WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s governors sound every bit as divided as Washington lawmakers on how best to help the nation’s economy.
Democratic governors such as Maryland’s Martin O’Malley and Connecticut’s Dannel Malloy are making pitches to raise the minimum wage as the nation’s governors meet in Washington for their annual conference.
Meanwhile, Republican governors such as Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal and Indiana’s Mike Pence are calling for more freedom from federal regulations and the opening of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Appearing Sunday on CNN, Malloy says the vast majority of people earning a minimum wage are trying to raise a family, and the minimum wage needs to keep up with inflation.
Jindahl told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that delaying mandates included in President Barack Obama’s health insurance overhaul would boost the economy.
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R. Kelly uses the word ‘p**sy’ 57 times in one song. He also accepts responsibility for every child born since the ‘90s. Really. Read more ridiculous lyrics from Black Panties.
There’s a beautiful song about love on R. Kelly’s new album Black Panties.
“I just want to marry Cheryl. I just want to marry Cheryl. I just want to marry Cheryl. Want to go down on my knees, and expect Cheryl to marry me.”
The song is actually, as Kelly sings, a sex proposal. And the lyric is not “Cheryl.” It’s “p**sy.” The song “Marry the P**sy” uses the P-word roughly 57 times in only 4 minutes and 18 seconds.
It’s easy to forget that the man who wrote “Show Ya P**sy” (another track on the album), also penned “I Believe I Can Fly,” arguably one of the best gospel songs of our time. Since almost every song on Black Panties features at least one absurd lyric, we’ve picked out the most ridiculous lines. [Warning: Obviously this whole thing is pretty NSFW.]
‘Cookie’
On “Cookie,” R. Kelly channels his inner Rihanna, and takes a delicious dessert food, in this case Oreo cookies, and turns it into a cheesy and appetite ruining double-entendre. Kelly, however, goes a step further and abandons any pretence of subtlety. From the first verse, it is clear he is not actually talking about eating Oreos: “Then I beat the p**sy ‘til it’s blue.” Elsewhere in the song, Kelly compares himself to the cookie monster and cleverly sings “I love to lick the middle like an Oreo.”
‘Marry the P**sy’
R. Kelly expands on his love of the female body in “Marry the P**sy,” in which he serenades well, you know. A song with such an absurd title cannot help but contain some of the most ridiculous lyrics on the album. Kelly calls the p**sy his best friend, and croons, “If I’m ever in the mood for two p**sies/ Then the p**sy will bring another p**sy to me.” Kelly obviously has a lot of confidence in his best friend. By far the most LOL-worthy lyrics come in the bridge: “And I drive that p**sy crazy/That’s my Bugatti/ I keep that p**sy hot and wet/ Yeah that’s Miami climate.”
“I love to lick the middle like an Oreo.”
‘My Story’
“My Story” tells the tale of R.Kelly’s Soulacoaster through music. He sings, “I beat the p**sy, Django.” The lyrics were confusing—what was the connection between beating said body part and Django? Thankfully, Rap Genius provides an explanation: Kelly is comparing himself to a slave owner who beats his slaves, and the p**sy to Django, a slave who was beaten. This metaphor raises a lot of questions when juxtaposed with the rest of the lyrics of the song. Kelly sings about his humble beginnings: “Yeah, I’m from that Chi-town dirt/ I went from being broke to sleeping in Versace shirts.” Elsewhere in the song, Kelly sings, “Showed her the Jesus piece now she got the Holy Ghost.” Yes, he is in fact saying that a woman seeing his manhood is like being blessed by the Holy Ghost.
‘Shut Up’
Uncle Ben once told his grandson Peter Parker, “With great power comes great responsibility.” On “Shut Up,” it appears as though R. Kelly has taken this quote to heart as he is fully aware of the power of his sexually charged lyrics and accepts responsibility for…wait for it…EVERY CHILD BORN SINCE THE ‘90s. In the bridge, R. Kelly declaims, “No offense to the other artists/ But come on dawg, let’s be honest/ How many babies have been made off me? OMG!/ Seriously, you gonna act like that?/Sitting there like it ain’t no truth to that?/ Lookin at me like I ain’t talkin stats/ Every boy, every girl, every child around the world/ From the ‘90s up until today was made off me.”
‘Show Ya P**sy’
There’s a confusing pop culture reference in “Show Ya P**sy’: “I’m ‘bout to smoke a blunt up in this fuckin’ club/ Go ahead call me Scottie in this f***in’ club.” There wasn’t a Rap Genius explanation for this line, so I had to turn to another reliable source: Urban Dictionary. In this context, “Scottie” apparently refers to “A substance that sends someone in positive vertical direction,” and finds it origin in the Star Trek catch phrase “Beam me up, Scottie.” Ergo, we should call him Scottie in da club because he is figuratively beaming himself up by smoking a blunt in da club.
‘Every Position’
R. Kelly’s resume is already pretty long: singer, songwriter, producer, Hip-Hopera composer. Well, on “Every Position,” R. Kelly adds vocal coach to this list. As R. Kelly tries to assure his woman of his sexual prowess, he promises that having sex with him will turn her into a singer, and once he gets her into bed he’ll have her “hittin’ them notes likes Aretha.”
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Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) questions Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on ”Affordable Care Act Implementation” on Capitol Hill in Washington, October 29, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 30, 2013 11:37am EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers launched a new round of budget talks on Wednesday with a pledge to work toward easing automatic government spending cuts but drew familiar partisan battle lines over boosting tax revenues to help pay for that.
The 29-member congressional negotiating panel, commissioned under this month’s deal to end a government shutdown and lift the federal debt limit, has until December 13 to agree on a plan that would at least reduce the effects of some $ 109 billion in spending cuts looming in 2014.
Republican and Democratic panel members have worked in recent days to lower expectations that the talks could result in a “grand bargain” that would reduce federal budget deficits by more than $ 1 trillion over 10 years. Instead, they are focusing on a much smaller deal.
Democratic leaders of the conference committee said they want part of the budget savings to come from increased revenue raised by closing some tax breaks for corporations and wealthy Americans.
Republicans said the savings need to come from cuts to expensive federal benefits programs and they will not support tax increases.
“I want to say this from the get-go: If this conference becomes an argument about taxes, we’re not going to get anywhere,” said Representative Paul Ryan, the House of Representatives Budget Committee chairman who is leading the Republicans on the panel.
Ryan said Republicans would prefer to use the savings from eliminating “carve-outs and kickbacks” to lower tax rates, which they argue would boost economic growth and generate increased revenues. Republicans want savings from benefits programs such as the Social Security retirement program and the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly.
“Let’s focus our energy on the task at hand: a budget that cuts spending in a smarter way,” said Ryan, his party’s vice presidential nominee last year.
The panel’s Democratic leader, Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, said she is prepared to make some compromises on spending cuts, but only if Republicans are willing to do the same on taxes.
“While we scour programs to find responsible savings, Republicans are also going to have to work with us to scour the bloated tax code – and close some wasteful tax loopholes and special interest subsidies,” Murray said, adding that it was “unfair – and unacceptable – to ask seniors and families to bear this burden alone.”
The budget panel has 22 senators and seven House members. Any deal would need a majority vote in each chamber. Democrats control the Senate. Republicans control the House.
There would be no immediate consequences if the panel fails to reach an agreement by December 13, but about a month later, on January 15, government spending authority would run out again, raising the threat of another government shutdown.
On the same day, a new round of automatic “sequester” spending cuts would be due to start.
While many Republican conservatives have sought to keep the automatic spending cuts in place, the next round of cuts would hit the military harder next year with about $ 20 billion more in cuts compared to 2013. This may motivate some Republicans to push for alternative savings.
There’s little doubt the fiscal fights have helped Democratic prospects. | AP Photo
The 2014 midterm just got a lot more interesting.
The twin dramas of the government shutdown and botched rollout of Obamacare have snapped a sleepy 2014 election season out of its slumber, sharpening the battle lines for each party and setting the stage for a consequential midterm that few expected even two months ago.
The spring and summer months were filled with charges and countercharges about the Internal Revenue Service, wiretapping, Syria and immigration. Politicians recycled old attack lines and operatives confidently predicted control of Congress would remain status quo after next November.
No more. The parties’ competing political narratives — the dangers of a tea party-controlled party versus the perils of President Barack Obama’s far-reaching health care law — have been thrown into sharp relief the past several weeks. Now each party has something tangible to point to — that touch voters’ lives in concrete ways — to argue that the other should be booted from office.
Republican lawmakers who seemed safe are suddenly looking over their shoulders, and Democrats whose election hopes were buoyed by the shutdown have been brought back to earth by the Obamacare mess.
Democrats still intend to run against what they call Republican extremism, as they did in 2012. But Republicans’ willingness to shut down the government and bring the nation to the cusp of default, they say, has shown the public what the tea party’s agenda means in real life — government workers paid to sit home for weeks, shuttered national parks, 401(k) accounts at risk.
It’s a similar story with Republicans and Obamacare.
The GOP still plans to make Obamacare a centerpiece of its midterm strategy — tying Democratic candidates in close Senate and House races to the sweeping law — as it did in 2012. But the glitch-riddled unveiling of the Obamacare website, they say, has handed them a powerful piece of evidence to make the case that the federal government should never have thrown itself into the health care business in the first place. And they expect the next year to bring more stories of the law sticking people and businesses with bigger health care bills.
“That’s going to be the battleground,” said Wes Anderson, a Republican pollster. “Which message is going to be the most salient to voters in the middle? Is it that Republicans are too extreme or that we need to protect the public on Obamacare?”
Democrats believe their anti-tea party message will resonate throughout the country, in every state and congressional district. With the tea party’s brand deep in decline, they argue that post-shutdown anger extends to even the most conservative corners of the country.
Kelly Ward, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview that the focus on the tea party’s agenda would work “everywhere,” including in districts in Arkansas, where House Democrats are trying to snatch two seats from Republicans.
“I think the message is the same,” she said. “This is all about the economy, and how their agenda is impacting people’s lives.”
There’s little doubt the fiscal fights have helped Democratic prospects, especially in the battle for the House, where the party faces an uphill push to erase the GOP’s 17-seat majority. After the 16-day shutdown came to an end, the Cook Political Report upgraded Democratic prospects in 14 House races. Whether that momentum dissipates over the next year is an open question.
But with deadlines early next year to fund the government and to raise the debt ceiling, Democrats say another showdown — or even talk of one from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and his conservative allies — would reignite anger at Republicans and give another boost to their 2014 hopes.
“I think what’s happened in the last month is obviously pretty important in the battle for control of the House,” said Ali Lapp, executive director of the House Majority PAC, a group that boosts House Democrats. “This is the gift that keeps on giving for Democrats.”
Democrats plan to affix the tea party shutdown label even to moderate Republicans who are at odds with that wing of the party. Republican Carl DeMaio, a former San Diego city councilman, is being called too conservative for the urban congressional district he’s running in.
Big government projects fail because real world business dynamics are absent
Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com October 24, 2013
HealthCare.gov used ten times the amount of code used in Windows Vista.
The Obamaites are scrambling to cover their political posteriors in the wake of the crash and burn of their multi-million dollar fiasco known as HealthCare.gov.
It’s not their fault, Politico insists. Building a complicated website is a difficult thing to do. We are told the site contains 500 million lines of code and it will take time to ferret through it all and patch it up.
500 million lines of code? Really. Windows Vista, the notoriously bloated and slow computer operating system, only had 50 million lines of code.
“If you contract something out and get 500 million lines of code back, there’s no way it’s going to work correctly,” noted Slate’s vice president for technology, Dan Check.
But then we’re talking about government and over-budget contractors here. It’s only natural that big government projects fail because real world business dynamics are absent. Crash and burn is a routine feature of the state when it takes on projects better suited for business.
In government, if something fails bureaucrats simply throw more expropriated money around until they get the results they want. And even if they don’t get the results they want or expect – as in the case of Obamacare – they just force it down our throats at gunpoint.
Here’s an idea. Instead of bitching and moaning about how difficult it is to get a website up and running, Team Obama should head out to Utah and round up a few of the geeks who worked on the super-secret software the NSA is using to suck up all our email, text messages and phone calls.
Obamacare and its malfunctioning website constitute a magnificent train wreck. But when we assume government can do what the private sector and for-profit business can do more efficiently, we can expect not only to be disappointed but also taken to the cleaners.
This article was posted: Thursday, October 24, 2013 at 10:06 am
Big government projects fail because real world business dynamics are absent
Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com October 24, 2013
HealthCare.gov used ten times the amount of code used in Windows Vista.
The Obamaites are scrambling to cover their political posteriors in the wake of the crash and burn of their multi-million dollar fiasco known as HealthCare.gov.
It’s not their fault, Politico insists. Building a complicated website is a difficult thing to do. We are told the site contains 500 million lines of code and it will take time to ferret through it all and patch it up.
500 million lines of code? Really. Windows Vista, the notoriously bloated and slow computer operating system, only had 50 million lines of code.
“If you contract something out and get 500 million lines of code back, there’s no way it’s going to work correctly,” noted Slate’s vice president for technology, Dan Check.
But then we’re talking about government and over-budget contractors here. It’s only natural that big government projects fail because real world business dynamics are absent. Crash and burn is a routine feature of the state when it takes on projects better suited for business.
In government, if something fails bureaucrats simply throw more expropriated money around until they get the results they want. And even if they don’t get the results they want or expect – as in the case of Obamacare – they just force it down our throats at gunpoint.
Here’s an idea. Instead of bitching and moaning about how difficult it is to get a website up and running, Team Obama should head out to Utah and round up a few of the geeks who worked on the super-secret software the NSA is using to suck up all our email, text messages and phone calls.
Obamacare and its malfunctioning website constitute a magnificent train wreck. But when we assume government can do what the private sector and for-profit business can do more efficiently, we can expect not only to be disappointed but also taken to the cleaners.
This article was posted: Thursday, October 24, 2013 at 10:06 am
Some were born in the red zone, inheriting teams from their wealthy families. Some are lifetime businessmen who bought a franchise as a midlife vanity project. One is married to a Walmart heiress. Yet on the whole, NFL owners have one thing in common: their relative anonymity.
Here’s your chance to take your eyes off Goodell for a sec, and look at the public-financing hogs and brain-trauma deniers occupying luxury suites across America. In the vein of Major League Assholes, we took a stab at matrix-ifying NFL owners based on their political giving and their relative assholery. Look down below the chart to get the skinny on all the owners you love to hate.
AFC
Baltimore Ravens: According to the Washington Post, Steve Bisciotti “is, in many ways, a regular guy who happens to be very rich.” Like $ 1.8 billion rich. He sits courtside at University of Maryland basketball games and flies in his buddies on his private jet to join him. Bisciotti made his fortune by founding the country’s largest staffing company, Aerotek (now the Allegis Group), which in 2009 settled a class action suit with more than 1,000 former employees who claimed the company didn’t pay them for accrued leave time. (Aerotek paid out $ 1.2 million.)
When Baltimore made the Super Bowl last year, former Ravens coach Brian Billick had this to say of his old boss: “He’s a man’s man. He’ll go drink for drink, cigar for cigar.” And, apparently, arm caress for arm caress:
Buffalo Bills: When Ralph Wilsonbought an AFL franchise in 1959, he finally settled on Buffalo, New York, after meeting with a local newspaper editor who promised to cover the new team every single day. Known as much for his outspoken views on revenue sharing as he is for whisking players from practice for a midday tuna melt, Wilson has come to rely on this sort of local support: In December, Erie County and the state agreed to pony up a combined $ 226 million of the $ 271 million in future renovations to Ralph Wilson Stadium. (In return, the Bills promised not to leave Buffalo for Los Angeles or Toronto or wherever else they could possibly go for seven years.) Shortly thereafter, Wilson gave up his title as team president—at 94.
Cincinnati Bengals: The late Paul Brown was one of modern football’s major innovators, helping popularize things like the forward pass and sideline play calling. His son, current Bengals owner Mike Brown, has innovated in his own, small way. In the mid-1990s he used the old “I might move the team to Baltimore” line to put Hamilton County, Ohio, on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in financing for a new stadium—which he named after dear old dad. (As one county official told the Wall Street Journal, “It’s the monster that ate the public sector.”) That Brown would ask taxpayers to pick up the tab is no surprise; for years he ran what Sports Illustrated called “the leanest mom-and-pop shop in the league,” a nice way of saying that he didn’t employ as many scouts as other teams did. More recently, he’s been on the cutting edge of making loud-mouthed, uninformed comments about the long-term neurological effects of concussions—even after one of his ex-players, Chris Henry, was found to have degenerative brain damage after his death in a December 2009 car accident.
Cleveland Browns: Truck stop magnate Jimmy Haslam once told a reporter that he’d been approached by the TV show Undercover Boss but had to turn the producers down: Everyone at his multibillion-dollar company, Pilot Flying J, knew the hands-on CEO too well for the premise to work. NFL fans were just starting to know Haslam, who last year gave up his stake in the Pittsburgh Steelers to purchase the Browns for $ 1 billion, when Pilot Flying J came under federal investigation for allegedly defrauding its customers. Worse, a confidential informant told the FBI that Haslam knew (PDF) it was happening. It wasn’t the first time Pilot Flying J had come under legal scrutiny. From the New York Times:
In 2005, the United States Department of Labor announced an agreement in which the company would pay 110 assistant managers $ 720,000 in back wages and damages to resolve violations of the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to The News Sentinel. And the company settled price-gouging allegations in three states by paying fines in the wake of Hurricane Ike in 2008.
Denver Broncos: Despite his shrinking role with the Broncos, owner Pat Bowlen still makes a point to reach out to fans—last month, he actually said his team belongs to them. Back in January, he sent season ticket holders apologetic emails following Denver’s last-second playoff exit. Whether or not that excuses his greatest sin depends on your point of view.
Houston Texans: According to a 2011 story in ESPN the Magazine, Bob McNair’s “game-day mornings probably aren’t too different from yours.” Right, because you, too, leave your 12,000-plus-square-foot home each day, and head over to your 3,620-square-foot owner’s suite at the local stadium. McNair, the NFL’s biggest political donor (he’s given $ 4.2 million since 2008, including $ 2 million last fall to the pro-Mitt Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future and $ 1 million to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads), cleaned up by selling his Cogen Technologies to Enron in 1999—not long before Ken Lay & Co. imploded. Maybe it’s that kind of timing that led Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to once call McNair the best owner in football. Meanwhile, his heir apparent, son Cal, enjoys big-game hunting—lions, elephants, leopards, including one he’s got stuffed and mounted in his office. The Texans are still hunting for their own big game: They’ve never made it to the conference championships, let alone the Super Bowl, in their 12-year history.
Don’t let Irsay’s Twitter antics fool you, though: He’s a killer at the negotiating table, as evidenced by Indianapolis’ heavily subsidized Lucas Oil Stadium. And he can be quite coherent in person, like when he was asked about Rush Limbaugh’s reported bid for the St. Louis Rams: “There are certain privileges for certain things in life that you might want to pursue that may not be appropriate. I myself couldn’t be in favor of voting for him.” With a few of Irsay’s punctuation tweaks, that would easily fit within 140 characters.
Jacksonville Jaguars: In 2011, Shad Khan bought the Jaguars for $ 770 million, making him the NFL’s first ethnic minority owner. The Pakistani-born, Muslim billionaire with the epic facial hair (60 Minutes: “His rakish mustache has become a must-have accessory for any self-respecting Jags fan”) wasn’t the first choice of some racist Jacksonville fans, but his approval rating reached nearly 80 percent a year and a half ago. Khan got rich as owner of Flex-N-Gate, which manufactures bumpers for Toyota but was cited for nine serious OSHA violations and fined $ 57,000 in 2012 “for failing to monitor workers’ exposure to nickel, chromium, and [hydrochloric] and sulfuric acid.” (No word on whether star running back Maurice Jones-Drew is considering his own occupational hazard suit after years of carrying an anemic offense.)
Miami Dolphins: Even though Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria detonated the Miami-Dade budget and turned South Florida against publicly funded stadiums with the debtapalooza known as Marlins Park, Dolphins frontman Stephen Ross didn’t let that stop him from trying to get some public dollars of his own. After the cancellation of a special election involving $ 350 million in proposed stadium renovations, Ross went on the offensive, creating a PAC called Florida Jobs First to campaign against the politicians he believed sunk the project. (One attack ad featured frowning men in hardhats.) But don’t worry about Ross: He recently found $ 200 million to donate to his alma mater, the University of Michigan. In true form, he stipulated that it could only be spent on the athletic department or UM’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
New England Patriots: Robert Kraft has long been the suited, pocket-squared business face of the so-called Patriot Way. But he slipped back in July, when he insisted that Russian President Vladimir Putin stole his $ 25,000 Super Bowl ring from 2005—a charge a Kremlin spokesman called “weird.” Since then, Kraft has said that the ring was, in fact, a present, and invited Putin to a Patriots home game so the Russian president could present him with a ring Putin was supposedly making for Kraft. That the Patriots owner might bend the truth is no surprise to folks in Hartford, Connecticut, where Kraft had a handshake deal to move the franchise in 1998; turns out it was just a ploy to extract concessions from Massachusetts taxpayers. Even former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, who was convicted for corruption, got in a dig after the move fell through: “I am a New York Jets fan, now and possibly forever.”
New York Jets: Robert Wood Johnson IV, known to all as Woody, is the 66-year-old heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. A veteran GOP money man who earned Ranger fundraiser status in the George W. Bush days, he reportedly helped raise $ 7 million for John McCain in a single night in 2008. Johnson gave in the high five figures during the 2012 cycle—an election he called more important than a Jets winning season. All the while, he has tried to keep a low profile—even in the face of his socialite daughter’s 2010 death at age 30. According to “many of Johnson’s famous friends,” Adam Sternbergh wrote in a New York magazine profile, “he’s long been a private wild man…
Jann Wenner might tell you about the time they took a cross-country motorcycle trip with a bunch of dudes (including Michael Douglas), from the Tavern on the Green to the Golden Gate Bridge, and Johnson wore a helmet with fake black hair streaming out the back. Or Mitt Romney might relate the story of how Johnson visited his estate and, when no one else would test a rope-swing into a swimming hole, grabbed the rope and hurtled himself into the drink.
Dunno. Maybe Tim Tebow would consider that stuff wild.
Oakland Raiders: Ranking the NFL’s worst owners without Al Davis is like trying to celebrate Christmas without Santa Claus. Al’s son, Mark Davis, has been looked to as a breath of fresh air for the franchise, though earlier this year he fired the team’s PR director over an article he found unflattering. He has also threatened to move the Raiders to Los Angeles (again) as the team hunts for a new stadium. His latest proposal: Tear down the current stadium and build a new one on the exact same site.
Pittsburgh Steelers: The Rooney family has been involved with the NFL since 1933, when Art Rooney bought the newly minted Pittsburgh Pirates franchise for $ 2,500—he renamed it the Steelers in 1940. Dan Rooney, Art’s oldest son and the current team president, is best known for two things: serving as America’s ambassador to Ireland from 2009-2012 and being the driving force behind what’s known as the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview a minority candidate for every head coach and general manager opening. (Not that it did much good this past offseason: Despite 15 open positions, no black candidates were hired.)
San Diego Chargers: Alex Spanos is a Republican heavy hitter—he hosted a Mitt Romney fundraiser in March 2012, and Rush Limbaugh wrote the foreword to his autobiography (which was titled, oddly enough, Spreading the Wealth). The biggest black mark on his reign is probably keeping team doctor David Chao around for 15 years despite dozens of accusations of malpractice, negligence, personal injury, and fraud—though Spanos’ company also had to pay a big settlement after the government sued it for not making apartments accessible to the disabled.
Tennessee Titans: Oilman Bud Adams moved his Houston Oilers into the publicly funded Astrodome in 1965. After 22 years, Adams decided that the ballyhooed stadium wasn’t all that wondrous anymore and asked Houston for $ 67 million in upgrades. When the city balked, he threatened a move to Jacksonville, Florida, which was enough to get him his renovations. Six years later, Adams started kicking the tires on a new dome. Houston rebuffed him, so Adams took his team north to Nashville, whose officials were happy to give him what he wanted. (Eventually, a shiny new stadium was built for an expansion team in Houston—with plenty of public funding.)
NFC
Arizona Cardinals: No team has gone longer without a championship than Bill Bidwill’s Cardinals; they last won in 1947 when the team shared Chicago with the Bears. And last year, the hapless Cardinals became the first NFL team to lose 700 games all told. Bidwill became known as “Dollar Bill” for his cheapness, amid rumors that he made players buy their own cleats and deducted lunch from their paychecks. Despite his fondness for screaming, Bill’s son, team president Michael Bidwill, is viewed more a bit more favorably.
Atlanta Falcons: Home Depot cofounder Arthur Blank (not to be confused with fellow cofounder and GOP megadonor Ken Langone, who was profiled by Andy Kroll in our March/April 2012 issue) has finally seen things turn around in Atlanta. Years after the Michael Vick and Bobby Petrino fiascoes, Blank has a winning team, a complimentary general manager, and a new stadium on the way—a futuristic looking thing that Deadspin‘s Barry Petchesky dubbed “The Sphincter.” All it took was moving a couple of churches off of the proposed construction site—at a cost of $ 19.5 million for one and $ 14.5 million for the other.
Carolina Panthers: When Jerry Richardson met with his fellow owners during NFL labor negotiations in 2010, he was emphatic about getting a more favorable revenue split with players. According to one witness, Richardson told the other NFL execs, “We signed a [expletive] deal last time, and we’re going to stick together and take back our league and [expletive] do something about it.” His main argument for holding the line was the unsustainability of it all—an argument Deadspin blew out of the water when it learned that Richardson’s Panthers turned a $ 112 million profit in 2010 and 2011. This year, the tattoo-hating Richardson asked taxpayers to cover about two-thirds of the cost of a proposed stadium renovation. The city of Charlotte decided to kick in some money, but the state refused.
Chicago Bears: Virginia Halas McCaskey and her kin have been taken to task for their poor business acumen. (The Bears are worth only $ 1.19 billion). McCaskey only ever wanted to be the team’s board secretary—a title she still retains—but ended up running the show after her brother died of a heart attack, setting off a public battle over the estate.
Dallas Cowboys: Long lambasted for favoring the Cowboys’ brand and massive stadium over the quality of the team (Dallas is .500 since 1997), Jerral “Jerry” Jones is one of the league’s most reviled owners, and not just outside of Texas: Last November, fans actually petitioned President Obama to oust the Cowboys’ “controlling, delusional, oppressive dictator.” If the self-appointed GM can’t field a winning team, the least he can do is make sure his gaudy scoreboard doesn’t cost Dallas any more touchdowns.
Detroit Lions: Since William Clay Ford bought the Lions in 1963, the team has won only one playoff game. Detroit capped off with the league’s first ever 0-16 season in 2008, after which Forbes declared Ford the worst owner in the NFL. His son, at least, thinks things are looking up. They won their first game this season, in any case.
Minnesota Vikings: Zygi Wilf was found guilty of racketeering this year after a New Jersey judge found that he and family members cheated business partners out of millions in revenue from an apartment complex. In the meantime, the Vikings owner has threatened to move the team in a squabble over a planned billion-dollar stadium—even though he rejected an offer in which state and local governments would pick up more than 60 percent of the tab. He claims that making his net worth public would hurt the team in those negotiations.
New Orleans Saints: How you feel about billionaire car salesman/investor/Saints owner Tom Benson basically depends on how you feel about an owner using a natural disaster (Hurricane Katrina) to flirt with moving to another city (San Antonio). Eventually, in 2006, he decided to stay in NOLA, a decision that was rewarded three years later by a Super Bowl, state approval of $ 85 million in Superdome upgrades, and a pretty sweet lease agreement.
In any case, people sure did love the way Benson second-lined on the sidelines…
New York Giants: Called “the first family of football,” the Maras have earned plenty of recent goodwill from two Giants Super Bowl wins in the past decade. On the social front, John Marapublicly admitted that the league has forsaken players with brain injuries and other game-related health problems. And in 2001, co-owner Steve Tischcut a video supporting marriage equality in New York.
Philadelphia Eagles: The Eagles’ Jeff Lurie retrofitted Philly’s Lincoln Financial Field with 80 wind turbines, 2,500 solar panels, and a 7.6-megawatt biodiesel power plant in a greening effort that drew praise from President Obama. Now he just needs to work on his high fives—for the sake of his wife.
St. Louis Rams: Sports Illustrated has called Stan Kroenke“the most powerful man in sports.” The Missouri real estate tycoon, who is married to Walmart heiress Ann Walton Kroenke, owns the Rams, the English Premier League’s Arsenal, and five other major sports teams with a combined valued of around $ 4 billion. While the notoriously tight-lipped Kroenke tends to avoid the spotlight, that may become harder to do as the team negotiates a deal for a new stadium. (The Rams’ first request, a $ 700 million monstrosity, was summarily rejected.) Let’s hope whatever deal they reach is up to Kroenke’s standards—after buying a vineyard, he once dumped $ 3.3 million worth of cabernet down the drain, deciding it was low-grade.
San Francisco 49ers: Jed York, the Niners’ youthful owner, is riding high on goodwill after the team’s recent resurgence. York is generally low-key (or as low-key as you can be surrounded by confetti at the groundbreaking of your billion-dollar stadium). While York supposedly sewed jerseys and wrapped ankles when he officially joined the team in 2005, he didn’t exactly come from humble beginnings—he spent plenty of time in the owner’s box as a kid back when his grandfather ran the team—and mom owned pro hockey’s Pittsburgh Penguins.
Seattle Seahawks: In addition to the Seahawks, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen runs basketball’s Portland Trail Blazers, and part of Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders—at least when he’s not busy sniffing out tech investments or taking credit for most of Microsoft’s breakthroughs. He’s also the NFL’s richest owner, valued at $ 15 billion—which is $ 10 billion more than the second-richest owner, Stan Kroenke. It can be nice to have an owner whose personal bottom line doesn’t hinge on reining in the team’s costs. No stranger to vanity projects, Allen donated $ 1.6 million last year to pass a ballot initiative allowing public charter schools in Washington state.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Longtime corporate raider Malcolm Glazer bought the Buccaneers in 1995. Shortly thereafter, the team was winning games and playing for packed crowds at a brand-new, taxpayer-subsidizedstadium—one that includes a $ 3 million fake pirate ship. What kind of fan wouldn’t want that? A British soccer fan, that’s who. Glazer’s 2005 takeover of Manchester United sent shock waves through the Premier League, but mostly because of the highly leveraged way he went about doing it.
