Howard Kurtz is joined by David Webb and Maura Tierney to discuss the irresponsible media coverage of the shooting and violence in Ferguson, Missouri.
Howard Kurtz is joined by David Webb
In this Jan. 16, 2013 file photo, concerned grandparent Sue Lile, of Carmel, Ind., shows her opposition to Common Core standards during a rally at the State House rotunda in Indianapolis. Some states are pushing back against the new set of uniform benchmarks for reading, writing and math that replace a hodgepodge of goals that had varied wildly from state-to-state and are being widely implemented this school year in most states. (AP Photo/The Star, Frank Espich)
From public opinion to public policy, proponents of Common Core standardization are losing the battle, as polling and participation data show a clear anti-fed trend in eduction.
Overall, according to Gallup tracking, public school parents have held a slightly positive opinion of Common Core standards, until now. The latest Gallup survey found that — for the first time — public school parents have a slightly negative opinion of the federal education standards, 35 – 33 percent. The new data reflects a shift since the last poll conducted in April, when parents were slightly more positive — 35 – 28 percent — than negative.
However, as PPD previously examined, that support was never very firm, as high-info parents have always opposed the program, while a soft plurality of public school parents who self report to be unaware of the program’s details gave a more positive opinion.
It would seem that the more parents learn about Common Core, the less they like it. Even though the overall percentage of public school parents who report having heard “at least a little” about Common Core standards has not significantly changed since April (73 percent), nearly half (49 percent) of public school parents now say they have heard “a great deal” or “a fair amount” about them, which is up from just 38 percent in April.
“The data suggest that this increase in awareness has led to an increase in negativity, given the seven-percentage-point increase in those viewing the standards negatively and the two-point decrease in those viewing them positively,” said Justin McCarthy of Gallup.
Meanwhile, a Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll on Common Core conducted in May found just 29 percent of public school parents in favor of “having teachers in your community use the Common Core State Standards to guide what they teach” and a whopping 57 percent were opposed.
And the same is now true for teachers.
When Gallup asked U.S. public school teachers if they are experiencing each of seven possible emotional reactions to the new curriculum standards initiative, a whole 65 percent said they “are worried” and 62 percent said they were “frustrated.”
Although 46 states initially signed on to all or part of Common Core, states such as Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina have repealed it. Now, other states such as Tennessee, Missouri, North Carolina, and Louisiana are headed down the same road, while Alaska, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia never signed on in the first place.
In Tennessee, two Republican state senators introduced legislation this week,, known as Senate Bill 4, which would fully repeal the national standards. The move comes after Gov. Bill Haslam called for a public panel to review the English and math standards being pushed by Washington D.C. bureaucrats.
“Like many other states, this is a key issue this year in Tennessee,” said Sen. Mike Bell, chairman of the government operations committee. “I believe we need control over our own state standards. This legislation will start the discussion about how we will accomplish that task, while ensuring we have the highest standards to give our students the career- and work-ready skills they need in a competitive 21st century workplace.”
Sen. Dolores Gresham, who chairs the Senate education committee and is the other sponsor of the bill, said Tennessee became the “fastest-improving state in the nation” in education on its own without the federal government. He said they did so locally and through state-controlled standards.
“We need to be a leader and take the next logical step, which is to use the knowledge we have learned and tailor it to Tennessee students, exerting state responsibility over education,” Gresham said.
In North Carolina, which is ground zero for a growing movement to repeal the law, a new report from Heartlander Magazine found a 14 percent rise last year in the number of home-schooled students in the state, with Common Core the cause. From 2012 to 2013, statewide homeschooling enrollment has increased by 27,512 students, a movement that gives lawmakers political cover to push a repeal bill.
But whether these particular state legislators lead the movement against Common Core or not may be irrelevant.
According to Glyn Wright, executive director of the Eagle Forum, said the nationwide increase to the already 2 million students home-schooled is coming from states with politicians that both have rejected and accepted Common Core.
“The uptick in homeschooling has become a trend across the nation over the past couple of years, even in states like New York and California,” Wright told Perry Chiaramonte in a recent report. “Americans have rejected the Common Core initiative because they are tired of unaccountable federal bureaucracy, especially when it comes to their child’s education, and because they are seeing first-hand the poor quality and content of the Standards that are meant to prepare children for the workforce instead of giving them a well-rounded, superior education.”
Opponents of Common Core have long alleged that they were up to the challenge of defeating a federal government takeover of education. They come from all ranks of the education system and all political parties. As the fight over education reform continues to rage on, the data suggest that their claims have been at least somewhat validated.
Their movement has always had the advantage of Americans’ deep cynicism toward federal involvement in education. Americans prefer local school boards over the federal government by a wide margin — 56 – 15 percent — while 28 percent believe state government should at least have the greatest say or influence on curriculum.
For now, at least, opponents of Common Core are enjoying the momentum in both the policy and public opinion wars.
From public opinion to public policy, proponents
NYT’s David Brooks gave the cold, hard truth about the grand jury evidence in the Michael Brown case, which was that the early account and Dorian Johnson’s account was wrong. Brooks said “Brown definitely went into the car, tried to seize the officer’s gun,” which led to Wilson’s pursuit and Brown’s death.
The grand jury, which included three black jurors, weighed the evidence that overwhelming supported the account of Officer Darren Wilson. Yet, despite the facts, widespread riots ensued shortly after, leading to millions of dollars in damages to property and at least two dozen buildings and businesses burned to the ground.
Wilson resigned from the Ferguson Police Department Saturday.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Is it mostly, David, about perception of how people are treated by law enforcement?
DAVID BROOKS: I think a little, yes, obviously, but not so much from the grand jury.
I thought the grand jury report had — it angered a lot of people, but I think introduced a note of ambiguity to more people because it really did put some facts in front of the case and I think it made us cautious. I think one of the things it did for a lot of people is made them separate the episode from the condition.
The episode was what actually happened that night between Wilson and Brown. And I think we learned that Wilson — Brown definitely went into the car, tried to seize the officer’s gun. And that makes it very hard to indict the police officer in those circumstances.
We don’t know whether Wilson was attacking — or Brown was attacking Wilson when the final shots were fired, but we know there was a pretty ambiguous confrontation there which probably made conviction impossible. So we have some facts about the episode.
The larger conditions, I think we still have a lot to say about, which is that there’s the legacy of distrust, the legacy of racism, the impact of poverty, the impact of inequality. And I think what’s happened with the larger condition is the distinct issue of civil rights has become embedded in a whole series of social problems, having to do with poverty, having to do with concentrated poverty, having to do with family structures, having to do with schools, having to do with disappearing jobs.
And it’s become a lot thornier. And so what was a very simple good vs. bad civil rights story has become a much more complicated domestic policy story, really.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark, is it possible — I was going to…
MARK SHIELDS: Just — I just wanted to say on David’s — David makes a good point, but I think the difference is seen in the way he presented it.
Whites look at this individual episode and the grand jury report, and I think the points he make are absolutely valid ones. But blacks, I think, have an understandable tendency to look at it as a pattern. In other words, there’s a presumption on the part of blacks that they’re not going to be treated as well or as fairly when dealing with the police.
And i think that’s a major, major gulf. And make no mistake about it, Judy. The traditional ladder of — when America gets a cold economically, black America gets pneumonia. And the traditional road up, through factory jobs, manufacturing jobs that so many African-Americans have used to climb into the middle class, then educate their children in college, is no longer available.
It’s no longer available for white working-class Americans either. The changed economy has compounded the problem.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We have heard from some viewers.Go ahead, David. Yes, go ahead. I want you both…
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I think it’s compounded the problem economically and led to the widening inequality.
It’s also led, I think, for whites and blacks and Hispanics as well to a widening sense of disrespect, that not only is there no opportunity, but they’re being disrespected by people with authority. And that’s especially true with African-Americans because the legacy, the historical legacy of racism in this country.
And it does make me think that, across a range of issues, but especially law enforcement issues, we have two models, the sort of dominant force model, which is what the police are used to using, and a model that gives much more emphasis on respecting people in the community, which is probably a little less aggressive sometimes, and which may be risky, but in the long run, that more respectful model may be the stronger and the healthier model for the communities.
NYT's David Brooks gave the cold hard
In an interview on Fox and Friends, Dr. Alveda King, the niece to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., responded to the Times op-ed justifying riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in wake of decision. “It’s time we circumvent riots with compassion,” Dr. King said.
Dr. Alveda King, the niece to Dr.
This week on the McLaughlin Group, Pat Buchanan, Eleanor Clift, Mortimer Zuckerman and Tom Rogan discuss the 2016 Republican presidential field, and current events.
This week on the McLaughlin Group, Pat
Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, 28, right, shot and killed Michael Brown, 18, left, on a Ferguson, Mo. street following a scuffle on Aug. 9 as the teenager and his friend and co-conspirator were walking away from a convenience store robbery.
DEVELOPING: Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed 18 year-old suspect Michael Brown, has resigned from the Ferguson Police Department. The announcement came nearly four months after the shooting on August 9, which sparked violent protests in Ferguson and across the nation.
Wilson, 28, had been on administrative leave since the shooting on Aug. 9. His resignation was announced Saturday by one of his attorneys, Neil Bruntrager. The resignation was effective immediately, Bruntrager said.
A grand jury, which included three African Americans, decided not to indict Wilson after spending more than three months reviewing evidence in the case. Jurors decided that Wilson was defending himself from Brown, a suspect in a strong arm robbery, who hit him and attempted to grab his gun. The decision led to widespread rioting, during which dozens of businesses and cars were looted and burned to the ground.
The financial and emotional toll on the community has been severe.
Rather than prosecute the rioters and looters, the U.S. Justice Department is currently conducting a civil rights investigation into the shooting and a separate probe of police department practices.
After the shooting, Wilson spent months in hiding and, at the direction of his counsel, made no public statements. He broke his silence after the grand jury decision, telling ABC News that he could not have done anything differently in the encounter with Brown. Wilson said he has a clean conscience because “I know I did my job right.”
Wilson began his career in nearby Jennings before moving to the Ferguson job a few years ago. Brown’s shooting was the first time he fired his gun on the job, and he had a stellar record as a police officer prior. He had no previous complaints against him and a good career record, according to Police Chief Thomas Jackson, who called Wilson “an excellent police officer.”
Only a few months before the shooting, Darren Wilson had received a commendation for detaining a suspect in a drug case.
In the first weeks after the shooting, Wilson had retained hope that he would be able to continue his job as a police officer, according to Wilson’s attorneys.
“At first [his thinking] was, ‘I want to go back, I’m a cop, I want to still be a cop,’ ” attorney Danielle Thompson said. “It took some time for him to realize that wasn’t exactly going to be what happened.”
“I think I expressed to him, ‘Do you realize your first call [back on the job] will be to a blind alley where you’re executed?’”attorney James Towey added. “He took a pause for a minute, thought about it and said, ‘Oh.’ That is the reality.”
Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who
Daryl Parks and Ben Crump spin the independent autopsy report that concluded Michael Brown was not running away, nor was the officer standing over him when he was shot.
The Ferguson riots damaged and destroyed millions of dollars worth of residential and commercial property, leaving many with no recourse to recover all they’ve lost. Sonny Dayan, who owns what is left of the STL Cordless cellphone store on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, is just one of these victims.
For 18 years, Sonny, a white man serving a black-dominated neighborhood, had been more than a cellphone salesman. By all accounts, he frequently absorbed losses in transactions in order to help poor members of the community buy products, and was repeatedly reassured that his business would not be harmed — again. In August, so-called protestors had looted the store, causing $15,000 in damage. Now, because of that recent claim, the insurance company will not be coming to Sonny’s rescue after rioters cleaned him out and destroyed his building.
“I know, I am a fool,” he said when asked why he didn’t board up his store. “I had faith in the community.”
Who is going to pay for the monetary and cultural damage these people have inflicted? For starters, how about the people responsible?
This is the second time Daryl Parks and Benjamin Crump have ruined countless lives in pursuit of upending our system of justice. Worse still, it is all done at the behest of a man who, on countless occasions, ruined countless lives without issuing so much as an apology — the false reverend Al Sharpton.
“You gain some experience,” Mr. Parks once said in an interview with the Tamp Bay Times. “You brainstorm. You use what works and you don’t stop.”
And to hell with your obligation to your oath, truth and true justice. The term “equal justice,” which is often used by both Mr. Parks and Mr. Crump, is an oxymoron. Justice, by definition, is applied in an equal, non-arbitrary nature. But that’s not really what this law firm is all about, as so elegantly stated by the head of their civil rights department.
“I have a greater duty beyond being an attorney and that’s to be a social engineer,” Ms. Jasmine Rand said following the Trayvon Martin verdict, which can be viewed by the readers below. “And when the law doesn’t get it right, I believe we have a right to peacefully and morally, conscientiously object to the decision of the jury.”
That’s a disgrace and an abject disregard for the system she, and others in the firm, have all sworn to uphold and defend. Unfortunately, we know that Mr. Parks and Mr. Crump agree with her wanting disregard for our justice system and the rule of law by their own past comments.
“We need to fight first in the court of public opinion,” Mr. Crump once said when asked about the jury system. “The jury is the American people.”
And, again, to hell with the actual facts of the case or the lives destroyed by their lies.
Mob mentality and mob justice are not only diametrically opposed to true justice, but are its enemy. Parks and Crump apologized for her disgusting comments in public, but characterized her display and blatant disregard for our system of laws as a “self-sacrifice” on their website.
What about the self-sacrifice of the jury in the Trayvon Martin case, or of the grand jurors in the Michael Brown case?
Instead of state bar associations giving the two partners of Parks & Crump Attorneys at Law an award, such as the Florida Bar, who presented them with the Henry Latimer Diversity Award at the annual Florida Bar Convention following the phony Trayvon Martin case, they should disbar them.
While disbarment is specific to regions — a lawyer can be disbarred from some courts, while still being a member of the bar in another jurisdiction — under the American Bar Association’s Model Rules, which have been adopted in most states, disbarment in one state or court is grounds for disbarment in a jurisdiction that has adopted the Model Rules. As of 2009, 49 U.S. states have adopted the rules in whole or in part, of which the most recent to do so was Maine.
According to Florida’s Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, which include grounds for disbarment, Mr. Parks and Mr. Crump have violated — at least — the following:
In both the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown cases, Mr. Parks and Mr. Crump — in the name of needing to “first fight in the court of public opinion” — knowingly lied about the events of the tragedies in order to incite anger and garner support. They continued to lie to law enforcement, courts, supporters and media despite private autopsy reports and grand jury evidence to the contrary. And, as the standard says, any lawyer who conducts such behavior “has violated one of the most basic professional obligations to the public, the pledge to maintain personal honesty and integrity.”
However, in the case of Mr. Crump, which will be outlined further in 6.1, he has given false statements, perpetuated a fraud and misrepresented his relationship, knowledge of, and communication with witnesses to both law enforcement officials and the court in sworn affidavits.
Where do we begin? For their work in the Trayvon Martin case, Parks & Crump received — and continues to receive — large sums of money from so-called civil rights activists to work on targeted civil rights cases. The entire legal process was injured if not discredited altogether in the state of Florida when — despite a preponderance of evidence to suggest they made the right call — law enforcement and district prosecutors were dismissed without due cause and replaced by a special prosecutor. Mr. Parks and Mr. Crump both pressured Angela Cory to withhold evidence from the jury, which prompted liberal Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz to call for her disbarment.
When he filed an affidavit during the Trayvon Martin case, Benjamin Crump either lied on the document or to media about speaking to witness #8, or “Dee Dee,” who was Trayvon Martin’s alleged girlfriend. Law enforcement already suspected he had lied to them and the court, but could do nothing because of the political pressure.
Either way, at best, his actions warrant a “failure to maintain personal integrity” and are grounds for disbarment.
It is hardly worth repeating Mr. Crump’s 6.1 violations, but it is worth noting witness testimony in the grand jury proceedings. Multiple witness, who recanted their statements that previously claimed Darren Wilson either shot Michael Brown when his hands were up or standing over his already fallen body, said they were told to give the false account. Yet, no one in the media or in law enforcement has asked them who, in fact, told them to lie about the events of the shooting.
The answer would seem self-evident, particularly considering it is Mr. Parks and Mr. Crump who have repeatedly cited what is known to be discredited testimony, and they stand to benefit from those lies.
Daryl Parks, Benjamin Crump, and the so-called reverend Al Sharpton gather for a rally alongside members of the New Black Panther Party. (Photo: Conservative Tree House)
As for the false reverend Al Sharpton, his inflammatory rhetoric has been well-documented. And anyone who has heard it, knows it more than qualifies under 18 U.S.C. § 2101, which reads as follows:
(a) Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or uses any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including, but not limited to, the mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, with intent – (1) to incite a riot; or (2) to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or (3) to commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or (4) to aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; and who either during the course of any such travel or use or thereafter performs or attempts to perform any other overt act for any purpose specified in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), or (D) of this paragraph – (!1) Shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
While Al Sharpton sadly operates under the umbrella of the Obama administration and the outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, Mr. Parks and Crump have no such direct protection. As one of Florida’s leading Internet media voices, we, the Editorial Board at People’s Pundit Daily, call on the Florida Bar Association to begin the necessary proceedings to disbar Mr. Parks and Mr. Crump.
To newly reelected Gov. Rick Scott, whom this editorial board recently endorsed, we further call on you to push back against the cultural and systemic, multimillion dollar grievance industry that has been allowed to wreak havoc on the good tax-paying people of our state, and our system of laws. It was from the governor’s mansion — under former governor Charlie Crist — that due pressure was placed on the state to dole out over $7.4 million in city and state wrongful deaths lawsuits filed by Parks and Crump. It is from the same mansion we expect pressure for this action to commence.
Daryl Parks and Benjamin Crump should be
Appearing on CNN, the son of Martin Luther King Jr. said his father “would be disappointed” in the violent riots and protests that broke out in the wake of the grand jury decision in Ferguson, Missouri. The King family has been very vocal in denouncing the violence following the grand jury decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson, who resigned Saturday from the Ferguson Police Department.
Dr. Alveda King, the niece to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., responded to the Times op-ed justifying the riots. She said it was “time we circumvent riots with compassion.” She appeared on Fox and Friends over the weekend.
“I don’t know that any of us can really speak for my father, but I will try the best that I can based on some of his writings and the views that he took,” said Martin Luther King III. “He would be greatly disappointed.”
King said that while he would be sad for the family and the loss of life, the language of violence was foreign to the peaceful civil rights hero.
“Secondly, he would be disappointed that it erupted into a scenario of violence, all across the community,” he said. “He used to say that violence is the language of the unheard. And he constantly talked about finding non violent ways to address our conflicts. So he would be always advocating non violence.”
Appearing on CNN, the son of Martin
Police arrest members of the Revolutionary Communist Party during a protest along W. Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, Mo. (AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, David Carson) EDWARDSVILLE INTELLIGENCER OUT; THE ALTON TELEGRAPH OUT
Protesters forced three large malls in St. Louis to close their doors on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, Black Friday. Other events were held nationwide under the guise of a protest against the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson, a white cop who shot and killed an 18-year old black suspect, Michael Brown.
While the media has held tight to the narrative that the protestors are concerned with race relations in the country, those who are organizing the protests are not. At PPD, as usual, we print and share the truth.
Many of the groups organizing the protests have teamed up with the New Black Panther Party, a violent and racist black power group that only uses race relations to push a radical leftist, big government agenda. Before they slapped a “New” onto a an old and tainted label, they used similar tactics to gain support from angry, young black men and women they then used to support the Great Society.
In the Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot, members of the Revolutionary Communist Party handed out literature to protestors, many of whom were corralled over by members of the New Black Panthers. The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) was founded in 1975 by Bob Avakian, who continues to head it up at least in name to this day.
The group’s self-described goal is “the building of a new society, a socialist society, aiming for the final goal of a communist world, where human beings everywhere would be free of relations of exploitation and oppression and destructive antagonistic conflicts, and could be fit caretakers of the earth.”
While that sounds very well and good, or perhaps not if you’re smart, it is really about spreading statism — the control over individuals by a centralized power. Talking Points Memo recently did a fantastic write up on them and their role in Ferguson, but they are but one group.
Nearby, the co-coordinator of the Green Party of St. Louis, Don Fitz, shouted, “Where’s my turkey?” The Green Party is another radical leftist, environmental group driven more by the red communist movement than the green movement. He and other organizers used Twitter and other social media platforms, signaling the hashtags #NotOneDime, #BlackOutBlackFriday, #Blacklivesmatter and #Stlblackfriday, MyFox2Now.com reported.
In Chicago, about 200 people gathered near the city’s popular Magnificent Mile shopping district. There, Kristiana Colon, 28, a member of the Let Us Breathe Collective, another leftist environmental group with the same MO, has been taking supplies such as gas masks to protesters in Ferguson.
“We want them to think twice before spending that dollar today,” she said of shoppers. “As long as black lives are put second to materialism, there will be no peace.”
Of course, materialism is synonymous with the ignorant and inadequate definition of capitalism, the origins of which in and of itself, has little to do wealth and greed. But at least someone was being honest.
Malcolm London, a leader in the Black Youth Project 100, which has been organizing Chicago protests, flat out said the group was using the death of Michael Brown to rally support for other issues.
“We are not indicting a man. We are indicting a system,” London told the crowd.
In fact, as we can see from the video below, the groups have been playing vital roles in these so-called protests the entire time. They have been doing what they do best — praying on anger and ignorance. This was never about the death of Michael Brown or any other one of the thousands of young black males gunned down on the streets of America’s inner-cities each year.
And that’s the true tragedy.
The Black Friday protests, as well as
Nov. 5, 2014: Former Baltimore Ravens NFL running back Ray Rice and his wife Janay arrive for a hearing at a New York City office building. (Photos: Reuters)
An arbitrator Friday threw out Ray Rice’s indefinite suspension by the NFL for punching his then-fiancee and now wife in a hotel elevator. The NFL said Rice is “eligible to play upon signing a new contract.” However, whether any team in the NFL decides to actually sign Rice or not, who is now a free agent, is another matter.
Former U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones said Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision in September to change Rice’s original suspension from two games to indefinite was “arbitrary” and an “abuse of discretion.”
Jones decided the NFL overstepped its authority when they modified Rice’s two-game suspension after video of the Baltimore Ravens running back punching Janay became public. Rice was released by the Ravens when the video went public. Rice and the union contended he was essentially sentenced twice, because he told the NFL the entire story before the rest of the video became public. Judge Jones agreed, saying Rice “did not lie to or mislead the NFL.”
She wrote in her decision that after Goodell increased the punishment for a first offense under the personal conduct policy from two to six games, “the commissioner called Rice to assure him that the new policy would not affect him — that it was forward-looking and his penalty would not be increased.”
In her decision, Jones also wrote:
“Because Rice did not mislead the commissioner and because there were no new facts on which the commissioner could base his increased suspension, I find that the imposition of the indefinite suspension was arbitrary. I therefore vacate the second penalty imposed on Rice.
“The provisions of the first discipline — those regarding making continued use of counseling and other professional services, having no further involvement with law enforcement, and not committing any additional violations of league policies — still stand.”
“We respect Judge Jones’s decision to reinstate Ray Rice from his indefinite suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy in an incident of domestic violence,” spokesman Greg Aiello said in an email to The Associated Press.
“Ray Rice is a free agent and has been eligible to be signed by an NFL team since he was released by the Ravens. Based on Judge Jones’ decision, he will be eligible to play upon signing a new contract.”
But Rice has not played all season, and was coming off a weak 2013 season. And there is the immeasurable public relations issues that could accompany any team signing him — this season or in the future.
“I would like to thank Judge Barbara Jones, the NFL Players Association, my attorneys, agents, advisers, family, friends and fans — but most importantly, my wife Janay. I made an inexcusable mistake and accept full responsibility for my actions. I am thankful that there was a proper appeals process in place to address this issue,” Rice said Friday in a statement released by the players’ union. “I will continue working hard to improve myself and be the best husband, father and friend, while giving back to my community and helping others to learn from my mistakes.”
Goodell and the Rices testified at the hearing, as well as NFL security chief Jeffrey Miller and Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome. During his appearance, Goodell told Jones “I do accept that I have to be consistent with consistent circumstances, and … I think that’s about fairness, and fairness would be, you should be as consistent as possible in your discipline.”
The NFL Players Association said the decision was a “victory for a disciplinary process that is fair and transparent” in a Friday statement. The union called again for collective bargaining to produce a new personal conduct policy.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy also responded.
“Judge Jones’ ruling underscores the urgency of our work to develop and implement a clear, fair and comprehensive new personal conduct policy,” McCarthy said. “We expect this policy to be completed and announced in the weeks ahead. Our focus is on consistently enforcing an improved policy going forward.”
An federal Judge Friday threw out the
