Why Would Aaron Rodgers Want To Be The Next Rudy Giuliani?

When New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers was removed from the first game of the 2023 football season due to an injury and then unable to play anymore, I felt the bizarre and quirky conspiracy theories he willingly percolates might fade. We know they did not, and among a subset of Americans, his downright fact-less views only make him more appealing. It is so true when saying we should never underestimate the stupidity of the American public.

Over the past week, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has ginned up a way to get press coverage by stating Rodgers was on a list for the vice-presidential slot. Rodgers will not give up his NFL paycheck to become an even greater national punchline. Kennedy has proven he will do almost anything, including this quixotic leap of name-dropping, to be relevant.  But just as the press had used up a news cycle on an impossible VP story came the bombshell that in private conversations Rodgers came down on the side of a bat-crap-crazy conspiracy theory that the abhorrent 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was not real.

CNN reported how one journalist, Pamela Brown, had a personal conversation with the then-Green Bay Packers player.

Brown was covering the Kentucky Derby for CNN in 2013 when she was introduced to Rodgers, then with the Green Bay Packers, at a post-Derby party. Hearing that she was a journalist with CNN, Rodgers immediately began attacking the news media for covering up important stories. Rodgers brought up the tragic killing of 20 children and 6 adults by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School, claiming it was actually a government inside job and the media was intentionally ignoring it.

When Brown questioned him on the evidence to show this very real shooting was staged, Rodgers began sharing various theories that have been disproven numerous times. Brown recalls Rodgers asking her if she thought it was odd that there were men in black in the woods by the school, falsely claiming those men were actually government operatives. Brown found the encounter disturbing.

CNN has spoken to another person with a similar story. This person, to whom CNN has granted anonymity so as to avoid harassment, recalled that several years ago, Rodgers claimed, “Sandy Hook never happened…All those children never existed. They were all actors.”

When asked about the grieving parents, the source recalled Rodgers saying, “They’re all making it up. They’re all actors.”

Rodgers went on to delve into some of the darker caverns of the false conspiracy theory. This person found the encounter disturbing.

Disturbing is not even the tip of the iceberg when seeking words about how I would describe my feelings about Rodgers. What allowed him to fall so far away from the role model many felt worthy for their children will be written about in the years ahead. Some will question his football profession and possible brain injuries as to the cause of his behavior, while others, without a doubt, will just question his flawed character as a man. What is without question, however, is the trajectory of his career. It is safe to view it on the same arc as the man everybody once called ‘America’s Mayor’.

I recall the years when placing mobsters and mafia leaders in prison was what made Giuliani famous. And for good reason. The majority of the nation best recalls Giuliani’s leadership after the September 11 attacks in 2001, the year he also was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.  Those were the years when Guiliani had his compass aligned due North, as he played a very positive role in the nation.  Likewise, Rodgers, but in a very separate and far less important slice of the national fabric, fulfilled his role as someone who could be viewed with a positive connotation on the football field.  I have never been able to pinpoint when Giuliani’s personal life or his hubris with a consulting business pulled him off the track, but all know what Rudy became over the past decade. He is a continuous national joke for late-night television along with being scorned and reviled across our land.

There is no question, however, when the nation became aware that Rodgers had run afoul of logic and reason. The COVID-19 pandemic showcased his refusal to be fact-based about science, vaccinations, or understand the gravity of the virus that was killing far too many in Wisconsin. This week, we discovered the shocking news about his disgusting views regarding one of the most horrific mass school shootings in our country. His bizarre and tasteless rants about his conspiracy-laden views are becoming the narrative about the man. Everyone with a pulse knows that 9/11 and Sandy Hook actually happened. What perverse pleasure Rodgers gets from further wounding the parents and families of Sandy Hook shows what a broken and truly pathetic character looks like. All we need to see is the brown liquid running down Rodger’s face. Then the Giuliani connection will have come full circle.

Kansas City Super Bowl Mass Shooting Editorial Cartoons

The sickening way we all felt upon first learning of the mass shooting in Kansas City during a fan appreciation event for the winning Super Bowl team is not an isolated or occasional emotion. It happens all too often. It is a very American reaction as the majority of other nations have no concept of having mass shootings occurring daily. That is due to common sense gun laws having been enacted. On Wednesday, there was a mass shooting at a Georgia high school while the news networks were centered on the Kansas City story. Putting the absurdity of mass shootings into context has been done over and over and over again in news columns and Op-Ed articles in newspapers in cities and small towns, alike. To reach the emotion, the rawness, and truth in the fastest way, however, we turn to Editorial cartoons from newspapers. The national shame over our allowance as a nation for this continued gun violence, well, that is all on us.

Fired Sun Prairie Coach Chris Davis And Failed Sportsmanship

Taxpayers are asked to fund schools with tax dollars while the occasional referendums are placed before voters for purposes ranging from building maintenance to classroom learning. The need for dollars is real and the benefits to society of striving to educate children are without doubt most worthwhile, But one can ask if the amount of money spent on sports programs in our schools has provided the outcomes that we expect? While we have physical education each day for youngsters in our schools there is also the large expenditure that taxpayers provide for sports programs so to assist with the growth in understanding fair play, how to be a gracious loser, and how the spirit of a united contest is of more importance than the individual effort on the court or field.  Sports is to build character and make the mind stronger as well as the body.

All that came crashing down when Sun Prairie West High School head boys’ basketball coach Chris Davis acted in ways so unprofessional that he was fired from the position following a January 4 incident after the Wolves lost to Madison East. A video shows that Davis bumped into a Madison East player immediately after the game and verbally confronted a member of the Madison East coaching staff before being restrained and pushed away toward center court. If one listens to the accusations that someone made a slur on another person or did this or that, is simply not a reason to have had a coach act like a third-grader during recess.

We all are aware that being slurred, as unfortunate as that is and there is no excuse for it, happens all too often.  That still does not warrant acting like a child when the slur is aimed at you.  When you find yourself at the receiving end of such a remark is when there is a need to show a higher character by grinning at the stupidity on display and walking on and getting to the next part of the day.  That was the lesson Davis should have openly demonstrated to his boys on the basketball team.

Taxpayers, and correctly so, pay a nice share of income each year for schools so young minds can be shaped in both the classroom and in sports.  When such a glaring example of poor sportsmanship is offered to youngsters looking for guidance and examples of how to act when they become adults, there must be a remedy commensurate to the offensive action taken. Davis had to be fired.

What should the basketball boys have learned from Davis’ behavior? When confronted in a mall, parking lot, or fast-food joint the first response to an ignorant slur is to get physical and up in someone’s face? That is not the lesson taxpayers want to see imparted to young people when sending their hard-earned money to their local school district.

This Is News?

I was somewhat surprised to see newspapers on Twitter ranging from The Milwaukee Journal to the Green Bay Press Gazette alert readers to Taylor Swift departing on a jet for Wisconsin and then see those sites have video of her strolling inside the concourse upon her arrival. This is what modern news operations do these days, thinking infotainment is actual journalism. (It is not.) I am not going to pretend I am updated on pop culture and certainly not going to pass myself off as a sports fan. Nonetheless, as I said, I am surprised at the degree to which her arrival has become a ‘news’ story.

Yes, Swift has become a daily item in many social media feeds and when talking with younger people about music.  The matter about her over-saturation has generated the only news coverage of the singer I have been interested in learning.  Namely, if her business empire suffers from over-exposure. I come from the perspective that one always leaves an audience wanting more, be it with a movie star or a politician. With Swift, however, burning at a rocket’s pace, it seems Las Vegas needs to place bets on when her bubble will burst.

Green Bay will get some headlines but probably far more for the entertainer who flew into the county airport than for a mere football game.  Even if the snow falling Sunday evening conjured up that perfect image of memories of a football game someone’s grandpa attended decades ago. Northeast Wisconsin is like that.

I recall soon after arriving in Door County for my radio work at WDOR, I walked into a gathering of folks talking about a football game. One person was giving play-by-play type banter, and I thought this was not football season.  I was to discover they were just reliving one of those ‘Glory Day’ games from who knows when. I knew that evening was going to be a very long one. But even more dismaying was to find out in the months to come that this was really what some did for fun when gathered with others. Thirty years from now another guy who cares not a wit about sports will surely be regaled with a story about lazy snowflakes falling as the football was thrown down the field as the fans gazed up and saw the face of a superstar beaming down on the field below. Aaaahhhh…… “Please tell that one, again! I want to get every detail imprinted on my mind.”

I need to go now and check the news feeds.  After all, the Green Bay paper must have a report about Taylor Swift using a restroom.

And so it goes.

Kevin Brown Treated Very Unfairly For Doing On-Air Broadcasting Job

Something a bit different today on Caffeinated Politics. I generally do not opine on sports, but I do care about broadcasters and their profession. This leads me to a news story today that greeted me upon waking up. Baltimore Orioles announcer Kevin Brown was suspended for making a factual statement on-air about the team’s former losing ways.

Here's the clip of Kevin Brown's pregame comments on the Orioles' recent record against the Rays ahead of a series finale on July 23. Sources tell AA these comments led to Brown's current indefinite suspension from Orioles' broadcasts. pic.twitter.com/csURU04fJU

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 7, 2023

Why this strikes me to the point of posting about it is twofold. First a young, and by all accounts credible broadcaster has been mistreated for simply reporting, and analyzing the facts pertaining to the Orioles baseball team. Brown merely stated statistics and data about past games that did not go the way the team would’ve wished. It is important to note that at the time Brown made his on-air statement a graph was placed on the screen at the same time with the information in a visual format. So there was an alignment preplanned as to how this portion of the broadcast was to have played out. It was not some ad-lib moment, and even if it were, it was factually correct.

The second reason I am troubled by this suspension is due to it being a classic example of a perceived need to either dumb down information for an audience, in this case, fans of a baseball team, or it is to deny facts that can clearly be demonstrated. What is to be gained by not addressing forthrightly the past performance of a baseball team that did not play up to the desires of management or the fans?

I was very heartened to learn this morning that sports broadcasters across the nation came out in support of Brown, and made on-air statements about his professionalism and the absurd way in which he was treated by the Orioles. I understand sports broadcasters must have a deep understanding of the sport in which they are announcing, but also a personality and gift for natural ongoing conversation. Nobody gets the job unless they met all those criteria, and Brown, obviously met his as demonstrated by the fact he was on the air. To undercut him when he was simply making statements of fact, is a slap, not only to him but to the integrity of the baseball team as a whole.

Broadcasting is a difficult profession, and if it seems easy for a listener or viewer who perceives it that way only means that the person on-air is doing a terrific job by making it look so effortless. In fact, such on-air performances take years to perfect, with daily input of reading and gathering data being essential so as to be well informed when on the air. Add in being articulate and personable, and it might be easier to understand how difficult a broadcasting job is when on-air.

Brown was just doing his job, and doing it just as he should. Being suspended was a boneheaded move, and I hope some other sports organization picks him up and puts him on-air. Soon.

UW-Madison Pays For Football Team’s Trip To “Block Out Distractions”

It caught my attention Saturday morning while reading the Wisconsin State Journal with my first cup of coffee that UW-Madison football players need to leave the campus for training camp to “block out distractions”. It was reported that “UW will pay UW-Platteville up to $150,398 in facility rental costs and for lodging and food during the Aug. 1-8 stay in southwestern Wisconsin. That doesn’t include transportation to and from Platteville”.

It has always been my impression that the UW-Madison sports program could never be accused of nickel-and-diming it when it came to its facilities and niceties which are used both to lure would-be players to the campus and then allow them to develop their full potential as players.  So, it does seem odd that up to 210 people will be traveling to UW-Platteville to run some sprints and toss a football about for a week.  Since the football program has never needed to operate on a real budget and proceed with any degree of economic constraint this outing is just another romp for the team.

First-year Badgers coach Luke Fickell said taking players off campus for start of camp, something he also did at Cincinnati, is a way to block out distractions. 

But after the recent gnashing of teeth from the UW about their financial needs and the short-sightedness of the Republican majority in the legislature’s budget-writing committee to ante up the monies for a bevy of programming the headline above the fold of the paper about this outlay of sporting money is troubling.  Now, I suspect there will be a way to counter the story by saying the money came from alumni or a source not directly linked to taxpayers.  That is like saying in some marriages that there is ‘her money’ and ‘his money’ but any logical assessment shows it all is used for the same purposes.  

If the UW has the ability to provide these types of elective trips for hundreds of football players and staff when they already have a top-notch facility to practice in on their campus, then perhaps—just perhaps—some of the Republican disagreement with the money train to the university has merit.

Finally, I have no way to compute how football players need to trek to another campus so to “block out distractions”.  Are they aware that on game day there are tens of thousands of fans making the playing field a din of noise? If one can not practice with a few distractions…..

There are those days when I should start drinking coffee long before picking up the paper. Or perhaps the newspaper could provide a trigger alert that the content of a news story is going to be simply absurd.

Dane County Ismael Ozanne And The UW Football Player With Stolen Gun In His Possession

There are ample reasons daily in our state why we need to be diligent about pressing for gun control measures in the legislature.  We rightly decry gun violence while in liberal places such as Madison and Dane County, there is much lamenting the lack of tougher laws and stricter enforcement to stem the violence and death from guns.  This is why the mostly muted response to the arrest of a UW-Madison player with a stolen gun in his possession seems odd. 

Markus Allen was arrested on April 29th for possession of a concealed firearm by Madison police during the Mifflin Street Block Party, but as of this posting, no criminal charges have not been filed by Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne. 

In the released search warrant made public to the media last week nothing suggested that Allen is even being investigated. The warrant was served to search Allen’s backpack where it was discovered the football player had an unloaded Glock 19 handgun and a magazine loaded with one round of ammunition in a separate pocket. Upon further discovery, it was learned from the gun’s registration information that Madison resident Casey Walker, had reported the gun stolen out of his mother’s car in June 2022.  Additionally, Allen does not have a concealed carry permit in Wisconsin or his home state of Ohio.

Why a person heading to the alcohol-laden street party would bring along a Glock weapon, and a stolen one at that, is concerning for a society that is sick and tired of too much gun violence.  While I am not suggesting that Allen was intending to use the gun that afternoon it does beg the question as to how this story remains low-key for the most part in our city. If it were any one of my readers, not in the UW football program, we would know with certainty and post-haste that possession of a concealed firearm is a Class A misdemeanor.  Add in the fact the weapon was reported as stolen, and we would be most aware of the gravity of the situation.

If we are going to be consistent about our collective understanding that gun violence is excessive and undermines our society then we also must be asking Dane County DA Ozanne why the lack of energy on this case seems to be occurring? Is there a double standard being applied to a football player?

Quintez Cephus “Suspended Indefinitely” From NFL, Released By Detroit Lions, Might UW-Madison Have Helped Him Find Guardrails Of Life?

Well, here we go again. Character matters.

I often stress those two words when it comes to presidential candidates, strongly implied it just yesterday when talking about astronauts of my youth who so very much impressed me, and say it repeatedly when writing about athletes who have a bevy of youth looking up to them. I made it plain in 2019 when writing about Quintez Cephus that what was lacking in the larger story was the issue of character. For those who need a quick primer, he was accused by two women of sexual assault but was acquitted of those charges by a Dane County jury. This morning his name landed in my email box as a news feed from the Washington Post dealt with his time with Detroit Lions upended due to….yes….lack of character.

Quintez Cephus was “suspended indefinitely through at least the conclusion of the 2023 season for betting on NFL games in the 2022 season”. (By the time I reread this post for editing I learned the Detroit Lions had released him from the team.) While no one should take any glee about this news, as having a dream of any profession ripped apart is sad, there still can be a lesson learned from what happened to this man. The lack of constructing the guardrails of life, those ways of living and abiding with the proper conduct as one moves through society, while also not working to ante up on the character side of one’s personal ledger has a cost. What I found so glaring and lacking in this young man in 2019 are seemingly the ones that made him a headline today. Had there been a more strict application of the rules for this football player in 2019 might he have been alerted to the behavior changes required for adulthood?

My issue at the time this story made headlines galore was direct and can be summed up this way. Did Cephus honor the sports program, or the school where he was a student, when he went to a bedroom with two women, asked another man to join the trio, and where a photo was taken and then deleted from a phone?  Do these actions from a football player, and a UW student rise to the level of acceptable behavior for the university?

We all recall the tight restrictions and demands a high school coach would place on players about how they were to handle themselves when off the field.  It mattered in small towns and communities when a player, who made the local paper for a play in a Friday night game, was able to walk with dignity and self-respect down Main Street Wednesday evening.  Values mattered.  And they still must.

I stated in 2019 the obvious. Let us pretend that all other aspects concerning the Cephus controversy were equal.  If that only then left character as the determining factor any common-sense outcome to the question of his being readmitted to the university sports program would need to come back as negative.

I do not wish to be harsh to anyone wishing to gain higher education.  But there must be standards of behavior employed when one takes on the name of being a UW-Student.  Even more so when wearing a red jersey for the Badger Football team.  Given the out-sized role college football has in our culture the very least we should expect is for the players to exhibit a level of deportment that can be known about in the light of day.

There are many people who let Quintez Cephus down. First, and foremost, himself. But all those in sports programs who wished to use him for their wins and profits but seemed unwilling, or perhaps unable, to shape the type of character that makes for a winner on and off the field also must take ownership of today’s news.

(No, I am not a parent, but I think I might have been a good one.)