
statsman
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Posts posted by statsman
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Israel
in Cloak Room
16 hours ago, bolverk said:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/us/politics/gaza-francesca-albanese-sanctions.htmlSecretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that the United States would impose sanctions on Francesca Albanese, a United Nations expert on the occupied Palestinian territories, for “efforts to prompt” the International Criminal Court to investigate U.S. companies and Israeli officials.
The decision to impose sanctions on a U.N.-affiliated lawyer was highly unusual. An Italian legal scholar and outspoken critic of Israel, Ms. Albanese serves as the United Nations’ special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories. She is not a U.N. official, but was appointed as an unpaid independent expert to monitor human rights issues.
Mr. Rubio linked the sanctions decision to a broader American effort to retaliate against the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister and Yoav Gallant, the former defense minister, last year, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
At the same time, the court issued a warrant for the arrest of Hamas’s military chief, Muhammad Deif, accusing him of crimes against humanity, including murder, hostage taking and sexual violence. Israel says it killed him in an airstrike, and Hamas has confirmed his death.
Ms. Albanese does not work for the International Criminal Court, but she has encouraged it to prosecute Israeli leaders and international companies over the war against Hamas in Gaza. Her often fiery posts on social media have drawn criticism from Israel and its allies, who have accused her of antisemitism.
“We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty,” Mr. Rubio said.
In a phone interview with The New York Times, Ms. Albanese said that she and her supporters were “tired of these mafia techniques of intimidation” from the United States.
“I will deal with the consequences — it doesn’t matter,” she said, describing herself as standing “for justice.” She brushed off accusations of antisemitism as an effort to deflect attention from atrocities being committed in Gaza and the West Bank.
The U.N. human rights chief, Volker Türk, in a statement on Thursday called for a swift reversal of the sanctions decision.
“Even in face of fierce disagreement, U.N. member states should engage substantively and constructively, rather than resort to punitive measures,” he said, calling for “attacks and threats” to stop.
Palestinians and their allies often view Ms. Albanese as an unflinching advocate for Palestinian rights at one of the darkest moments in their history. The war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 57,000 people, including thousands of children, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israel and American Jewish groups have denounced Ms. Albanese for accusing Israel of committing genocide, an accusation they strongly reject. They argue that she rarely condemns violence against Israeli civilians or criticizes Palestinian armed groups like Hamas, whose Oct. 7, 2023 attacks killed about 1,200 people in Israel and ignited the nearly two-year-long war.
At the time of that attack, Ms. Albanese said that she unequivocally condemned attacks on civilians, but that the violence had to be taken into account in the context of “six decades of hostile military rule.”
The United States has cracked down on pro-Palestinian activism since President Trump returned to office in January, but Ms. Albanese’s advocacy also drew criticism from the Biden administration.
On social media, Ms. Albanese has appeared to liken Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Holocaust, as well as agreeing with an image that appeared to compare Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to Hitler. After Israeli forces killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, she conceded that he had been a military target but called his killing “inhumane.”
Before assuming her role, she also suggested in an open letter posted on a personal Facebook account in 2014 that “the Jewish lobby” controlled the United States’ stance on Israel. Ms. Albanese later told The Times of Israel that her choice of words was “infelicitous, analytically inaccurate and unintendedly offensive.”
Ms. Albanese’s defenders called the U.S. sanctions an effort to muzzle legitimate criticism of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
“It’s an effort to censor an important global voice for the purpose of defending Israel’s atrocities in Gaza,” Kenneth Roth, a former head of Human Rights Watch who is now a visiting professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, said in a phone interview. “It’s nothing more or less than that”
Of Ms. Albanese Mr. Roth said: “She has been a very courageous, outspoken voice. I find her to be legally sophisticated, factually accurate and unsparing in her criticism but fair.”
In February, Mr. Trump signed an executive order that could bar people associated with the International Criminal Court from entering the United States and from purchasing property and assets in the country.
The Trump administration also acted last month against four judges on the court for issuing the arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu. The United States similarly imposed sanctions on the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, in February for requesting the warrants.
Last week, in a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Ms. Albanese said that Israel was “responsible for one of the cruelest genocides in modern history.”
Ms. Albanese also wrote a report in late June to the U.N. Human Rights Council detailing the profit derived by corporations — including arms manufacturers, banks and large asset managers like BlackRock and Vanguard — from the large increase in Israel’s military budget since the start of its campaign in Gaza in October 2023.
In that report, Ms. Albanese called on U.N. member states to impose sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel. She also called on countries to suspend trade and investment relations with Israel, and to hold companies involved in violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian territories accountable.
That’s ridiculous. Albanese is just a hardworking impartial mediator, calling them as she sees them.
SpoilerWhen 10-7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, who as a young Hamas enforcer probably killed more Palestinians than almost any IDF soldier, was killed, Albanese noted the way the IDF killed him “…was quite inhumane. I don’t belief this is justice.”
Oops. Hey, maybe she is just a St. Francis of Assisi type, with a caring heart for all life.
Spoiler-
On October 7 2023, the day that Hamas targeted Israel’s civilian populations massacring of over 1,200 people and kidnapping 250, Albanese’s reaction was to minimize Hamas’ atrocities stating that, “Today’s violence must be put in context.”
Oh, but hey, she’s not an anti-Semite. It’s not like she goes around repeating hackneyed anti-Semitic tropes like Jews are solely motivated by greed
Spoiler…or that there is some kind of shadowy Jewish conspiracy…
SpoilerSo, she’s just your innocent moral crusader supporting murderous terrorists in their quest to kill Jews, in support of the larger goal to suppress a Jewish conspiracy to make money by controlling the world. (Note- the spoiled quotes are just a sample. There are a lot more).
There are accusations of financial impropriety, but that looks like penny ante stuff compared to what is out there and available (Sinwar was worth $3B when he died). I have to assume she is a true believer.
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Campbell wants to “fix” college football by having the SEC and B1G share revenue from TV.
And Matt Hayes is as much of a dumbass now as he was 20 years ago, when he wrote that Reggie McNeal was a better QB than Vince.-
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13 hours ago, Dbeasy said:
Cody Campbell the Tech billionaire supposedly gave $55m to Tech for NIL stuff, which is one reason Ojo went Tech. He will be on The Ticket tomorrow to discuss his plan with the Trump Administration to “fix” college sports. 🏈
Matt Hayes is still a shithead
Campbell’s “plan” is that the B1G and SEC share TV revenue with the B12 and ACC
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11 hours ago, Not a Sock said:
This just reinforces my belief that this recruiting class is absolutely cooked. Because nothing gives me any indication that Texas was actually prepared for this. Maybe Texas is proven right down the road and this blows up in people’s face, that fallout will happen after this class in on campus.
I expect Texas to assess it resources, the field, the rules, and see if out Ground Rules and Assumptions still make sense. I expect Texas to adapt the strategy, making sure to not make any changes that will upset the current or future locker dynamic. I won’t be surprised if Texas gets more aggressive on third party NIL; I would be surprised if Texas starts dropping bags of cash, pays agents directly or starts paying HSers before they enroll.
I expect that Texas will be very upfront about what a player should expect, and when, and who bears risk at different points. That will not appeal to a certain player (the kind letting their “uncle” handle everything) and will appeal to another type (getting good counsel). You miss out on some great ones that way, but that’s part of what makes a player a “Texas guy”, in my opinion.-
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3 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:
What happens is Cody Campbell/Matador club sue that arbitrary judgement was made to limit a players value.
I chose Micah Hudson for a reason- a high cost HS recruitment, who showed in his freshman year that he was not going to produce right out of the box. In my opinion, Tech doesn’t sue for the right to overpay. They decide, instead, to not throw good money after bad.
The inevitable Clearinghouse lawsuit will be over a player the school wants to continue to pay. -
11 hours ago, campcrunk said:
"Dillingham said he’s seen contracts that also permit schools to end or reduce a player’s salary over the course of the deal, something reported earlier this spring by Yahoo Sports via Illinois law professor Michael Leroy, who uncovered more than 90 different player contracts through open-records requests.
'These NIL contracts read like employee handbooks that reserve a right of employment at will for employers,” he said. “They don’t use ‘at will’ but the concept is, they can terminate the contract.'”
There's going to be a whole bunch of fuckery, some kids are going to get Jordan Addisoned, some schools are going to come off looking very bad, and some extremely expensive players are not going to contribute meaningfully - at least not initially - despite intense pressure to do so. It's going to be an interesting season
If Micah Hudson, out of HS, had signed a big third party NIL deal, and DeLoitte didn’t get around to reviewing it until November, say, and it got turned down- how do you think Tech responds? I bet they shrug and say, “Micah, we’ll resubmit, but the clearinghouse is telling us it needs to be low five figures, not high six figures”.
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On 7/3/2025 at 10:02 AM, closetojumping said:
Yeah, I got mine from B&N on Saturday. You can see, as your error shows, that he had it more hastily put together this year. I get it, he wants to wait until all of the transfer info is processed and I don't mind it, but there is an element of sloppiness that wasn't there before. He has Malik Muhammad going in the first round and then doesn't list him in the draft eligible CB list of 65. For numerous teams, he has zero recruits in for spring (IFS), including Texas.
That dude loves ranking OU and ATM. It's comical. I've said all offseason that OU has a better team than folks think, while everyone is severely overrating ATM's roster. Steele has OU at #9, which is idiotic. Their roster isn't a top 10 roster. Their schedule is pretty tough. Their ceiling is 8 wins. I forget where he ranked ATM, but he ranked them. Then when you read through his ATM page, he basically breaks everything down to "trust The Elk". He overrates York hilariously.
Overall, it's still a very fun and informative magazine.
Did you catch the bit in one of the write ups where he mentions his conversation with Brent Venables? I think that’s where the optimistic OU talk comes from. OU can be terrific, if Mateer levels up and turns out to be as durable as Tebow or Ehlinger, if Ott is fully back, if Burks plays as well as the Sooners claimed he did in Spring 2024 drills, if they have good luck with health. That’s a lot of heads that have to come up in a row.
5 hours ago, GreenspointTexas said:Same. But it usually hits stands/ships around this week
Its the only preview magazine I read. I know its not the best, but I like the texas focus and the high school stuff as well
Last year, I didn’t see it in any grocery stores or Walmart, even. B&N was the only place I saw it.
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Is JV Joey going to get Tech to the B12 CG next year?
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2 minutes ago, closetojumping said:
When I was 22, straight out of college, I got a commission check for $9k in one pay period. When I deposited the check, I kept $3k of it in order to see what that amount of money looked like. I’d seen pots in gambling at gatherings get above $2k, but never higher. I went back to my office and put it down in front of me and counted it like 4 times with the door closed.
Getting offered $5M as a guy who just turned 17, I don’t know how you don’t take that money and never look back. I don’t think that is a low IQ move. That part of the story isn’t something that causes judgment on my end, at least.
They’re going to play him as a true freshman. That money doesn’t sit the bench. He’s not going to get any time to develop and he’s technically terrible with no hip flexibility. He’s probably ruined his career by making the choice he’s made, so hopefully he’s careful with that $3+M that he winds up with after taxes.
If he’s Kelvin Banks 2.0, he is worth it. If he isn’t, there are a bunch of ways this deals screws up their team.
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If the market calls for a HS recruit to get paid really high, more than some starters, you better be damned sure he’s going to work out. For comparison, I remember in 2001 (damn, that was a long time ago), Texas signed an OL “Class of Beef”. This was to lay a foundation for a NC OL. These guys were all studs, all offered by several top programs. They were Jonathan Scott (All American, high draft pick, had multi year NFL career that would have been a lot better without a horrific rookie injury), Will Allen (starting G on NC team, no real desire to pursue NFL), Mike Garcia (regular depth piece), Roman Reeves, Terrance Young (backup), William Winston. Texas really wanted to Sign Jami Hightower, but he signed with the Ags, where he was a multi year starter that never made the NFL.
What’s the point? It’s that if you paid market value for a class like that, you would be having uncomfortable conversations with over half of them after one year.
This is a crazy market now.-
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54 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:
Going to skip over anything Tafoya has to say. She’s an absolute nut job of a human being.
Please. You have the Cloak Room, the Daily Texan and Business and Markets. Can you keep CR comments out of the sports boards?
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1 hour ago, BurntOrange&White said:
Texas continues to operate by a different rule book by everyone even in this era. We always have ever since the 80s. And for what reason? So some old fucks can feel morally superior why other programs continue to win national titles by cheating and pushing the rule books.
William Cunningham was UT president from 1985-1992. He was a good president and he is a good guy, but he was awful for UT football. He wanted the most complying program possible, and he got it. Texas was 50-41 over those years, the 45th best win percentage in the nation. Texas went 4-4 against OU, 1-7 vs the Ags, 3-5 against Baylor, 4-4 vs UH, and 6-10 against every major conference non-conference opponent.
William Cunningham hasn’t been president in over 30 years. -
25 minutes ago, Fondren & Main said:
Deloitte ain’t fighting shit. All it will take is the first lawsuit for them to back off. They’re just interested in grifting revenue from the NCAA clowns.
That is a great point. Deloitte is in the business of selling services (accounting, consulting). I have a hard time imagining them pissing off business leaders everywhere. As a matter of fact, I bet they took this gig with the idea that it would expand their business as institutions contract with them for other services, in hope of currying favor for their favorite college programs.
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I have great ideas for team names:
Shrews
Harpies
Banshees
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Oh, those bitches hate her. Seriously, if any of you ever meet a WNBA player, you have to ask them, “Do you know Caitlin Clark? Is she as awesome as she seems?”
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23 minutes ago, Park Gothic said:
She's got...saggy eyes? Not sure how to describe it. Same thing with Betty Davis and Elizabeth Moss. Who I would also fuck but do not consider to be beauties by any means.
It’s called “doe-eyed” and it has been used to describe a feminine trait that men consider hot for centuries
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8 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:
Accepting an offer from a school you have no interest in attending is a common practice. How many readers here applied to a backup university they knew that unless shit went sideways they were never attending.
You have just described why Marcus DuPree committed to Texas. He wanted to be able to tell dozens of other schools to buzz off while he entertained bids from the real suitors- OU, Mississippi State, Southern Miss and Pittsburgh (Sherrill was the coach). Texas was the stalking horse.
Texas finally figured it out and started recruiting Anthony Byerly a couple of weeks before signing day.-
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4 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:
my guess is we’re sticking to the “strict salary cap” of revenue sharing and using TOF as “legitmate” NIL only. While teams like Ohio State, Georgia, USC are continuing as normal in addition to the revenue share cap.
If, by November, it appears there are no guardrails enforcing the new “rules”, Texas can adapt.
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The TexasOne announcement (going for-profit, not rolling into AD, maintaining flexibility while seeing how the system develops) is encouraging
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10 hours ago, SL Xpress said:
Ha! I won a bunch of high school debates with that argument. Back in the early 80s high school kids weren't ready to make counter arguments. Made one girl break down in tears.
The amount of spending on college athletes is entirely dependent on how much ego wealthy alums have tied up in seeing their alma mater be successful. Or in the case of Larry Ellison, apparently his wife's alma mater. Texas isn't going to be able to force other schools to spend money they don't have unless the enforcement arm of the House settlement is actually effective. My bet is that it's not effective for any number of reasons and the spending cap becomes a mirage. It will be interesting to see how schools like Texas respond. Right now the sales pitch is you can make more in Austin with legitimate NILs than you can anywhere else because of the size of the city and no sports team, plus the Longhorn national brand. I'm not saying that's wrong, but if an extremely wealthy person from another school wants to spend a decent portion of their wealth on college athletics, that's going to trump Austin's potential NIL market.
But maybe the House settlement sticks.
I know shit about fuck, but I can speculate.
-The House settlement: for 10-20 programs, this limits what they will pay players. For the rest of FBS, it requires them to pay their players more than they had been. (Note- this money comes from the AD and I’ll bet every AD, not just OU’s, has to sweat to varying degrees to come up with it).
-The surprising thing to me is how rarely we are seeing pissant programs, now required to budget $15-17M for players, sign blue chips.
-I suspect Texas is being outbid by programs ready to challenge the limits of the NIL Clearinghouse. Such challenges are a solid bet.
-I think the Texas program doesn’t want to back from competition. I don’t think the Tower is likely to force them to do so, as happened under Cunningham. If the Tower does, we will know when we see Sark take another job. (Not saying that is the only reason he would leave, but there is no way he is going to allow himself to become David MacWilliams or late term Akers)-If these recruitments are about NIL, then it’s smart to wait until the end for your final bid. All the other cards are laid down, you know the cost, you know the other player options, you know more about the recruit, and you have a sense of where regulation of rules is.
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5 hours ago, closetojumping said:
It also might have helped that Bama didn't integrate the football team until the 1971 season. Elevate talent, innovate on offense and, voila, a great decade.
When did Bryant switch out his aging staff for a bunch of new blood? My father's told me all of my life that one of the key things Bear did that DKR didn't was that he switched out his staff when things got stale and Bama wasn't winning at the level that Bryant thought they should be. I've never really fact-checked that, but your post reminded me of the premise.
I don’t know- Royal never had much of a coaching tree (Pittman? MacWilliams, Bellard, Akers), and Bryant’s is definitely better (Schnellenberger, Stallings, Perkins, fuck Sherrill, Bum Phillips). They both had long term security blankets as DC- Campbell at Texas and Donahue at Bama.
I collect old game programs and I’m amazed at some staffs that teams can put together. Examples:1966 Oklahoma- HC MacKenzie, assistants Fairbanks, Switzer, Rice, Hall, Lacewell
1984 Iowa- HC Fry, assistants Snyder, Stoops, Ferentz, Alvarez
I don’t know that Texas ever had a staff like that.
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11 hours ago, Derka said:
In the2019 playoffs,KD (his mind made up that he was leaving) was determined to go off, and until his injury, was giving the NBA a clinic on what was possible. Then, he came back in the finals, was putting on another “man among boys” exhibition, and tore his Achilles. Oh, to have seen what he would have done e healthy.
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1 hour ago, Mittens said:
This looks so much like an AI picture
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There were three prior:
book
1973 movie
Bruce Willis movie
and this one. In the priors,…
Spoiler…they always found the “mole” and stopped the Jackal. In this one, they never found the mole (although Osi knows who it is now) and didn’t stop the Jackal.
Looking fwd to next season, where I assume Osi is the counter and “Gary the spotter” plays a big role?
Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
in 🤫$9.95🤫
Posted
I have a couple of theories/suppositions…
1. Last year, NIL was all booster-funded. We focus on Texas, Buckeyes, etc., but those well funded schools are the exception. There were several dozen programs that probably barely scraped $10M, if that, for NIL. Now, with the House settlement, they are required to pay $20M from their AD. They have to spend that. That doubles the player pay for programs like Baylor (and the rest of the B12 and ACC). Frankly, I’m surprised we don’t see more pissant programs win a recruitment like this.
2. just because the pissant programs have to spend $20M, they don’t necessarily have an extra $20M to spend. They have to get it from somewhere- booster donations, budget cuts, university payments. We will see the B12 and ACC schools seek new ways to whore out for media payments.