.

 

I haven’t figure out those people who believe dogs are more important than human beings.  We are giving the homeless one way tickets to other cities.  Who do we put in jail for all those who sleep under trees or bridges and don’t have a place to live because crooked bankers and politicians have stolen the country?

 

Let’s give the NFL back to the people the players and the teams.  Let’s give the country and the money back to the people.  Write to your congress people and senators.  If they don’t want to do what is right for the people and the Country lets get rid of all of them.  And lets and start with Goodell.

Federal Deficit Tops $1 Trillion For First Time

AP, July 13, 2009 · Nine months into the fiscal year, the federal deficit has topped $1 trillion for the first time.

The imbalance is intensifying fears about higher interest rates and inflation, and already pressuring the value of the dollar. There’s also concern about trying to reverse the deficit — by reducing government spending or raising taxes — in the midst of a harsh recession.

The Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit in June totaled $94.3 billion, pushing the total since the budget year started in October to nearly $1.1 trillion.

The deficit has been propelled by the huge sum the government has spent to combat the recession and financial crisis, combined with a sharp decline in tax revenues. Paying for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also is a major factor.

The country’s soaring deficits are making Chinese and other foreign buyers of U.S. debt nervous, which could make them reluctant lenders down the road. It could force the Treasury Department to pay higher interest rates to make U.S. debt attractive longer-term.

“These are mind-boggling numbers,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at the Smith School of Business at California State University. “Our foreign investors from China and elsewhere are starting to have concerns about not only the value of the dollar but how safe their investments will be in the long run.”

Government spending is on the rise to address the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and an unemployment rate that has climbed to 9.5 percent.

Congress already approved a $700 billion financial bailout and a $787 billion economic stimulus package to try and jump-start a recovery, and there is growing talk among some Obama administration officials that a second round of stimulus may be necessary.

This has many Republicans and deficit hawks worried that the U.S. could be setting itself up for more financial pain down the road if interest rates and inflation surge. They also are raising alarms about additional spending the administration is proposing, including its plan to reform health care.

President Obama and other administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have said the U.S. is committed to bringing down the deficits once the country has emerged from the current recession and financial crisis.

Illinois meat firm recalling beef on e.coli threat

Mon Jul 13, 2009 11:39am EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Illinois-based meat company E.S. Miller Packing Co was recalling about 219 lbs of ground beef products amid concerns it could be contaminated with E.coli 0157:H7 bacteria, USDA said in statement on Monday.

No illnesses have been reported related to the recalled beef, which was distributed to consumers and several local restaurants in north central and northeast Illinois.

(Reporting by Bob Burgdorfer; Editing by Walter Bagley)

Madoff enroute to federal prison: U.S. official say

Mon Jul 13, 2009 4:26pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Admitted thief Bernard Madoff was moved from his New York jail cell on Monday and was en route to federal prison, a U.S. prison official said.

Disgraced financier Madoff, who has spent the last four months in jail after pleading guilty to a worldwide fraud of as much as $65 billion, was sentenced to 150 years imprisonment by a judge on June 29.

“He is in transit to another facility,” said Scott Sussman, a spokesman for the Manhattan Correctional Center next door to the courthouse where Madoff confessed to his crimes in front of defrauded investors.

Sussman declined to provide further details, citing Federal Bureau of Prisons policy not to disclose the location of a prison until the convict had arrived.

Madoff’s lawyer had asked that his client be incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York, a medium-security prison about 70 miles northwest of New York City, but the final decision is made by the prisons bureau.

CNBC TV reported on Monday that Madoff was being transferred to a prison in Butner, North Carolina. A spokeswoman at Butner was not available for comment. (Reporting by Grant McCool; Editing Bernard Orr)

Idris Elba Music Career to Start

He’s not starring the movie version of ‘Mama, I Want to Sing’ but Idris Elba is doing just that.  In the August issue of Essence magazine, ‘The Wire’ hunk talks about his music plans.  “A lot of people are just getting over the fact that I’m not playing gangsters and now I’m singing. This is a new side of me I’m offering,” he said.  During the 2009 Essence Music Festival, the East London native deejayed the “Lincoln After Dark” soiree, presented by Ford Motors, at The Contemporary Arts Center.  The gift bags included a sampler of Elba’s music – under the moniker Driis — which included a reggae inflected, hip-hop fused romp ‘Please Be True,’ produced by Pete Rock. The ‘Obsessed’ star plans for a full length recording later this year, tentatively titled ‘King Amongst Kings.’

O.J. Makes Request for Bail

By The Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — O.J. Simpson is promising not to disappear or endanger the community if he’s freed from prison pending his appeal in an armed hotel room heist, his lawyers told the Nevada Supreme Court.

“Simpson recognizes that he has a heavy burden in demonstrating that his release will pose no danger to the community and that he is not a flight risk,” attorneys Yale Galanter and Malcolm LaVergne said in a follow-up document filed Monday with the state’s only appellate court. “Simpson will strictly adhere to whatever conditions this court sets for bond.”

A three-member panel of Nevada Supreme Court justices plans oral arguments Aug. 3 in Las Vegas on Simpson’s request to post unspecified bond while the seven-member court considers his appeal.

This week’s filing followed an initial appeal for bail filed May 28.

The new papers include an affidavit from one of the two memorabilia dealers robbed in the September 2007 encounter, renewing his allegation that Clark County District Attorney David Roger wouldn’t let him drop the charges against Simpson.

“I wanted all of the charges against O.J. Simpson dropped,” Alfred Beardsley said in the document. “After I testified, the Clark County district attorney’s office fabricated the idea that the reason I was a reluctant witness was because Mr. Simpson had intimidated, threatened or promised me something of value.”

The two-page affidavit also referred to Beardsley’s denial before a judge in Santa Monica, Calif., that he received Simpson’s NFL Hall of Fame ring to change his story in the Las Vegas case.

“Mr. Simpson has never promised me anything for me to testify the way I did,” Beardsley said.

Simpson, 61, is serving nine to 33 years for kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon in the gunpoint robbery of Beardsley and memorabilia broker Bruce Fromong in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2007.

A lawyer for Simpson’s convicted co-defendant, Clarence “C.J.” Stewart, said Stewart also plans to file follow-up bail request documents before a separate Aug. 3 hearing by the state Supreme Court panel.

Roger has filed documents asking the state high court to keep Simpson locked up, citing the length of his sentence and Simpson’s admission in 2008 that he violated a court order by trying to contact a co-defendant before trial.

Simpson’s lawyers say Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass never made a specific finding that Simpson was a flight risk or a danger to the public.

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Bury the Never Ending Myth of Jackson as Child Molester

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Websites, blogs and chatrooms pulsed with garish cracks about it. Legions of commentators and news reporters snuck it in every chance they got. More than a few of Michael Jackson’s fervent admirers and supporters made a dismissive reference to it. Even President Barack Obama in a cautious acknowledgement of Jackson’s towering contributions to American music and artistry still made reference to the “tragedy” in Jackson’s life which was a subtle nod to it. And New York Congressman Pete King skipped the niceties and flatly said it.

The “it” is the never ending myth of Jackson the child molester. It still hangs as a damning indictment that feeds the gossip mills and gives an arsenal of ammunition to Jackson detractors. This is not a small point. In the coming weeks, there will be a push to bestow official commemorative monuments, honors on and a national stamp for Jackson. The taint of scandal could doom these efforts to permanently memorialize Jackson.

The child molester myth doesn’t rest on Jackson’s trial and clean acquittal on multiple child abuse charges in a Santa Maria courthouse in June 2005. Only the most rabid Jackson loathers still finger point to that to taint Jackson. The myth of Jackson as child abuser rests squarely on the charge by a 13 year old boy a decade before the trial and the multi-million dollar settlement out of court. The settlement, then and now, feeds the suspicion that Jackson must have done something unsavory and probably criminal, or else why settle?

16 years later, though, the facts remain unchanged. The charge that Jackson molested the boy was brought by the boy’s father. In interviews the boy repeatedly denied the charges. This changed only after he was administered sodium amytal, an invasive, mind altering drug that medical experts have frowned on and courts have disregarded in witness testimony. Prosecutors, police departments and investigators in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara spent millions of dollars, convened two grand juries and probed nearly 200 witnesses that included 30 children, who knew Jackson to try to substantiate the charge. Not a single corroborating witness was found. Nonetheless, a motley group of disgruntled Jackson’s former housekeepers, attendants and bodyguards still peddled the story to any media outlet willing to shell out the cash that Jackson had engaged in child sexual wrongdoing. Not one of the charges was confirmed. Typical was this exchange between one of Jackson’s attorneys and one of the accusing bodyguards under oath:

“So you don’t know anything about Mr. Jackson and [the boy], do you?”

“All I know is from the sworn documents that other people have sworn to.”

“But other than what someone else may have said, you have no firsthand knowledge about Mr. Jackson and [the boy], do you?”

“That’s correct.”

“Have you spoken to a child who has ever told you that Mr. Jackson did anything improper with the child?”

“No.”

“Where did you get your impressions about Jackson’s behavior?”

“Just what I’ve been hearing in the media and what I’ve experienced with my own eyes.”

“Okay. That’s the point. You experienced nothing with your own eyes, did you?”

“That’s right, nothing.”

When asked at the time about the charges against Jackson, child behavior experts and psychiatrists nearly all agreed that he did not fit the profile of a pedophile. They agreed that the disorder is progressive and there are generally not one but a trail of victims.

The myth of Jackson as child molester never hinged on evidence or testimony to substantiate it, but solely on the settlement. Why then did Jackson agree to it?

No charge stirs more disgust, revulsion, and pricks more emotional hot buttons than the charge of child molestation. The accusation stamps the Scarlet letter of doubt, suspicion, shame and guilt on the accused. The accused can never fully expunge it. There is simply no defense against it. Under the hyper intense media glare and spotlight that Jackson remained under, the allegation no mater how bogus would have been endless fodder for the public gossip mill. This would have wreaked irreparable damage on Jackson’s ever shifting musical career and personal life.

A trial in Los Angeles in the racially charged backdrop of the Rodney King beating, the L.A. riots, and pulsating racial tensions in the mid-1990s would have been risky business. A trial in staid, upscale, and majority white, Santa Barbara County would have been even more risky.

Jackson and his attorneys knew that when it came to the charge of child molestation the presumption of innocence, or even actual innocence, is tossed out the window. Though Jackson did nothing wrong, a trial would have left him, his reputation and his career in shambles. The settlement was the only pragmatic, logical and legal way to end the sordid issue.

The settlement under extreme duress must not sully his name and place as an honored American icon. The myth of Jackson as child molester must finally be buried.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, “The Hutchinson Report” can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on blogtalkradio.com.

Michael Vick Soon to Return to NFL – Football

Michael Vick has signed on to work at the Boys and Girls Club, which is a definite step in the right direction. Suspended NFL quarterback Michael Vick is leaving his federally ordered construction job and is working for the Boys & Girls clubs in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.

Soon to return to the NFL Michael Vick has a new way of thinking.  More to come on Vick’s return and announcement to NFL and what team.

McNair mourned as ‘hero’ at Funeral

HATTIESBURG, Miss. | Titans quarterback Vince Young didn’t expect to speak Saturday during his mentor’s funeral. He wound up summing up the emotional day with just a few words.

“Steve was like a hero to me, and heroes are not supposed to die,” Young said before stopping to rub his eyes as he talked about Steve McNair, his predecessor with the Titans.

McNair was shot and killed on July 4 by his girlfriend, 20-year-old Sahel Kazemi, who then shot herself in the head.

Nearly 5,000 turned out to say goodbye to the 36-year-old during one of the biggest funerals in the recent history of Mississippi, McNair’s home state. Fans and old friends filed into the Reed Green Coliseum on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi, and McNair’s family rented buses to bring in people from his hometown of Mount Olive.

The high school football team McNair’s son plays on wore their jerseys in honor of the man they often saw smiling from the sideline.

“Mississippi has lost a tremendous legend,” said Cardell Jones, McNair’s college coach at Alcorn State.

The hearse carrying McNair’s casket was escorted 30 miles down Highway 49 by nine police officers on motorcycles and several vehicles carried family members. After the two-hour service, the procession headed back down the road for a private burial at Griffith Cemetery, about 20 miles from Mount Olive.

Police escorted McNair’s wife, Mechelle, and his mother, Lucille, into the stadium beforehand. Near the end, a handful of people surrounded his mother and his sons, waving them with fans and programs and giving hugs.

Brett Favre, who had a home near McNair’s in Hattiesburg, sat a few rows behind the McNair family but did not speak. Titans coach Jeff Fisher, Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis and Chicago quarterback Jay Cutler attended. Doug Williams, the first black quarterback to win the Super Bowl, also was on hand.

Young was added to the service late, and the quarterback drafted in 2006 to replace McNair remembered him as a father and mentor. Young said he felt selfish at times taking McNair away from his four sons to help him through his own life.

He then pointed at the Oak Grove High football team sitting in the stands and told them not to give up if they have someone who inspires them.

“Pay attention to that guy because every day you know I had to hear that guy’s voice,” Young said.

Lewis played against McNair and was his teammate the final two years of the quarterback’s NFL career. Lewis said he learned studying film and proper technique wouldn’t help him beat a quarterback fueled by will, heart and sacrifice.

“I find myself in awe when I speak about a man like Steve McNair,” Lewis said.

Bobby Hamilton, who played at Southern Miss and in the NFL with New England and Oakland, used to sleep on the floor of McNair’s oldest brother, Fred, when he played at Alcorn State. He also cheered on McNair during his career and recalled how McNair rallied Alcorn State once by scoring two touchdowns with less than a minute left.

“It’s very painful. We know he was a warrior. … I can’t even say the word how this warrior went down,” Hamilton said.

The program included memories from McNair’s mother, his wife and sons, brothers, and nieces and nephews. Photos were also displayed of the quarterback who played 13 NFL seasons with Tennessee and Baltimore before retiring in 2008.

Coach Nevil Barr brought the jersey-clad Oak Grove team to the service.

“He was on our sideline every Friday night supporting his son,” Barr said. “He loved to come watch Steve Jr., and we loved having him there.

“He always had that smile.”

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