Last Call For The New Black Panthers

Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson has owned the team since its inception in the NFL almost 25 years ago, but he won't be the owner much longer as the league is now formally investigating his conduct towards players and staff as racist and sexist.

Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson announced Sunday that he would put his team up for sale at the end of the season after the National Football League said it was opening an investigation into accusations of workplace misconduct against him. 

"I believe that it is time to turn the franchise over to new ownership," Richardson, 81, said in a statement on the team's website. "Therefore, I will put the team up for sale at the end of this NFL season." 

Two days ago, the team said it was conducting an internal investigation into Richardson's conduct, but did not specify the nature of the allegations. Sports Illustrated says they include sexual harassment of multiple female employees and a racial slur. 

Hours before Richardson's announcement on Sunday, NFL.com reported that the league was opening its own investigation into the allegations. 

In the statement on Friday announcing the internal investigation, the Panthers said the team was "committed to ensuring a safe, comfortable and diverse work environment where all individuals, regardless of sex, race, color, religion, gender, or sexual identity or orientation, are treated fairly and equally." 

The Panthers announced that former White House chief of staff to President Clinton, Erskine Bowles — who is a minority owner of the team — would oversee the investigation by law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan. 

SI, quoting unnamed sources, detailed what it claims were inappropriate comments made by Richardson about how female employees fit into their jeans, as well as "Multiple female employees [recalling] to SI that Richardson asked them if he could personally shave their legs," the magazine said. 

" ... on multiple occasions when Richardson's conduct has triggered complaints—for sexual harassment against female employees and for directing a racial slur at an African American employee—he has taken a leaf from a playbook he's deployed in the past: Confidential settlements were reached and payments were made to complainants, accompanied by non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses designed to shield the owner and the organization from further liability and damaging publicity," according to SI.

Unlike Congress, it seems Richardson wont be able to get away with secret harassment settlement claims bound by NDAs.  And who would be willing to buy the Cardiac Cats?

Diddy, of course. And his first hire would be Colin Kaepernick.

Hip hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs said Sunday night he’s interested in buying the Carolina Panthers and signing quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who has been unemployed this season after kneeling during the national anthem in 2016. 

Panthers owner Jerry Richardson announced Sunday he would be selling the team after the 2017 season, just hours after Sports Illustratedpublished accusations of sexual misconduct from former employees. Richardson also allegedly used a racial slur about a team scout. 

Diddy took to Twitter soon after the Panthers announced the upcoming sale, declaring his desire to own a team and increase diversity among NFL ownership.

In a video posted to Instagram on Sunday night, Combs said “I would be the best NFL owner you could imagine. I will immediately address the Colin Kaepernick situation, and put him in the running for next year’s starting quarterback. It’s just competition baby, it’s just competition.”

We'll see who owns the Panthers next season.  Having grown up in North Carolina I've been a Panthers fan since the beginning, but I'm not going to lie and say Richardson has been a good owner.  The team has made it to two Super Bowls despite him, so hopefully the new owner won't be a complete jackass who happens to have several hundred million bucks lying about.

Actually Diddy's probably right that he might be the best owner we could hope for given that criteria.

Taxing Our Patience, Con't

With Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain now expected to miss the final votes on the GOP tax bill in the Senate this week as chemotherapy for his advanced brain cancer continues, the focus turns to Tennessee GOP Sen. Bob Corker, who now has to answer for his sudden and last-second yes vote as critics have found a provision slipped into the Senate bill that will personally benefit Corker by millions of dollars.

In an exclusive interview with International Business Times, U.S. Senator Bob Corker, R-Tenn, denied knowing about a controversial last-minute provision slipped into the Republican tax bill that could personally enrich him. Corker, the lone Republican to vote against the original Senate bill, which didn't include the provision, also admitted he has not read the final tax bill he announced he will support.

A trio of Democratic Senators, meanwhile, slammed the provision, which was first reported on by IBT.

Corker’s vote is considered pivotal in the closely divided Senate and he could be in a position to make or break the landmark legislation. He declared his support for the final reconciled version of the bill on Friday after GOP lawmakers added a provision that could benefit his vast real estate holdings -- a provision that Corker denied having any knowledge of.

In a series of rapid-fire telephone interviews, Corker asked IBT for a description of the provision, and then criticized it. But minutes later, he called back to walk back that criticism, saying he wanted to further study the issue, and that it was more complex than he initially understood it to be. Despite potentially holding the fate of the entire tax bill in his hands, Corker told IBT that he has only read a short summary of the $1.4 trillion legislation.

“I had like a two-page summary I went through with leadership,” said Corker. “I never saw the actual text.” Despite not reading the bill -- and having time to read it before the final vote scheduled for this week -- he reiterated his support for the bill to IBT, support he announced hours before bill’s full text was publicly released on Friday.

So Corker was a yes on the bill without reading it.  And then IBT catches him in the act of raiding the till.

Corker called IBT to respond to a series of IBT investigative reports showing that he switched his vote to “yes” on the tax legislation, only after Republican leaders added in a provision reducing taxes on income from real-estate LLCs. Federal records reviewed by IBT show Corker, a commercial real estate mogul, made up to $7 million last year from such income. President Donald Trump's financial disclosures listed between $41 million and $68 million of the same income.

After the report, Corker called IBT and asked for a detailed description of the provision, insisting he did not know about. After the provision was described, he said: “If I understand what [the provision] does, it sounds totally unnecessary and borderline ridiculous.”

A few minutes later, however, Corker called back, and tried to back off that criticism.

“I don’t really know what the provision does to be honest. I would need an accountant to explain it,” Corker said. “I had no knowledge of this and would have no knowledge of it except for you guys are calling me about it. I have no idea whatsoever whether it impacts me or doesn’t impact me.”

Corker you see would benefit from the same multi-million dollar tax break that a certain temper-tantrum tossing tangerine tyrant in training would benefit from, a provision slipped into the Senate bill text in the last minute.  He knows it, Trump knows it, and now the people know it.

The GOP is raiding the treasury on the way out before the economy collapses into a depression, and they're not even bothering to hide it.  How many other GOP senators got a kickback like Corker to screw their constituents?

They're planning to vote this week before we can find out.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

Donald Trump says he has no plans to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but he does have issues with Justice Department leadership as the game of cat and mouse continues.

President Trump on Sunday sought to douse speculation that he may fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III amid an intensifying campaign by Trump allies to attack the wide-ranging Russia investigation as improper and politically motivated.

Returning to the White House from Camp David, Trump was asked Sunday whether he intended to fire Mueller. “No, I’m not,” he told journalists, insisting that there was “no collusion whatsoever” between his campaign and Russia.

The president’s comments came a day after a lawyer representing Trump’s transition team accused Mueller of wrongfully obtaining thousands of emails sent and received by Trump officials before the start of his administration — a legal and public relations maneuver seen as possibly laying the groundwork to oust the special counsel.

Trump criticized Mueller for gaining access to those emails, telling reporters the situation was “not looking good.”

“It’s quite sad to see that,” Trump said. “My people were very upset about it.”

Mueller’s spokesman denied wrongdoing, and some legal experts questioned the claim that the emails were improperly obtained.

The outcry over Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference grew louder over the weekend among Trump loyalists and conservative media figures. Although Trump has publicly and privately criticized the Department of Justice and the FBI and voiced displeasure with his appointees there, the president’s advisers insisted he is not aiming his ire at Mueller.

“As the White House has repeatedly and emphatically said for months, there is no consideration about firing or replacing the special counsel with whom the White House has fully cooperated in order to permit a fully vetted yet prompt conclusion,” Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer overseeing the Russia matter, said Sunday in a statement.

Trump’s lawyers, who have been assuring the president that Mueller’s investigation is poised to wrap up by January or so, are scheduled to meet with Mueller’s team this week for a routine status conference. They are expected to ask the special counsel if there are any other outstanding questions or materials that investigators need before concluding the probe.

Trump's not angry at Mueller, you see. He expects the investigations to be over and done with next month.  He's angry at the people who employed Mueller.  After all, Mueller's just doing his job and there's nothing to find because Trump believes he did nothing wrong, so the investigation will be over shortly.

One way or another, it will be over shortly, that is.

Advisers who have spoken recently with Trump about the Russia investigation said the president was sharply critical of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, as well as Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who oversees the Mueller operation — but did not broach the idea of firing Mueller.

“I think he realizes that would be a step too far,” said one adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share a private conversation.

Rather, Trump appeared to be contemplating changes in the Justice Department’s leadership. In recent discussions, two advisers said, Trump has called the attorney general “weak,” and complained that Rosenstein has shown insufficient accountability on the special counsel’s work. A senior official said Trump mocked Rosenstein’s recent testimony on Capitol Hill, saying he looked weak and unable to answer questions. Trump has ranted about Rosenstein as “a Democrat,” one of these advisers said, and characterized him as a threat to his presidency.

In fact, Rosenstein is a Republican. In 2005, President George W. Bush nominated him to be U.S. attorney in Maryland.

After all, Trump can't actually fire Mueller himself, he can simply pull a Saturday Night Massacre and fire people in the Justice Department until he finds somebody willing to get rid of Mueller for him.

Trump regime State TV certainly wants him to jettison a lot of people.

Fox News host Jesse Watters suggested that the FBI investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election has maybe transformed into a “coup” against President Donald trump. Before a segment in which Watters interviewed Kellyanne Conway with the chyron, “A COUP IN AMERICA?” the Fox News host went on a rant about what he described as “smoking gun evidence” that the FBI agents investigating Trump are biased against the president.

“The investigation into Donald Trump’s campaign has been crooked from the jump,” Watters said on Saturday night. “But the scary part is we may now have proof the investigation was weaponized to destroy his presidency for partisan political purposes and to disenfranchise millions of American voters. Now, if that’s true, we have a coup on our hands in America.”

Watters specifically criticized FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was fired after he was found to have sent anti-Trump messages to a colleague. And Strzok is hardly alone as a target. Many at Fox have been increasing the rhetoric against FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Because the FBI has always been a hotbed of radical leftist anarchy rather than law and order, or something.

On Saturday night, another Fox News host, Jeanine Pirro, outright suggested that the FBI wanted to reverse Trump’s election. She explained her reasoning:

What would you say if I told you your vote doesn’t count? That all the effort into the issues and candidates is a waste of time? That there are people at the citadel of power who believe it is their right to invalidate your choice if they don’t agree with it?

Folks, this is not about politics. It’s much bigger. I doubt in American presidential election history that there has been as great a crime or as large a stain on our democracy than that committed by a criminal cabal in our FBI and the Department of Justice who think they know better than we who our president should be.

FOX News is certainly enjoying lighting all these fuses, priming viewers and all but calling for  bloody violence against if Mueller recommends charges against Trump, and the "all but" part will disappear when Mueller does so.

You thought 2017 was bad, folks?  2018 is two weeks away and it already promises to be one of the darkest years in modern American history.

StupidiNews!

• The power has been restored to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the busiest airport in the world canceled hundreds of flights and left thousands of holiday fliers stranded.
• The NFL has taken over the sexual misconduct and racial harassment investigation of Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, the league is retaining an outside counsel.
• Republicans say they have to votes to pass a final tax bill this week and put it on Donald Trump's desk before Christmas, it would be the biggest tax rewrite in 30 years.
• Meanwhile Senate Republicans aren't quite sure they have the votes to keep the government open another month as the House GOP's budget bill gives $664 billion to the Pentagon.
• Two new studies of Hurricane Harvey find that the record rainfall that flooded Houston earlier this years was made significantly worse by global warming.