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Slate’s Josh Levin shows how NFL Commissioner Goodell was sacked.
When Roger Goodell appointed Paul Tagliabue to hear the Saints’ bounty appeal, the players fought to get the ex-NFL commissioner to recuse himself. There was no way, they thought, that Tagliabue would kneecap his successor, invalidating the suspensions that Goodell had pronounced from his unassailable lair atop Commissioner Mountain. But on Tuesday, Tagliabue sided, amazingly, against the man sitting behind his old desk, vacating the suspensions of four current and former Saints. Though he affirmed many of Goodell’s original findings of player misconduct, this is the equivalent of a teacher writing “nice job” in the margin of a D paper. Goodell got it wrong in every way that matters. He conducted an unfair investigation that reached bad conclusions based on faulty evidence, then crowed sanctimoniously about his findings. Now, at last, this story has the ending it deserves, with the power-hungry commissioner undone by his quest to demonstrate just how powerful he can be. …
… Tagliabue also implies that Goodell’s self-righteousness trumped sanity with regard to Hargrove and Smith. The former was suspended eight games (later reduced to seven) for denying the existence of a bounty program—something his coaches urged him to do. But as Roger Goodell saw it, Hargrove was guilty of the worst crime of all: lying to Roger Goodell. Yes, Michael Vick was guilty of leading a dogfighting ring. But as a league source explained to Yahoo’s Jason Cole in 2007, “Where [Vick] is in the most trouble is that he lied to the commissioner.”
More than anything else, his hardline stance on honesty reveals that Goodell sees himself as a parent rather than a jurist. It’s important that a kid tell his mom and dad the truth, and he should be grounded for another couple of days if he doesn’t fess up to breaking that lamp. It’s not always the best strategy for a defendant to say everything he knows, however, and he shouldn’t get put away just because he pleads not guilty. As Tagliabue writes, “In my forty years of association with the NFL, I am aware of many instances of denials in disciplinary proceedings that proved to be false, but I cannot recall any suspension for such fabrication.” (In the document’s most hilarious twist, Tagliabue also notes that Brett Favre was fined, not suspended, for obstructing a league investigation into his sexting practices. As a consequence, Goodell wildly over-punished Hargrove for obstructing an investigation into a bounty on Brett Favre.)
Smith was suspended in part because of his role as a “defensive leader.” Once again, this is a vengeful paternalism masquerading as principle. “I am not aware of previous League discipline that similarly rested on whether or not a player was a team leader,” Tagliabue writes, dismantling the Goodelian precept of “you’re older and you should have known better.” …
…When he first announced the Saints’ transgressions, Goodell noted that he was most concerned with “player safety and competitive integrity.” But what Paul Tagliabue’s ruling reveals, as the Saints look back at the wreckage of their season, is that there’s a much bigger threat to the NFL’s competitive integrity than a bounty program: It’s a commissioner who’s out to make examples of people for defying his authority.
Bloomberg News says California is the worst, but other states are almost as bad. The saddest part of obama’s wasted stimulus is he allowed many states to avoid the results of their excesses.
… Payroll data compiled by Bloomberg on 1.4 million public employees in the 12 most populous states show that California has set a pattern of lax management, inefficient operations and out-of-control costs. From coast to coast, states are cutting funding for schools, public safety and the poor as they struggle with fallout left by politicians who made pay-and-pension promises that taxpayers couldn’t afford.
“It was completely avoidable,” said David Crane, a public-policy lecturer at StanfordUniversity.
“All it took was for political leaders to think more about the general population and the future, rather than their political futures,” said Crane, a Democrat who worked as an economic adviser to former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. “Citizens should be mad as hell, and they shouldn’t take it anymore.”
Across the U.S., such compensation policies have contributed to state budget shortfalls of $500 billion in the past four years and prompted some governors, including Republican Scott Walker of Wisconsin, to strip most government employees of collective-bargaining rights and take other steps to limit payroll spending.
In California, Governor Jerry Brown hasn’t curbed overtime expenses that lead the 12 largest states or limited payments for accumulated vacation time that allowed one employee to collect $609,000 at retirement in 2011. The 74-year-old Democrat has continued requiring workers to take an unpaid day off each month, which could burden the state with new costs in the future.
Last year, Brown waived a cap on accrued leave for prison guards while granting them additional paid days off. California’s liability for the unused leave of its state workers has more than doubled in eight years, to $3.9 billion in 2011, from $1.4 billion in 2003, according to the state’s annual financial reports.
“It’s outrageous what public employees in California receive in compensation and benefits,” said Lanny Ebenstein, who heads the California Center for Public Policy, a Santa Barbara-based research institution critical of public payrolls.
“Until public employee compensation and benefits are brought in line, there will be no answer to the fiscal shortfalls that California governments at every level face,” he said.
Among the largest states, almost every category of worker has participated in the pay bonanza. Britt Harris, chief investment officer at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, last year collected $1 million — including his $480,000 salary and two years of bonuses — more than four times what Republican Governor Rick Perry received. Pension managers in Ohio and Virginia made up to $678,000 and $660,000, respectively, according to the data, which Bloomberg obtained using public- record requests. In an interview, Harris said public pension pay must be competitive with the private sector to attract top investment talent.
Psychiatrists were among the highest-paid employees in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and New Jersey, with total compensation $270,000 to $327,000 for top earners. State police officers in Pennsylvania collected checks as big as $190,000 for unused vacation and personal leave as they retired young enough to start second careers, while Virginia paid active officers as much as $109,000 in overtime alone, the data show.
The numbers are even larger in California, where a state psychiatrist was paid $822,000, a highway patrol officer collected $484,000 in pay and pension benefits and 17 employees got checks of more than $200,000 for unused vacation and leave. The best-paid staff in other states earned far less for the same work, according to the data.
Rising employee expenses are crowding out other priorities for state and local governments and draining resources for college tuition, health care, public safety, schools and other services, Schwarzenegger said in an e-mailed response to questions.
“California spends most of its money on salaries, retirement payments, health care benefits for government workers, and other compensation,” said Schwarzenegger, 65, who replaced Davis as governor. “State revenues are up more than 50 percent over the past 10 years, but still we’ve had to cut spending on services because so much of that revenue increase went to increases in compensation and benefits.” …
If the above from Bloomberg makes you want to cry, here’s late night humor from Andrew Malcolm.
Leno: President Obama met with tribal Indian chiefs the other day. They gave him his own Indian name: “Running Deficits.”
Conan: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie visited the White House. President Obama told him, “I’d invite you to lunch, but the deficit is already too high.”
Letterman: So 86-year-old Hugh Hefner is engaged again to his 26-year-old girlfriend. Hef said, “I’ve fallen for her–and I can’t get up.”
Leno: We’ve been talking about 86-year-old Hugh Hefner marrying his 26-year-old girlfriend. She’s very romantic. She says her dream is someday to take Hef to the beach. And scatter his ashes right there.
Fallon: A new survey finds “Sophia” and “Aiden” were the most popular baby names this year. The least popular baby name was “Kim Jong Sandusky.”
Leno: Good news: Prince William and his wife Kate are expecting a baby. Bad news: Prince Harry is planning the baby shower for Vegas.