NFL owners yield to Trump, bottom line
By 
In the end, the megamillionaire NFL owners decided to take a knee.
Not a knee of protest or principle, as some of their employees pursued last season, but a knee of supplication. They bowed down to the royal leader, King Donald, hoping their new policy would satisfy his highness’s imperial ragings and lead him to halt his efforts to interrupt the flow of riches they enjoy.
The unanimous vote of NFL owners to require players to stand on the sidelines during the national anthem — or remain in the locker room — was not a bow to patriotism, but to their bottom lines, which President Trump was threatening by his harangues against the league, which seem to have riled up his base and may have contributed to a falloff in all-important NFL TV viewership. Teams are subject to fines if a player violates the new policy and teams can fine players who don’t show the “proper respect.”
The move came in response to black NFL players, led by former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality against black citizens. It became a perfect issue for Trump, allowing him to combine his penchant for jingoistic patriotism and racial divisiveness. At one rally last September, Trump stoked a crowd by saying it would be great to see an NFL owner respond to a kneeling player by declaring, “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired.”
Herald sports columnist Steve Buckley pans the move and points out, facetiously, that of course the policy won’t shift attention to which players remain in locker rooms, with reporters chasing them down to explain the message they are sending. He also ridicules the idea that players will be expected to stand respectfully, speculating that there will have to be some kind of “NFL Focus Police” to gauge whether players are comporting themselves with the proper bearing during the anthem.
A New York Times editorial framed the action of the owners in blunt terms. “Rather than show a little backbone themselves and support the right of athletes to protest peacefully, the league capitulated to a president who relishes demonizing black athletes,” it said.
Wondering, as Buckley did, exactly how the league will micromanage the edit to stand for the anthem, the editorial seems to urge some creative compliance with the new rule.
“It might be amusing, for example, to see the owners tied in knots by players who choose to abide by the injunction to “stand and show respect” — while holding black-gloved fists in the air. Or who choose to stand — while holding signs protesting police brutality. We look forward to many more meetings of fatootsed gazillionaires conducting many more votes on petty rules to ban creative new forms of player protest.”
Patriots safety and defensive captain Devin McCourty, who has knelt in the past to show his support for social justice and changes to police interactions with black communities, talked about the protests earlier this week on the Codcast. He said Trump “hijacked” the narrative to characterize the players’ moves as a show of disrespect to military personnel. Nothing could be further from the truth, McCourty said. He discussed the work he is involved with on criminal justice reform — and had high praise for team owner Robert Kraft and his son, team president Jonathan Kraft, for their willingness to also speak out on those issues.
Today’s Times editorial zeroes in on Kraft, who occupies the awkward ground of being a long-time friend of Trump’s who seems to have soured on his transition from blustery billionaire to leader of the free world. The editorial points out that Trump’s attacks brought the players and owners together for a meeting last fall. The Times obtained a recording of the private meeting, where a more unguarded Kraft shared how he felt about Trump’s antics.
“The problem we have is, we have a president who will use that as fodder to do his mission that I don’t feel is in the best interests of America,” Kraft said of the take-a-knee protests. “It’s divisive, and it’s horrible.”
MICHAEL JONAS
BEACON HILL
Despite opposition, the House backs the “red flag” gun bill. (Salem News)
House Speaker Robert DeLeo killed any possibility of bringing a sports betting bill to the floor this year. (State House News)
A Globe editorial rips the proposed Senate budget for cutting funding for MCAS, suggesting it is doing the bidding of the anti-testing Massachusetts Teachers Association.
The Senate rejected a sales tax holiday during budget deliberations, which an Eagle-Tribune editorial describes as a mistake. The newspaper said lawmakers should pass the tax holiday before voters do it for them. The Senate also adopted a measure restricting cooperation between local police and federal immigration officials on a 25-13 vote. And the Senate joined the House in approving a $1.8 billion housing bond bill. (State House News)
A group of House lawmakers, nearly all of them Republicans, is sponsoring a resolution calling on Gov. Charlie Baker to remove Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley for giving a heroin dealer probation rather than jail time. (State House News)
Gov. Charlie Baker may stand tall, but it’s not clear what he actually stands for, says Joan Vennochi. (Boston Globe)
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
MassLive asks: Is Worcester rebuilding its downtown at the expense of its neighborhoods?
Framingham officials are looking at rewriting the city’s adult housing bylaws that they say allow developers to construct more over-55 residential homes in areas than would normally be allowed. (MetroWest Daily News)
Item columnist Steve Krause praises the Beyond Walls initiative that brought massive, beautiful murals to Lynn. To check those murals out virtually, go to Gateways Magazine here.
WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
A federal judge has ruled President Trump violated the Constitution’s First Amendment when he blocked some Twitter users from his account and ordered him to open the account to everyone. (New York Times)
Presidential son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner has been granted full security clearance to view top-secret documents, a sign that he may no longer be a focus of the special counsel’s investigation. (Washington Post)
ELECTIONS
Joyce Ferriabough Bolling sides with City Councilor Ayanna Pressley in her primary battle against US Rep. Michael Capuano, and applauds two ministers from Roxbury’s 12th Baptist Church who skipped an endorsement rally there where civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis endorsed Capuano. (Boston Herald)
The Pioneer Institute’s Greg Sullivan rebuts the rebuttal of Stanford professor Cristobal Young, who was responding to an original report by Sullivan questioning Young’s research indicating millionaire taxes don’t drive millionaires out of state. Here’s a link to the earlier point-counterpoint. (CommonWealth)
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
A family-owned Ohio candy company has acquired at bankruptcy auction the iconic Revere-based sweets maker Necco for $18.8 million. (Boston Globe)
Sterling Suffolk Racecourse hasn’t been able to make horse racing work at Suffolk Downs in East Boston, but now the company says it plans to give it a try at the Great Barrington Fairgrounds. Sterling Suffolk is desperately trying to hang on to its simulcasting rights, and the Great Barrington bid may be a play to keep that gambling business alive. (Berkshire Eagle)
The Berkshire Museum sold the Norman Rockwell painting “Blacksmith’s Boy” for $7 million, and may have to sell more artworks to reach its goal of reaching $55 million to bolster its endowment. (Berkshire Eagle)
EDUCATION
A new report says the Boston Public Schools have made little progress in getting “off-track students” through high school, with one in five not on course to graduate. The report paints a portrait of a school system divided in two, with the three exam schools and other selective admission schools doing a good job of graduating students and the district’s other high schools performing poorly on that score. (CommonWealth)
A Milton Academy teacher has been fired after administrators said they learned from an anonymous tipster he had admitted to sexual misconduct with a student at a school where he previously worked. (Patriot Ledger)
Holy Family Church in Rockland is closing its school, with students in preschool through 8th grade, after 77 years because of declining enrollment and a growing deficit. (Patriot Ledger)
HEALTH/HEALTH CARE
A jury awarded a black nurse who worked at Brigham and Women’s Hospital $28 million in her lawsuit against the hospital alleging discrimination and retaliation. (Boston Globe)
Partners HealthCare has finalized its deal to acquire Care New England Health System, Rhode Island’s second-largest hospital system. (Boston Globe)
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
The Baker administration makes a bold bet on offshore wind, procuring an 800 megawatt wind farm for Massachusetts and working with Rhode Island to add another 400 megawatts. (CommonWealth) Fishermen in the New Bedford area were not pleased about the arrival of wind farms in Vineyard Sound, with one telling the Standard-Times, it’s “just one more nail in the coffin” for the industry.
Four key lawmakers in Maine question the value for their state and the region of a Massachusetts-financed transmission line into Maine carrying hydroelectricity from Quebec. Maine Gov. Paul LePage, however, wrote Gov. Charlie Baker, telling him the lawmakers weren’t speaking for the legislature as a whole and the transmission line will be a boon to the region. (CommonWealth)
US Sen Edward Markey said a change in regulations by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to accelerate shutdowns and lower costs of decommissioned plants by allowing companies to bypass exemptions is an “industry wish list” that increases safety risks (Cape Cod Times)
CASINOS/GAMBLING/MARIJUANA
Voters at Abington Town Meeting extended the moratorium on retail sales of recreational marijuana through June of next year but rejected a proposed ban. (Wicked Local)
Massachusetts gambling commission chairman Steve Crosby says states are the best vehicle for regulating sports betting, and he says there’s “nothing wrong” with teams making an argument that they should be cut in on some of the action. (Boston Globe)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
A statewide policing organization that includes both Boston and State Police as members is siding with Boston in the turf war over patrolling the Seaport district, arguing that it’s outmoded policy to let an agency like the State Police maintain sole jurisdiction over an area. (Boston Globe)
Eight families who lost children in the Sandy Hook massacre have filed defamation suits against right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, whose InfoWars website has won praise from President Trump, for spreading the false claim the shooting spree was staged. (New York Times)
San Francisco is on the verge of passing a law eliminating fines and fees for ex-convicts that officials say hampers their rehabilitation. It would be the first jurisdiction in the country with such a law as nearly every state has been increasing such fees for court costs, ankle monitoring, probation, and drug and alcohol testing. (U.S. News & World Report)
Top Boston Globe officials are investigating an allegation by a former reporter that current editor Brian McGrory sent a sexually suggestive text to her. (CommonWealth) A Globe story on the situation quotes a note to staff from McGrory in which he said he doesn’t recall the text and that he used to date the former reporter, Hilary Sargent. McGrory also said he had never harassed any woman.