Kasey Carpenter’s bill to Give In-State Tuition For Illegal Aliens (HB120)

Politics
Voice your opinion!  Call the Republican legislators of the Higher Education Committee today or early Friday morning and let them know your views.
   link to HB120
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Sports talk Thursday with Lauren Hunter: All about the money

Sports

For years, there has been a great debate on whether or not college athletes should receive compensation from companies for using their likeness on products. Last week California lawmakers took steps to ensure that this compensation happens, with a bill at the state level that would allow college athletes to receive money for use of their name, image and/or likeness. The bill passed the State Senate by a vote of 31-4.

Although the bill wouldn’t have any effect until 2023, the legislation received an immediate response from NCAA President Mark Emmert. According to USA Today, Emmert implied in a letter to chairs of two State Assembly committees that if the bill became law as it is currently written, then California schools could be potentially prohibited from competing in NCAA championships. Such a possibility would be a huge blow to the state, which is home to 23 NCAA Division I schools, four of which are in the Pac-12.

So here we go again- another back-and-forth between the almighty NCAA and everyone else. In my opinion there are excellent points from both sides of the argument here, many of which I plan to explore throughout this post.

The NCAA and California lawmakers are going head-to-head over a bill that would allow college athletes to receive compensation for the use of their likeness.

Let’s start from the athletes point of view. If I were in their shoes I would be flattered at first to know that a company believed me talented enough to feature in a video game or on a t-shirt. But everything goes back to the money. And after I found out that they were making a significant profit off of my hard work, I would want my slice of the pie.

Such was probably the thoughts of athletes Sam Keller and Ed O’Bannon when lawyers representing them filed separate antitrust suits against the NCAA in 2009 concerning video games. O’Bannon ended up securing at $40 million settlement with the video game publisher, Electronic Arts.

And while I’m considering this point, besides the fact that companies don’t want to have to share with anyone they don’t want to, why shouldn’t an athlete get paid for using their likeness? Anytime a company wants to use an actor or actress for one of their ads, they have to pay up. I don’t see a difference, other than potentially the age and where they are at in their careers.  The way I see it, the only thing keeping student athletes from receiving payment is the rules of the NCAA. Hence the conflict between the association and the current bill in California.

EA Sports’s NCAA Football is an example of a video game that used the likeness of college athletes. NCAA ended their deal with Electronic Arts (EA) in 2014. Credit: USA Today

At the VERY LEAST, companies should secure consent from athletes when using their name and/or likeness. And it should come directly from the athlete, even if there are other arrangements that have to be made with the school and/or NCAA. Even if the NCAA controls permission for companies to use an athletes image, I personally believe the athlete should at least be notified and consulted.

Anyone who disagrees with the above point of view probably does such because of the impact it can have on college athletics as we know it. As much as I hate to admit it as a recent college graduate, the whole point of college is to get an education. Sports should be an added benefit, however recruiting has become such a big deal in our nation that often sports become the ultimate priority and education falls to the wayside.

With that being said, we all know the perks that come with going to a D1 college on an athletic scholarship. It’s not like all of the athletes who appear on video games and other products are destitute. In many instances they’re treated like borderline royalty at the colleges they attend, with priority class registration, great dorm locations and tutoring on a whim. And for those who have the potential to go pro, there are even more programs to help assure hefty contracts come draft day. Long story short- many of these athletes who complain about not getting paid also have it MADE. I imagine that if you got right down to it with the board of the NCAA, they would say the same thing.

So speaking of the colleges, where do they fit into all of this mess? And better yet, why does the government care?

If we want to be cynical about it, we could say that colleges want to win championships. And without some of their star players, their chance of winning diminishes. If an athlete gets busted for doing something like accepting money for an autograph, for example, then there ya go. I know that the bill in California primarily focuses on the use of an athlete’s likeness, but if that is allowed then one can assume the rest will probably shortly follow.

But if we don’t want to be cynical then colleges probably see the wisdom in letting athletes accept a part of the money that is made off of their own name. Goodness knows that athletic programs probably receive money from the use of their logos and names.

As far as why the government is getting involved, there’s not a lot of thought I have on that, but I will say I am interested in seeing how this situations pans out. Sounds like enough legislators agree that college athletes deserve compensation if their name or likeness is used, so only time and more news updates will tell what ends up happening in this government/NCAA showdown.

 

What’s with the Gestapo Tactics by Progressives? Power!

Opinion

Have we already forgotten the Elian Gonzales fiasco when Bill Clinton’s Attorney General sent in her Storm Troopers, agents encased in Kevlar, armed to the teeth, to kidnap one little Cuban refugee boy and forcibly return him to Father Fidel? The one scene that remains locked in the memory is the frightened wee lad huddled in a closet with a masked and helmeted federal agent shoving an AR-15 in his face.

Do we forget Waco, Tx. where Storm Troopers attacked a religious compound with a tank and an army of Federal Agents on some BS pretext to stop them from practicing their religious beliefs? In the ensuing melee, the Feds crashed their RV into the building setting it ablaze and burning nearly sixty people to death, most of them little children.

Before their sacrificial immolation to the gods of Socialist Progressivism, the Waco bunch, Branch Meridians, sought to protect themselves by the last constitutional means available to them, the 2nd Amendment, and paid the supreme penalty for their perfidy. Sadly, a few agents got in the way of return fire and were hit, yet, the progressive government of Bill Clinton found justification in the governments criminal action and the whole sad event was soon forgotten.

Ruby Ridge is another case remindful of the governments application of Gestapo tactics, also used during the Clinton administration. The public, seeing what was unfolding couldn’t believe what was happening, right here in our America. A woman holding her baby, inside the door of her home, was shot dead by a federal sniper and, after all was said and done, the target of their attack still went free and the govt. had to pay him reparations, fees and expenses. They could never return to him his wife and mother of his child.

Now, with the Progressive Deep State still in functional control of the DoJ and the FBI, early morning raids by a host of armed federal agents, CNN in tow to record their bravery, pounded on the door of their target, a sixty-eight year old man, demanding he immediately open up and let them in. That is Gestapo and, I might add, Soviet KGB style terrorism to their own populous, to demonstrate, in the world theater of government inevitability, that we deplorable’s had better not resist when they come after us no matter the pretext.

At the moment, even as Special Prosecutor Mueller’s case against President Trump collapses, the object of what we are witnessing remains the Deep States desperate need to destroy Donald Trump, before he can finish God’s work. Trump is probably the best and most effective real leader America has seen since Abe Lincoln.

The current House of Representatives under the leadership of demented House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will squander their next two years fruitlessly protecting Mueller and his important inquiries into the already discredited Trump-Russian collusion nonsense, while obstructing the Presidents determined efforts to tear down Obama’s destructive legacy of incompetence, and prevent him, through lawsuits filed in cooperative progressive manned federal courts, from completing the goals he promised and we want.

Progressivism is a curse on society. It has no constructive alternative to any society based on freedom and liberty. When in control, they must “lead from behind” (push), mandate solutions that fit all, requiring all citizens to comply. And, they must squander tax payer money on importing voters, by hook or crook, that will keep them in power. Power is their opiate.
Remember, freedom is the goal, the Constitution is the only way. Now, go get ‘em!

Obstructionist? Just Who is That?

Opinion

Obstructionist? Just Who is That?

The radical left media reports that Special Counsel Robert Muller, a former FBI Director and long time close friend and confident of recent former FBI Director James Comey, not finding any collusion, will now turn his sites on Trump for obstruction. That’s wishful thinking. They couldn’t affix any possible collusion between Trump and the Russians so they move to the next word in their vast vocabulary Sadly, the Republican Congress goes along with it. Go after the real crooks.

Mind that Mueller is a Special Council, not a Prosecutor so, before he launches any more attacks against our President, he had better turn his eyes first on the corrupt Dept. of Justice under the leadership of Loretta Lynch and her FBI Lackey, James Comey. Comey, under oath, admitted leaking a memo to the NYT. Problem is, no one has seen the memo(s) so they stand as “hear-say,’ but important to the left, none-the- less. That still marks Jim Comey as an obstructionist if not a liar.

The then US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, after her exposure of a secret meeting with Bill Clinton on a tarmac in Phoenix, Az, instantly became both an obstructionist for Hillary Clinton’s crimes and, after her steely-eyed confrontation with Comey in her office, guilty of collusion as well. Will their crimes never cease? No, not until the swamp is drained, ergo, the attacks will continue. And they still think Trump is guilty of something impeachable.

This continued hounding of the President for alleged things he didn’t do represents the soft, politically driven effort to remove the hated Trump from office before he destroys everything they love. The losing Democrat party, now having no viable leadership, no message, and no single voice, still manage to scream their way into the news because the radical-left media, i.e.: the NYT and Washington Post among others, are now driving the anti-Trump Agenda.

For example, Obamacare is on it’s death bed. It’s unaffordable and unworkable, as it was intended to be, yet the obstructionists on the Democrat side of Congress claim the Republican Party will suffer terribly if they succeed in removing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, protection for millions of the formerly uninsurable. When a Democrat like Chuckie Schumer, and the media, tells us in heartfelt tones, what is good or bad for the Republican Party, then we instinctively know we’re listening to a desperate and lost cause.

Big legislative efforts like replacing the Obamacare and reforming the Tax Codes, are massive undertakings and much media attention, mostly negative, is devoted to them. Trump,  owever, sometimes with the Republican Congress, and between his tweeting at windmills, is rapidly disassembling Obama’s obstructionist regulatory legacy and the Democrats can’t do anything about it. We don’t hear much about that in the media, do we?

The NY Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN and other leftist media sources, insist on trying to convince Americans they made a mistake in electing Trump. Other polls demonstrate the fallacy of their thinking. The people are not disturbed by Trumps tweets but support him totally. Daily, I get email requests from “traindemocrats.org” looking for signatures to petitions demanding Trumps Impeachment, & etc. while soliciting donations to their cause. These posts are disconsolate in their tone, hateful in their message and desperate in their need.  We have ‘em on the ropes.

Remember, freedom is the goal, the Constitution is the way. Now, go get ‘em!

Morning Monologue 5/9/16

Opinion

Chaos in Blue Ridge?

https://youtu.be/HXdWsYAogWA

Speaker David Ralston 4/1/16

Politics

BKP Speaks with House Speaker David Ralston for a Legislative Session Wrap-up.

https://youtu.be/2b6t_ihaoiw

DA King and Immigration 3/23/16

Politics

DA King speaks on Immigration and the use of the word as well as Senate Resolution 675 to make English Georgia’s Official Language and Senate Bill 6 to regulate Driver’s Licenses with Immigrants.

https://youtu.be/WQfXxcxvK-0

You can find DA Kings website for updates and the email.

Contact Speaker Ralston:

  • Capitol Address
  • 404.656.5020 – Office
  • District Address
  • 706.632.2221 – Office

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