DL Open Thread: Friday, December 17, 2021
Top HS Football Player Signs With–Jackson State. Big $$ Cheater Schools Go Apoplectic:
Players, coaches and administrators from Florida’s state universities have for months encouraged him and other legislators to amend portions of the state’s NIL law that puts them at a disadvantage when recruiting against other schools located in states with either no state law or a less restrictive state law.
LaMarca finally obliged. It just so happened to be filed on the biggest single recruiting day of the year and after the Seminoles experienced their stunning loss. In fact, LaMarca is asking himself what many are today: Why would the top-ranked prospect in the country choose Jackson State over FSU? He suggests that a future NIL deal may be in play for the 5-star defensive back, though he says he has no evidence to support that.
“What’s ironic, I’m both a Florida State and a Deion fan,” LaMarca said. “What is the reason to go from a program that was in the top-5 for 12 years straight with three national titles to a small HBCU in Mississippi?
“I’m assuming there is something in the works,” he continues. “There had to be some reason, or maybe he’s just a highly sought-after recruit and Deion is good at his job.”
Uh, maybe he wants to go to an HBCU to play for an all-time great? He’ll almost certainly get a better education at Jackson State than he would have at Free Shoes University.
Cry me a bleeping river. I can only hope this is a start of a trend. So many greats came out of the HBCU’s until the schools in the $EC realized that they couldn’t win w/o recruiting Black players to perform in front of their wealthy white alumni.
Judge To Sackler Family: ‘You’re Not Getting Off That Easy.’:
A federal judge on Thursday evening unraveled a painstakingly negotiated settlement between Purdue Pharma and thousands of state, local and tribal governments that had sued the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin for the company’s role in the opioid epidemic, saying that the plan was flawed in one critical area.
The judge, Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, said that the settlement, part of a restructuring plan for Purdue approved in September by a bankruptcy judge, should not go forward because it releases the company’s owners, members of the billionaire Sackler family, from liability in civil opioid-related cases.
Although the Sacklers did not file for personal bankruptcy protection, they had made immunization from opioid claims an absolute requirement in exchange for contributing payments amounting to $4.5 billion to the agreement.
But the bankruptcy code, Judge McMahon said, does not explicitly permit a judge to grant such releases, which she called “the great unsettled question.”
GOP Still Paying Trump’s Legal Bills. They’re all suckers:
That means the GOP’s commitment to pay Trump’s personal legal expenses could be more than 10 times higher than previously known.
Meaning that all the money he solicited for legal assistance went, as always, into his pocket:
Trump has more than $100 million in his PAC and could pay his own bills, should he choose to do so. Trump has attacked James repeatedly, saying her investigation is a political “witch hunt.”
Memo To Biden: Fire FDIC Chief. Like, yesterday:
The FDIC, however, doesn’t merely insure bank deposits. It is also a key bank regulator responsible for the safety-and-soundness of the banking system and enforcement of consumer protection laws.
The FDIC is currently in the throes of an internal power struggle. The immediate issue at the FDIC is about whether the agency is controlled by a majority of its board of directors or by its chair, Jelena McWilliams. All of the directors other than McWilliams are Joe Biden appointees; McWilliams is a Donald Trump holdover.
But what’s really at stake here is whether Democrats will allow Republicans to continue to stymie them through asymmetric political warfare. Biden must be prepared to fire McWilliams, despite the howls of outrage it would generate from the GOP; backing down would put his entire agenda at risk to Republican sabotage.
How Boston Cops Used ‘Civil Forfeiture’ Funds For Spy Technology. Delaware cops do the same shit with money stolen from those they’ve stopped on phony charges. While AG Jennings has put a stop to the cops putting the money in their FOIA-proof slush fund, the law has yet to be changed. Back to Boston:
Across the country, some law enforcement agencies have deployed controversial surveillance technology to track cellphone location and use. Critics say it threatens constitutional rights, and members of Congress have moved to restrain its use.
Nonetheless, in 2019 the Boston Police Department bought the device known as a cell site simulator — and tapped a hidden pot of money that kept the purchase out of the public eye.
