Grimes
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Sorry, I meant to say Public “Officials” not Public “Employees.” KU coaches might be public employees but not necessarily public officials. In any case, under your theory, coaches at private schools would no be subject to the law since they are not Public Officials or Employees, right? This would no make any sense, right?..not that any of it makes sense at this time.
Prosecutors bring charges for shaky cases all the time; I understand it gives them additional resources that migh not be available otherwise.
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@JayHawkFanToo If you look at the bottom of the KS statute, it includes “public employees” under the definition of public officials. Didn’t see that though in the Fed statute though. Just FYI.
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A quick search appears to indicate the Federal government and 29 states make a clear distinction between public official and public employee, the rest have various levels of distinction between the two.
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@JayHawkFanToo All too often, unfortunately, we manage to get (federal and state) people who use these positions to become public embarrassments. We need a statute for that.
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So… this thread is titled “Grimes”?
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@RockkChalkk ya
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@HighEliteMajor Once criminal charges have been filed at the federal level, the odds are not good. 92% of defendants are found guilty.
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao/legacy/2014/09/22/13statrpt.pdf (pages 8 and 9)
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@Kcmatt7 Let me ask you this – what does “found guilty” mean to you? Second question, how many cases are filed that involve something other than a fact scenario that if proven true, is a clear violation of law?
I’ll answer the questions generally. First, “found guilty” includes every plea deal that is made. The stat is not astounding at all. Really, think about this – just under 1 out of 10 people charged are actually innocent? Or the charging was incorrect? That is a big number. So I think your use of the stat proves my point with clarity. Maybe 8% of cases are on “shaky legal ground”?
Second, generally, the 92% stat also includes cases where folks simply plea, perhaps even being completely innocent, to avoid the risk of hard prison time. That is a very real consideration. If you are facing a charge that could land you 15 years, but you can plea to three months and parole for two years – even if innocent, are you going to gamble 14 years and 9 months of your life? Even if you have a 90% chance of a not guilty verdict?
I am very pro-prosecution and pro-law enforcement. But some prosecutors have questionable intellect. Some have questionable motives. Some just make errors in judgment. They are not pristine. In sum, they are human.
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@HighEliteMajor Well the arresting of 10 men, for crimes that already have precedence set, seems like a pretty slam dunk case to me.
I don’t care about generally. What I am saying is that 9/10 cases, someone gets convicted. And yes 95% of convictions are plea deals. So the odds that this goes to trial is irrelevant. How someone gets convicted is irrelevant. All that matters is that the odds of these men being convicted is very high.
And, corruption/bribery is 100% illegal in both business and government. Just look up the Honda scandal from 30 years ago. There is precedence set. This money was not a gift. If they can prove that this money was literally for steering players to certain advisers, the bribery charges are very, very real.
And that is ignoring that 100% of them committed fraud. All 10 men arrested committed fraud. So I realize you are trying to see this as shaky legal ground, from what I see not only do they have a 92% chance of being convicted they have a much higher chance than that because all of them committed one crime for sure. Add that to the fact that they only committed fraud in order to conceal what they were doing makes their case even stronger. You don’t bring several charges each against 10 men without having hard evidence. Just doesn’t happen. Has nothing to do with respect for law enforcement. It is basic math and common sense. If they weren’t doing something wrong, why would they commit fraud?
So I wouldn’t say they were charged on shaky legal ground. They have several charges against them, many of the charges very solid, one might be questionable based on how you interpret the federal funding issues. Either way, these men are going to be convicted.
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Ok, I do appreciate that you have a firm opinion. I’d just suggest/ask that you open your mind a bit. You said – “You don’t bring several charges each against 10 men without having hard evidence.” The reality is that judges dismiss charges that prosecutors have filed. Here is an incredibly very short list that took me less than five minutes to cut and paste. No doubt, there are some good cases out there that are very solid. You are just operating on a misguided premise that simply because a charge is filed, there is “hard evidence.” Just simply not true.
https://www.law360.com/articles/495626/why-key-deepwater-horizon-criminal-charges-were-dismissed
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2014/11/federal_charges_dismissed_agai.html
https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/why-were-perlitz-charges-dismissed
https://www.yahoo.com/news/most-charges-dismissed-against-ex-153424894.html
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@HighEliteMajor You clearly didn’t even comb through the articles you posted. Several of them had charges refiled and were convicted of, at the very least, a lesser crime.
Usually a case that is dismissed is simply dismissed on the charges filed. And prosecutors typically appeal the cases or refile on different criminal charges. As has happened with several of the cases you just linked…
Prosecutors don’t file charges if they don’t think they will get a conviction. It literally ruins their careers to swing and miss on convictions. So, clearly they don’t miss very often.
But sure, I do operate on the assumption that when a charge is filed, there is USUALLY hard evidence. As there appears to be in the CBB case. I don’t find that to be “misguided” though. Here is the thing, I love law, and I love research. I grew up a cops kid and I have personally known prosecutors and district attorneys. I know that these guys are smart. And I also know that they don’t have the time to spend prosecuting people for things they don’t think they will get a conviction on. I don’t know what premise you operate on, but I feel as though perhaps yours might be more misguided than mine. I have plenty of personal experience which has helped me to form my opinion. I ask, what personal experience do you have? You linked a bunch of unrelated articles to make your point in general that cases get dismissed? Do you think I’m a child and don’t understand anything that goes on in the legal process or that I don’t know that cases get dismissed? I’m just curious as to where you are going with your points.
If you feel that there is shaky legal ground on the CBB case, please find precedence of similar cases being dismissed. Your first link is pretty good, other than it was clearly sloppy FBI work. Not necessarily that they weren’t guilty of something illegal. The prosecutor didn’t lose because he prosecuted a crime on shaky legal ground. He lost because the FBI caused themselves to lose credibility in the case when their own characters were brought into question. So, not the greatest support. Do you have any other precedence that says any of the CBB coaches, agents, financial advisers or shoe reps should have their cases dismissed?
I have one that says that the evidence they have is probably enough for a conviction.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-8th-circuit/1161058.html
Another
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How someone gets convicted is irrelevant.
I want to think you don’t believe this.
Does the name Mike Nifong ring a bell?
How about if those 3 students would have been convicted?
Prosecutors file charges with insufficient or tainted evidence all the time and many will go to any length to get a conviction even when the concept of a fair trial is left in the dust. Many local cases are kicked up to the federal level because prosecutors at that level have access to many federal statutes not available to local prosecutors and evidence not accepted at the state level is often accepted at the federal level and something like double jeopardy at the local level does not prevent the feds from prosecuting. Remember the LA riots? Most of the cops charged were acquitted at the state level and then the feds swept in and got federal conviction for the same charges.
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@Kcmatt7 You miss the point of the links. Look, you believe something that just isn’t true. One statement you made frames the disconnect … you said prosecutors don’t file charges unless they think they can get a conviction. With that blanket statement, fundamentally, you simply don’t understand how prosecutors operate. Prosecutors file certain cases for many reasons, and their overreaches are many times dismissed by the judge in advance of trial, or they get thumped by a jury. Likewise, sometimes judges are wrong when they dismiss cases and juries are wrong when they acquit.
That’s all a separate issue of whether this CBB case is a legal stretch, which I believe. I think this sort of case is grandstanding, and is outside the bounds really what we need our prosecutors to do. But that’s a different issue:
You seem to think that all prosecutors have pristine motives and always file their cases ethically, with attention to detail, and based on the belief that they can gain a conviction of the party charged. That’s just horribly, horribly naive.
It’s hard to know what you don’t know. There are many topics where I suffer the same malady.
But you can obviously believe what you want to believe.
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@JayHawkFanToo You pulled one line completely out of context. If that is what we are going to do, no sense in having a conversation.
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@HighEliteMajor The links, if they had a point, was a poorly made one. As I pointed out before, many of the cases were refiled… And convicted. Or the links didn’t take me to a site I could even read the article. And, again, I do understand how the legal system works. You don’t have to explain to me that cases get dismissed.
And it isn’t a separate issue, the college basketball case is what we were talking about in the first place before you tried to “teach this young whipper snapper a lesson.” And I don’t think that ALL prosecutors have those motives. Like any job, power gets to some people’s heads. But I do believe that the vast majority of them do in fact have good motives. Just like I believe with cops. And public servants. And 99% of people in the world. But I’m not ignorant. As much as you would like to believe.
I’m going to say this in all caps so maybe it sticks. I UNDERSTAND THAT SOME PROSECUTORS ARE BAD. I said it, am I still “horribly, horribly naive?” Now, can we get back to how you feel this is a legal stretch on the CBB case. I provided two cases in which basketball coaches, one AAU and another CBB, were arrested for similar acts. And convicted. If you don’t want to discuss that, I see no point in continuing the discussion as I have already agreed that not every prosecutor is a perfect citizen.
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Kcmatt7 said:
@JayHawkFanToo You pulled one line completely out of context. If that is what we are going to do, no sense in having a conversation.
I myself was pretty sure you meant by which path, trial or guilty plea, someone got convicted in terms of the validity of the statistics. I was actually amused that he chose to interpret it as condoning prosecutorial or police misconduct. Par for the course lately around here.
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RockkChalkk said:
So… this thread is titled “Grimes”?
It’s hidden but he’ll be a jayhawk, at least, we hope, so.
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@Kcmatt7 C’mon, you and I both know @HighEliteMajor is only posting this stuff because he’s been paid off
I promised not to say that but the check bounced…
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@BeddieKU23 Grimes will maybe sign if he doesn’t read this thread thinking it is about him.
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mayjay said:
@BeddieKU23 Grimes will maybe sign if he doesn’t read this thread thinking it is about him.
We might need to start a We Want Grimes thread just to balance it out!
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For those that have more knowledge about this situation then I do, a few questions have popped up looking at conversation going back and forth.
What are the likely chances any of the people charged walk away from this without jail time?
It seems they got everyone on audio/video etc in the act. Is any of this circumstantial once it goes to court/trial etc? Seems how each person took different amounts of cash in this are their different levels for which the money will involve a more severe penalty?
Which leads me to Louisville and Arizona. Where the heck is the NCAA in deciding what’s happening with their seasons? Maybe it’s too soon but you’d think we would start hearing from them about this. Both have Top 10 teams currently and its not like the season in months away, its weeks. Pitino is gone, in comes Padgett… Book is out at Arizona and there is some insinuating information that Miller was at least aware of his involvement. Are they really going to play this season after what has come out? If these programs are too be punished for what’s happened then they better start deciding what’s happening. Both teams have current players listed in the FBI report.
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@BeddieKU23 All the articles indicate that the NCAA was unaware of the investigation until the charges were announced by the Feds. We can be pretty sure that the enforcement process will take a long while, especially since they won’t have any leverage over any fired or suspended staff and athletes. So the 'AA will have to wait for evidence to dribble out in the criminal cases, and that, too, will be a drawn out process.
Self-imposed sanctions may occur quickly, however, if the schools try to get ahead of the NCAA and forestall more drastic punishments. It doesn’t always work–ask Louisville and Syracuse.
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@Kcmatt7 The reason I responded was because of the completely definitive statements you made about why prosecutors file cases. You have backed off those definitive statements now stating that “you know.” I take it now that “you know” prosecutors sometimes file cases with very little evidence, with poor motives, with an eye on another defendants, and/or on questionable legal grounds. That wasn’t clear to me prior to me engaging the topic with you. If you held those positions, it did not come across in what you typed here. So that is that then.
Perhaps you can take what “you know”, and look at the current CBB case with a skeptical eye. Perhaps like a white collar defense lawyer might, or how a judge might.
I am curious, who do you think was “defrauded” in the CBB case? I don’t see anyone that was defrauded. That goes to the heart of why I think the charges are, at best, wildly creative. Remember, if you say the school was defrauded, that means they didn’t know about these types of deals.
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So there’s a chance (maybe a really good one) that both Louisville & Arizona are going to play this season without official sanctions etc. Basically rendering this a scandal TBD but there’s still Basketball to be played and soon. Louisville lost their coach, big deal, won’t stop them from winning games this year. Arizona lost their assistant, big deal won’t stop them from winning games this year
Forbes lists Louisville #1 in value at 45.4 million, Arizona #10. Louisville is $15 million more valuable then #2 which happens to be KU. Fat chance either school puts a halt to their season without being told to do so, the cash cows make too much money even in a scandal to stop it prematurely.
I know things don’t happen at a whim but we’ve heard very little from the NCAA about this so far…
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@HighEliteMajor If you looked at the cases I linked (I looked at yours, I would think you might have shown me the same courtesy), the NCAA was defrauded the opportunity to use amateur athletes. They also defrauded the universities for the same reason. Arguments that were won by the prosecution in both cases. And were argued that it cost them a monetary value due to internal investigations, meaning it was in fact mail/wire fraud.
Do I need to explain how the U.S. Government was defrauded? Tax evasion. Tax fraud. Mail/Wire Fraud. They very clearly created fake documents and didn’t properly record these transactions that occurred.
The Bribery charges are a little tricky because it is typically for Public Officials. Definitions are weird in this case. But, when you look at the case as a whole, I think the bribery charges will stick because they committed fraud to conceal these bribes. Even if they can’t get a conviction on these charges, they can present enough evidence to open the coaches up to a civil suit, as will the financial advisers and agents that players were steered to, as they were most definitely negligent. Evidence used in this case can be used in the Civil court case that is inevitable, so I think even if the DOJ thinks they can’t win this charge they do have another motive. To put all the evidence out there so that the players affected can get justice in another form. (A scenario that a prosecutor might be reaching on charges, but is doing it with a good motive).
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@mayjay Lol thanks. You interpreted correctly.
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May I interject? I am taking a referee role here because I think you both have made some good points and those are getting lost as you build up walls around your positions. Your discussion started with a concern raised by HEM (and others) as to whether there was a valid legal basis for these charges. Matt replied with a comment that he was sure the charges would not have been filed unless the federal prosecutors were sure they would win, coupled with his suggestion that they wouldn’t be willing to file if the legal theory(ies) is (are) shaky.
You both have gone far afield, HEM (and others jumping in) citing cases where the legal theory was rejected and other cases where prosecutors were disciplined for bringing cases on shaky evidence. Matt cited the overwhelming portion (>92%) of convictions the feds achieve in cases where charges were filed. HEM has rejected the stats because they don’t establish that prosecutors don’t bring flimsy cases, so there is no greater likelihood here that these prosecutors aren’t trying to push the criminal reach of law into arenas (pun!) where it has no solid foundation. Matt has cited his discussions with justice system participants and their approaches to cases in favor of his contention that the cases here were in good faith and likely will result in convictions, and continues pointing out that other convictions on such fraud theories have been achieved so there are precedents (precedence involves wills and rights to succession, etc., by the way).
Okay, in reviewing this, I am blowing the whistle. One foul on Matt, 2 on HEM. But these fouls were not intentional hacks, just caused by negligent inattention to the ball bouncing between you.
First, we do not know that the prosecutors here believe firmly in their case, or more pointedly, in their legal theory because no one here is inside their heads. Point for HEM. Caution to Matt for certainty on an unknown.
Second, it is irrelevant to cite anecdotal evidence of other cases prosecutors being sanctioned for bringing cases unfounded in fact or solid law if (a) those are state, not federal, cases that (b) are not filed on the same legal theory as here. If valid federal convictions have been obtained before on such facts, the prosecutors are on solid ground if they have the facts. Point for Matt if his research found some, foul on HEM for attacking discussion of DOJ prosecutors based on miscellaneous state and local judges. Those prosecutor offices are a different ethical and llegal world.
Third, as to the use of statistics, fouls on both for trying to use stats, which can reflect generalities, to prove something about a particular case. Matt should have said “Federal prosecutors tend not to file cases where they don’t have strong evidence, as shown by the fact that they have a --% rate of convictions and 19 out of 20 people charged plead guilty.” Then, HEM could have said, “Yes, that looks overwhelming but some of those pled cases are to lesser charges, which might well be true if prosecutors overcharged or if innocents are afraid, and some are dismissed outright or result in acquittals, so we cannot discount that these charges, which seem shaky to me, are really filed with the goal of uncovering other stuff by intimidation and fear.” HEM’s foul was to entirely discount the stats cited by focusing on the exceptions, while Matt’s foul was to put pure faith in those same stats and assume the exceptions couldn’t be applicable.
In general, I applauud HEM’s desire to put up an “approach with caution” sign so we can detect if merely scuzzy behavior is being criminaliized, but I also think that the cases will go forward and that the defendants here will end up pleading because I think that the feds would have started small if they didn’t have what they need.
As an aside, it is well-documented that advancement in prosecutors’ offices is tied to conviction rate, and that the visibility of federal prosecutors, coupled with the supervision of very powerful federal judicial and political forces, results in many (note the allowance for vast numbers of exceptions) federal prosecutors being extraordinarily cautious about bringing federal charges with anything less than a slam-dunk case. This is why you see so few charges dismissed by motion early on–and that happens lots in state cases.
In white-collar crime, this reluctance to file cases where convictions are less than certain has elicited major criticism. (In my own experience, we ran into it all the time when we referred commodity fraud cases to US Attorneys.) Just recently, there was a scathing article on this very issue:
Thank you for listening!
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In that article, incidentally, the author discusses a book that calls federal prosecutors “chickenshits” for not filing cases in complicated white-collar cases where they are afraid they could lose. A former federal prosecutor himself, he cites the DOJ manual as directing feds not to bring cases they don’t think they will win.
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Then you can provide context. Your point appears to be that when a prosecutor files charges there will be a conviction, regardless of the merits of the case. My point was that charges are filed all the time, many times unfairly, with insufficient or tainted evidence or with the sole purpose to get leverage to convict someone else and in the process ruining someones life. I would like to think that how a conviction is obtained still matters to some of us.
I will give you a high profile example, O.J. Simpson. He was tried for a very serious crime, murder of his former wife and friend, and found not guilty even when just abut anybody with a brain though he was guilty; I certainly thought he was. Move forward a few years and he was prosecuted in Vegas for going into a hotel room to recover memorabilia that he claims was stolen from him. The prosecutors charged him with multiple felony counts, including criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, assault, robbery, and using a deadly weapon which was never proven that he had one. The prosecutors got the other defendants to testify against Simpson in exchange for much reduced sentences and he was sentence to 33 years, which most experts I heard indicated was grossly excessive and disproportionate and likely a make up for the crime he got away; criminals convicted of murder have gotten away with smaller sentences. Many say it was karma but this is not the way our system of justice should be.
Should he have been found guilty in the first case? Absolutely yes. Should he have been given the sentence he was in the other? Absolutely not. I believe both were miscarriages of justice and two wrongs don’t make a right. This is just my opinion.
A few years back, my wife, along with several other drivers, were waiting at the traffic light during rush hour at 119th street on the street that goes to Target in Olathe, if you are familiar with the city. A large truck run the traffic light at Mur-Len and plowed into one of the stopped cars which in turn hit the car in front and so on; all together 6 cars were involved and her car was the third from the car hit. The Police came and issued tickets to all drivers for hitting the car in front…really? Insurance companies quickly settled because it was clear who was at fault, but the City was a different issue. I talked to the Police supervisor which was apologetic and initiated that it was out of his hands and we had to talk to the prosecuting attorney. The prosecuting attorney refused to drop the charges and indicated she would have to plead guilty, pay a large fine and it would go on her driving record and he would not budge…REALLY? It was only after the insurance companies attorneys got together and threaten to sue the city that the charges were finally dropped. I remember that day well, September 13th, since I was on my way back from the airport after a business trip and headed to the hospital where my daughter was about to give birth to my grandson when I got the call from my wife about the accident.
See? How charges are filed and conviction are obtained matters to some of us. It might actually happen to you sometime.
I asked you about a very specific case involving athletes and a high profile schools and you chose not to answer.
If you really believe that prosecutor at all levels are squeaky clean, then and as @HighEliteMajor mentioned, you are extremely naive or grossly unfamiliar with our judicial system. I would like to think our judicial system is pretty clean, and by and large it is, but I can also admit that the system gets used and abused by prosecutors all the time. I believe that even @mayjay who thinks I am being unfair (nothing new there) would agree with me on this point…or maybe not since lately he seems to disagree on most everything I post anyway.
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@JayHawkFanToo You aren’t being unfair. You are just willfully ignoring what he said. He was talking about federal prosecutors being confident of getting a conviction if charges are filed because of a high conviction rate. He then wrote the following paragraph in response to a comment that some of the guilty pleas are possibly for reasons other than guilt:
“I don’t care about generally. What I am saying is that 9/10 cases, someone gets convicted. And yes 95% of convictions are plea deals. So the odds that this goes to trial is irrelevant. How someone gets convicted is irrelevant. All that matters is that the odds of these men being convicted is very high.”
That is a limited statement. The context is obvious: conviction rate=confident prosecutor. You are intentionally making it be an assertion that he does not care about jerk cops or prosecutors. Even if they are Satan Incarnate, he says that the prosecutors are confident they will win because they win almost all the time.
Whether they should be? Irrelevant to his inference about their state of mind.
Technical foul times 2 because you are arguing after already being corrected. Ejection!
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Gad, liberals defending prosecutorial good faith and conservatives taking the “cops and DAs can’t be trusted” approach. What a weird day we live in!
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@JayHawkFanToo @mayjay has explained the context of what I meant, perhaps better than I could myself. So I’ll leave you with that explanation.
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@mayjay You’re a very good referee.
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@Kcmatt7 THWEEEET! Sucking up! Technical!
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So, you are now the ultimate arbiter? Go it.
Interesting that you completely ignored the information (@HighEliteMajor and) I provided, even when I mentioned you specifically, and went directly to what fits your narrative.
Not surprising how quickly this turned into politics.
P.S. I wonder how long before the NCAA places Cleveland State on probation.
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@JayHawkFanToo I can read what he wrote. You, however, reworded it and provided lots of irrelevant information (interesting anecdotes, but way afield from these federal charges). So, yes, I can be an arbiter of evaluating what two (or 3) people are argung about. I have some experience in that, and tried to exercise it in a lighthearted fashion. Not ultimate, obviously. You are perfectly free to argue with it all you want. But when someone says, “that isn’t what I was talking about” you might want to be hesitant about telling him he is wrong about his own intent about his own statement, particularly when you keep taking it outside the context of results and focus on alleged illicit means (idiot traffic tickets? Really?).
I am adjourning unless recalled by popular demand, which won’t happen.
Incidentally, I am interested in your gambling comment in another thread. And thusly, I hie myself thither!
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And thusly, I hie myself thither!
O, God-i-god-en, hie thyself thither to political forum where nary my soul nor spirit shall be found.
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All’s good … we can reset to the validity of the case as arbitration is complete. I will re-review the @Kcmatt7 links. Time issues today.
