NFL Hall of Famer Mackey dies at 69

– 1 hour ago

BALTIMORE, Maryland — John Mackey, a Hall of Fame tight end for the 1971 Super Bowl champion Baltimore Colts and a former NFL union president, has died at age 69, his family said Thursday.

Mackey, who died Wednesday night after a 10-year struggle with dementia, played for the Baltimore Colts from 1963 through 1971 and finished his career with San Diego in 1972.

Mackey caught 331 passes for 5,236 yards and 38 touchdowns, his biggest of them a 75-yard grab of a deflected pass from fellow Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas for a touchdown in the fifth Super Bowl to help the Colts defeat Dallas.

Off the field, Mackey became a major figure in negotiating for players with NFL officials for benefits for players, a union-management deal agreed upon in 2006 being dubbed the "88 Plan" after Mackey's jersey number.

"John Mackey was one of the great leaders in NFL history, on and off the field," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said.

"He was a Hall of Fame player who redefined the tight end position. He was a courageous advocate for his fellow NFL players as head of the NFL Players Association. He worked closely with our office on many issues through the years... He never stopped fighting the good fight."

His death comes as NFL and union leaders talk in hopes of reaching a new collective bargaining agreement to end an ongoing lockout of players by owners.

"John Mackey is still our leader," said NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith.

"As the president of the NFLPA, he led the fight for fairness with a brilliance and with ferocious drive. His passion continues to define our organization and inspire our players. His unwavering loyalty to our mission and his exemplary courage will never be forgotten."

Mackey featured a powerful combination of size and speed as well as reception skills that became the prototype for the blocking or reception threat his position has evolved into in the modern NFL.
"John revolutionized the tight end position during his Hall of Fame career, and he laid the foundation on and off the field for modern NFL players," said Baltimore Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome, also a Hall of Fame tight end.

Those Who Forget The Past…

By Howard Rich

There’s no joy in saying “we told you so.” Not when millions of Americans are beset by plummeting home prices, stagnant income levels, deteriorating job opportunities and rising consumer prices. And let’s not forget the trillions of dollars in debt that America’s politicians have saddled taxpayers with in an unsuccessful effort to alleviate these economic ills.

Free market advocates repeatedly warned political leaders of both parties regarding these inevitable “bailout byproducts,” but they didn’t listen. Instead, they rushed to reward their favored banks and bureaucracies for years of gross fiscal negligence — leaving taxpayers stuck with a scarcely-fathomable tab.

The only silver lining to this Keynesian tsunami? That the failure of the largest, costliest and least effective government economic intervention in human history could be the impetus for an urgently needed course correction — and a long-overdue debunking of one of the greatest myths in American history.

According to Barack Obama and the New Keynesians, years of unrestrained and unregulated “corporate greed” pushed America to the precipice of a second Great Depression. That’s when government rode to the “rescue” with more than $13 trillion worth of new spending, lending, loan guarantees and money-printing.

It’s a familiar narrative — one evoking all too common misconceptions about the policies responsible for the depth, duration and the eventual demise of previous economic downturns. Like its predecessors, however, this narrative ignores a flood of politically-correct, government-mandated lending that helped artificially inflate the nation’s housing bubble. It also ignores a steady increase in deficit spending in the years leading up to the recent recession.
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In the Bag

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Government Motors: A Classic Lemon

By Rick Manning
The headlines blaring from General Motors public relations machine claim victory for the company in its fight for solvency.

Declaring that “May Retail Sales Rise 9 Percent on Demand for Fuel-Efficient Vehicles” one would guess that gaffe prone GM CEO Daniel Akerson (Akerson urged that gas prices go up by $1 a gallon) was doing a great job of restoring the company toward profitability.

However, one report seems to represent a Vincent Price-sized fly in the GM ointment. Dealer inventory of new cars at the end of June topped 605,000 vehicles, a 20% increase since January 2011. In fact, in the past year the number of new cars sitting on dealer lots has increased by 167,000 vehicles as the government overseen and owned entity continues to crank cars off the assembly lines onto already stuffed to capacity car lots.
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Mitt Romney on Global Warming: Troubling On the EPA

By Victor Morawski
A few weeks ago, responding to the furor caused by Mitt Romney’s remarks on global warming during a town hall meeting, conservative writer David French defended him by taking the position that it doesn’t matter that he said some unsettling things on the environment because what he did say, when it comes down to brass tacks, will be “functionally meaningless.”

Why? Because in essence, “no one on the Republican side is going to enact the left’s environmental agenda. Elect Mitt and that agenda dies.” Supporting his case he cites a left-wing environmentalist blogger who laments that Romney talks a good case on the environment — from the Left’s perspective — but does not back it up with any substantive policy proposals: “Romney has not, however, endorsed any policies that would actually achieve his supposed goal of reducing global warming pollution.”

Honestly, I wish I could share French’s confidence that we can effectively ignore Mitt’s troubling comments on the environment because he will not support them with any concrete actions. I cannot. Let me tell you why.
The president has a lot to do with the EPA’s agenda and how ardently it pursues it, with whether it is an ineffective paper tiger or a real tiger sinking its teeth into our personal freedoms while using its claws to rip away at the constitutional safeguards that underpin the liberties which allow a free market to thrive and prosper.

The EPA has recently released for comment several regulatory standards that will cost thousands of jobs in the coal and coal-fired electricity industries.
President Obama fully endorses these austere measures. He is famously on record as saying that someone may wish to build a new coal-fired power plant but he will put regulatory burdens on them so heavy they will make the building of it economically unfeasible. The EPA’s new emissions rules will not only make it hard to build a new coal generating plant but will threaten the existence of many plants already in operation, costing jobs.

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Tristane Banon, Nafissatou Diallo and political conspiracy

Author: Admin
Headlines Todays : The difficulty seems still will continue to follow Dominique Strauss-Kahn, having just could breathe with cases of harassment against Nafissatou Diallo, who will end up have emerged of other cases, the lawsuit of the alleged attack Tristane Banon will be undertaken in 2003.

Tristane Banon, a talented journalist and writer aged 32, will file a lawsuit related to alleged assault at an apartment in Paris in 2003. Banon stated, then, Strauss-Kahn tried to unhook her bra and opened her jeans. His lawyer, David Koubbi, said the complaint would appear at the Paris

Breaking News: Casey Anthony Sentenced to Four Years for Lies, Time Served to Be Considered

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Casey Anthony was sentenced to the maximum amount of time for each of the four misdemeanor counts this morning by Judge Belvin Perry -- one year in jail per count, to be served consecutively.

Casey Anthony and counsel returned to the courtroom this morning for sentencing on four counts of providing false information to police officers.

The defense argued that since all four lies came out of the same interview with police, it would be unconstitutional to hold her accountable on four separate counts.  They requested that the court consider the four counts as a single act.

Judge Perry however indicated that every time she lied, it sent investigators on a wild -- expensive -- goose chase. In addition to jail time, Anthony has been fined $1,000 per count.

The prosecution is also seeking to recoup costs associated with the investigation, including the massive search that ensued from Anthony's lies. Whether Anthony will be held accountable for any of these costs is yet to be determined by the court.

The court will also decide this morning how much time Anthony will actually serve, based on the three years she has already spent in jail, including any consideration of good behavior.

Anthony was found Not Guilty for murder on Tuesday, July 5.  The complete counts follow:
* First-degree Murder - Not Guilty
* Aggravated Child Abuse - Not Guilty
* Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child - Not Guilty
* Four counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer - Guilty
The jury deliberated a little over ten hours before reaching their decision.