Muda69

https://reason.com/2024/04/24/another-illegal-power-grab-from-the-ftc/

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More than 30 million Americans have signed employment contracts that limit their ability to switch jobs to a competing company, and those contracts are regulated by laws in 47 states.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) swept all of that aside in one fell swoop this week, as the commission voted down party lines to ban future noncompete agreements and to block the enforcement of many of those existing contracts. (The retroactive ban on noncompete agreements does not apply to senior-level employees.) Even for an agency that has sought in recent years to stretch its regulatory reach, the new FTC rule banning noncompete agreements is a stunning expansion of federal power—one that courts almost certainly will be asked to rein in.

Banning noncompete agreements is "not only unlawful but also a blatant power grab," said Suzanne P. Clark, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a statement. "This decision sets a dangerous precedent for government micromanagement of business and can harm employers, workers, and our economy."

The chamber is already preparing to sue the FTC over the new rules, Clark said. That lawsuit could be filed as soon as Wednesday, according to The Wall Street Journal.

FTC Commissioner Lina Khan says the new rule "will ensure that Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market."

But the commission's legal authority to issue such a rule seems extremely tenuous. The FTC claims that section Sections 5 and 6(g) of the Federal Trade Commission Act grant it the authority to regulate "unfair methods of competition," which may include things like noncompete agreements.

Traditionally, the FTC has operated more like a law enforcement agency—that is, going after firms and industries that engage in anti-competitive behavior like price fixing or that hold monopolies. In issuing this rule, the commission is trying to switch gears towards being a regulatory agency that can promulgate sweeping rules applying to the whole economy. In doing so, Khan is pushing against the commission's history and decades of legal precedents.

The Supreme Court has twice struck down attempts by the FTC to expand its regulatory authority via those sections of the law, as lawyers for TechFreedom explained in comments to the FTC filed last week. "The text and structure of the FTC Act establish, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Section 6(g) does not empower the agency to issue substantive rules, that is, rules with the force of law," wrote Berin Szóka and Corbin Barthold.

"The final rule to ban all noncompete agreements nationwide—except existing noncompetes for senior executives—is a radical departure from hundreds of years of legal precedent," Ben Brubeck, vice president of the Associated Builders and Contractors, said in a statement. "Ultimately, this vastly overbroad rule will invalidate millions of reasonable contracts—including construction project contracts—around the country that are beneficial for both businesses and employees."

Three states—California, North Dakota, and Oklahoma—already ban noncompete agreements. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, vetoed a bill last year that would have banned those contacts in her state. That demonstrates that there is a robust, ongoing (and not particularly partisan) policy debate over noncompete agreements at the state level—a debate that the FTC has bigfooted with its decision on Tuesday.

The two Republican appointees to the FTC voted against the new rule on Tuesday. In a dissenting statement, both expressed the belief that the commission was overstepping its bounds.

Alden Abbott, a former FTC general counsel now working as a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, said in a statement that the FTC lacks the statutory authority to ban noncompete agreements. Even if the commission did have the authority to take such action, Abbott argued that a "one-size-fits-all" federal approach to regulating those contracts would be inferior to the longstanding practice of letting states regulate them.

"Non-competes have throughout our history been a matter of state law, allowing for fruitful policy experimentation among the states, consistent with American federalism," said Abbott. "Three politically-appointed bureaucrats who are not accountable to American voters should not possess the sort of power that the FTC is asserting over non–compete agreements."

Agreed.  A stunning overreach of federal power.   It should be overturned, and quickly.

1 minute ago, BTF said:

Have you not been paying attention to any of Rodney's posts? 

I usually try not to.

3 minutes ago, Boilernation said:

You'll love this. The tax payers of Cook County still owe over $600 Million in debt for the 2002 renovation of Soldier Field.

This is nothing short of criminal, having this debt and then expecting to tack at least $2.3 billion on top of it?

22 hours ago, Boilernation said:

And less than 24 hours from the Bears announcing a new domed stadium on the lakefront. At this point i'm losing hope that the Bears are playing hardball to get a better tax rate in Arlington Heights and are actually considering a new lakefront stadium (likely owned by Chicago Parks Department) over controlling an entire entertainment complex in Arlington Heights. 

A lakefront stadium is appealing for sitelines, but it's a nightmare to get to for spectators because of Lake Shore Drive and the train lines.

https://stadium.chicagobears.com/

This stadium being publicly owned is a non-starter for me.  Just more fleecing of taxpayers.

https://mises.org/mises-wire/cowardice-not-courage-led-house-republicans-side-democrats

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Over the weekend, the House of Representatives passed four foreign aid bills that will allocate a combined $95 billion to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and other “national security priorities.” House Republicans followed Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) lead and joined with Democrats to deliver all the foreign aid President Joe Biden wanted without requiring much of anything in return.

The passage came after House Republicans had handed the president similar victories with Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reauthorization and government spending.

New York Times columnists celebrated Speaker Johnson for, in their words, “finally (showing) a spine.” Columnist Bret Stephens went as far as to call Johnson’s decision to roll over an act of courage:

Nothing is more difficult these days in American politics than going against your own ideological tribe. And nothing is more admirable than politicians who are willing to challenge their base and gamble their office for the sake of a great cause. I wasn’t much of a fan of Johnson when he became speaker of the House, but what he’s done is a profile in courage.

Speaker Johnson took a similar tone, framing himself as a courageous and selfless public servant willing to “do the right thing,” regardless of the personal consequences.

But Johnson didn’t do the right thing. And he certainly didn’t do the courageous thing.

America is a global empire that’s spread too thin. Washington could have used its unipolar moment following the fall of the Soviet Union to relax the totalitarian military bureaucracy built up during the Cold War. Instead, the United States government launched multiple unnecessary wars in the Middle East, needlessly expanded the anti-Russian military alliance in Europe, and helped militarize the waters and neighboring governments that surround China’s coast.

The US’s meddling in the Middle East inadvertently swung the balance of power way in Iran’s favor. In Europe, NATO’s eastward expansion turned the Russian regime back into an enemy and eventually provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. All the while China has maneuvered and worked to gain control of its own near-abroad and to build up military forces strong enough to back that effort up.

Officials in Washington have decided that they are the ones who should be in charge of the entire Middle East, all of Eastern Europe, and the East Pacific. The American people have already been forced to pay trillions of dollars and to sacrifice thousands of their sons, daughters, and siblings for this project. And Washington exerts even less control over those three regions than it did three decades ago.

But money and lives are not the only things Americans have been forced to give up. In the name of fending off the foreign enemies that they helped create, US officials have trampled on privacy rights here at home. Thanks to courageous journalists and whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, we know that the government uses the existence of foreign adversaries to sidestep the right to due process and violate the rights of Americans.

At home, the federal government spends trillions of dollars every year, either taxed directly out of our pockets or less directly through borrowing and money printing. That spending fuels interventions in the economy that nearly anyone who has taken an introductory economics class could tell you have bad consequences. But those bad consequences are used to justify more interventions, which themselves have bad consequences that are then used to justify more interventions. It’s an interventionist death spiral. Life becomes less affordable, important goods become harder to acquire, and the government has to tax, borrow, and print more and more every year to fund it all.

These are all serious and significant problems. But they’re also not insurmountable.

Government spending needs to be cut substantially. Not only to ease the burden of high federal taxes and the permanent price inflation that accompanies permanent money printing but also to put an end to all the destruction that spending has wrought.

From its beginning, the federal government has used its ability to protect our rights to justify its very existence. As long as the political class keeps up that story, it’s reasonable to demand that they stop violating our rights themselves with intrusive and unconstitutional programs like warrantless surveillance.

And the political establishment’s fantasy about controlling every inch of the globe needs to be put to rest, especially while parts of this country remain so unsafe and the situation at the border grows even more chaotic. Washington’s imperial ambitions cost a lot of money and create unnecessary enemies.

It’s clear many Republican voters understand, at least at a high level, what needs to happen. Every Republican candidate claims to support spending cuts. And recently, Republicans have had to navigate their base growing more skeptical of Washington’s hyperactive foreign policy. And when FISA was due to be renewed, numerous Republicans worked to implement restrictions on warrantless surveillance.

To their credit, some Republicans were serious enough to try to use their small House majority to make as big a dent in the above problems as possible. They kicked out a Speaker for not sticking with an agreed-upon change to the government spending appropriations process, tried to impose FISA restrictions, and froze funding for Washington’s foreign interventions for months. For that, they were disparaged daily in the establishment-friendly media.

But in the end, Mike Johnson and the so-called moderate Republicans gave in on all three fronts. They greenlit another increase in government spending, reauthorized warrantless surveillance, and agreed to force Americans to fork over another $95 billion for foreign interventions. For that, Johnson and his Republican allies are celebrated in the New York Times and other “respectable” outlets.

There are policy changes that can solve many of the biggest problems facing Americans. But the changes won’t be easy or pleasant for the politicians who enact them. They must stop kicking the can down the road and face the economic destruction brought on by past interventions—not to cover up, delay, and amplify the reckoning. And they require politicians with the courage and wherewithal to stay committed, even when New York Times columnists and MSNBC hosts say mean things about them. Speaker Mike Johnson and his Republican allies are clearly not those politicians.

Uni-party to the max.  Again.

1 minute ago, Bash Riprock said:

I don' believe his reference was to left-handed people....then again, I think you knew that.......

No, I didn't.  When I read the word "lefty" I automatically think about handedness, not political ideology.    So if I'm left handed and lean "left" politically then I'm pretty much bullet proof in some industries?

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2024/04/23/flory-bidunga-of-kokomo-a-kansas-recruited-is-voted-indiana-mr-basketball-2024/73431185007/

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...

The 6-9 Bidunga, who is signed to play for Kansas, added a prestigious accolade to his resume on Tuesday night as he was crowned 2024 IndyStar Mr. Basketball during the High School Sports Awards show at Butler University’s Clowes Hall. Bidunga was named on 198 ballots to outdistance runner-up Jack Benter of Brownstown Central, who had 122. Mr. Basketball is voted on by high school coaches and media statewide and goes to the state’s top senior.

Bidunga is the third Mr. Basketball winner from Kokomo, joining Tom Schwartz (1945) and Jimmy Rayl (1959).

....

A worthy achievement.  Congratulations to young Mr. Bidunga, and good luck at Kansas.

Advocating for gambling on a game played by children is tasteless. 

11 hours ago, Bobref said:

You have to admit, suggesting - even tongue in cheek - that a rich donor ran the coach off isn’t exactly flattering the program.

Money talks.  It always has and always will.  And we always being told how most parochial schools are running on a shoestring budget, almost always on the cusp of having to close their doors due to lack of funds.  Is Roncalli any different?

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/2024-nfl-draft-ranking-the-quarterback-prospects-based-on-a-college-football-performance-formula/

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I had a brilliant idea back in 2012. What if I could create a formula based on a quarterback's production in college that would give us an indication as to whether they would be successful at the NFL level?

Well, I failed. 

It turns out there is no way to predict a QB's future based on past performance because there's so much more that goes into the position than the player. There's the environment, the surrounding team, the coaching staff and a lot of luck. However, while I've never been able to crack the QB code, I've continued using my formula every year since 2012 for a simple reason: It's done a decent job, even if it doesn't have all the answers.

Basically, the formula rates quarterbacks on throwing ability, not rushing. It's broke down into three categories: against top-50 defenses, third-and-long/fourth-down situations and the red zone. After shoving all those numbers into the machine, it spits out a score for each player. That score is then taken and compared to the average score of the quarterback class being graded, which is added to the list of all the quarterbacks rated in the past.

Before we dive into further detail, let's look at the scores for the 2024 class of quarterbacks.

RANK	QUARTERBACK	SCHOOL	FORNELLI RATING	2023 STATS
1.	Caleb Williams	USC	8.98%	3,633 yards, 30 TD, 5 INT
2.	J.J. McCarthy	Michigan	7.64%	2,991 yards, 22 TD, 4 INT
3.	Jayden Daniels	LSU	2.93%	3,812 yards, 40 TD, 4 INT
4.	Spencer Rattler	South Carolina	2.71%	3,186 yards, 19 TD, 8 INT
5.	Bo Nix	Oregon	1.84%	4,508 yards, 45 TD, 3 INT
6.	Austin Reed	Western Kentucky	0.71%	3,340 yards, 31 TD, 11 INT
7.	Drake Maye	North Carolina	0.25%	3,608 yards, 24 TD, 9 INT
8.	Michael Penix	Washington	-0.26%	4,903 yards, 36 TD, 11 INT
9.	Sam Hartman	Notre Dame	-0.31%	2,689 yards, 24 TD, 8 INT
10.	Jordan Travis	Florida State	-0.32%	2,756 yards, 20 TD, 2 INT
11.	Devin Leary	Kentucky	-1.46%	2,746 yards, 25 TD, 12 INT
12.	Kedon Slovis	BYU	-2.76%	1,716 yards, 12 TD, 6 INT
13.	Michael Pratt	Tulane	-3.06%	2,406 yards, 22 TD, 5 INT
14.	Joe Milton	Tennessee	-3.38%	2,813 yards, 20 TD, 5 INT

The scoring is simple. Caleb Williams checks in with a score of 8.98%, which means his score was 8.98% better than the average score of the 14 quarterbacks listed. Joe Milton's score of -3.38% means he finished 3.38% below the average. 

Of the 14 quarterbacks rated in this class, Williams and J.J. McCarthy are the only two to post scores that crack the top 20 of players graded since the 2012 class.

....

 

55 minutes ago, Robert said:

https://www.calm.com/blog/how-to-be-more-present

?

20 hours ago, temptation said:

Just when I thought I had seen it all...(and no this is not satire).  The left is throwing Hail Marys right now because they are losing on every single issue.

 

 

So Republicans in certain states are not trying to criminalize the act of a women leaving a "no abortions" state in order to get an abortion?

20 hours ago, temptation said:

But, but, but look at all of the jobs that have been created under this administration...

You mean all the part time jobs?

Maybe Mr. Quintana wanted to bring back "Rebels" as the rightful Roncalli mascot.

1 hour ago, temptation said:

Oh, you mean his "apology" that was behind a paywall?

 

This link doesn't appear to be behind a paywall:  https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/columnists/gregg-doyel/2024/04/17/caitlin-clark-im-so-sorry-on-wednesday-i-was-part-of-the-problem/73364922007/

1 hour ago, Bash Riprock said:

Did his apology truly feel sincere to you??

Yes, it did.

1 hour ago, Bash Riprock said:

Also, even if sincere, is an apology enough?  Does it wipe the slate clean?

Yes, IMHO it does.  Doesn't make him any less of a jerk sometimes, though.

1 hour ago, temptation said:

Dude is a fraud.  But he is protected because he is a southpaw.  A righty would have already been fired.

Wait, so we lefties are now a protected class?  When did that happen?

Why the US Debt Is Unsustainable and Is Destroying the Middle Class:  https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-us-debt-unsustainable-and-destroying-middle-class

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In a recent tweet, a talented financial analyst and investor stated: “The “debt is unsustainable” narrative has been around for 40 years plus. What’s astonishing to me is how the people who push this narrative never ask themselves, “Why has it been sustainable for so long?”.

There is a widespread idea that the fiscal imbalances of a world reserve currency issuer would end in an Argentina-style bankruptcy. However, the manifestation of unsustainability did not even appear as drastic in Argentina itself. Hey, Argentina continues to exist, doesn’t it?

Excessive public debt is unsustainable when it becomes a burden on productive growth and leads the economy to constantly rising taxes, weaker productivity growth, and weaker real wage growth. However, the level of unsustainable accumulation of debt may continue to rise because the state itself imposes public debt on banks’ balance sheets and the state forces the financial sector to take all its debt as the “lowest risk asset.” However, law and regulation have merely imposed and forced this construct. Rising debt bloats the government’s size in the economy and erodes its growth and productivity potential.

Many diabetic and obese people continue to eat too much unhealthy food, thinking nothing has happened so far. That does not mean their eating habits are sustainable.

Those who ignore the accumulation of public debt tend to do so under the idea that nothing has happened yet. This is a reckless way of looking at the economy, a sort of “we have not killed ourselves yet; let us accelerate” mentality.

An ever-weaker private sector, weak real wages, declining productivity growth, and the currency’s diminishing purchasing power all indicate the unsustainability of debt levels. It becomes increasingly difficult for families and small businesses to make ends meet and pay for essential goods and services, while those who already have access to debt and the public sector smile in contentment. Why? Because the accumulation of public debt is printing money artificially.

When money is created in the private sector through the financial system, there is a process of wealth creation and productive money creation. The financial system creates money for projects that yield a genuine economic return. Some fail, others soar. That is the process of productive economic growth and progress. Only when the central bank manipulates interest rates, disguises the cost of risk, and increases the money supply to monetize unproductive deficit spending can it distort this process.

When the central bank wants to disguise the worsening solvency of fiscally imprudent governments, it does so by tampering with interest rates—making fiscally irresponsible governments’ borrowing cheaper—and artificially increasing the amount of currency in the system, monetizing public debt—a destructive process of money creation as opposed to the saving-investment function of banking.

When the fiscal position is unsustainable, the only way for the state to force the acceptance of its debt—newly created currency—is through coercion and repression.

A state’s debt is only an asset when the private sector values its solvency and uses it as a reserve. When the state imposes its insolvency on the economy, its bankruptcy manifests in the destruction of the purchasing power of the currency through inflation and the weakening of real wage purchasing capacity.

The state basically conducts a process of slow default on the economy through rising taxes and weakening the purchasing power of the currency, which leads to weaker growth and erosion of the middle class, the captive hostages of the currency issuer.

Of course, as the currency issuer, the state never acknowledges its imbalances and always blames inflation and weak growth on the private sector, exporters, other nations, and markets. Independent institutions must impose fiscal prudence to prevent a state from destroying the real economy. The state, through the monopoly of currency issuance and the imposition of law and regulation, will always pass on its imbalances to consumers and businesses, thinking it is for their own good.

The government deficit is not creating savings for the private economy. Savings in the real economy accept public debt as an asset when they perceive the currency issuer’s solvency to be reliable. When the government imposes it and disregards the functioning of the productive economy, positioning itself as the source of wealth, it undermines the very foundation it purports to protect: the standard of living for the average citizen.

Governments do not create reserves; their debt becomes a reserve only when the productive private sector economy within their political boundaries thrives and the public finances remain under control. The state does show its insolvency, like any issuer, in the price of the I.O.U. it distributes, i.e., in the purchasing power of the currency. Public debt is artificial currency creation because the state does not create anything; it only administers the money it collects from the same productive private sector it is choking via taxes and inflation.

The United States debt started to become unsustainable when the Federal Reserve stopped defending the currency and paying attention to monetary aggregates to implement policies designed to disguise the rising cost of indebtedness from unbridled deficit spending.

Artificial currency creation is never neutral. It disproportionately benefits the first recipient of new currency, the government, and massively hurts the last recipients, real wages and deposit savings. It is a massive transfer of wealth from the productive economy and savers to the bureaucratic administration.

More units of public debt mean weaker productive growth, higher taxes, and more inflation in the future. All three are manifestations of a slow burn default.

So, if the state can impose its fiscal imbalances on us, how do we know if the debt it issues is unsustainable? First, because of the units of GDP created, adding new units of public debt diminishes rapidly. Second, the erosion of the currency’s purchasing power persists and accelerates. Third, because productive investment and capital expenditure decline, employment may remain acceptable in the headlines, but real wages, productivity, and the ability of workers to make ends meet deteriorate rapidly.

Today’s narrative tries to tell us that nothing has happened when a lot has. The destruction of the middle class and the deterioration of the small and medium enterprise fabric in favor of a rising bureaucratic administration that consumes higher taxes but still generates more debt and deficits It does end badly. And all empires end the same way, with the assumption that nothing will happen. The currency’s acceptance as a reserve does come to an end. The persistent erosion of purchasing power and declining confidence in the legally imposed “lowest risk asset” are some of the red flags some are willing to ignore, maybe because they live off other people’s taxes or because they benefit from the destruction of the currency through asset inflation. Either way, it is profoundly anti-social and destructive, even if it is a slow detonation.

The fact that there are informed and intelligent investors who willingly ignore the red flags of weakening the middle class, declining purchasing power of the currency and deteriorating solvency and productivity shows why it is so dangerous to allow governments to maintain fiscal imprudence. The reason why government money creation is so dangerous is because the government is always happy to increase its power over citizens and blame them for the problems its policies create, presenting itself as the solution.

Can debt continue to rise? Of course. The gradual process of impoverishment and serfdom is relatively comfortable when the state can impose the use of the currency and force its debt into your pension by law and regulation. To think that it will last forever, and nothing will happen is not just reckless “accelerate, we have not crashed yet” mentality. It is ignoring the reality of money. Independent money, gold, and similar, solve this.

This is the future the boomers are leaving for our children and grandchildren.  A future of serfdom and debt to the state.

50 minutes ago, swordfish said:

Aren't the schools in Indiana required to have a specified amount of school days and hours each year?  Wouldn't this mean longer days, or less summer break?

Yes, but FTA:

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The Indiana State Board of Education has approved a waiver allowing the change for the next three years. The change makes Vinton the first public school in the state to operate on a four-day week.

Sounds like Vinton is the guinea pig for this kind of change.  We will see how it goes.

6 minutes ago, gonzoron said:

Honestly it wouldn't bother me if the entire Indystar empire ceased to exist. It was the most toxic work environment I've ever seen.

Please tell us more about your personal experiences with the Indianapolis Star work environment.  Were you once an employee there?  

And the Indy Star is slowly dying, like most newspapers.  Witness this "investigative article"  that nobody on staff at the Indy Star seems to have actually investigated, instead it appears they have have outsourced most of the work to some Notre Dame students:   https://www.indystar.com/story/news/investigations/2024/04/22/where-you-live-in-indiana-can-determine-levels-of-legal-fines-and-fees/71523093007/

13 hours ago, gonzoron said:

It's really no surprise that you are defending him. Do you think it was just locker room talk?

No, it wasn't just locker room talk. 

He already issued an apology gonzoron.  What more do you want for Mr. Doyel?  A suspension?  A firing?

5 hours ago, gonzoron said:

Well, at least now you know Mud69 isn't going to find out who you really are...............Marked safe from Mud, you should be doing the happy dance.

?  More rantings of a senile mind.

1 hour ago, Boilernation said:

Doyel has carried the woke flag on numerous occasions. Shouldn't he play by the rules he lives by?

Good point.  Then he should offer to resign from the Indianapolis Star, and then start a podcast.

2 hours ago, Daniel_Bragg said:

Are you suggesting otherwise, or is my sarcasm meter off?

No, and No.

Mr. Doyel will probably be suspended or even fired by the woke Indy Star for this faux pas.

He also apologized in his latest column, but I guess those are not good enough anymore.  Woke American society demands it's pound of flesh for any transgression:     https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/columnists/gregg-doyel/2024/04/17/caitlin-clark-im-so-sorry-on-wednesday-i-was-part-of-the-problem/73364922007/

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I’m devastated to realize I’m part of the problem. I screwed up Wednesday during my first interaction with No. 1 overall draft pick Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever.

What happened was the most me thing ever, in one way. I’m sort of known locally, sigh, for having awkward conversations with people before asking brashly conversational questions. I’ve done this for years with Colts coaches Chuck Pagano, Frank Reich and Shane Steichen. I’ve done it with Purdue players Carsen Edwards and Zach Edey. I did it with IU’s Romeo Langford, talking to them as people, not athletes. 

Notice something about all those names? 

They’re all men. 

On the one hand, yes absolutely, male and female athletes should be treated the same. I’m talking about coverage, respect, compensation, terminology, you name it. Stories have been written about idiots who say or act otherwise. 

And then, along comes a story about another insensitive man, which goes viral on social media, and I decided to write about that idiot. 

Me. 

What I’ve learned is that I need to be more aware about how I talk to people – not just athletes. I realized that only after my exchange with Clark went viral and I navigated the first two stages of grief during a discussion with the people I care about the most. 

Denial: I didn’t do anything wrong! I gave Caitlin her signature heart-shaped hand gesture as a way of introducing myself and welcoming her to town! I did this during a nationally televised press conference! What kind of idiot acts creepy on national television! (Me.) 

Anger: This is how I talk to everyone! Had that been the male equivalent arriving to energize team and town – since I’ve been here, the closest thing Indianapolis has had is Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson – I’d have shown him the heart gesture and reiterated, “I like that you’re here.” 

This is where I was, convinced I was harmless and right, when a woman I deeply respect told me, “But Caitlin Clark is a young woman, and you don’t talk to a young woman the same as you would a young man.” 

And my heart dropped. Because now I saw it: After years of being so sure I was on the right side of these arguments, I was now on the wrong side, and for the oldest reason known to man and woman: 

Ignorance. 

You can say that’s absurd, that I should’ve known better, and I do. But here we are. I was just doing what I do, talking to another athlete, another person, and didn’t see the line – didn’t even know there was a line in the vicinity – until I crossed it. 

In my haste to be clever, to be familiar and welcoming (or so I thought), I offended Caitlin and her family. 

After going through denial, and then anger – I’m on the wrong side of this? Me??? – I now realize what I said and how I said it was wrong, wrong, wrong. I mean it was just wrong. 

Caitlin Clark, I’m so sorry.

3 minutes ago, 00NWP said:

NorthWood started demoing their field this week and will have turf starting next year as well.  That leaves Concord as the only school in the NLC with natural grass.

Fighting the good fight I see.  Good for the Minutemen.