I don’t think this was Trump’s best week

As Donald Trump is in the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, there are growing number of people close to Trump who have also contracted COVID-19 in addition to when this whole story actually began.

Aside from Melania Trump and aide Hope Hicks, Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien, former White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway, Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, University of Notre Dame President John Jenkins, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie [a friend of Trump and help prepare for the first debate]. There is also Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson who tested positive after being exposed to an unspecified person who had also tested positive.

Meanwhile, while Joe Biden’s campaign will not release any attack ads for the next little while, the Trump campaign has said they will continue with attack ads.

The Trump campaign will either do most events virtually or cancel them. However, Vice President Mike Pence has a rally coming up in Arizona before the Vice President debate a few days later in Salt Lake City but hasn’t canceled it. You would figure they would keep Pence out of any rally as if he contacts COVID-19, the country will have a major problem.

According to Trump’s White Shack doctor, Dr. Sean Conley, Trump was diagnosed on Wednesday morning and not Thursday night. Meanwhile Trump participated in a fundraiser on Thursday night and was supposedly contracted right after. Conley tried to change the timeline but the timeline seemed to keep on change. If he contracted it on Wednesday, he went to the fundraiser knowing that he had it.

The coronavirus outbreak that prompted a series of positive COVID-19 tests among GOP officials likely happened a week ago at White House Rose Garden event where Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

When famed journalist Bob Woodward pressed Trump in an interview in April about whether he was worried about becoming infected, Trump dismissed concerns about his own health. “You’re risking getting it, of course,” said Woodward. “The way you move around and have those briefings and deal with people. Are you worried about that?” “No, I’m not. I don’t know why I’m not. I’m not,” Trump responded. “Why?” Woodward asked. “I don’t know,” Trump said. “I’m just not.”

During the first Presidential debate [see below], “It’s China’s fault, it should never have happened,” Trump said, before referring to the virus as the “China plague.” On a Twitter like platform, some in China joked it was a “gift for China’s National Day” [which happened this week]. But China is worried as Trump could now take an even harder line on China, further leaning into the narrative he has already established that Beijing is ultimately to blame.

The New York Times obtained Trump’s tax information extending over more than two decades [but not the last two years], revealing struggling properties, vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due. His reports to the IRS portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes.

Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White Shack, he paid another $750. He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years – largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

They filings report that Trump owns hundreds of millions of dollars in valuable assets, but they do not reveal his true wealth. Nor do they reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia. Within the next four years, more than $300 million in loans – obligations for which he is personally responsible – will come due.

“The Apprentice,” along with the licensing and endorsement deals that flowed from his expanding celebrity, brought Mr. Trump a total of $427.4 million. In 2018, for example, Mr. Trump announced in his disclosure that he had made at least $434.9 million. The tax records deliver a very different portrait of his bottom line: $47.4 million in losses. The general and administrative expenses at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey increased five-fold from 2016 to 2017.

Not surprising, in response to a letter summarizing The Times’ findings, Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said that “most, if not all, of the facts appear to be inaccurate” and requested the documents on which they were based. “Over the past decade, President Trump has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government, including paying millions in personal taxes since announcing his candidacy in 2015.”

Trump wrote off $26 million in unexplained “consulting fees” between 2010 and 2018, with almost $750,000 apparently going to his daughter, Ivanka, in one disclosure. Ivanka Trump reported receiving payments from a consulting company she co-owned, totaling $747,622, that exactly matched consulting fees claimed as tax deductions by the Trump Organization for hotel projects in Vancouver and Hawaii. No idea where the other $25 million in consulting fees went.

Ivanka Trump appears to have double-dipped — serving as both a project manager in her official capacity as a senior staffer for her father’s company and as a “consultant” to those same projects. In those deals, Ivanka Trump’s apparent categorization as a “consultant” allowed her father to write off three-quarters of a million dollars. [The IRS allows “consulting fees” to be written off as business expenses.]

Trump claims that the release is fake news and continues to claim that his tax returns are under audit from the IRS. For over 4 years? “They treated me bad….. Fake story after fake story.” The media has a low approval rating? They have ratings? In any case, not as low as your [roughly] 40% approval as polled by almost all major polling companies. Trump will probably use his anchor friends at Fox to try and change the headlines. Hours after the news came out, Fox News refused to mention the tax story on their web site.

Former assistant special Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman says that Trump could face legal liability.

To poke fun at Trump and his taxes, the Biden campaign will be selling “I paid more income taxes than Trump” stickers.

For the first debate, Trump’s re-election campaign wanted the Biden campaign to allow a third party to inspect the ears of each debater for electronic devices or transmitters. Meanwhile, the Biden campaign had also requested two breaks — one every 30 minutes — to break up the 90-minute commercial-free program. But that request has been denied by their Trump counterparts.

Trump bullied, bulldozed and obfuscated his way through the 90-minute showdown, interrupting Biden and moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News at every turn. He ignored substantive questions and Biden’s policy arguments, and instead swung at a straw-man version of Biden, taking aim at both Biden’s son and a distorted description of his record that exists primarily in far-right media.

When asked if he will condemn white supremacists and militia groups, Trump said “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left.” I guess “stand by” could mean that he wants them to be ready for action.

Later he said he doesn’t know who the Proud Boys are. That’s like saying no one knows who MS-13 is. His disciples spent the next few days in trying to downplay what he said in the debate. But quite a few GOP Congress people are not happy with what he said and failed to denounce the far right. Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, says that Trump was prepared to answer that question before the debate. [Bolton has said he will write in someone and not vote for either of them.]

At least 36 hours, Trump finally said “I condemn the KKK, I condemn all White supremacists, I condemn the Proud Boys. I don’t know much about the Proud Boys, almost nothing, but I condemn that,” Trump told Fox News, before he again appeared to equate violence by far-left groups with White supremacists, who his own FBI director says are the largest top domestic terror concern. 35 hours and 59 minutes too late.

Trump failed to affirm whether he would encourage his supporters to be peaceful if election results are unclear. Instead he ranted about unconfirmed reports about ballots being tossed into garbage cans and rivers [where one he claims were all voting for him].

Trump openly said the vaccine process is political, mocked Biden for wearing a mask and instead of a robust defense of his record he sought to claim a hypothetical President Biden would have done worse.

Trump not only didn’t list much of his [exaggerated] accomplishments in his first term [other than appointing judges and Supreme Court justices – which should be easy, and various items that went through executive orders] he didn’t even mentioned what he has planned in his second term. But look at what he promised and failed to do [among them]: get out of NATO, replace the Affordable Care Act, lower drug prices [through executive order but won’t apply until 2021, why?], and on and on.

Trump’s campaign hasn’t confirmed whether they would participate in future debates after the elections commission may decide to tighten some rules mostly after Trump continuously ignored the current rules by [for example] interrupting Biden even though Biden was within his two minutes to answer a question that is supposed to be uninterrupted.

Note: I am not going to bother with the fact checking and exaggerations. You just need to know that Trump repeated himself over and over again with what he has said before.

Some reactions after the debate:

• “A hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck” – Jake Tapper [CNN]
• “A shit show” – Dana Bash [CNN]
• “A night of chaos and bullying” – CBS

After the debate, CBS had a poll and said Biden won with 48%, Trump won with 41% and the rest said a tie. In another poll, 48% found the debate annoying, and 31% said entertained. Unsure if the entertained mean laughing or got their attention. Finally 83% found the tone negative. 17% positive. Were the latter sniffing glue? And yet, the Trump campaign said Trump won the biggest debate ever.

As well, Melania Trump came over to Donald [I would guess] to congratulate him on the debate. There was no affection between them. No hug, peck on the cheek or a kiss. She didn’t tough him. He grabbed one of her arms. Judging by their previous history [she pulling her hand away from him in at least one occasion, for example], you think their marriage is history? If he is out of office in January [and eventually in prison?] it could happen.

Chris Wallace, the Fox News anchor who moderated the debate, is placing the bulk of the blame on Trump for sending the political showdown into chaos by saying Trump “bears the primary responsibility for what happened…. I had baked this beautiful, delicious cake and then frankly the President put his foot in it.”

Trump claims “I won the debate big, based on compilation of polls etc.” No major news outlet – not even Fox News – has said that Trump won. The closest not so large media outlet is Breitbart with Trump winning 87% but that side caters to not just the right but farther right.

You know Trump is getting desperate: Sitting at a news conference to help Trump out is Rudy Giuliani, Christ Christie and Kayleigh McEnany [all unmasked]. Let’s just say they aren’t the brightest bunch.

Trump said he is nominating Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative federal appeals court judge, to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the US Supreme Court.

She has shown that she will side with conservative issues when it comes to Second Amendment gun rights, immigration and abortion. She is also against the Affordable Care Act. Democrats say her devout Catholic faith may make her biased in certain issues that are against her faith.

Trump continues to claim that the Affordable Care Act is bad and yet after almost 4 years – including 2 years with Senate and House majorities – he has done little to fix it. He claims still that those with preexisting conditions will not be affected but yet early on in his term he was moving to remove them.

Trump surrogate, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, issued a proclamation limiting the amount of drop-off locations for mail-in ballots to one site per county in the sprawling state. Expect this to go to court. Abbott claims it was for ballot security and reduce “attempts at illegal voting”. The state’s Democratic party chair, Gilberto Hinojosa, labeled it a “blatant voter suppression tactic”.

Trump claims that Biden is on performance enhancement drugs and says as proof, during the early debates be claims Biden did a bad job but in later debates against Bernie Sanders, he did well. Asked for proof, he said to check on the Internet claiming that many people agree with what he is saying. However, no one has come out with actual proof like Biden actually swallowing a drug and the bottle is nearby. He said he would take a drug test prior to a debate if Biden does.

The Trump campaigned claimed that in an interview with Noticias Telemundo [a Hispanic new channel], Biden used a teleprompters – as in the questions and answers were pre-pared. Both the Biden campaign and the new channel said a teleprompter was never used. But the channel had a separate monitor to ask Biden questions. Where did this come from? Eric Trump. Known to tweet unreliable stories and in this case an edited video as well.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was pushed to play down the risks of the coronavirus pandemic in reopening schools for in-person classes, Olivia Troye, a former top adviser to Vice President Mike Pence. Troye, who worked as Pence’s lead staffer with the White House Coronavirus Task Force for months before leaving the Trump administration last month.

“Unfortunately, this was an effort, you know, at times where I would get blindsided, where there would be junior staffers being tasked to find different data for charts to show that the virus wasn’t as bad for certain populations, ages or demographics,” Troye said.

Where have we heard something like this before: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is slated to keynote a gala event for a very conservative Christian organization, Florida Family Policy Council, in Florida. Tickets to a VIP reception featuring Pompeo are included in $5,000 and $3,000 table sponsorships and $500 VIP tickets.

But there is a provision in federal regulations that prohibits executive branch employees from misusing their office for private gain, and that includes the private gain of any other entity to include in a non for profit. This is because there is a premium placed on personal access to the secretary. FFPC claim that Pompeo is not being compensated in any way.

Citing an upcoming book by former Trump deputy campaign chair Rick Gates, “Wicked Game,” that will be published October 13, The Washington Post reported that during discussions about selecting a running mate in 2016, then-Republican presidential candidate Trump said to a group of top campaign aides, “I think it should be Ivanka. What about Ivanka as my VP?”

An assistant US attorney in Massachusetts, James Herbert, is the latest federal prosecutor to criticize Attorney General William Barr, accusing the top law enforcement official of a “dangerous abuse of power” by politicizing his position and doing the bidding of Trump. Nearly 2,000 former Justice Department employees in May called on Barr to resign, saying in an open letter he had “assaulted the rule of law” by moving to drop the charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump can finally said he has done something possibly to be considered worthwhile: approval of a new privately funded railway from Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada into Alaska ending at Fairbanks. It would connect to the existing Alaska Railway. Trumped tweeted the name “A2A Cross-Border Rail” where I’m sure the first “A” is Alaska even though 85% of the rail line will be in Canada.

According to statistics, the number of first time jobless claimants has average 875,000 over the past 5 weeks. Last week, it was under the average at 837,000 but these total exclude those under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program which adds 650,000 to last week.

FIFA’s Blatter resigns – good riddance

Just days after winning the presidency of FIFA for another 4 years, Sepp Blatter resigned in front of a near empty press conference. [I wonder if that was done on purpose. Hmmmm.]

With his departure, FIFA will be looking for a hopefully new untarnished president but it may take a couple of months or so to gather the federations back. So he stays on until then.

With Blatter out of the picture at the next vote, will Prince Ali Hussein of Jordan have a good chance [after all, comes from the royal family – I’m sure plenty of money already].

An example of probably corruption by Blatter is threatening to suspend international football games in Iran, Nigeria, Kenya and Greece if their governments continued to have investigations into corruption of those federations.

This is a bit too much power. Does he has the authority to do so on his own – or maybe he thinks he does with the backing of the majority of federations.

The second-in-command for FIFA, secretary general Jerome Valcke, has been implicated in a $10 million payment involving the South African bid for the 2010 World Cup.

Even with the fact that in 2006, Blatter’s personal favorite, Valcke lying on the stand in a trial, he still managed to get to his current position. It shows you there is some type of corruption in FIFA.

As it is, Valcke has decided not to attend the Women’s World Cup in Canada starting this weekend because of some pressing “critical business”. One wonders if it is because the US and Canada have a nice extradition treaty and is nervous that he may be arrested in Canada and sent to the US.

If FIFA wants to clean up its image, it can start by taking a modified play out of the US government playbook. They should hire independent reputable investigators to investigate [vetted] the potential presidents of FIFA. Have the contenders decide very soon so that the investigators can check the contenders for a couple of months or so.

Turmoil hits FIFA

Turmoil hits FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, errr, football, in the world.

Just days after arrests from major officials in the organization, 4 time president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, became a 5-time president. It wasn’t even close, winning in the second round.

The latest battering to FIFA’s credibility came when Swiss and U.S. criminal probes into corruption were disclosed two days before the presidential vote, with several leading officials arrested in Zurich.

Major [US] sponsors have already warned that they want to see corruption and reported near slave labor in Qatar [hosting the 2022 World Cup] cleaned up.

The 2018 World Cup was awarded to Russia and Russian President [and tyrant/dictator] Vladimir Putin was already blaming the US wondering why the US was also probing FIFA – thinking that the US is trying to remove Russia from hosting the world cup, just 3 years away. He has gone bonkers.

[Since the US doesn’t have clout in football and the rest of the world’s votes dwarf the US – even with allies – unsure how the US can get FIFA to remove Russia as host unless it is clear that Russia was heavily involved in corruption. But you know Putin. He comes out with these hypotheticals that are so unlikely.]

One of those officials that were arrested is from Russia.

Sepp Blatter has promised to clean up FIFA. If so, he didn’t notice all this corruption over the past few years as the probes have indicated the length of the investigation?

And what happens if it continues?

Oh both Russia and Qatar backed Blatter as president – which will run for the next four years. Blatter was supposed to leave his post in 2011 in a deal but reneged on the deal. Can he be trusted?

There have been some rumors the UEFA [the European governing body], US, Canada and South America could pull out of FIFA. What would this mean for FIFA?

Well, some of the major powerhouses – let alone most of the sponsors – would abandon the World Cup. The sponsors want to see the best teams play and not a bunch of previously ranked low ranked countries battle for the cup. The UEFA president asked Blatter to stand down but was refused.

I think FIFA needs UEFA more than UEFA needs FIFA.

A European boycott could also cause problems when it comes to having foreign players play in the various leagues across the Europe and elsewhere. Would the best players in Africa be able to play in European leagues?

Blatter has tried to defend himself and has hinted there is some type of political correlation in the investigation.

Meanwhile at least two banks that have dealt with FIFA have opened internal investigations to see if they are involved in the corruption.

[Oh the US can investigate FIFA, just like any other country as they are a member of FIFA. In addition, most of the major sponsors are from the US.]

Windows Updates causes team to lose basketball game

[And no, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke.]

As the home team in a match against Chemnitz in the German league basketball game, the Paderborn Finke Baskets were responsible for the large score display. The laptop that was controlling the screen crashed before the start of the game. As it rebooted, it insisted on installing Windows updates. The game was supposed to start at 7.30 pm on March 13th , but after speaking to the referee, the manager for Paderborn decided to wait for the screen to come back before tip-off.

With the team badly needed to hold on to their spot in the league, it took 17 minutes for the Windows updates to be installed [why so many?] which turn out to be two minutes longer than the Paderborn could work with. In an official statement from the Basketball Bundesliga league officials, they confirmed that Paderborn has been relegated from the ProA because if a game is interrupted for more than 15 minutes, the responsible team is considered to have lost the game. This is part of the league rules.

How not to handle a crisis

Well, we see the NFL seems to continue to have problems. Between owners with racist remarks to the dumb and stupid antics of their players, the NFL needs to do something to clean themselves up.

Consider the latest issue with Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice. He was caught on camera hitting his then girlfriend [and now wife] back in the spring. In the video, they were shouting obscenities at each other, and she appears to spit at Rice right before he throws a hard punch at a casino.

The NFL claimed they only saw it this past week when it was shown on TMZ but a law enforcement official claimed the full video was sent to a NFL executive back in April. But at one point, the NFL has said it asked for the video from law enforcement, but was denied. Something definitely wrong in the front office.

Rice meanwhile had been charged with felony aggravated assault, but in May he was accepted into a pretrial intervention program that will allowed him to avoid jail time [with conditions]. The program could lead to the charge being purged from his record. He was initially suspended for two games but when the video came out and was then cut from the Ravens and right after was suspended by the league indefinitely.

It’s not the only controversies in the past few years. The Miami Dolphins bullying incident in 2013, the New Orleans Saints bounties and the New England Patriots with their spying scandal.

Just within the past 48 hours, Philadelphia Eagles’ LeSean McCoy decided to give a waiter a 20 cent tip [yes, two dimes] on a bill of over $60 at a Philadelphia restaurant. The waiter – who is a Baltimore Ravens fan – claims McCoy and his friends were using rude language and making “derogatory comments” during their time in the restaurant. [The waiter did admit he forgot to deliver an appetizer.] Once the players received their food, one said “We ain’t eating this s**t. We don’t want it.”

As well, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is being sued by an exotic dancer accusing him of sexual assault. The $1 million suit claims that the 2009 incident caused the 27-year-old to fear for her life.

Another team owner, Jim Irsay of the Indianapolis Colts, is currently serving a six-game suspension and had to pay a $500,000 fine after pleading guilty to one misdemeanor count of operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

So, will the NFL front office do something?

Fan takes team to court for dozing off during game

Yes. You read it right.

A New York Yankees fan has filed a $10 million lawsuit against two ESPN announcers, ESPN, Major League Baseball and the Yankees contending they mocked him using words like “fatty” and “stupid” when he was caught on national television sleeping in his seat during a game against Boston recently at Yankee Stadium.

In the lawsuit, Andrew ector admits in court documents he “napped” during a game on April 13, but says the ESPN commentators Dan Shulman and John Kruk unleashed an “avalanche of disparaging words” against him.

Rector says he suffered “substantial injury” to his “character and reputation” and “mental anguish, loss of future income and loss of earning capacity.”

The “loss of future income and loss of earning capacity” would not have happened if he didn’t fall asleep and didn’t file a lawsuit. Now that he filed a lawsuit everyone knows his name.

Yes, the announcers did go a bit far but until the lawsuit came out, I think few would of known he was the sleeping target.

The fact that he also blames the Yankees is ridiculous as they have little to do with the issue – other than a boring game [2-1]. Maybe he included them because it was a boring game and if it was 12-10, he would of been awake!

I would suspect Yankee fans won’t be happy with him.

You can see and hear a video of the what happened here. It’s your call. :-0)

Politically correct team names

The NFL’s Washington Redskins may be forced to change the team’s name. It was tried before but unsuccessful. Now there is further pressure to do so.

The name “redskin” is not politically correct.

There are some who are traditionalists and those who want to keep the name argue that [among other reasons] it’s been that name for so long, why change it now?

Others argue that in this politically correct world [well, part of the world at least], it is time to correct the names of various teams that offend others.

But where do we draw the line?

Is the CFL’s Edmonton Eskimos not politically correct? I’d say the name is fine.

The NHL’s Chicago Black Hawks? I’d say they’d be nervous if the Redskins are, but mostly because of the team logo. An actual black hawk as a team logo wouldn’t be an issue.

US college football’s Notre Dame Fighting Irish? I never heard any complaints. I think the Irish are happy.

US college football’s North Dakota Fighting Sioux? Well, if Notre Dame is fine, shouldn’t the Fighting Sioux? But some may object.

How about the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs? Surely those birds aren’t happy to be associated with a team that hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967. 🙂

There actually is one financial advantage of changing a team name: merchandising. Think of all the die-hard fans buying the new merchandise. Even the old Redskins merchandise would increase in value on various sites. [The late Baseball’s Montreal Expos merchandise is still selling – maybe even better than the last few years when they were around.]

Here comes the second season

Ok. We are coming close to playoff season for hockey and basketball.

A few have commented on how many teams make the playoffs.

Over the years the National Hockey League had a problem because too many teams made the playoffs. Even with a very sub-par season was good enough for a team to make the playoffs – and in a few cases actually went farther than expected.

At least as the NHL reached 30 teams at least they didn’t increase the number of teams in the playoffs. Already it is too long at possibly 2 months’ worth of playoffs – considering the season is under seven months.

It all comes down to money. NHL players do not get a salary as the playoff season begins. So any sales from tickets [and maybe from other sources] are pure profit [well except for the obvious stuff]. On top of that, playoff tickets are usually quite higher than a regular season game.

The same could be said for some junior hockey leagues. One in particular has 18 teams and 16 make the playoffs.

Baseball could be another example. It used to be 2 teams in each league. Then with three divisions, it was the best three plus the best ream of the rest. Now there is a playoff game between the two top teams [other than the division winners].

Once again, what the owners reap in is almost pure profit as the biggest chunk of playing a game is the players’ salaries.

The National Football League – luckily – doesn’t have a very lengthy season. Well, not really, as there are plenty of teams. But they play a single game and not best of five or seven.

 

Here comes the Putin Olympics

So the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are set to begin very shorty.

One wonders how the International Olympic Committee even allowed Russia [as well as others] to host the Olympics. Consider the following:

• The weather is above zero constantly. True, many events are in doors or in the mountains but Sochi even has a beach. Will Sochi have some lack of snow issues like they had in Vancouver? [They could have been the first Winter Olympics to have beach volleyball!]
• Islamic extremist from Dagestan, Chechnya and other areas threatening with terrorist strikes. In fact, those areas aren’t too far from Sochi – almost at the edge of what some would call a war zone. In fact some athletes are coming to the Olympics but without their families.
• The Putin government has implemented anti-gay [or LGBT] laws that are borderline draconian. A “Pride House” was banned by the Putin government. Adults can’t really mention LGBT issues to children or fear about getting arrested.
• Recently, an environmental activist was arrested for swearing. Something tells me they just wanted the activist away from Sochi. He was jailed for 15 days. Hmmm. He’ll be released just about the time the games end.
• Other lengthy jail terms for what would be considered lighter crimes [such as Pussy Riot or the “Greenpeace 30”] where those sentenced were placed in brutal gulags in northern Russia or just nasty prisons that make some US prisons look like a luxury resort.
• There is an authorized protest zone but far far away from the Olympic venues.

You though it could get as bad but future Olympics locations include Qatar [where workers are working under near slave conditions] and South Korea [where some dislike human rights abuses].

So is the IOC picking sites because nobody else want to pay for or host the games?

The final audited price for the Vancouver games was $1.84 million. When awarded the Olympics, the Russians estimated the games would cost $12 billion. The estimated price for Sochi is already estimated around $51 billion [which includes extra security] but I’m sure a nice chunk is corruption related. The Russian government claims that the actual price tag is in line with the original estimate and the remainder was for upgrades that would of happened anyways. Ya. Right. Maybe $35+ billion in upgrades to Sochi over 7 years [the time since the games were awarded]. On the other hand, Sochi is like a playground for the rich.

Of course we will probably never know. I’m sure the Putin government will give doctored results.

Lawsuit by hockey player’s family has little merit

About 2 years ago, hockey player Derek Boogaard died from an overdose of painkillers.

If you follow one story, he was an NHL just to fight other players. The New York Rangers were paying him $1.6 million a year to do so – way more than a good chunk of the NHL players do and especially for a guy who will spend more time in the penalty box [and maybe on the injury list] than most players.

His family is suing the National Hockey League claiming that they should have done more to prevent Boogaard’s brain injuries and his addiction to pain killers.

Just like the National Football League, the [ex-]NHL players are coming out of the woodwork complaining about various ailments related to concussions. They say that the NHL should have responded sooner.

Boogaard knew he signed his contract that had just one job and one job only – to fight other goons in the NHL [while it is probably not worded in his contract I am sure he was informed as well as his agent, his family, etc.]. He wasn’t there to score or anything else.

Anyone who plays hockey [and for that matter football] know that there is a risk of getting a concussion and it increases if you are the team’s designated goon. He knew that when he signed the contract. Concussions didn’t start to appear last year. They have been known for years.

Take the NHL to court? For what? Something he and his family already knew? He could of quit the game or maybe told his coach that he doesn’t want to fight. It was his choice. Was he pressured? Maybe. But it was still his choice. They could of said, fight or lose your job. Making $1.6 million a year is no pocket change. For the typical person, that is about 20 years of a good salary. And he played for a number of seasons.

As for the pill aspect, the story goes that he was playing for the Minnesota Wild where he had more than 40 prescriptions for 1,023 pills. If so, why go after the NHL when it was Minnesota Wild that probably started his drug addiction. Take them to court. Looks like there is some incompetency with the doctors there.

While it is too bad that he died, the Boogaard is at least partially to blame. The Minnesota Wild could also be blamed. In fact, NHL players [like any professional sport] have physicals prior to the season begins at training camp. Surely between the physical as well as seeing anything “odd” in his well-being or behaviour during would have raised a few alarm bells. Or how about his family? Surely if his mood or behaviour was different, wouldn’t they notice it as well? With recent issues related to cracking down on using illegal substances, you would figure testing of various drugs would be included.

Like any life insurance [and assuming here], the insurance isn’t paid out if death is from a suicide. I may be wrong here but since the estate can’t get any money from the insurance, the estate lawyers are going after the NHL with this law suit.