I had just enough time to set my fantasy roster and $ubmit it:
"Boston sports teams were paid by Pentagon for patriotic displays" by Tracy Jan Globe Staff November 04, 2015
WASHINGTON — Those heart-warming patriotic performances you see at football games honoring wounded veterans to the soundtrack of “God Bless America”? They’re basically paid ads, brought to you by the Department of Defense.
Why am I not surprised at all?
A Senate investigation revealed Wednesday that the department has spent $6.8 million since 2012 on questionable marketing contracts with sports teams, including events to honor American soldiers at games as a recruitment strategy.
Of that amount, $700,000 went to the New England Patriots for the recognition of a Massachusetts Army National Guard soldier at each home game as part of a “true patriot” promotion, among other costs.
The Patriots were the second-largest recipients among professional sports franchises, after the Atlanta Falcons, in the amount of Pentagon payments cited in the report. The Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, and Minnesota Wild hockey team all were paid more than $500,000 to salute the troops.
Never mind the shoddy service and neglect over at the VA.
Other Boston sports teams also received Pentagon payments, according to the report.
The Boston Bruins received $280,000 for a national anthem performance and color guard and reenlistment ceremony and other items. Calling it a “waste and abuse of taxpayer funds,” Senator John McCain in a press conference highlighted a National Guard payment to the Bruins for a luxury box for 18 people and an executive view suite for 25 on a military appreciation night.
The Boston Celtics received $195,000 in part to spotlight soldiers at home games. And the Boston Red Sox received $100,000.
“These tributes are as popular as the kiss cam. But when people assume this is a goodwill gesture and then find out the heart-felt moment is part of a taxpayer-funded marketing campaign, it cheapens the whole thing,” said Senator Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, in an interview with the Globe.
In response to the Senate report, a Bruins spokesman said the team had started in-game salutes to military personnel without any advertising but various sponsors later signed on for advertising purposes.
“If we do not have a sponsor for these salutes in the future, we plan to continue them on the same merit on which they originated,” said Matthew Chmura, the team spokesman.
The Patriots, similarly, said the team has been honoring troops at its games for more than two decades. “Only recently, as a part of much larger advertising agreements utilized by the Massachusetts Army National Guard for recruitment and retention, have we tried to brand all of our army activations with them,’’ a Patriots spokesman said Wednesday.
The pro-war militarism of pro sports has always bothered me. I love the idea of the game, that's all.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sent a letter to Flake and McCain this week saying the league is conducting an audit of all contracts between teams and the military and would return any money deemed inappropriate. Goodell said the league wants to honor the service of veterans and is “committed to the principle that this honor should never be a commercial transaction.”
The Red Sox said in a statement that their pregame ceremonies and in-game tributes honoring members of the armed forces are not part of a military-sponsored program. Military featured at Fenway are chosen based on their accomplishments in uniform, and in consultation with John Hancock, which sponsors the “Hats Off to Heroes” tribute, said Zineb Curran, a team spokesman.
“The Red Sox’ longstanding sponsorship agreement with the Mass. National Guard, which is highlighted in the report, is for marketing and advertising of the Guard – specifically LED advertising and in-park tabling — not for pregame ceremonies or military honors during the game,” Curran said.
John Henry, the principal owner of the Red Sox, also owns the Globe.
The Celtics said the team has had a multiyear marketing partnership with the Army National Guard, which does not currently, but has in the past, included in-game recognition of military personnel.
Flake said that he, along with fellow Arizona Republican McCain, launched the investigation in April after discovering that the weekly “hometown hero” tributes by the New England Patriots and New York Jets were actually Pentagon advertising contracts undisclosed by the teams.
McCain, a Vietnam War veteran and former prisoner of war, said taxpayers should be disappointed that the elaborate ceremonies involving the American flag and the national anthem are being conducted for the benefit of wealthy professional sports franchises. The Defense Department even paid teams to perform surprise welcome home promotions for troops returning from deployment.
In addition to the displays of patriotism, many of the contracts featured in the report included game tickets, the use of team facilities, and on-field recognition of high school football players and coaches as a way to gain access to potential recruits and influencers such as coaches — a tactic the 145-page report found questionable.
“If the most compelling message about military service we can deliver to prospective recruits and influencers is the promise of game tickets, gifts, and player appearances, we need to rethink our approach to how we are inspiring qualified men and women to military service,” the report said.
Overall, the Pentagon spent $53 million on marketing and advertising contracts with sports teams between 2012 and 2015, much of which appeared to be for legitimate marketing activities such as recruiting booths at games and stadium signs, the report found. But it raised concerns that the Defense Department had trouble accurately detailing how many contracts it has awarded or how the money was spent.
The report labeled the sporting event payments “boondoggles,” and said tax dollars for national defense should be spent on paying and training troops and other national security priorities. In addition to 50 professional teams spanning football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer, the Defense Department also paid NASCAR and college teams for displays of patriotism.
Congress has passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prohibit the spending of tax dollars on such practices.
The Department of Defense media office did not return a request for comment Wednesday, but the Pentagon has said it would end this type of marketing.
Finally forced to punt, huh?
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Talk about a blurry replay (whole $ection is $hit if you ask me).
"Sports Military Worship Propaganda Exposed – Senate Report Admits Millions Spent On Psyop
November 6, 2015
By Bernie Suarez
A Senate oversight report
just blew the lid on the U.S. military worship ceremonies we all see at
sporting events all over the United States. We see this military
worship all the time at college and professional sports events. These
staged ceremonies are designed to psyop young men and women into joining
the military. They are also designed to sell war and make young adults
think that the road to honor goes through a military lifestyle. Sports
fans have no idea they are being bombarded with lies and propaganda
bankrolled by the Pentagon and the National Guard. The recent Senate
report blowing the lid on this psyop campaign labels the paid for
propaganda as “inappropriate and frivolous.”
The report reviewed contracts between the Pentagon (and National
Guard) and sports teams and admittedly labels two thirds of the
contracts as “paid-for-patriotism.” Yeah, I’ll say. Every trick from
flag ceremonies, national anthems, ceremonial first pitches, puck drops,
color guard presentations even reenlistment ceremonies have been
quietly paid for to deceive the sports fans into wanting to join the
military.
I would add that even though it’s not mentioned in the article
referenced let’s not forget the pro-military commercials sports fans are
forced to watch before viewing team highlights or the cleverly
positioned banners on sport websites. The propaganda is everywhere.
To add another twist to this story, the Pentagon is holding back a
third of the contracts, interfering with the full investigation. What
might the Pentagon be hiding this time?
The questions we should be asking is why is the Pentagon not
cooperating? And, is anyone surprised by this? I’m not. Most people
don’t realize the Pentagon has an endless supply of money through
something called “Overseas Contingency Operation”
(OCO) which was set up after 9/11. In this uncapped money siphoning
scheme called the “Pentagon Slush Fund” billions of dollars can be
siphoned from tax payers to pay for endless wars. For example the phony
war against their own proxy army, ISIS, allows the Pentagon to siphon
$10 million per day or $8.6 billion annually! Are you beginning to see
the bigger picture?
So when sports fans are at stadiums watching all these staged ceremonies, they don’t realize it’s a paid-for psyop to fool young adults into joining the military to fight in bankers wars, feed the war profit machine and justify billions into their endless budget. There is no honor or integrity in this. Who knows what is in those hidden agreements which the Pentagon refuses to disclose. Are there illegalities reflected in them? Is there something far more nefarious going on that they don’t want anyone to see?
Let this be a wake up call to all sports fans. Let sports fans know there is a war on for their minds and the Pentagon is paying millions from an endless fund of money to brand their war machine and steal the minds of young adults.
It’s time sports fans and the general public hold team owners responsible for accepting money that funds the U.S. war machine. The individual teams that are taking money from the Pentagon should be exposed and held accountable. Let’s stop the nationwide psychotic military worship once and for all. Let’s stop portraying military personnel like they are fearless gods that need to be worshiped and let’s call this evil for what it is.
Let’s hit the military and the Pentagon with the truth they don’t want to hear. That everyone in the Military is an order-following slave. The question is how many people in the military will follow orders without considering if the order is lawful and moral? Very few if any because the U.S. military is a machine that weeds out conscientious soldiers. They want and need brainwashed order followers that won’t question the morality of the mission.
The U.S. military is arguably the greatest threat to humanity today even though there are many well-meaning men and women in it. I know because I was in the military and I meant well when I served so I know this is a real phenomenon. It’s also impossible to know what is in someone’s heart. However, the thing that we know for sure is that the U.S. military is a tool for the global elite to execute the plans. There’s no getting around it.
This is the reason why Obama has fired so many senior military commanders
in the past 7 years. Getting rid of the true honorable men and
replacing them with obedient immoral slaves. Let this serve as a warning
to all military. The military apparatus serves as a tool of evil for
the elite and it seems that will never change. This is why they need to
pay for their propaganda intended to deceive sports fans into serving
their killing machine.
It’s time to say no to the killing machine. Say no to the Pentagon’s
killing machine dressed as honorable and godly. There is nothing
honorable, godly or moral about participating in immoral wars of
aggression which are all based on government lies. And if sports teams
refuse to acknowledge this then don’t support them. Take a stand and see
the sports mind control psyop for what it is.
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Related: Bench Warmers
Didn't even suit up this week:
"Athletic retailer City Sports to close all 26 locations" by Jack Newsham Globe Correspondent November 04, 2015
City Sports, the Boston athletic retailer that filed for bankruptcy in October, plans to hold going-out-of-business sales after failing to find a buyer willing to keep its 26 stores open.
Eve Bould, spokeswoman for City Sports Inc., said the sales would begin Friday. City Sports has locations from Vermont to Virginia, including nine in Massachusetts. Previously, the company said it planned to shutter eight stores and sell the other 18 to a company that would continue to operate the sporting goods chain.
Instead, the company’s assets will be sold to Hilco Merchant Resources LLC, a unit of Hilco Global of Northbrook, Ill., and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners LLC of Boston, which won an auction overseen by a bankruptcy court in Delaware. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed and the sale is set to be finalized Thursday.
Hilco and Gordon Brothers are known for buying troubled companies and selling off assets through going-out-of-business sales. Officials at the companies could not immediately be reached for comment.
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You can blame them for the naked cheerleaders, too.
You know who can Fix It?
"Jeb Bush says hard work, ‘tooting his horn’ will fuel comeback" by Matt Viser Globe Staff November 05, 2015
SOMERSWORTH, N.H. — Advisers believe that simply putting Bush in front of more voters will lead to his turnaround.
Then they are in complete denial or idiots because that isn't going to help.
I'm not even sure I want to continue with this fellatio disguised as journalism (and while on the subject of blow jobs: Jeb Bush says he likes Patriots, downplays Deflategate).
So where does he go in New Hampshire? Scott Brown's house!
His message is fundamentally unchanged.
And yet we are told he's finding a new gear!
(Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders -- and his "insurgent presidential campaign that has attracted tens of thousands of people to rallies in Boston and other major cities across the country while managing to nearly match Clinton’s fundraising figures by tapping into a vast reserve of small-dollar donors who give mostly online" -- meets with the Globe editorial board and is placed on page A4; look whose trying to boost Bush, huh?)
He’s still sunny, saying he believes in an optimistic nation. In a Hollis pharmacy, while a local accountant yelled out to criticize Bush’s tax plan and pillory the policies of his brother, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush responded: “Lighten up. Put a smile on your face.”
What a condescending asshole, although I suppose it comes with the privilege of elitism.
He’s still pointing to his record as governor of Florida, and he remains substantive on issues. “I’m kind of a wonk,” he said.
But “Jeb Can't Fix” sewage problems, so....
His father is “lucid and he watches this stuff and he knows what’s going on.”
Meaning this is all some sort of stunt, huh?
Trying to distance the name?
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"In N.H., Bush and Rubio barely mention each other; Ex-allies seek nod as establishment candidate in state" by Matt Viser and Jim O’Sullivan Globe Staff November 05, 2015
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Rubio, 44, repeatedly drew attention to his relative youth, saying he had faced criticism and arguments that he should wait before running first for Senate and then for president, Rubio drew laughs during an evening appearance in Nashua by asking, “What are we waiting for?”
And, drawing another contrast with his former mentor, Rubio said, “The time has come for us to turn the page as a nation, and as a party.”
I agree with that statement. No more Clintons, no more Bushes. Sick of their sh**.
Polls released Wednesday show Rubio’s continuing momentum. Rubio jumped nine points since WBUR’s poll in September, the most dramatic improvement of anyone in the field. Pressed by a reporter on Wednesday about the importance of winning New Hampshire to his overall strategy, Rubio declined to go into detail.
Globe says Rubio is full of hot air (isn't that kinda of like pot hollering kettle?).
The expectation is that New Hampshire will decide which establishment candidate will emerge, and few are competing as aggressively for that lane as Rubio and Bush. Bush, 62, and Rubio have a long history together.
Bush, once leading at 20 percent nationally, was at 8 percent in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this week. Rubio was at 11 percent, trailing only Ben Carson and Donald Trump.
He has also fallen among voters in New Hampshire, a state increasingly important to Bush as he retools his campaign. In a WBUR survey, Bush was in sixth place, trailing not only Trump, Carson, and Rubio but also Ohio Governor John Kasich and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Christie is done.
“We’re exactly where we need to be,” Bush said. “I’m gonna win. I feel good about it.”
The "fix" is in, huh?
As he arrived in New Hampshire — driving around on a bus wrapped with the message “Jeb Can Fix It” — Bush several times referenced Trump.
Oh, so THAT is to what the new slogan refers!!
“I don’t think leadership is about being the big personality on the stage,” he said. “I don’t think it’s about disparaging people, just going out of your way to insult people. That’s not a measurement of strength. The volume in your voice is not a measurement of strength.”
“We don’t need some big guy on the stage telling us how bad we are, dividing our country up,” he added....
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Look at that smarmy f***!
Candidates officially file for N.H. primary
"Warning signs for both parties in state elections; Democrats lose ground, as GOP mulls ‘outsiders’" by Julie Pace and David Lieb Associated Press November 05, 2015
WASHINGTON — State and local elections across the country this week produced warning signs for both Democrats and Republicans as they press toward the 2016 presidential contest, now just a year away.
Democrats lost more ground in legislatures and governor’s mansions, raising questions about the party’s strength when President Obama’s name isn’t at the top of the ballot. While the party still has important demographic advantages in the states that often determine presidential elections, it is struggling in power centers outside Washington that influence policy and steer congressional redistricting....
But the elections weren’t all good news for the Republicans. For party leaders anxious about Donald Trump and Ben Carson’s lead in the GOP presidential primary, the win in Kentucky for Matt Bevin — a wealthy businessman who has never held political office — could be a sign that many voters are serious about electing outsider candidates.
You know, I'd love to talk with Ben about ancient aliens, but.... sigh.
Party leaders are skeptical that outsiders’ rebellious appeal will be sufficiently deep and lasting to send such a candidate to the White House.
‘‘We’re at this interesting moment where clearly there’s a lot of frustration in the electorate, which means voters are going to be more volatile,’’ said David Winston, a Republican pollster.
To be sure, off-year elections are imperfect predictors of presidential contests. Turnout is far lower and the voters that do show up tend to be older and less diverse, favoring Republicans.
Still, Tuesday’s contests across the country are being scoured for signs of the electorate’s mood less than three months before the lead-off Iowa caucuses.
For Democrats, results in Kentucky, Virginia, and elsewhere were part of a troubling pattern.
Since Obama was elected in 2008, the party has lost 13 governorships and more than 900 state legislative seats, ceding control of 30 legislative chambers.
Wow!
On Capitol Hill, Democrats have given up control of both the US House and Senate.
He's ruined the party.
The fresh losses raise serious questions for Democrats about how the party will fare next year when Obama isn’t on the ticket. They also raise questions about where Democrats will draw their next generation of leaders.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is making specific campaign appeals to the Hispanics, blacks, and young voters who helped propel Obama to victory. And she’s promising the party she’ll work to help candidates down the ballot win their races, too.
The Democratic defeats have implications for policies as well as politics, including on union laws and implementation of Obama’s health care law. While most Democratic governors have expanded their states’ Medicaid coverage under the federal Affordable Care Act, several Republicans have resisted, including in Florida and Texas. Governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a Democrat, tried to expand Medicaid but was blocked by Republicans.
Democrats’ efforts to fully implement the Affordable Care Act were rebuffed again Tuesday. McAuliffe failed in his campaign to put Virginia’s legislature back in Democratic hands. And in Kentucky, Bevin won in part on a pledge to repeal the state’s Medicaid expansion, propelling a Republican into the state’s governor’s mansion for just the second time in four decades.
That is because that law is a disaster.
Bevin also cast himself as a political outsider, one who was self-funded and shunned by Kentucky’s political establishment after he challenged Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell in the 2014 GOP Senate primary. It’s an approach that fits with the outsider appeal of Trump and Carson, who are roiling the GOP presidential primary and worrying establishment Republicans who fear neither of them could defeat Clinton in a general election.
Asked Wednesday whether Bevin’s win bodes well for his own political future, Trump sounded confident.
‘‘There is something happening, folks, I will tell you,” he said. “There is something happening.’’
In an interview, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is struggling in the GOP presidential polls, aligned himself with Bevin’s success as a political outsider.
‘‘That’s the same thing I ran on when I ran in 2010,’’ Paul said of his Senate victory five years ago.
Bevin wasn’t the only outsider who won this week. In Mississippi, Republican poultry and cattle farmer Vince Mangold made his political debut by ousting Democratic House minority leader Bobby Moak, who had been in office for 30 years.
Republicans targeted Moak with mailers displaying his photo next to Obama’s under the headline: ‘‘Bobby Moak and Barack Obama . . . A Liberal Love Affair.’’
Mangold said he campaigned on lower taxes and a good education system, but he attributed his victory not to any particular policy stances but to his outsider status.
‘‘As I traveled around the district, the overwhelming reply was they were ready for a change,’’ he said.
It looks like another dump the incumbents election.
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Also see: Amid treatment, Jimmy carter back building homes for Habitat for Humanity
The Clinton Foundation it ain't!
Rolling snake eyes will get you a big crock of crap. If lucky you can fast forward through it.
I'll try and drop some more loads this weekend, readers, but I'm not making any promises. One never knows when one may become constipated.
NDU:
"City Sports going-out-of-business sale begins, quietly" by Linda Matchan Globe Staff November 07, 2015
DEDHAM — The liquidation of the City Sports chain drew a line of exactly two shoppers Friday morning outside the store at the Legacy Place mall — which may explain why the retailer is closing in the first place.
“I’m kind of shocked there aren’t more people here, to be honest with you,” said Rob Silverman of Needham, who arrived about 8:30 a.m. with his wife, Chrissy. He’s been a fan for years because it’s “a notch above” competitors. “There’s not even a security guard for crowd control.”
Those two little nuggets were all I could squeeze out. Sorry.
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