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Posts posted by Francisco 2.0
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53 minutes ago, d2o said:
I get not wanting to give Kemba full max of 5/190. Offerring him 5/160 when other teams can offer 4/140 is saying you dont really care if he leaves. They low ball the only All NBA player in the history of they're franchise while grossly overpaying well below average players.
It's worse. Kemba's full max with Charlotte could have been 5/$221. Which would have been financial lunacy for the Hornets. BUT. That's the kind of message that Charlotte is sending to other potential free agents years from now. Never mind the idiocy that the franchise doled out in the past.
If Charlotte really didn't want him to stick around, they played this the only way they could have---by offering an insulting deal. Oh, they can peddle that to their fanbase, but in 2019, nearly all fans are sharp enough to know what was at play here.
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4 hours ago, HenryJames said:
Grifters gon' grift.
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Hey, one of the purchasers of David Gilmore's guitars was identified:
QuoteIndianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay is the type of billionaire who will quote long passages from Pink Floyd’s The Wall to you when you answer the phone. And even if you don’t pick up, he’ll still leave a voicemail parroting the monumental double-album’s whole “collect call to Mrs. Floyd from Mr. Floyd” routine. He’s a superfan who once stormed the front of the crowd at Chicago’s Soldier Field to get closer to the band in 1977, when they played their Animals and Wish You Were Here albums in full. And he’s the same music fan who, a decade later, cheered on David Gilmour when the singer/guitarist rolled by him in a golf cart backstage at a 1987 Indianapolis Floyd gig.
QuoteNow, he’s taken his fandom to its greatest height: Last week, he spent a record-breaking $3,975,000 at an auction on Gilmour’s famed “Black Strat,” the Floyd frontman’s instrument of choice on the band’s iconic Seventies classics. He also dropped $175,000 on the Pink Floyd–branded flight case that housed the guitar for decades and $1,095,000 for the 1969 Martin D-35 Gilmour used to record “Wish You Were Here.” When the sale was over, he bought nearly 25 percent of the nearly $21.5 million total the auction raised for Gilmour’s charity of choice, ClientEarth, which fights climate change.
Quote“I just fucking love Pink Floyd, man, I cannot deny it,” Irsay tells Rolling Stone. “I think [Roger] Waters’ lyrics and Gilmour’s playing and their whole story and prominence is just so profound that I cannot say enough about my excitement for this. … David Gilmour stands by himself.”
SpoilerIrsay established himself long ago as a connoisseur of cultural and rock & roll artifacts. He owns guitars that once belonged to Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Prince and others, as well as Jack Kerouac’s original “scroll” manuscript for On the Road and an original printing of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. He fondly remembers getting into bidding wars with the late Microsoft cofounder and fellow guitar aficionado Paul Allen, and he still radiates excitement when he talks about purchasing a pillar of rock’s fabric like the Black Strat.
Still, when he was bidding, he never expected to set the record for the most expensive guitar sold at auction, surpassing the heavily autographed “Reach Out to Asia” guitar, which went for $2.7 million in 2005. “I didn’t think it was gonna break all the records and go where it went,” he says. “It’s a good thing, of course, that the market is trending upward, but I was just taken by surprise.
Interest in the auction was high; it lasted eight hours and people from 66 countries registered to bid. Irsay did his bidding through a proxy, Larry Hall, and even though he wasn’t in the room, he was surprised by the level of interest in the event, which included 127 guitars and amps. He chalks the record numbers up to a heavy interest in Pink Floyd worldwide, a booming economy and the fact it was all for charity. “I knew after the ‘Wish You Were Here’ acoustic went for [$900,000] that it would be a record-breaking auction,” he says, citing the guitar’s “hammer price.” (The higher number above reflects additional fees that come with bidding.) “It was really off-kilter. I was like, wow. Why on Earth and how on Earth? But Floyd internationally is a powerful thing.”
He almost walked away from the Black Strat when bidding escalated quickly in the hundreds of thousands. He compares the bidding war to Ali and Frazier’s famous fight. “I was trying to slow down this opponent, and he just kept coming,” he says. His final bid was for a hammer price of $3.3 million, but he says if it went higher, he might have abandoned it. “If someone had gone to $3.4 [million], maybe I would have had one last effort at $3.5, but I don’t know,” he says. “Bidding is an intuitive thing. There are so many things that go into that zen mode, and, as they say in Caddyshack, you have to become the ball.”
He knew that once he had bid on the case, which went on the block just before the guitar, that he had to go through with getting the guitar. “If I don’t get the guitar, I’ll look like a jackass,” he says, laughing. “But I love Strats, and this is the Strat. This is the one that was the signature guitar for those incredible Floyd leads.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this year, Gilmour said parting ways with the Black Strat didn’t bother him so much. “You know something? For me, I can let go of it,” he said. “It’s going to bring a lot of people to have a look at this sale, and it’s going to do that job. It’s a lovely guitar. … It’s on so much stuff, but Fender have made replica ones that they sell, and I have two or three of those that are absolutely perfect. One of those might be my future guitar of choice or even, horror of horror, maybe I’ll even change the color.”
Now that the real Black Strat belongs to Irsay, the Colts owner is looking forward to playing it. But he says he remembers when he got Elvis Presley’s guitar he was “playing it a shitload” and started thinking, “You shouldn’t play the King’s guitars so much.” Nevertheless, with the Black Strat, “I’m definitely going to be getting some notes out of it, man.” He recently tracked a version of Tom Petty’s “Something Big” with some of his rock-star friends, and he’s looking forward to playing the instrument with his Super Bowl Band.
“We’re gonna have to do something to get the Black Strat to scream a little more before it’s all said and done, but it really holds a special place in the collection,” he says. “It truly is part of rock & roll history, the likes of which will never be seen again.” In addition to playing it, he hopes to display it in a museum he’s planning to show off some of his rock & roll artifacts.
His want to preserve things like the Black Strat also ties into the auction itself, since his money will be going to ClientEarth. Irsay says it’s “tremendous” that Gilmour would attach himself to that charity. “It is so soothing that someone from rock & roll would want to participate right in the center aspect of helping planet Earth,” he says. “God knows we need it. It’s a very serious topic, so I think it’s a wonderful thing. And very seldom do you see the likes of literally $20 million raised for something like it. That is significant capital towards a cause.”
But of course, for Irsay, it’s win-win. He hasn’t yet spoken with Gilmour about the sale, but he’s simply happy he was able to help the planet and own an instrument he once saw live onstage in 1977. “It was the big fish that didn’t get away,” he says. “We all remember the big fish that did, but this barely didn’t. This is something, man. This was worth the price of admission.”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-kamala-harris.html
QuoteDonald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, shared another person’s tweet with his millions of followers during the Democratic debate on Thursday that falsely claimed Senator Kamala Harris was not black enough to be discussing the plight of black Americans.
“Kamala Harris is implying she is descended from American Black Slaves,” Ali Alexander, a member of a right-wing constellation of media personalities, wrote on Twitter. “She’s not. She comes from Jamaican Slave Owners. That’s fine. She’s not an American Black. Period.”
QuoteMr. Trump, a valuable Republican surrogate as his father faces a bruising 2020 race, posted the tweet of unverified information, then asked his more than three million followers: “Is this true? Wow.” By the end of the night, Mr. Trump had deleted his message, and by Friday, a spokesman said it had all been a misunderstanding.
“Don’s tweet was simply him asking if it was true that Kamala Harris was half-Indian because it’s not something he had ever heard before,” said the spokesman, Andy Surabian, “and once he saw that folks were misconstruing the intent of his tweet, he quickly deleted it.”
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32 minutes ago, dingleberryswitzer said:
The luxury tax gets increasingly punative. I think at the max, you pay $2 tax for every $1 over the line. It never seems to be published (maybe it's not public) but the league wide tax is diviied up between not tax payers. It'd be interesting to see what the tax bill and per team distribution would be if GS were to have 3 or 4 super max contracts.
It's public:
http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q18
And it's the repeater tax that teams want to avoid.
As far as Golden State:
https://sportsnaut.com/2019/06/warriors-375-million-plan-to-keep-core-together/
QuoteWhat does this all mean from a financial perspective? If Golden State were to re-sign all three, it would be looking at a record $375 million payroll next season. That includes a luxury tax of $200 million, per ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Brian Windhorst.
Thompson’s max deal would come in at $190 million over five seasons. Meanwhile, the Warriors’ offer to Durant on Sunday will be for $220 million over five seasons. It’s $57 million more than any other team can offer KD, including $50 million for a fifth season that no one else can offer.
QuoteAs it relates to Looney, he’s looking at $12-plus million annually. As a repeat offender of the luxury tax, these numbers take on completely new meanings.
For example, a looming Draymond Green extension coupled with these three moves would place Golden State’s total payroll, luxury tax included, at $1.6 billion over the next four seasons.
Warriors general manager Bob Myers has indicated that Golden State is operating without a budget. That’s fine and dandy.
QuoteBut there are issues here. That’s especially true when we take into account that Golden State’s current ownership group paid $450 million for the franchise less than a decade ago.
The good news? San Francisco’s new Chase Center is expected to bring in north of $200 million in revenue on an annual basis. Meanwhile, Golden State is now the NBA’s highest-revenue team at north of $400 million.
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35 minutes ago, HenryJames said:
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17 minutes ago, Zepol87 said:
Pretty sure his next to move is to just shit on soccer as a whole
Eh, the #MAGA crowd already thinks it's a socialist sport so they will cheer.
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https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27071495/blame-kyrie-not-simple-boston
Good piece by Jackie MacMullen; there's lots of stuff within, but this passage. Even if Irving had checked out mentally, why be a dick and not sign the balls?
QuoteAt the completion of the regular season, the team set up 100 balls in a room for their charitable partners. Everyone signed the balls except Irving. When pressed to do it, say team sources, he was neither aggressive nor confrontational. He merely said, "No, I'm not interested in that."
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https://apnews.com/60b877521eec4667b64190b77bbf9136
QuoteWith a smirk and a finger point, President Donald Trump dryly told Russia’s Vladimir Putin “Don’t meddle in the election” in their first meeting since the special counsel concluded that Moscow extensively interfered with the 2016 campaign.
The tone of the president’s comment did little to silence questions about Trump’s relationship with Russia in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusion that he could not establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
QuoteTrump also is keeping an eye on the race to replace him back home. Ten Democrats met in Miami, Florida, as part of the first debates of the 2020 presidential race.
“I just passed a television set on the way here. I saw that health care and maximum health care was given to 100% of the illegal immigrants coming into our country by the Democrats,” Trump said, telling German Chancellor Merkel during their meeting that a debate the previous night “wasn’t very exciting.”
“So I look forward to spending time with you rather than watching,” he said. Merkel did not react.
QuoteLater, while meeting with Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro, Trump segued from a discussion on the crisis in Venezuela to declare that he had heard a rumor that the Democratic Party will change its name to the Socialist Party. “I’m hearing that, but let’s see if they do it,” Trump said.
There have been no such rumors.
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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/27/trump-officials-weigh-encryption-crackdown-1385306
QuoteSenior Trump administration officials met on Wednesday to discuss whether to seek legislation prohibiting tech companies from using forms of encryption that law enforcement can’t break — a provocative step that would reopen a long-running feud between federal authorities and Silicon Valley.
The encryption challenge, which the government calls “going dark,” was the focus of a National Security Council meeting Wednesday morning that included the No. 2 officials from several key agencies, according to three people familiar with the matter.
QuoteSenior officials debated whether to ask Congress to effectively outlaw end-to-end encryption, which scrambles data so that only its sender and recipient can read it, these people told POLITICO. Tech companies like Apple, Google and Facebook have increasingly built end-to-end encryption into their products and software in recent years — billing it as a privacy and security feature but frustrating authorities investigating terrorism, drug trafficking and child pornography.
“The two paths were to either put out a statement or a general position on encryption, and [say] that they would continue to work on a solution, or to ask Congress for legislation,” said one of the people.
QuoteBut the previously unreported meeting of the NSC’s so-called Deputies Committee did not produce a decision, the people said.
A decision to press for legislation would have far-reaching consequences for the privacy and security of tens of millions of consumers and effectively force companies such as Apple and Google to water down the security features on their smartphones and other devices.
SpoilerA ban on end-to-end-encryption would make it easier for law enforcement and intelligence agents to access suspects' data. But such a measure would also make it easier for hackers and spies to steal Americans' private data, by creating loopholes in encryption that are designed for the government but accessible to anyone who reverse-engineers them. Watering down encryption would also endanger people who rely on scrambled communications to hide from stalkers and abusive ex-spouses.
POLITICO was unable to determine what participating agency leaders said during the meeting, but there is a well-known fault line on encryption within the executive branch.
The DOJ and the FBI argue that catching criminals and terrorists should be the top priority, even if watered-down encryption creates hacking risks. The Commerce and State Departments disagree, pointing to the economic, security and diplomatic consequences of mandating encryption “backdoors.”
DHS is internally divided. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency knows the importance of encrypting sensitive data, especially in critical infrastructure operations, but ICE and the Secret Service regularly run into encryption roadblocks during their investigations.
An NSC spokesperson declined to comment on the meeting.
The high-level NSC discussion highlights how policymakers have continued grappling with encryption even as it has receded from the headlines.
“There is a significant [administration-]wide effort underway on what to do about the going dark issue,” said a lobbyist familiar with the discussions.
Tech companies such as Apple and Google began increasing their use of end-to-end encryption in 2014, to address privacy concerns sparked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s disclosures about the vast sweep of U.S. government surveillance. In response, DOJ and the FBI reinvigorated a decades-old campaign against this feature, arguing that it posed an impenetrable roadblock in many criminal and counterintelligence investigations.
The 2015 San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attack brought the encryption debate into the mainstream when DOJ took Apple to court to access a locked iPhone belonging to one of the shooters. Then-FBI Director James Comey accused Apple of trying to create a space beyond the reach of U.S. law. But that dispute ended without a definitive legal precedent, and despite the “going dark” problem occasionally resurfacing, encryption hasn’t made major headlines for years.
The transition between the Obama and Trump administrations saw a hand-off of sorts between two high-profile advocates of the need to access encrypted data. After President Donald Trump fired Comey, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein succeeded him as the government’s top “going dark” warrior. Rosenstein, who dealt with the issue as a U.S. attorney, warned vaguely that cooperation with Silicon Valley was unlikely to work, implying that legislation might be needed.
But now Rosenstein is gone, and experts generally agree that Congress is unlikely to pass a bill requiring warrant-compatible encryption.
Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) floated a draft measure in 2016 after the San Bernardino attack, but an intense backlash quickly killed its prospects, and despite occasional rumblings, it has not reappeared since. The climate is no better for the administration in the Democratic-controlled House, where there is bipartisan opposition to undermining encryption.
Still, the decision to hold an NSC deputies meeting — which has happened rarely under national security adviser John Bolton — suggests that the issue may not remain on the back burner for long.
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2 hours ago, yoladu said:
Ivanka Trump 37
Jared Kushner 38
what does Ivanka do exactly?
Let Jared ejaculate inside of her.
I'd say that's about it.
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https://jezebel.com/alabama-woman-indicted-after-someone-else-shoots-her-in-1835892341
QuoteAn Alabama woman who was shot in the stomach, resulting in the death of her unborn child, was indicted on a manslaughter charge by a grand jury. The reason? She started the dispute that led to her getting shot.
QuoteInitially, police charged 23-year-old Ebony Jemison for shooting 27-year-old Marshae Jones in December of 2018 outside a Dollar General in Birmingham. But according to AL.com, a police investigation determined that it wasn’t Jemison who was to blame for the shooting—it was Jones, for starting it:
“The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby,’’ Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said at the time of the shooting. “It was the mother of the child who initiated and continued the fight which resulted in the death of her own unborn baby.”
QuoteReid added that the fight began over the unborn baby’s father, and that the investigation found that Jamison was defending herself.
Reid’s latest statement reiterates what he said at the time of the shooting, which was:
“When a 5-month pregnant woman initiates a fight and attacks another person, I believe some responsibility lies with her as to any injury to her unborn child,’’ Reid said. “That child is dependent on its mother to try to keep it from harm, and she shouldn’t seek out unnecessary physical altercations.”
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Gee, tariffs. Excuse me, Tariffs. Who knew they could go the other way?
QuotePresident Trump called on India Wednesday night to withdraw its tariffs on U.S. products, ahead of meeting with the country's Prime Minister Narendra Modi at this week's G20 summit.
QuoteThe big picture: India imposed higher tariffs on 28 U.S. products this month, after the Trump administration withdrew the South Asian country's preferential trade status under the Generalized System of Preferences scheme. India was the biggest beneficiary of the scheme, which allowed duty-free exports of up to $5.6 billion, per Reuters.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in New Delhi on Wednesday, where he said he's "very confident" that the 2 countries could find a solution to the trade standoff.
Why it matters: It's the latest escalation in President Trump's trade war, designed to cut U.S. deficits. The tariffs on products including almonds and apples are as high as 70% on some items and are in response to Washington's refusal to exempt Delhi from higher taxes on steel and aluminium imports.
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Thoughts and prayers.
https://oklahoman.com/article/5634847/nra-cutting-ties-with-ackerman-mcqueen-nratv
QuoteThe NRA is cutting ties with its longtime advertising agency Ackerman McQueen and also is ending operations at NRATV.
The Oklahoma City firm has worked with the National Rifle Association for 38 years, but that relationship imploded over the past few months with lawsuits filed by both sides alleging fraudulent billings, betrayal, blackmail and lies.
NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre posted a letter to members Wednesday morning on the organization’s website advising all live programing is being halted.
Quote“As many of you may know, we have been evaluating if our investment in NRATV is generating the benefits needed,” LaPierre wrote. “This consideration included the return on investment and the cost and the direction of the content. Many members expressed concern about the messaging on NRATV becoming too far removed from our core mission: defending the Second Amendment.”
In response, a statement from Ackerman McQueen called the NRA’s failure to pay the firm and attacks part of a “smear campaign” against the agency. The firm alleges the NRA is using intimidation tactics to create fear of the NRA’s leadership.
Quote“The NRA is attempting to avoid the strict financial obligations it undertook when it outsourced its work to Ackerman McQueen,” the agency wrote. “NRA has the obligation to pay several millions of dollars of delinquent payments for work already completed that has benefited the NRA. They are refusing to pay, in part to harm Ackerman McQueen, but also because the NRA probably is having trouble meeting its financial obligations in large measure due to massive unbudgeted legal costs.”
QuoteIn the newest court filings by Ackerman McQueen against the NRA, the city’s largest and oldest advertising agency warned it faces significant layoffs and its continued existence is in jeopardy.
NRATV, created by Ackerman McQueen with all of the network’s personalities working for the advertising agency, including Dana Loesch and Oliver North, was started as a 24/7 live streaming network in 2016. Court filings indicate Loesch and North each were being paid about $1 million a year.
SpoilerThe future of NRATV has been in question for the past year. Criticism and internal debate over the channel date back almost to the start, but heated up as hosts like Dana Loesch turned from discussing gun rights to challenging critics of Republicans and President Donald Trump.
Loesch frequently drew fire from critics of the NRA as she hosted videos where she threatened to set a copy of The New York Times on fire and warned reporters “your time is running out.” And when Loesch sought to mock the children’s show “Thomas and Friends” for promoting diversity, her critics grew to include those within the NRA who were angered over her broadcasting an image of the train engines dressed in KKK robes and hoods.
It was after that September show that the NRA first hinted it also had questions about NRATV from influential members, including longtime lobbyist and former President Marion Hammer, asking if the network was benefiting the organization.
“What necessitated the change now is our conclusion that our longtime advertising firm and website vendor failed to deliver upon many contractual obligations it made to our Association,” LaPierre wrote Wednesday. “The NRA will always hold our vendors to high standards and ask that they maximize their value to the Association. No exceptions.”
Ackerman McQueen has denied allegations in lawsuits filed by the NRA, and has alleged the NRA is trying to break its contract so that it won’t have to meet its obligation to pay for costs associated with winding down operations and layoffs in an early termination of work.
In court filings, the firm also has indicated it likely will have to stop paying 40 percent of its employees this week with $1.6 million in billings overdue. The firm previously announced in January it is moving from its longtime home at Valliance Tower in northwest Oklahoma City to the new Monarch Building in Midtown. The agency recently filed a building permit for the interior construction and plans show several areas will be shelled in for “future expansion.”
The NRA is the agency’s largest client. Ackerman McQueen employs about 125 people in Oklahoma City, with the remainder working at offices in Dallas; Washington, D.C.; and Colorado Springs, Colorado. The NRATV operation is based in the firm's Dallas office.
In the latest filing last week, reported by The Daily Beast, Ackerman McQueen’s attorneys asked the court in Alexandria City, Virginia, to require the NRA to provide the agency with a $3 million line of credit and alleged the NRA was overdue in paying $1.6 million in billings. A judge denied that request on Wednesday.
The Daily Beast reported Ackerman claims more than half its employees work on “projects and services” that include “in-house media production capabilities” for the NRA. The firm also claims 25 percent are “essentially virtual employees” of the gun-rights group, and most of its Dallas office is “dedicated to support NRA projects and services.”
In its statement Wednesday, the agency said it had attempted an “amicable” divorce from the NRA. Pages relating to NRATV and its personalities no longer were featured on Ackerman McQueen’s website.
“When given the opportunity to do the right thing, the NRA once again has taken action that we believe is intended to harm our company even at the expense of the NRA itself,” the agency argued. “For Ackerman McQueen, it is time to move on to a new chapter without the chaos that has enveloped the NRA.”
Both sides have acknowledged the dispute has emerged as the NRA was losing members and annual revenues were dropping by more than $55 million. At the same time, annual billings for Ackerman McQueen topped $40 million starting in 2017 as the NRATV operation ramped up.
“The substantial financial damage flowing from the NRA’s ongoing breaches jeopardizes Ackerman’s McQueen continued business existence,” Ackerman McQueen attorneys wrote in their latest filing. “Ackerman McQueen will be compelled to terminate many employees who are used on other Ackerman projects as well as serving the NRA.”
And here's their new building going up. Would be a shame if the bank had to take over the project since, well, Ackerman McQueen no longer existed or could cover the note. Maybe they can reach out to some kids with some social media chops to help them in these troubled times.
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5 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:
Yes or no: Carrot Top would be less embarrassing as POTUS?
Oh hell yes, definitely. He would use props instead of twitter to explain policy, whatnot. I'd rather see him take out a saw and wear it as a hat or something to explain tax cuts instead of insisting a tariff is something foreign countries pay.
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But wait, there's more:
https://deadspin.com/moron-president-gives-defense-department-four-months-to-1835891763
QuoteHaving previously bragged about his intention to look into such a thing, our sleazy doofus of a president has taken the first formal step toward instituting a policy that would allow service academy athletes to defer their military service obligations in order to pursue careers in professional sports. This was an initiative Trump first mentioned in early May. It was also an active Obama-era policy until Trump rescinded it upon taking office, out of spite.
QuoteAccording to a report from the Associated Press, President Trump issued a presidential memorandum Wednesday giving the defense secretary 120 days to “develop a plan” to accomplish what was already accomplished by the 2016 policy President Trump’s Department of Defense wiped out in early 2017.
2019 NBA Offseason Thread -- Trades, Free Agents, Firings, Retirements, Etc
in Basketball
Posted
Slim chance, but possible: