(Editor’s note: Mixed into a rambling narrative about the current state of affairs in the NFL loaded with historical and pop culture references, Mr. Brutal makes some football picks. Why does he call it the “War of 1812 Football Prognostication”? He likes history, he’s Canadian, and it probably has something to do with those two facts. That’s all we’ve got.)
Thursday, December 4, 2014
8:30 pm Eastern Standard Time
Dallas (-3.5) @ CHICAGO 51.5
The NFL is praying that the outrageous expression of First Amendment rights by five Saint Louis Rams on Sunday doesn’t spread and become a virus that other players copy, most notably any players in this game between the Cowboys and the Bears on National TV.
The five Ram players entered the stadium with their hands up, emulating the gesture of the nearby Ferguson, Missouri protesters. Almost nobody saw this live, as the gesture wasn’t actually televised and the game was only a local market CBS game shown in Saint Louis & Oakland. The director though, chose to show a replay of the entrance during the game because they thought it was relevant and newsworthy.
The director was correct… and we also fully expect to find that CBS has transferred the offending party to American Samoa to direct out-rigger canoe races on a semi-permanent basis. The director would have made the fatal mistake of using their own initiative & not following Network guidelines in always kowtowing to the wishes and broadcasting outlines preferred by the NFL, its commissioner “The Mighty Favog” Goodell and the 32 Prince Ploobis owners who give him power and guidance.
Of course all of this might have gone away if the St. Louis Police Association hadn’t expressed outrage and demanded an apology from the Rams and drawn more national attention to the incident. The Rams then announced that they would not ask for an apology from the players involved [ even they could see that this was a potential Donald Sterling situation that could really escalate ].
However, apparently the Rams management then either apologized via phone call, didn’t apologize, gave a non apology apology, bought 2,000 tickets to the Policeman’s Ball ( which is a hard sell this year ) or sent free gear, tickets & energy saving light bulbs to the entire Police Association membership.
Of course, Rams Owner; Enos Country Slaughter Stan Musial Kroenke { the full origin of his real name } wants this to go away as fast as possible. After all he is a big Republican donor, but mostly he is married to Ann Walton, one of the heirs of the Walmart fortune and by extension & association, a huge % of the American GDP and more than the bottom 42% of all American families combined.
A lot of large sit down protests resulting from the Ferguson shooting? …. murder? ….. self defense? ….. urban authoritative interaction misunderstanding? are taking place in local Walmarts. This is causing undue embarrassment to the Kroenkes, affecting profits, reputations and one fears that their grandchildren will not receive enough food to live through the winter.
Of course, probably none of this would have happened if the Missouri grand jury investigating the shooting of Michael Brown had been instructed by a prosecutor who actually sought to get an indictment against officer Darren Wilson. Instead, Bob McCulloch operated as a defense attorney and presented every piece of exculpatory evidence possible. In other words, he presented the defense’s case for them before the case went to trial, breaking almost every known tenet of prosecutorial tradition and the resulting failure to indite was a fait accompli.
.Even the most conservative Supreme Court Justice on the Supreme Court would apparently agree with us. According to Anton Scalia, ruling in a 1992 case:
“It is the grand jury’s function not to enquire …. upon what foundation the charge may be denied or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine upon what foundation the charge is made by the prosecutor.
As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.”
Of course McCulloch interviewed the suspect for hours, pointing out to the grand jury every piece of evidence that had any possibility of doubt. He instructed them to not indict if they felt any skepticism about the evidence.
What a joke! A prosecutor who quickly embraces the defense role of Clarence Darrow, Perry Mason & F. Lee Bailey instead of the role of any normal prosecutor, and the crime hasn’t even gone to trial.
If Bob McCulloch had assumed the Robert Jackson role at Nuremberg, …… Herman Goering, Julius Streicher, Alfred Jodl, Joachim von Ribbentrop and others would have walked out the door at the start of the trial, headed to Munich and celebrated their acquittal by hoisting beers at Oktoberfest instead of having their miserable carcasses hoisted up the gallows and hung for their crimes against humanity.
Of course, if Anton Scalia were asked about his stand on grand juries today, we’re sure he would hypocritically alter or reinterpret them to fit the conservative zeitgeist of the moment. This is a judge who sees nothing wrong with attending multiple right wing fund raisers as a paid speaker. His rulings on any case before the court are more predictable than the sun rising in the morning. His pathetic ruling on “Citizens United” defies credibility, credulity and common sense.
He is the living embodiment of “Situational Ethics.”
No normal person, from whatever political stripe or income group believes that money does not corrupt politics. Weasel words can be twisted into praise for anyone or anything, but ruling that corporations are the same as people puts Scalia and his cronies on the wrong side of history and sane reasoning.
If there is any hope for the events in Ferguson, it is the simple fact that a reactionary maximum publicity seeking Television Lawyer like CNN’s Nancy Grace, who almost always crows for the prosecution of everyone & anything has seemingly sided with the victim. She has joined the growing list of critics who are outraged at the actions of officer Wilson and the seeming dereliction of duty by prosecutor McCulloch.
Ms. Grace cited the apparent lack of consistency in Wilson’s testimony, his exaggeration of the assault against him, his lack of serious physical injury and the fact he shot a man 6 or 7 times at a distance of 30 feet, already knowing that he was unarmed. She criticized the prosecutor for seemingly going out of his way to get the grand jury to dismiss the case for him so he wouldn’t even have to go to trial.
Nancy also said this is the first time “Ever” that she had not sided with or believed a law enforcement officer in a case of this nature.
We don’t generally listen to Ms. Grace. When she starts raising her voice with anxiety, she can scare away bats orbiting the CNN studio outside.
The only female voice more disconcerting on television is Ann Coulter, whose shrill cackles & hyperborean hatred escalates by trigonometric proportions as she gets on a roll denigrating everyone & everything that might conceivably conflict with her chosen narrow perspective.
Coulter’s cackling cacophony of vitriol, threats & calculated nastiness sounds as if she has been locked in a walk-in freezer and has gotten hold of a microphone to assail everyone in the outside world who might be responsible and terrify anybody else who doesn’t immediately change their plans and let her out.
This could be a calculated attempt at controversy & ratings, but maybe even a gelid squawk box like Nancy Grace tries to do the right thing once in a while because unlike “The Toothpick Witch” Coulter, she listens to her conscience.
Dallas at Chicago pits two Thanksgiving Thursday losers in a rematch that denies each of them the usual three extra days rest that playing on any Thor’s day brings. They don’t really deserve it based on their lackluster efforts on Turkey Day, as they both took most of the second half off.
This was either because:
1.) Both Chicago & Dallas had read the schedule, and using foresight decided discretion is the better part of effort and after realizing they had no competitive chance against the Lions & Eagles respectively, they reasoned that they should wisely save their energies for this game.
2.) They were too distracted and excited about post game Holiday feasting. Some players may have also had Black Friday lineups they couldn’t wait to get to.
3.) Both Dallas and Chicago just stink and have the spinal constitution of General Oreste Baratieri’s Italian army retreating at the Battle of Adwa against the Ethiopians of King Menelik II in
We like Chicago here. The 3.5 points are attractive. The weather will be freezing and is trending to possibly even lower temperatures. The Marlboro man Jay Cutler versus Tony “Steve Austin” Romo { the bionically repaired one, not the beer swigging faux wrestler }.
We’ll take nicotine over spinal fusion & internal sutures.
The Bears are almost mathematically out of it and Dallas has more to play for but:
This is now officially December, …. and we all know what happens to Romo, the Cowgirls and owner Jerry Jones’ facial skin when the cold weather hits.
They all head south.
Pick: BEARS (+3.5)
Bob: Dallas -3.5
