The finalists have been named for this years Basketball Hall Of Fame induction list and three former Bucks are on the list. All have the credentials to get the call which will come at the NCAA Final Four in Minneapolis in early April. Marques Johnson, Sidney Moncrief and Jack Sikma are among the nominees. Johnson, who is currently a tv broadcaster for the Bucks network should be an easy choice. He is already a member of the Collegiate Hall of Fame after winning a national championship in 1975 and national player of the year in 1977 at UCLA. He played seven of his 10 NBA years in Milwaukee and was a five time All-Star averaging over 20 points and seven rebounds a game. Moncrief spent all but one of his 11 pro years with the Bucks in the 1980's and became a fan favorite. He is near the top in most offensive categories in team history. He was also the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year twice. Sikma was a seven time All-Star with Seattle before spening the last five years of his career in Milwaukee. He still leads the Bucks in free throw percentage.
The NFL settled its collusion case with Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid last week with a confidentiality order in place keeping any of the principals from discussing the agreement. The question most will have is why the case was settled before going to court? The settlement would appear to be a “win” for Kaepernick and some are speculating he and Reid will get 60-80 million dollars from the league. Some reporters who have covered the case think that the NFL did not want this case to go to open court as there are being called “very embarrassing” pieces of evidence that would have come out. Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote “If the league thought it could beat the collusion lawsuit, it seems unlikely they would have settled”. Kaepernick brought the suit against the NFL alleging that team owners had black-balled him from the league for his “take a knee”protest against police brutality and in support of social justice changes in the country. It later became co-opted by some on the right as a protest against the flag and the military, which if you even took a few minutes to research would know was not true.
Happy Birthday to Irma Thomas, the queen of New Orleans who turns 78 today
John Travolta turns 65 today. Has any actor made a more widely varied list of good and bad movies? Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Pulp Fiction and Get Shorty cannot make up for Battlefield Earth can they? Of course, for those of us who came of age in the 70's, he will always be Vinnie Barbarino….
Did you catch the end of the Daytona 500 yesterday? If you like race cars crashing the last 20 laps should have made you all tingly.
Things to piss you off today:
Despite making $11 billion in profits in 2018, Amazon paid zero dollars in federal corporate taxes for a second year in a row. The news came after the City of New York decided not to lavish nearly $3 billion in tax incentives on the company to place a a new headquarters building in Queens. As Greg LeRoy of Good Jobs First told the New York Times and used in a commondreams.com report, “Suddenly the green curtain was pulled back and people are aghast at what they saw, and rightfully so. He says having US cities pitted against each other in this case exposed corporate tax incentives to the larger public as an exercise in out-of-control corporate greed aided by politicians. As some suggested it seems wrong for a company that pays no taxes to need taxpayer money to expand in the largest city in the country. (or anywhere else for that matter). By the way, one of the reasons that Amazon pays no tax is the Trump tax plan that was passed into law in 2017. You wonder if it pisses Trump off that his law, passed to benefit his wealthy friends, is also helping Jeff Bezos who Trump despises.
5 victims killed in Aurora Illinois inlcuding an intern on his first day of work. As Sam Stein wrote, “Stuff like this used to be a big deal. Increasingly it just feels like America.”
Trump continues to debase the Constitution and even though we realize he doesnt even know what the document says, ignorance is no excuse for a President. He should at least peruse the Amendments before he tweets out his ignorance. Oh, and about that emouluments clause…….
An 11 year old American boy refused to stand for the Plege of Allegiance at his school. His teacher told him to leave America and go back to Africa. Then had him arrested for disobidience. No…really .
Quotes Of The Week:
“Years from now, we'll note with regret that Trump and McConnell picked the one year anniversary of Parkland to announce they were declaring a national emergency and the national emergency didnt have anything to do with gun violence.”-Adam Parkhomenko
“National Emergencies: 1 warming planet, 22 veteran suicides daily, 100 people killed by guns every day, 115 opioid overdoses daily, 2,737 seperated migrant children, 2,975 dead in Puerto Rico, 40,000 homeless veterans. Not an emergency: the southern border.”-Andrew Weinstein
'The endless flood of Trumps demented tweets make me doubt the utility of responding to this malignant demagogue who despises our constitution and longs for dictatorship. He's beyond redemption.”-Stephen Beschloss
“The Republican plan for climate change is to continue to take money from the fossil fuel industry and continue to call it a hoax. It should outrage us all, but sadly 40% of America is too drunk on orange Kool-Aid to care about important issues like our planets future.”-Ryan Knight
“Hey America, youre represented at the Munich Security Conference by Mike Pence and Ivanka. How does that make you feel? Secure?”-David Rothkopf
“Every day brings a new low, with the president exposing himself as a deliberate liar who will say whatever he pleases to get whatever he wants. If he were “on the box” at Quantico, he would break the machine.”-Andrew McCabe
“Its not equal justice when a kid with an ounce of pot can get thrown in jail, while a bank executive who launders money for a drug cartel can get a bonus. We need reform.”-Elizabeth Warren
Songs Of The Day (Don McLean was at the Grand Theater last week) here are a couple of his lesser known tunes from a late 70's Lp called “Prime Time”.
