Tag: Politics

Afterward, Kanter made the rounds on …

Afterward, Kanter made the rounds on Capitol Hill, visiting nearly a dozen lawmakers from both parties, strolling hallways with which he’s become familiar in a dark suit and designer sneakers. “You guys know my story because I play in the NBA,” Kanter said at the news conference. “But there are thousands and thousands of stories out there that are way worse than mine. That’s why I’m trying to use my platform to be the voice of all those innocent people who don’t have one.”

“Even when someone has a good cause and …

“Even when someone has a good cause and a personal story to tell, they get into it so intensely that you almost want to back away from them for a moment,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. “But he’s so calm and so reflective, he draws you in and you want to listen.” “His approach to the conflict in Turkey is a humble one,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y. “He’s a humble spokesman, one that I think can get his message across better than a politician.”

“We pay a lot of attention to what …

“We pay a lot of attention to what happens in other leagues,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told Yahoo Finance when asked about what the NBA is going through in China. “Sooner or later, something happens to everybody. Your time is going to come. And we try to pay attention as to how they handle crises like these and problems like these and how they try to move forward.”

Charles Barkley reportedly says ‘I don’t hit women but if I did I would hit you’ to female reporter

There is an unfortunate pattern of behavior for Barkley here, though he insists his comments were made as a joke.

On Tuesday night, Axios reporter Alexi McCammond tweeted out that former NBA star Charles Barkley told her that “I don’t hit women but if I did I would hit you.”

McCammond said Barkley’s comments came after she asked about clarification for which candidate he was supporting in the 2020 Democratic primary.

She says Barkley spoke glowingly about Deval Patrick, but then a member of Pete Buttigieg’s campaign approached the group. When Barkley then said he was a fan of Buttigieg, McCammond pointed out that he had just voiced his support for Patrick. He then made the comment to her.

McCammond also said the comments had been made off the record, an agreement she would normally respect were it not for the nature of those comments.

UPDATE: Barkley has apologized for the comment.

As many online pundits pointed out, Barkley has a troubling history of comments made about violence toward women. Most were couched as jokes, but it’s still a worrying thing that he hasn’t seemed to learn a lesson about this.

McCammond concluded by saying she didn’t like being a part of the story.

“It’s not about me or my feelings,” she tweeted. “But it’s about refusing to allow this culture to perpetuate because of silence on these issues. It’s easier and less awkward to be silent, but that helps NO ONE but the perpetrator.”

The LSU football team is getting credit for helping the Louisiana governor win reelection

Yeah, that checks out

President Donald Trump recently spent time campaigning in Louisiana — when he wasn’t paying a $2 million fine for misusing his charitable foundation for his own benefit, or live tweeting his own impeachment hearings — to try to bolster the chance of the Republican candidate for governor there.

That candidate, Eddie Risponse, lost to incumbent John Bel Edwards on Saturday night. And as pundits everywhere reacted to the results, attempting to decipher what it all means for Trump’s influence in the Republican Party moving forward, this spectacular tweet entered the world and I wanted to give it human form and embrace it in the longest of bear hugs.

I’m not gloating over a Democratic win here. We can set aside my own political feelings for a moment. What I love most is that we still, in 2019, know so little about the forces moving our electorate that we’re liable to just give a recent football game the credit — AND THAT MIGHT BE ABSOLUTELY TRUE.

I have no doubt that the people of Louisiana may feel better about, well, everything in the wake of LSU finally beating Alabama at football again. That win has nothing to do with the governor — and everything to do with Coach O and his speeches — but sports is a thing we can all easily grasp and come together around. Public policy? Not so much.

That’s not great for the strength of our democracy, when you think about it, but it’s also not by any means a new phenomenon. Elections have long swung on popularity and general prosperity — whether or not those things were germane in any way.

Of course, former Alabama running back Mark Ingram has already blamed the Crimson Tide’s loss on Trump … so if that logic follows (it doesn’t, but go with me) then it was Trump, in the end, that doomed Republicans in Louisiana — via football, not all the the other stuff being debated on the Sunday morning shows as I type.

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Kanter, who has been a longtime critic …

China’s Tencent Sports suddenly halted …

China’s Tencent Sports suddenly halted the live broadcast of a key NBA game Saturday (Nov. 9) after a man seated in the front row of the audience was seen wearing clothes with a Taiwanese flag on them. The broadcaster declared that elements in the game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat did not “correspond to broadcasting standards” without giving a further explanation.