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John Kelly defends Trump on calls, lashes out at Florida Democrat


Reported By Jordan Fabian and Jonathan Easley – 10/19/17 03:23 PM EDT

 

John Kelly defends Trump on calls, lashes out at Florida Democrat

White House chief of staff John Kelly on Thursday delivered a stirring, personal defense of President Trump’s call to the widow of a fallen U.S. soldier, pushing back on mounting criticism of the president’s handling of the conversation. Kelly said he was “stunned” by Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson‘s (Fla.) negative description of Trump’s call to the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed during an ambush in Niger.

“It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me. I would have thought that was sacred,” Kelly said during a surprise appearance in the White House press briefing room.

After learning of what he called Wilson’s “selfish behavior,” Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general whose son was killed in battle in Afghanistan, said he was so taken aback that he walked for an hour and a half in Arlington National Cemetery to compose himself.
 
Speaking slowly and solemnly, he described Thursday what happened when he learned his son had been killed.
 
“He was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed,” Kelly remembered being told by his casualty officer, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, who is now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“He knew what he was getting into by joining that one percent,” he added. “He knew what the possibilities were because we’re at war.”

The controversy ignited late Tuesday when Wilson revealed Trump told Myeshia Johnson her husband “knew what he was getting into.”

The Florida lawmaker said she was in a car when Trump called and listened on speakerphone. She was invited to be present because she had a longstanding relationship with the family, and mentored the soldier through a program she founded. Wilson said Trump was “so insensitive” and caused Johnson emotional distress. 

Her description was backed up by the soldier’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, who said she felt disrespected.

A spokesperson for Wilson has not returned a request for comment.

Kelly said the message he received as a father of a fallen soldier was what Trump was trying to convey to Johnson’s widow, Mysehia.

“He expressed his condolences in the best way that he could,” he said.

Kelly’s extraordinary appearance was designed to quell the controversy over Trump’s comments that has engulfed the White House.

The episode has raised questions about the president’s ability to empathize with the families of U.S. service members. Out of anyone on Trump’s team, Kelly is perhaps best equipped to speak authoritatively about the issue. 

Kelly himself was drawn into the controversy after Trump, while defending himself, revealed former President Obama did not call Kelly to express condolences in 2010 after his son’s death.

The top aide refused to criticize Obama, saying that he believes most presidents have chosen to send letters, because calling the families of the fallen is “the most difficult thing you can imagine.”

“I can tell you that President Obama, who was my commander in chief when I was on active duty, did not call my family,” Kelly said. “That was not a criticism. It was just to say that I don’t believe President Obama called. That’s not a negative thing.”

Kelly said that he initially advised Trump not to make the phone calls, but the president insisted. He said Trump was “brave” for making the calls, because they are even more difficult for someone who has not served or lost a loved one.

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Kelly’s emotional and tense remarks were also a rebuke of the press, which the White House blames for politicizing the matter.

Trump’s claim that Obama and other past presidents rarely called the families of U.S. military personnel who died in battle set off a round of fact-checking by media outlets and calls to some families that Trump either did not contact or took several weeks to contact.

But Kelly said he would only take questions from those who claimed to have lost loved ones in combat, like he has, or personally know someone who has.

Kelly fielded only three questions, which focused on the U.S. troop presence in Niger, and was not asked if he approved of Trump’s decision to invoke his son during the flap.

Kelly began his appearance by explaining in painstaking detail what happens to the bodies of soldiers killed in action abroad, describing how the corpses of the fallen are packed in ice and moved from combat zones to bases in Europe and then to Dover Air Force Base. Casualty officers are then dispatched to the homes of relatives, where they “proceed to break the heart of the family.”

“They’re the best 1 percent this country produces,” Kelly said. “Most of you as Americans don’t know them. Many of you don’t know anyone that knows any one of them. But they’re the very best that this country produces.”

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FBI uncovered Russian bribery plot before Obama administration approved controversial nuclear deal with Moscow


Reported By John Solomon and Alison Spann | 10/17/17 06:00 AM ED

 
 

Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.

Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show.

They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.

The racketeering scheme was conducted “with the consent of higher level officials” in Russia who “shared the proceeds” from the kickbacks, one agent declared in an affidavit years later.

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Rather than bring immediate charges in 2010, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) continued investigating the matter for nearly four more years, essentially leaving the American public and Congress in the dark about Russian nuclear corruption on U.S. soil during a period when the Obama administration made two major decisions benefiting Putin’s commercial nuclear ambitions.The first decision occurred in October 2010, when the State Department and government agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States unanimously approved the partial sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, giving Moscow control of more than 20 percent of America’s uranium supply.

When this sale was used by Trump on the campaign trail last year, Hillary Clinton’s spokesman said she was not involved in the committee review and noted the State Department official who handled it said she “never intervened … on any [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] matter.”

In 2011, the administration gave approval for Rosatom’s Tenex subsidiary to sell commercial uranium to U.S. nuclear power plants in a partnership with the United States Enrichment Corp. Before then, Tenex had been limited to selling U.S. nuclear power plants reprocessed uranium recovered from dismantled Soviet nuclear weapons under the 1990s Megatons to Megawatts peace program.

“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” a person who worked on the case told The Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by U.S. or Russian officials.

The Obama administration’s decision to approve Rosatom’s purchase of Uranium One has been a source of political controversy since 2015. That’s when conservative author Peter Schweitzer and The New York Times documented how Bill Clinton collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in Russian speaking fees and his charitable foundation collected millions in donations from parties interested in the deal while Hillary Clinton presided on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

The Obama administration and the Clintons defended their actions at the time, insisting there was no evidence that any Russians or donors engaged in wrongdoing and there was no national security reason for any member of the committee to oppose the Uranium One deal.

But FBI, Energy Department and court documents reviewed by The Hill show the FBI in fact had gathered substantial evidence well before the committee’s decision that Vadim Mikerin — the main Russian overseeing Putin’s nuclear expansion inside the United States — was engaged in wrongdoing starting in 2009.

Then-Attorney General Eric Holder was among the Obama administration officials joining Hillary Clinton on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States at the time the Uranium One deal was approved. Multiple current and former government officials told The Hill they did not know whether the FBI or DOJ ever alerted committee members to the criminal activity they uncovered.

Spokesmen for Holder and Clinton did not return calls seeking comment. The Justice Department also didn’t comment.

Mikerin was a director of Rosatom’s Tenex in Moscow since the early 2000s, where he oversaw Rosatom’s nuclear collaboration with the United States under the Megatons to Megwatts program and its commercial uranium sales to other countries. In 2010, Mikerin was dispatched to the U.S. on a work visa approved by the Obama administration to open Rosatom’s new American arm called Tenam.

Between 2009 and January 2012, Mikerin “did knowingly and willfully combine, conspire confederate and agree with other persons … to obstruct, delay and affect commerce and the movement of an article and commodity (enriched uranium) in commerce by extortion,” a November 2014 indictment stated.

His illegal conduct was captured with the help of a confidential witness, an American businessman, who began making kickback payments at Mikerin’s direction and with the permission of the FBI. The first kickback payment recorded by the FBI through its informant was dated Nov. 27, 2009, the records show.

In evidentiary affidavits signed in 2014 and 2015, an Energy Department agent assigned to assist the FBI in the case testified that Mikerin supervised a “racketeering scheme” that involved extortion, bribery, money laundering and kickbacks that were both directed by and provided benefit to more senior officials back in Russia.

“As part of the scheme, Mikerin, with the consent of higher level officials at TENEX and Rosatom (both Russian state-owned entities) would offer no-bid contracts to US businesses in exchange for kickbacks in the form of money payments made to some offshore banks accounts,” Agent David Gadren testified.

“Mikerin apparently then shared the proceeds with other co-conspirators associated with TENEX in Russia and elsewhere,” the agent added.

The investigation was ultimately supervised by then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, an Obama appointee who now serves as President Trump’s deputy attorney general, and then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, now the deputy FBI director under Trump, Justice Department documents show.

Both men now play a key role in the current investigation into possible, but still unproven, collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election cycle. McCabe is under congressional and Justice Department inspector general investigation in connection with money his wife’s Virginia state Senate campaign accepted in 2015 from now-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe at a time when McAuliffe was reportedly under investigation by the FBI.

The connections to the current Russia case are many. The Mikerin probe began in 2009 when Robert Mueller, now the special counsel in charge of the Trump case, was still FBI director. And it ended in late 2015 under the direction of then-FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired earlier this year.

Its many twist and turns aside, the FBI nuclear industry case proved a gold mine, in part because it uncovered a new Russian money laundering apparatus that routed bribe and kickback payments through financial instruments in Cyprus, Latvia and Seychelles. A Russian financier in New Jersey was among those arrested for the money laundering, court records show.

The case also exposed a serious national security breach: Mikerin had given a contract to an American trucking firm called Transport Logistics International that held the sensitive job of transporting Russia’s uranium around the United States in return for more than $2 million in kickbacks from some of its executives, court records show.

One of Mikerin’s former employees told the FBI that Tenex officials in Russia specifically directed the scheme to “allow for padded pricing to include kickbacks,” agents testified in one court filing.

Bringing down a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme that had both compromised a sensitive uranium transportation asset inside the U.S. and facilitated international money laundering would seem a major feather in any law enforcement agency’s cap. But the Justice Department and FBI took little credit in 2014 when Mikerin, the Russian financier and the trucking firm executives were arrested and charged. The only public statement occurred a year later when the Justice Department put out a little-noticed press release in August 2015, just days before Labor Day. The release noted that the various defendants had reached plea deals.

By that time, the criminal cases against Mikerin had been narrowed to a single charge of money laundering for a scheme that officials admitted stretched from 2004 to 2014. And though agents had evidence of criminal wrongdoing they collected since at least 2009, federal prosecutors only cited in the plea agreement a handful of transactions that occurred in 2011 and 2012, well after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United State’s approval.

The final court case also made no mention of any connection to the influence peddling conversations the FBI undercover informant witnessed about the Russian nuclear officials trying to ingratiate themselves with the Clintons even though agents had gathered documents showing the transmission of millions of dollars from Russia’s nuclear industry to an American entity that had provided assistance to Bill Clinton’s foundation, sources confirmed to The Hill.

The lack of fanfare left many key players in Washington with no inkling that a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme with serious national security implications had been uncovered.

On Dec. 15, 2015, the Justice Department put out a release stating that Mikerin, “a former Russian official residing in Maryland was sentenced today to 48 months in prison” and ordered to forfeit more than $2.1 million.

Ronald Hosko, who served as the assistant FBI director in charge of criminal cases when the investigation was underway, told The Hill he did not recall ever being briefed about Mikerin’s case by the counterintelligence side of the bureau despite the criminal charges that were being lodged.

“I had no idea this case was being conducted,” a surprised Hosko said in an interview.

Likewise, major congressional figures were also kept in the dark.

Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who chaired the House Intelligence Committee during the time the FBI probe was being conducted, told The Hill that he had never been told anything about the Russian nuclear corruption case even though many fellow lawmakers had serious concerns about the Obama administration’s approval of the Uranium One deal.

“Not providing information on a corruption scheme before the Russian uranium deal was approved by U.S. regulators and engage appropriate congressional committees has served to undermine U.S. national security interests by the very people charged with protecting them,” he said. “The Russian efforts to manipulate our American political enterprise is breathtaking.”

Indictment Affidavit by M Mali on Scribd

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Warrant Affidavit by M Mali on Scribd

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Mikerin Plea Deal by M Mali on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/361783782/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-9FqAb64N1wtBrEk5gxzZ&show_recommendations=true

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Corporate Tax Cut Will Raise Middle-Class Wages


Reported By Kailey Guillemin | on October 16, 2017 at 8:47am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournalism.com/corporate-tax-cut-will-raise-middle-class-wages/?

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A study released Monday by Kevin Hassett, President Donald Trump’s chief economist, gives a boost to Trump’s proposed corporate tax cut. The study shows that if the tax cut is implemented, the average family could see an income boost in the thousands of dollars.

The tax cut would lower the current rate of 35 percent to 20 percent. Based on “conservative estimates,” this decrease would boost the average household income by $4,000, the paper said. But more “moderate estimates” reveal increases of $9,000 per family.

“Put simply, capital deepening, which brings additional returns to the owners of capital, brings substantial returns to workers as well,” said the paper, which studied evidence from other countries that have lowered their corporate tax rates.

But Democrats have disapproved of Trump’s proposed tax cut from the start. They believe it will not benefit ordinary families, but only business themselves.

The new study will allow Republicans to offer a rebuttal.

Hassett, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, insists that American families would benefit the most from significantly lower corporate tax rates, more so than the companies themselves.

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“America’s broken corporate tax system creates incentives for firms to hold their money outside of our borders,” Hassett told reporters on Sunday, according to the Washington Examiner. “When firms hold their money overseas rather than invest them in America, they’re holding down the productivity of the American economy and the wages of American workers.”

The United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, leading many companies to keep their profits abroad in lower-tax countries to avoid significant tax hits back home.

By cutting the tax rate, the idea is that companies would then invest more within the United States. This would cause a boost in productivity throughout the country.

This productivity would then boost wages, according to Hassett’s study.

“More assets like machines let workers produce more, and when workers can produce more, businesses can afford to pay their workers more,” Hassett said, as reported by The Hill. 

But some economists and tax policy experts have voiced their concerns about the tax cut directly benefiting workers. Although they agree this would attract companies to invest more in the United States economy, they cannot predict how much money will bring back home. There is also concern over what corporations will do with their tax savings.

Trump announced his tax proposal during a September a speech in Indianapolis. Calling it a “revolutionary change,” he said it would boost wages to “levels that you haven’t seen in many years,” according to The New York Times. 

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This Week In The NFL: Pictures Reveal Nearly Empty Stadiums As Fans Lash Back Against Protests


Reported By Jack Davis | on October 16, 2017 at 11:38am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournalism.com/week-nfl-pictures-reveal-nearly-empty-stadiums-fans-lash-back-protests/?

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It’s not quite the No Fan League yet, but on Sunday, NFL stadiums illustrated the damage that has been done by the seemingly endless national anthem protests, which have driven away thousands of football fans.

Dylan Gwinn, writing on Breitbart, called it the “’new normal’ in the age of anthem protests: empty seats.”

Multiple games were played with clearly visible holes in the stands.

In Jacksonville, Florida, the smallest crowd since 2009 watched the Jaguars lose to the LA Rams 27-17, according to the Florida Times-Union. The crowd of 56,232 was about 5,000 fewer fans than the audience that attended the team’s home opener.

“Granted, this is Jacksonville and they’ve never really packed the house. Yet, even by Jaguars standards, that’s empty,” Gwinn wrote.

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The Jaguars weren’t the only team to suffer this fate. As can be seen below, many other stadiums experienced a visible drop in attendance.

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“The fact that those same levels of emptiness can be seen at other stadiums throughout the league, means that the fan backlash against the NFL has now turned everyone into Jacksonville. That’s a problem,” Gwinn wrote.

Not so, said Jacksonville defensive tackle Malik Jackson.

“We only worry about the people who come support us,” he said. “If you don’t want to come support us because of the views we have off the field, that’s your problem and I think you have to look at yourself.”

The lackluster attendance has added to the NFL’s concerns as it approaches a lease meeting at which the protests will be discussed. However, the league has already indicated it is not likely to require players to stand, as demanded by President Donald Trump.

CBS Sports quoted a source predicting how the meetings might go.

“Basically, the message from the NFL is going to be that it has empathy for its players and the situation they now find themselves in,” the source said. “And therefore you’ve seen no enforcement of the rule about the anthem in the gameday manual. But now this has morphed into something that is seen as divisive and disrespectful toward the flag and our servicemen and women by a segment of the country, and that’s not what was intended by the players or the NFL.

“So the league is going to encourage the players to follow the gameday manual and vow to continue to engage directly with players and the NFLPA on a platform to work for positive change in their communities. It’s not going to be – ‘If you don’t stand then you are going to get fined.’ Some owners might favor that, but that’s not the intention here,” the source added.

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Mitch McConnell Gets Bad News… Asked To Step Down


Reported By Jason Hopkins | on October 11, 2017 at 1:39pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournalism.com/conservatives-demand-mcconnel-step-down-as-senate-leader/?

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been hit with a heavy vote of no confidence from conservative groups around the country. On Wednesday, leaders from several conservative organizations called on McConnell to abdicate his position, citing a list of broken promises he made to Republican voters.

They are calling on not only McConnell, but also members of his leadership team, to step down.

“You and the rest of your leadership team were given the majority because you pledged to stop the steady flow of illegal immigration,” states their letter to McConnell, according to Fox News. “You have done nothing. You pledged to reduce the size of this oppressive federal government. You have done nothing. You pledged to reduce, and ultimately eliminate the out-of-control deficit spending that is bankrupting America. You have done nothing. You promised to repeal Obamacare, ‘root and branch.’ You have done nothing. You promised tax reform. You have done nothing.”

Disgruntled conservatives held a news conference in Washington, D.C. to address their concerns and desire to see the leadership team dissolved.

“We call on all five members of the GOP Senate leadership to step down, or for their caucus to remove them as soon as possible,” Ken Cuccinelli, the president of the Senate Conservatives Fund, said at the conference.

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The Senate Conservatives Fund, founded in 2008 by former Senator Jim DeMint, has worked for years to elect more conservative GOP candidates to the upper chamber in Congress. The group has regularly clashed with the more moderate wing of GOP leadership. The SCF wasn’t the only group calling for McConnell to vacate his position.

Members from FreedomWorks, For America and the Tea Party Patriots also joined the chorus in demanding GOP Senate leaders step aside after failing to enact conservative legislation, despite voters giving the Republican Party full control of Washington, D.C. on Election Day.

This is not the first time conservatives have called on McConnell to step down as majority leader, but the ferocity of Wednesday’s press conference certainly puts an added weight on Republican lawmakers to get things done this legislative session.

The letter and press conference come as congressional Republicans are currently working to enact tax reform. GOP leaders so far have not succeeded in repealing Obamacare, failing several times to push through their own GOP health care bills. Republicans are hoping tax reform will be an issue the entire party can rally behind.

“If this was a football team, and you’d lost this many times, you’d start seriously considering firing the coaches,” said For America President David Bozell.

Despite all agreeing that they’d wish to see McConnell go, many conservative leaders are not certain who they would like to see as a replacement.

“If I had to pick someone, I’d love to draft like Pat Toomey maybe,” FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon said, referring to the GOP Pennsylvania senator. “There’s a lot of different people out there who I think could unite this caucus and actually lead on some issues.”

Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots group, said she could see herself supporting Georgia GOP Senator David Perdue. “I’m from Georgia, so I’m not opposed to him,” Martin explained, touting the junior senator’s extensive business background as a former CEO.

Conservative candidates are taking notice as well. As the 2018 election cycle begins to heat up, many pro-Trump candidates are hoping to gain traction by displaying stronger support for the president.

“With rare exception, GOP senators blocking Trump’s agenda are impediments we can not afford. Double that for Senate leaders,” Ron Wallace, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia, said in a statement to Western Journalism.

Wallace is an insurgent candidate hoping to win the GOP primary and take on incumbent Democrat Senator Tim Kaine. Wallace is running on a pro-Trump platform and believes it’s imperative the GOP majority pass what they promised to do.

“The American People voted for Tax Cuts, Border Walls, Rapid Growth, Excellent Law Enforcement, and Better Education. I expect strong proactive policies to make those outcomes possible and deliver cost-effective solutions, by whatever means may be necessary,” he said.

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Rush Limbaugh Says 1 Person Is Taking Over The GOP


Reported By Jason Hopkins | on October 10, 2017 at 7:55am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournalism.com/rush-limbaugh-says-1-person-is-taking-over-the-gop/?

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Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh made a bold statement on his program about Steve Bannon and the current state of the Republican Part y.

Limbaugh believes Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, is taking over the roles and responsibilities meant for GOP leadership by enforcing conservatism onto Republican candidates up for re-election.

“I think what Bannon is doing is slowly but surely taking over the role of the Republican Party,” Limbaugh said Wednesday. “The Republican Party is obviously not with Trump on balance — you have some in the House who are — but the Republican Party on balance is not with Trump.”

Steve Bannon played a major role in then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential victory upset last year and led the formulation of White House policy in the months that followed. He was Trump’s campaign chairman during the 2016 election and later served as a White House chief strategist — leading the nationalist wing of the administration.

After abruptly leaving the administration in mid-August, Bannon returned to his prior position as executive chairman of Breitbart News. Since leaving the White House, he made it clear he would use his position as a media executive to support insurgent conservative candidates running primaries against establishment GOP lawmakers.

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Bannon already appears good for his word.

In the special election in Alabama to fill the Senate seat once held by now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Bannon went against the Trump administration with his endorsement of Roy Moore. Bannon supported the successful candidacy of Moore, a controversial former judge, in a move that was at odds with Trump, who campaigned vehemently for Moore’s opponent, Sen. Luther Strange. By election day, it wasn’t even close. Moore bested Strange in the GOP primary by almost double digits. Moore now heads into the Alabama general election, where he will likely win in a state that leans red.

The primary results demonstrated the power of Bannon’s support.

The leader of Breitbart is not stopping with the Alabama special election. Bannon has recently announced he is expanding his GOP targets, adding Republican Sens. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, John Barrasso of Wyoming and Orrin Hatch of Utah to his hit list.

> In Wyoming, Bannon is pushing Erik Prince, the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and founder of major security contractor Blackwater, to challenge Barrasso, CNN reported. 

> In Utah, Hatch may very well retire on his own. If he does, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is reportedly eyeing a run in the Mormon-majority state. If that happens, Bannon is ready to run a candidate against him.

According to a source close to Bannon, this is just a “partial” list of elections he is looking to influence.

Bannon is already working to knock off Republican Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and his beleaguered campaign for re-election. Nevada Sen. Dean Heller and Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker are also on Bannon’s radar.

“Some people make an argument that there really isn’t a Republican Party left. I mean, there are people who call themselves that and they go out and raise money and they raise a lot. But whereas the party used to be known for one, two, or three very serious things, they’re not anymore,” Limbaugh added on his radio show.

The conservative talk radio host believes Bannon and others are trying to keep the identity of the Republican Party alive by enforcing such standards onto them by way of primary challenges.

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Breaking: NFL Just Got Catastrophic News About Ticket Sales. It just keeps getting worse for the Goodell and the gang.


Reported By George Upper | on September 28, 2017 at 3:38pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournalism.com/breaking-nfl-just-got-catastrophic-news-about-ticket-sales/?

At an Alabama rally Friday night, President Donald J. Trump argued that NFL owners should release any team member who “disrespects our flag.” Apparently, America agrees.

Since the president called on team owners to take action — and those same owners, along with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, essentially thumbed their collective nose at him — ticket sales have plummeted.

Online ticket re-seller TickPick told Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner that NFL sales for Week Four games dropped nearly 18 percent since prior to Trump’s statement.

According to the Examiner, TickPick cited two numbers damning to the NFL’s response to Trump and the recent national anthem controversy:

17.9 percent decrease in NFL orders this week compared to the previous week.

Last year the drop was 10.8 percent in orders on Monday & Tuesday following Week Three games.

Bedard referred to the sharp decline as the “Trump Effect.”

Trump said at the Alabama rally that he would “love to see” players fired who participated in protests, such as kneeling, during the pre-game playing of the national anthem, according to NPR.

“‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired,” Trump said he’d like to hear NFL owners say. “‘He’s fired.’”

After those statements, many, many more NFL players — some joined by coaches and other staff members — publicly took a knee during the national anthem, bringing even more attention to the controversy and apparently angering many fans.

Nonetheless, Goodell didn’t appear ready to back down.

“The way we reacted today, and this weekend, made me proud,” Goodell said Sunday of the NFL’s response to Trump’s statement, which he called “divisive,” according to Sport Illustrated. “I’m proud of our league.”

“We have seen a massive decrease in NFL ticket purchases this past week in comparison to years past,” TickPick’s Jack Slingland told the Examiner. “Week 3 seems to usually have less ticket orders than week 2, but this year ticket purchases are down more than 7 percent from this time last year.”

“While we can’t specify if this decrease is due to the president’s comments, player and owner protests, play on the field, or simply the continued division of consumer’s media attention, the conversation around the NFL this week has focused on the president’s comments as well as the players’ and owners’ reaction,” Slingland said.

“As viewers continue to abandon their NFL Sunday habits, both the number of ticket sales and the purchase price of tickets will drop,” he predicted.

Others agreed:

Are planning to watch any NFL games this weekend?

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