#something that happened in 2016. not to minimize the severity of the allegations but still

[sweet-milky-tea705]

Theres like whole ass callout vids on her ? I watched one and it was basically like. Kinda dumb.

I love britney broski they could never make me hate her

[libertariantaoist]

The intensifying hysteria over Russia has pushed Official Washington over the edge into outright madness. On one side of this asylum, you have the Democrats, neoconservatives and mainstream media, while on the other, you have the embattled Trump administration. Both sides have been making grave allegations with little or no evidence to support them.

The Democratic/neocon/MSM side has pushed the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians to put the real-estate mogul in the White House, but there is, as yet, no evidence that such a thing happened.

Even one of the top advocates feeding this Russia frenzy, New York Times correspondent Thomas L. Friedman, acknowledged on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “I agree, there is no evidence,” but then added: “which is why we need a special prosecutor or an independent commission to get to the bottom of it.”

But that is not how investigations are supposed to work. You’re supposed to have evidence of wrongdoing and then examine it in the investigative phase to see if the evidence withstands scrutiny. What Friedman is suggesting is more like a “fishing expedition” or a “witch hunt.”

The drip-drip of this investigative water torture finally got to President Trump last week as he flew down to his winter home at Mar-a-Lago. He joined the crazy melee early Saturday morning by sending out a flurry of tweets accusing President Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in New York City in the weeks before the Nov. 8 election. Trump also offered no evidence while demanding an investigation to get to the bottom of this.

By contrast, in all the major investigations that I have handled as an investigative reporter, such as Oliver North’s secret White House paramilitary operation; the related Nicaraguan Contra drug trafficking scandal; Richard Nixon interference with President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam peace talks in 1968; and Ronald Reagan’s campaign sabotage of President Jimmy Carter’s Iranian-hostage negotiations in 1980 – there was substantial evidence from eyewitnesses and documents supporting the suspicions before the story was published.

At no point would I have argued that just because Oliver North met a Contra leader that it was time to investigate whether he and his Reagan administration superiors were breaking the law. I first found multiple insiders, including people in the U.S. government and the Contra movement, describing how North was running his back-channel war. In some of these investigative situations, we had two dozen or so sources describing detailed aspects of these operations before we made any allegations in print.

Now the argument is that because some people suspect something, even without evidence, major investigations are warranted. That is usually what a conspiracy theory sounds like. Someone claims not to understand how something could have happened a certain way and thus a full-scale inquiry is needed into some highly unlikely and speculative scenario.

Opening Salvos

In the case of the Russia investigation, the opening salvos came from President Obama’s intelligence agencies, which alleged that Russia had “hacked” Democratic emails and slipped the contents to WikiLeaks, but the agencies offered nothing in the way of U.S. government evidence to support that supposition.

The two reports that were issued were heavy on the word “assesses” – which in intelligence jargon usually means “guesses” – but short on anything that could be checked out or verified.

The Jan. 6 report, issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, admitted as much, saying, “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks representatives denied getting the two batches of Democratic emails from Russia, suggesting that two different American insiders had leaked the material.

Yet, despite this dubious send-off, the “scandal” careened into the area of “secondary” offenses, such as the conversation between Trump’s National Security Adviser-designate Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak which was intercepted by the National Security Agency on Dec. 29, 2016.

Rather than redact Flynn’s name as “minimization” procedures usually require for an American citizen who is inadvertently picked up on an intelligence wiretap, the transcript was given to the FBI which then tested Flynn’s memory of the conversation and found it wanting.

The Flynn case should be of particular concern to civil libertarians because it shows how NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s warning of a “turnkey tyranny” could work, with the Surveillance State monitoring phone calls and then finding flimsy legal excuses to justify an FBI probe – in Flynn’s case the never-tested-in-court 1799 Logan Act was used – and then manufacturing the crime of lying to the FBI if a person’s memory doesn’t match with the NSA transcript.

For Flynn, who was on vacation in the Dominican Republic when Kislyak called and thus didn’t have his usual support network with him, the immediate penalty for lacking total recall of the conversation was to lose his job. But there is still pressure for him to be prosecuted.

Similar demands have come from Democrats who want Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign and face prosecution for perjury over his clumsy answer to a question about the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia to which Sessions claimed he had not met with Russians (although it turned out he had two conversations with Kislyak, one a group meeting with several ambassadors at the Republican National Convention and the other in his Capitol Hill office with aides present.

Again, there is no evidence that Sessions conspired with Kislyak on any plans to have the Russians undercut Hillary Clinton’s campaign, an unlikely possibility in either of the two settings. But Sessions is under fire for lying about the seemingly innocuous meetings – and there are demands that the Sessions-Kislyak contacts be investigated, too. In this Russia case, the absence of evidence appears not to be evidence for the absence of a special prosecutor.

On “Meet the Press” on Sunday, President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also said he was unaware of evidence that the Trump campaign had colluded with the Russians.

Moderator Chuck Todd asked, “Does intelligence exist that can definitively answer the following question, whether there were improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials?”

Clapper: “We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, ‘our,’ that’s N.S.A., F.B.I. and C.I.A., with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report.”

Todd: “I understand that. But does it exist?”

Clapper: “Not to my knowledge. … at the time [of the report in early January], we had no evidence of such collusion.”

Bill Clinton Echoes

In many ways, what is happening now to Trump reminds me of the situation in 1992-93 at the start of Bill Clinton’s presidency when Republicans were furious that they had lost the White House after 12 years of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. They considered Clinton an unworthy interloper and sought to cripple his presidency from the outset by pursuing one investigation after another.

During the campaign, President Bush and his team even suggested that the Arkansas governor may have been a KGB mole because of a student trip to Moscow in 1970. The idea was to portray the trip to the Soviet Union as prima facie evidence of Clinton’s disloyalty even though there was no evidence of any wrongdoing by Clinton.

Back then, Bill Clinton countered that smear by accusing the elder President Bush of stooping to the tactics of Sen. Joe McCarthy, the infamous Red-baiter from the 1950s. But today’s Democrats apparently feel little shame in whipping up an anti-Russian hysteria and then using it to discredit Trump, who – like Bill Clinton in 1992 – is being forced to fend off vague accusations that he is some kind of Manchurian candidate.

However, unlike Bill Clinton who seemed able to “compartmentalize” between governing as president and sparring with Republicans over their unending accusations, Trump lashed out in a flurry of Twitter messages accusing President Obama of wiretapping phones at Trump Tower.

“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory,” Trump said. “Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” Trump added: “This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

In making this extraordinary charge against his predecessor, Trump offered no evidence to back it up, leaving the impression that he may have gleaned this information from the right-wing Breitbart News web site which published an article summarizing claims by conservative radio talk show hosts. Trump and White House officials then called for an investigation into Obama’s alleged wiretapping.

Obama’s spokesman Kevin Lewis responded with a statement of dubious veracity, saying: “neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.” However, Obama did more than surveil at least one U.S. citizen; he had an American Al Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki not just put under surveillance but killed by a drone attack in 2011 in Yemen.

Reacting to all these crazy exchanges, a Wall Street Journal editorial even managed to make some sense. Entitled “Washington Goes Nuts,” the editorial said:

“What the country desperately needs are some grown-ups to intervene, discover the facts, and then lay them out to the American people,” both regarding any untoward contacts between Russian officials and Trump’s advisers and whether the Obama administration crossed any lines in its zeal to nail Trump’s team over Russia.

The Journal’s editors expressed hopes the congressional intelligence committees could step up and perform this function. But the problem with the Journal’s idea is that it will be hard, if not impossible, to find the requisite “adults” in Official Washington where traditional standards of evidence and fair play have long since disappeared.

[biofunmy]

Jay-Z defends NFL deal with Roc Nation, talks Kaepernick

By Mesfin Fekadu | AP

August 14 at 9:05 PM

NEW YORK — A day after Jay-Z announced that his Roc Nation company was partnering with the NFL, the rap icon explained that he still supports protesting, kneeling and NFL player Colin Kaepernick, but he’s also interested in working with the league to make substantial changes.

The Grammy winner and entrepreneur fielded questions Wednesday at his company’s New York City headquarters alongside NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. When directly asked if he would kneel or stand, Jay-Z said: “I think we’ve moved past kneeling and I think it’s time to go into actionable items.”

He then added: “No, I don’t want people to stop protesting at all. Kneeling — I know we’re stuck on it because it’s a real thing — but kneeling is a form of protest. I support protest across the board. We need to bring light to the issue. I think everyone knows what the issue is — we’re done with that,” he added. “We all know the issue now. OK, next. What are we moving (on to) next? …And I’m not minimizing that part of it because that has to happen, that’s a necessary part of the process. But now that we all know what’s going on, what are we going to do? How are we going to stop it? Because the kneeling was not about a job, it was about injustice.”

Jay-Z has been among the biggest supporters of Kaepernick, who sparked a fissure in the NFL when he decided to kneel when the national anthem was played before games to protest the killings of blacks by police officers. Some called him unpatriotic, and he has not played for the NFL since he opted out of his contract with the San Francisco 49ers in 2017. Earlier this year, the NFL settled a lawsuit brought by Kaepernick and Eric Reid that alleged that owners colluded to keep them from playing in the league (Reid criticized Jay-Z’s new deal with the league).

When asked why he didn’t involve Kaepernick in the new Roc Nation-NFL deal, Jay-Z said: “You’d have to ask him. I’m not his boss. I can’t just bring him into something. That’s for him to say.”

Jay-Z also said he and Kaepernick had a conversation about the new deal but offered no details about what was discussed.

Kaepernick didn’t comment on the deal, but tweeted about his social justice work Wednesday.

“Today marks the three year anniversary of the first time I protested systemic oppression. I continue to work and stand with the people in our fight for liberation, despite those who are trying to erase the movement! The movement has always lived with the people!” he wrote.

The NFL and Jay-Z’s entertainment and sports representation company announced Tuesday they were teaming up for events and social activism, a deal Jay-Z said had been in the works over the last seven months.

“First thing I said to Roger was, ‘If this is about me performing at the Super Bowl, then we can just end this conversation now,” Jay-Z said.

The league plans to use Roc Nation — home to Rihanna, DJ Khaled and other stars — to consult on and co-produce its entertainment presentations, including the Super Bowl halftime show. The NFL will also work with Jay-Z’s company to help its Inspire Change initiative, created by the league after an agreement with a coalition of players who demonstrated during the national anthem to protest social and racial injustice in this country. Those demonstrations were sparked by Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem in 2016.

“Everyone’s saying, ‘How are you going forward if Kaep doesn’t have a job?’ This was not about him having a job. That became part of it,” Jay-Z said. “We know what it is — now how do we address that injustice? What’s the way forward?”

Jay-Z added that “the NFL has a huge platform and we can use that huge platform.”

“I believe real change is had through conversation, real conversation and real work … and what better way to do it than where the conversation first took place.”

Jay-Z has turned down invitations to perform at the Super Bowl, even rapping about it in a song. Rihanna has also turned down the gig.

Jay-Z said he is not performing at the 2020 halftime show, which his company will co-produce, and said he turned down the offer in the past because he “didn’t like the process.”

“You take four artists and everyone thinks they’re playing the Super Bowl, and it’s almost like this interview process,” he said. “I think the process could have been more definite.”

Maroon 5 headlined this year’s halftime show and when it was announced that Travis Scott was to join as a special guest, reports surfaced online that Jay-Z didn’t want the rapper to perform. Jay-Z acknowledged that was true, but clarified it didn’t have anything to do with Kaepernick.

“My problem is (Travis) had the biggest year to me last year,” Jay-Z explained, “and he’s playing on a stage that had an M on it. I didn’t see any reason for him to play second fiddle to anyone that year and that was my argument.”

Goodell also answered several questions Wednesday. When a reporter asked a question, looking at both Goddell and Jay-Z, the rapper said: “Are you asking me?”

“I’m not the commissioner yet,” Jay-Z said as the room burst into laughter.

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Sahred From Source link Entertainment

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[chestnutpost]

FDA Keeps A Database Of Medical Device Injuries Hidden From Doctors And Public

This post was originally published on this site

By Christina Jewett 

Dr. Douglas Kwazneski was helping a Pittsburgh surgeon remove an appendix when something jarring happened. The surgical stapler meant to cut and seal the tissue around the appendix locked up.

Kwazneski later turned to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s public database that tracks medical device failures and “there was nothing,” he said. Yet when he surveyed leading surgeons on the matter, he discovered that more than two-thirds had experienced a stapler malfunction, or knew a peer who did. Such failures can have deadly consequences.

Kwazneski had no idea the FDA had quietly granted the makers of surgical staplers a special “exemption” allowing them to file reports of malfunctions in a database hidden from doctors and from public view.

“I don’t want to sound overdramatic here, but it seemed like a cover-up,” said Kwazneski, who practiced in Pasco County, Fla., from 2016 through earlier this year.

Kendra Stanley-Mills for KHN After Dr. Douglas Kwazneski witnessed a surgical stapler malfunction, he surveyed leading surgeons and discovered that more than two-thirds had experienced a stapler malfunction, or knew a peer who did.

The FDA has built and expanded a vast and hidden repository of reports on device-related injuries and malfunctions, a Kaiser Health News investigation shows. Since 2016, at least 1.1 million incidents have flowed into the internal “alternative summary reporting” repository, instead of being described individually in the widely scrutinized public database known as MAUDE, which medical experts trust to identify problems that could put patients in jeopardy.

Deaths must still be reported in MAUDE. But the hidden database has included serious injury and malfunction reports for about 100 medical devices, according to the FDA, many implanted in patients or used in countless surgeries. They have included surgical staplers, balloon pumps snaked into vessels to improve circulation and mechanical breathing machines.

An FDA official said that the program is for issues that are “well-known and well-documented with the FDA” and that it was reformed in 2017 as a new voluntary summary reporting program was put in place for up to 5,600 devices.

Yet the program, in all its iterations, has been so obscure that it is unknown to many of the doctors and engineers dedicated to improving device safety. Even a former FDA commissioner said he knew nothing of the program.

KHN pored over reams of public records for oblique references to reporting exemptions. After months of questions to the FDA, the agency confirmed the existence of reporting-exemption programs and thousands of never-before-acknowledged instances of malfunctions or harm.

Amid the blackout in information about device risks, patients have been injured, hundreds of times in some cases, lawsuits and FDA records show.

“The public has a right to know about this,” said Dr. S. Lori Brown, a former FDA official who accessed the data for her research. She said doctors relying just on the public reports — and unaware that many incidents may be omitted — can easily reach the wrong conclusion about the safety record of a particular device.

The FDA has also opened additional — and equally obscure — pathways for device makers to report thousands of injuries brought to light by lawsuits or even deaths that appear in private registries that medical societies use to track patients. Those exemptions apply to risky and controversial products, including pelvic mesh and devices implanted in the heart.

FDA spokeswoman Deborah Kotz confirmed that the “registry exemption” was created without any public notice or regulations. “Any device manufacturer can request an exemption from its reporting requirements,” she said in an email.

Agency records provided to KHN show that more than 480,000 injuries or malfunctions were reported through the alternative summary reporting program in 2017 alone.

Alison Hunt, another FDA spokeswoman, said the majority of device makers’ “exemptions” were revoked that year as a program took shape that requires a “placeholder” report to be filed publicly.

More than a million reports of malfunctions or harm spanning about 15 years remain in a database accessible only to the FDA. But with the agency’s new transparency push, the public may find a public report and submit a Freedom of Information Act request to get information about incidents. A response can take up to two years.

The long-standing exemption program “has allowed the FDA to more efficiently review adverse events … and take action when warranted without sacrificing the quality of our review or the information we receive,” Hunt said in an email.

To those outside the agency, though, the exceptions to the reporting rules are troubling. They strike Madris Tomes, a former FDA manager, as the agency surrendering some of the strongest oversight and transparency powers it wields.

“The FDA is basically giving away its authority over device manufacturers,” said Tomes, who now runs Device Events, a website that makes FDA device data user-friendly. “If they’ve given that up, they’ve handed over their ability to oversee the safety and effectiveness of these devices.”

Doctors, like Kwazneski, who have turned to the public data to gauge the risks of surgical staplers have seen little. He wrote about the “unacknowledged” problem of stapler malfunctions in a 2013 article in the journal Surgical Endoscopy. In 2016, while reports of 84 stapler injuries or malfunctions were openly submitted, nearly 10,000 malfunction reports were included in the hidden database, according to the FDA.

Device maker Medtronic, which owns stapler maker Covidien, has been described as the market leader in surgical staplers. A company spokesman said that the firm has used reporting exemptions to file stapler-related reports through July 2017. Ethicon, the other major stapler maker, said it has not.

The public database shows that Medtronic has reported more than 250 deaths related to staplers or staples since 2001.

Heidi de Marco/KHN Phil Levering (left) says his father, Mark Levering, used to have a calm demeanor but now exhibits signs of aggression due to a brain injury he suffered after a surgery gone wrong.

Mark Levering, 62, nearly lost his life after a stapler malfunction early last year, according to a lawsuit filed by his family. His surgeon has testified that a surgical stapler misfired during his liver surgery at ProMedica Toledo Hospital in Ohio.

Staff performed CPR for 22 minutes while surgeons rushed to suture the severed vein. He emerged from a coma unable to walk or consistently recognize his wife and son. The surgeon, hospital and device maker Covidien have denied allegations of wrongdoing in an ongoing legal case.

Told of the reporting “exemption” for surgical staplers, his wife, Doris Levering, was incredulous.

“Why would this information not be made available to doctors? The true information — I mean the actual numbers …” she said. “People’s lives are at stake. Mark’s life will never be the same.”

The stapler problem

The sheer number of malfunctions made surgical staplers an easy pick for the new alternative summary reporting program at its inception nearly 20 years ago, according to Larry Kessler, a former FDA official and now a University of Washington health services professor.

Surgical staplers have a unique ability to help — or harm — patients. The device is designed to cut and seal tissues or vessels quickly, often during minimally invasive surgeries. When it fails to seal a major blood vessel, medical staff can quickly shift into “code blue” mode to rescue a patient from bleeding to death.

The severity of some of the injuries caught former FDA official Brown’s attention in the early years of its reporting exemption. Her 2004 article on stapler mishaps, published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, accounts for one of the few places in public records where an FDA authority mentions the “alternative summary” program. She found that in the first 28 months of filing to the hidden database, stapler makers filed more than 5,100 reports of malfunctions or injuries.

She also noted that the publicly reported 112 stapler-related deaths in patients aged 22 to 91 from 1994 to 2001 were a “reason for concern.”

In the public data filed since, it would appear that the staplers rarely misfire. In 2011, only 18 injury or malfunction reports were filed publicly. Last year, the number was 79.

Lawsuits detail how quickly a stapler failure can turn a smooth surgery into a catastrophe.

In Michigan, Eugene Snook’s surgeon was in the process of removing part of his lung when he cut but couldn’t seal a major vessel due to a “stapler malfunction,” the surgeon said in sworn court testimony. Snook, then 59, had no detectable blood pressure for four minutes during the 2012 surgery.

The damage to Snook’s artery was so great, his surgeon decided to remove his lung completely, medical records filed in court say. Snook sued stapler maker Covidien, which in court records said there was no proof the stapler was unsafe when it left Covidien’s control and also that the surgeon used it improperly. The case reached a confidential settlement in 2017.

Another surgeon attempting to remove a benign liver growth from April Strange, 33, in 2013, testified that a stapler malfunction caused the woman to bleed to death. Strange, of central Illinois, left behind a husband and two daughters, then 6 and 8.

The stapler was thrown out after surgery, court records say. Covidien argued in court records that Ryan Strange couldn’t prove that the stapler had a specific defect.

Covidien reached an agreement to settle the family’s claims for $250,000, part of a larger settlement in the case.

Doctors initially thought Mark Levering had liver cancer. So when the diagnosis came back as an abscess that needed to be surgically removed last February, it came as a relief to his wife, Doris.

That relief turned to dread the day of surgery. The procedure was supposed to last two hours, she said. But the surgery hit a snag when the stapler “misfired,” according to the surgeon, causing so much bleeding that the minimally invasive procedure was converted to an open procedure so the doctor could suture the vein.

Levering underwent CPR for 22 minutes. A code blue was called, a nurse testified. Levering lost 3 quarts of blood — about half the blood in his body. He was put on life support and would remain in a coma for weeks.

After Levering reopened his eyes, it was clear that the man who used to tend to stray cats and enjoy dinner out with his family was gone. Levering could no longer walk, comb his hair or recognize the letters of the alphabet.

Doris and Mark Levering have sued the doctor, hospital and surgical stapler maker, alleging that the device caused Mark’s bleeding and brain injury. The surgeon has acknowledged in sworn testimony that the stapler malfunctioned, but denied other wrongdoing. The hospital said in a legal filing that its actions were “prudent, proper” and “lawful.”

Covidien denies any defect with the stapler or that it caused Levering’s injuries. A spokesman for parent company Medtronic declined to comment further on any lawsuit but said that “we always make patient safety our top priority” and that the company complies with FDA requirements.

The company’s reports of stapler problems in the public database remain relatively low. But in 2018, with the reporting exemption gone, a spike of reports emerged for Covidien’s staples �� not to be confused with staplers. While Medtronic reported 1,000 staple malfunctions or injuries in 2015, the number soared to 11,000 for 2018.

Well-kept secrets

The alternative summary reporting program started two decades ago with a simple goal: to cut down on redundant paperwork, according to officials who were at the FDA at the time.

Kessler, the former FDA official, said the program took shape after scandals over under-reporting of device problems spurred changes allowing criminal penalties against device companies.

Soon, thousands of injury and malfunction reports poured into the agency each month, with about 15 staff members dedicated to reviewing them, Kessler said. Many reports were so similar that reviewing them individually was “mind-numbing.” Kessler went to the FDA’s legal department and to device manufacturers to propose a solution.

Device makers would be able to seek a special “exemption” to avoid reporting certain complications to the public database. The manufacturers would instead send the FDA a spreadsheet of injury or malfunctions each quarter, half-year or year.

That way, Kessler said, reviewers could quickly look for new problems or spikes in known issues. When the program launched in 2000, the list of exempted devices was made public and only a few devices were involved, Kessler said.

“I don’t know why it’s not [made public] now,” he said. “I’m surprised about that.”

Starting in September, KHN filed Freedom of Information Act requests for “exemption” agreements and reports for several medical devices. Health and Human Services officials denied an appeal to provide some of the records quickly, concluding there was no “compelling need” for haste. For one request, the records were estimated to arrive in 22 months.

The FDA did provide some top-level data. It shows that from 2014 through 2017, the overall number of alternative summary reports filed by device makers rose from 431,000 to 481,000.

The FDA declined to provide a complete list of “about 100” devices that have been granted reporting exemptions over the years, but confirmed that exemptions have been used for mechanical breathing machines and balloon pumps, known as intra-aortic balloon pumps, inserted in the vessels of people with circulation problems.

An FDA spokeswoman said “alternative summary” exemptions remain in place for pacemaker electrodes and implantable defibrillators.

Matthew Baretich, a biomedical engineer in the Denver area, said he helps several area health systems analyze device-related patient injuries and make equipment-purchasing decisions.

He said he regularly scans the FDA’s public device-injury reports. Asked about “alternative summary” reports, he said, “I’ve got to tell you, that’s a new term to me.”

Bruce Barkalow, president of a Michigan-based biomedical engineering firm, said he’s the guy government officials, attorneys or device makers call if someone gets a pacemaker and dies in the shower three days later.

In an interview, he said he was not aware of the reports, either. He said they may appear to the FDA to be a “nothing burger,” but the data would be meaningful to his forensic investigations.

The ECRI Institute, a nonprofit leader in medical device safety, declined to provide an engineer for an interview. Educating hospital leaders and health providers, the institute issues an annual “Top 10” in medical technology hazards. Its tagline: “Separating fact from fiction in healthcare.”

Among the institute’s “top medical device subject matter experts,” spokeswoman Laurie Menyo said in an email, “none of them had any familiarity with FDA’s Alternative Summary Reporting Program.”

Even Dr. Robert Califf, former FDA deputy commissioner and commissioner from 2015 to 2017, said in an interview that he was unaware of the program. “Never heard anything about it,” he said. “It’s interesting.”

Companies that get the exemptions tend to be very “tight-lipped” about them, said Christine Posin, a former device firm manager and consultant to device companies.

The relative secrecy around the program can give them an advantage, she said. For instance, sales representatives can print out only the public reports of device problems, ignoring what’s buried elsewhere.

That creates a business opportunity to persuade a doctor to try a different device. “‘We have a good product that does the same thing,’” Posin said a sales representative might tell a physician.

Exemptions keep growing

The FDA has spent millions, convened experts and pledged to improve its work in device safety in recent years. All the while, it has quietly opened new avenues for the makers of controversial and risky devices to file injury and even death reports with little public review.

Pelvic mesh is one example. The fabric-like device has long been used to hold up pelvic organs in women experiencing organ prolapse. In 2011, the FDA issued a “safety communication” saying “serious complications” like pain or infection were “not rare.”

The agency soon reclassified the device, ordered safety studies and saw most mesh makers remove the device from the market.

Behind closed doors, though, the agency has since granted pelvic mesh makers a special exemption from reporting injuries to the public, according to the FDA and mesh makers who were asked about the practices.

Under what the FDA calls the “litigation complaint summary reporting” exemption, device makers can file a single placeholder “injury” report. Attached to the summary report, device makers have sent the FDA a spreadsheet with as many as 1,175 reports of patient injuries, based on allegations in lawsuits. 

To someone tallying the overall number of injuries related to pelvic mesh, the report would appear as a single injury. It would take a sharp eye to find the summary report and a special request — taking up to two years to be filled — to get the details on the 1,175 cases submitted directly to the FDA.

According to the FDA, in 2017 alone, eight mesh makers used their exemptions to send nearly 12,000 injury reports to the FDA.

Dr. M. Tom Margolis, a urogynecologist in the San Francisco Bay Area and an expert medical witness for those who are suing mesh makers, said a program that might hinder doctors relying on open FDA data to assess the risks of mesh is “horrible” and “unethical.”

“We need to know the good and the bad,” said Margolis, who treats patients in his urogynecology practice. “If you’re trying to hide complications from me, well that’s … wrong, my God, it’s heinous.”

The FDA issued the same kind of exemption to the makers of da Vinci surgical robots months after Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researchers pointed out that the company was filing a notably small number of injury reports in the public database. Johns Hopkins professor Dr. Marty Makary noted in 2013 that the handful of reports sent to the FDA at the time were signs of a “haphazard” system that is “not independent and not transparent.”

Within months, the FDA allowed the makers of the robots to file a single report, noting that a spreadsheet sent straight to the FDA summarizes about 1,400 injuries alleged in lawsuits, with some injuries dating to 2004. Since then, the device maker has reported smaller batches of 99 and 130 injuries at a time.

“This is very frustrating,” said Homa Alemzadeh, an assistant professor of computer engineering at the University of Virginia who is working with MAUDE data to create software to identify errors in real time or before they happen in surgeries performed by robots. She said she was not aware of the reporting exemption.

Under another reporting exemption, the FDA is allowing device makers to report hundreds of death cases in spreadsheets sent directly to the agency.

Under the “registry exemption,” device makers can summarize what they learn from registries that tend to be held by specialty medical societies, and track the use of a certain kind of device, according to FDA spokeswoman Kotz. 

Kotz said the data in registries often falls short of the level of detail that the FDA seeks for the more thorough death reports that device makers are required to file.

Device makers filing such reports include Edwards Lifesciences, which makes the Sapien 3 valve that’s snaked through a vessel and implanted in the heart. Some hail the device as a breakthrough for saving patients from the trauma of open-heart surgery to replace a valve. Others raise concerns over limited data showing how long the valve will last in the body.

The summary reports offer potential patients few answers. Such reports document as many as 297 deaths or 1,800 injuries in a single filing, with virtually no detail readily available to the public. In all, Edwards has filed more than 1,800 Sapien 3 valve patient deaths as summaries since 2016.

Edwards spokeswoman Sarah Huoh said in an email that the FDA mandated the tracking of every patient who has the valve in the registry to provide “comprehensive evidence for device safety.”

“The approval of alternative reporting protects against duplicate reports coming from multiple sources,” Huoh said.

Another device, the MitraClip, is used to attach two flaps in the heart that are allowing blood to flow backward. The device has been controversial, with some scientists saying it is crucial for a certain subset of patients, and others pointing to the harm it can cause to the heart.

The FDA has allowed Abbott Vascular, which makes the MitraClip, to report as many as 347 deaths or 1,000 injuries in a single filing, also shipping the details straight to the agency, FDA records show.

An Abbott spokesman said in an email that the company has done clinical trials with thousands of patients to establish the MitraClip’s safety. He said the exemption was granted because data in the registry was stripped of patient identifiers, making it hard to know whether the company would be filing redundant reports to the FDA.

Last year, the FDA finalized regulations for yet another summary reporting program. Under the newest system, device makers do not have to seek an exemption or notify the FDA that they’ll be filing a public summary report in MAUDE.

The FDA has deemed the makers of more than 5,600 types of devices eligible to file “voluntary malfunction summary reports.” Among them are some of the riskiest devices the agency oversees, including cardiac stents, leadless pacemakers and mechanical heart valves.

The growing cadre of exceptions to the injury- and death-reporting rules strikes Dr. Michael Carome, director of the Public Citizen Health Research Group, as a retreat by the FDA from making crucial information available for researchers and patients.

“It’s just another example of a flawed oversight system,” he said, “bent toward making it easier for industry rather than making protection of public health the primary goal.”

Kaiser Health News reporter and producer Heidi de Marco contributed to this report.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

The post FDA Keeps A Database Of Medical Device Injuries Hidden From Doctors And Public appeared first on The Chestnut Post.

from The Chestnut Post https://thechestnutpost.com/news/fda-keeps-a-database-of-medical-device-injuries-hidden-from-doctors-and-public/

[democratsunited-blog]

As GOP scandals multiply, Democrats frame a careful message on corruption

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=8396

As GOP scandals multiply, Democrats frame a careful message on corruption

At the beginning of the year, President Trump had a clear advantage over Democrats on the issue of corruption. Voters saw him as too wealthy to be bought or bossed, an outsider intent on “draining the swamp.” But that advantage has diminished. In the wake of this week’s conviction and guilty plea of Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman and personal attorney, Democrats are now decrying the “cesspool of self-enrichment, secret money and ethical blindness” of Republican-controlled Washington, as House minority leader Nancy Pelosi put it on Tuesday. That includes the indictments of Rep. Duncan Hunter (R) of California on campaign finance abuses and Rep. Chris Collins (R) of New York for insider stock trading. Opinions about Trump are so hardened that it may only have a minimal impact on the upcoming midterm elections. But in divided America, elections are often won on the margins. And among “reluctant” Republicans – those who backed Trump in 2016 largely because they didn’t like Hillary Clinton – a “culture of corruption” message could have an impact. “They’re not a majority, but they are more than enough to tip a lot of these close elections,” says John Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif.

Washington

Opinions about President Trump are so hardened that this week’s bombshell conviction and guilty plea of his former campaign chairman and personal attorney may only have a minimal impact on the upcoming midterm elections.

But in divided America, elections are won on the margins – and that is where this week’s news, along with the indictment of Rep. Duncan Hunter (R) of California, could move the needle. In swing districts, particularly among “reluctant” Republicans, a “culture of corruption” message could influence voters, though Democrats are being very careful as to how they craft that message.

“The best thing that Trump has going for him right now is the polarization of the electorate. Probably most Republicans are sticking with him,” says John Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif. But this week’s developments could sway those voters who backed Mr. Trump in 2016 largely because they didn’t like Hillary Clinton, he says. “They’re not a majority, but they are more than enough to tip a lot of these close elections.”

Corruption is seldom a top issue for voters, says Mr. Pitney. It’s usually the economy, and that’s one thing that Republicans have in their favor. “But corruption can matter if people hear enough about it.”

That happened in 1994, when Rep. Newt Gingrich (R) of Georgia led a Republican takeover of the House for the first time in 40 years. He had a policy agenda, the “Contract with America,” but he also hammered home various scandals among House Democrats. 

The scandal strategy backfired, though, when House Republicans moved to impeach President Bill Clinton in 1998. Many voters viewed it as overreach for a president’s personal indiscretions, even though Mr. Clinton later admitted to making false statements. The move cost Republicans four seats in that year’s midterms, and Speaker Gingrich resigned – under an ethics cloud of his own.

“That was a complete flop of an effort – and of course, Newt Gingrich paid the price,” says former House historian Ray Smock.

It is not surprising then, that Democratic leaders are laying off the “i” word – impeachment – despite tremendous pressure from progressives and big-money Democrats such as Tom Steyer.

“It’s not a priority,” House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D) of California told the Associated Press after former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted Tuesday of bank and tax fraud and Michael Cohen, the president’s former attorney and “fixer,” pleaded guilty to bank and tax fraud charges as well as campaign finance violations.

Mr. Cohen directly implicated Trump as having ordered him to pay two women during the 2016 campaign to silence them about their alleged affairs with Trump. The president is now an “unindicted co-conspirator,” said Senate minority leader Charles Schumer (D) of New York on Wednesday, demanding that the Senate Judiciary Committee immediately pause consideration of the president’s US Supreme Court Nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh – to no avail.

Senator Schumer, too, waves off impeachment talk. For one thing, Democrats fear it will energize the Republican base. For another, they want the special counsel, Robert Mueller, to finish his work and report on Russian interference with the 2016 election and whether there was any collusion with the Trump campaign.

They are more than happy, however, to point to the “cesspool of self-enrichment, secret money and ethical blindness” of Republican-controlled Washington, as leader Pelosi put it in a statement Tuesday. That includes the indictments of Congressman Hunter on campaign finance abuses and Rep. Chris Collins (R) of New York for insider stock trading.

Both men were Trump’s very first congressional endorsers, and while Congressman Collins now says he will not seek reelection, a defiant Hunter is barreling ahead. He’s blasting a Justice Department “witch hunt” and media coverage for his troubles. He and his wife face dozens of criminal charges for misusing more than $250,000 in campaign funds on everything from European vacations to the water bill. Speaker Paul Ryan has stripped him of his committee assignments.

In a Trump-friendly Midwestern district, such as the one that Rep. Cheri Bustos (D) of Illinois handily won in 2016, “we can’t just be running on an anti-Trump message, even with everything that happened” this week, says Congresswoman Bustos. What Democrats should do, she says, is continue to emphasize kitchen-table issues, like healthcare costs and low wages, while also pointing out the Republicans’ failure to exercise proper oversight of the administration.

“You barely hear a peep out of them. They are literally rubber-stamping corruption,” she says.

Of course, Democrats are not scandal-free. A new Quinnipiac poll shows incumbent Sen. Robert Menendez (D) of New Jersey suddenly in a horse race now that the Senate ethics panel has “severely admonished” him. In January, the Justice Department dropped bribery and other charges against him after a mistrial. The poll finds that ethics is the number one issue in deciding how New Jersey voters will cast their ballot for US Senate.

Still, acting as a “check and balance” on the president is emerging as a powerful campaign theme, particularly among suburban women, where support for Trump is eroding, says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. This week’s news about Manafort and Cohen is likely to help outsider and female candidates, whom voters tend to see as “more honest.”

At the beginning of the year, it was the president who had the advantage over Democrats on corruption, says Ms. Lake. Among independents, he had as much as a 24-point lead, her polling showed. Voters saw him as too wealthy to be bought or bossed, an outsider intent on “draining the swamp.” But that advantage has diminished, she says.

Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the independent Sabato’s Crystal Ball political forecast, points out that Tuesday’s double-whammy against two former stars of Trump’s inner circle will probably not affect the president’s approval ratings. But that doesn’t mean it won’t matter in the battle for the House, because views of Trump are hardened in a way that is “poor for the president, and for his fellow Republicans.” 

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Trump’s ratings are “stuck” in the low-to-mid 40s, he writes, and this week’s news won’t raise them. A threat of impeachment could possibly rally Trump’s core supporters, but Trump and Republicans have a bigger problem than motivating the base, and that is a “persuasion problem with soft Republicans in the suburbs” who don’t like him.

If the political environment is favoring House Democrats, Republicans need something positive to improve Trump’s numbers, says Mr. Kondik in an interview. “This is not that.”

Read full story here

[thefeministherald]

The sanctuary for women is nestled next to a monastery deep in the Moscow suburbs, down a narrow snow-covered road with a white archway. Its name, Kitezh, is a reference to a Russian myth about a city hidden under a lake to protect its residents from attack. It fits for this small peach and white house, a shelter for victims of domestic violence who fear they aren’t safe anywhere else.

Inside are lime-green walls and rooms with bunk beds. Drawings of butterflies are displayed on a bookshelf. One woman with two kids came here after she was raped by her husband. Another was choked by her father before he kicked her and her young son out of their shared home. A third woman’s story is so traumatic she can’t bear to share it.

The rise of the #MeToo movement has pushed women’s issues to the forefront in the United States and other parts of the world. But deeply patriarchal attitudes still reign in Russia, as President Vladimir Putin’s government implements policies emphasizing the country’s alleged traditional values — including scaling back protections for abused women. It’s been a year since Russia decriminalized all but the most egregious or repeated domestic violence, and the penalty for a first offense that results in bruising or bleeding, but not broken bones, is a minimal fine or a maximum 15-day prison sentence.

The Russian Interior Ministry has estimated that 40 women a day and 14,000 women a year die at the hands of their husbands, while 600,000 face violent domestic abuse each year. Those numbers are incomplete because research indicates that as many as 60 to 70 percent of Russian women do not report domestic abuse.

“People have started to feel like there won’t be any punishment,” said Alyona Sadikova, director of the Kitezh shelter, run by a nongovernmental organization whose main sponsor is Rostelecom, a long-distance telephone provider. A few feet away, a five-year-old daughter of one of the women staying in the shelter folded pink and silver wrapping paper before pushing around a pink baby carriage.

itezh is often a last resort for these women and their families. Some stay for three months. Some leave after a few days. Some return to their abuser. The stories of how they got here are often similar. They called the police first, but with the penalty for domestic violence lessened to keep government from intervening in family matters, authorities are hesitant to act and often encourage reconciliation. 

After one woman at the shelter filed a report, she saw those same officers she spoke to smoking outside with the husband who beat her. These women didn’t know a doctor had to note the extent of their bruising in great specificity to prove injury. If a woman’s husband is deemed guilty, the fine is typically taken out of the family account, so the woman is essentially helping to pay for her husband to avoid prison.

Conservatives aligned with the influential Russian Orthodox Church helped the legislation to decriminalize domestic violence breeze through parliament last February by citing the importance of maintaining “traditional families.” Yelena Mizulina, a member of Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, told reporters in 2016 that women “don’t take offense when they see a man beat his wife” and that “a man beating his wife is less offensive than when a woman humiliates a man.” She reasoned that the problem isn’t domestic violence, but not enough respect and affection in relationships, particularly from women.

“The state just stopped calling these actions criminal actions,” said Nadezhda Zamotaeva, director of the Sisters Sexual Assault Recovery Center in Moscow. “The abuser now does not think that he’s committing a crime. He does what’s permitted, and he does what the state approves.”

Women outnumber men in Russia. According to 2015 United Nations data, Russia has among the fewest men per 100 women (86.8) of any country in the world. The divide begins around age 30, as suicide, alcohol and alcohol-related accidents begin to take a toll.

“If you even have a husband, you’re happy,” journalist Anna Zhavnerovich said. “He’s drinking and beating you, but at least you have one. If you’re born a boy, then it’s like you’re already a czar. If you’re born a girl, you didn’t get lucky. Just by birthright, men are on top of the world and the head of the family. So, women think if they complain, then maybe he will leave, and it’ll be worse. Even in today’s world where women are taught to strive for something more, it’s better to be wed. Maybe you won’t marry well, but you’re considered lucky because you’re the one who married out of your 10 girlfriends.”

Zhavnerovich’s story isn’t so different from the women at Kitezh. She filed a report with the police a week after she said her then-boyfriend beat her unconscious in 2015. She was miffed by the line of questioning by authorities; she said they asked her why she didn’t have any children or if she was married. She didn’t hear anything for several weeks and the case was eventually dropped with her ex-boyfriend never questioned.

Zhavnerovich felt the police were suggesting the attack was her fault. An episode of victim-blaming caused Ukrainian activist Anastasiya Melnychenko to start the #ImNotScaredToSpeak social media campaign. She was angered by an online discussion in 2016 that questioned what a rape victim was wearing or if she had been drunk. Melnychenko then shared her story of sexual violence and harassment that had started at age 6. The hashtag went viral, and other Ukrainian and Russian women followed suit. But there was online backlash, too, even from other women.

In an interview about the Harvey Weinstein scandal, Russian actress Agniya Kuznetsova told the website Meduza that the victims had “themselves to blame, they don’t have to act like prostitutes. Poor man, I feel sorry for him.”

With heightened political tensions between Russia and the United States, some of the pushback on stricter domestic violence legislation is often associated with fighting influence from the West. It’s what activist Alena Popova sees as the main hurdle as she now lobbies members of the Federation Council to support a law that would create restraining orders. An online petition in favor of such legislation has collected more than 250,000 signatures, and Popova is hopeful the law will be reviewed by the Russian parliament’s Committee on Family, Women and Children within the next six months.

“I’m literally running after these [parliament] deputies,” Popova said. “Just last week, for 22 minutes a deputy was in the men’s room so as to not see me. I asked him, ‘Do you think I will just leave? I will wait for you.’ ”

A restraining order could offer some protection for the women staying at the Kitezh shelter. The center temporarily closed on Feb. 7 to repair the upstairs flooring. Just as shelter director Sadikova started to list the tragic stories that lead women to the peach and white house, she got a phone call. The person on the other end of the line wanted to know if she had room for another woman.

“We’ll definitely take her,” Sadikova replied.

[junker-town]

Ezekiel Elliott's suspension and appeal, explained

Here’s everything you need to know about what led to Elliott’s suspension.

On Aug. 11, the NFL finally announced a six-game suspension for Ezekiel Elliott to start this season, after an investigation spanning more than a year. The suspension stems from domestic violence allegations made against Elliott in July 2016.

A woman who identified herself as Elliott’s ex-girlfriend filed a police report claiming Elliott had been abusive over the course of five days in July 2016. She filed two separate reports with the Columbus Police Department. Witnesses who claimed to have been present did not corroborate her statements, and police and prosecutors decided not to bring charges against Elliott.

Elliott filed an appeal, which was upheld, but it didn’t end there. The NFL and NFLPA were publicly at odds and took their fight to several different courts. In the end, Elliott will serve his full suspension..

Here’s everything that happened.

Why wasn’t Elliott charged?

Elliott’s accuser called police on July 22, 2016 to report a series of violent altercations with Elliott. Police did not arrest or charge Elliott at the time because they couldn’t confirm the woman’s version of the events or whether or not she and Elliott ever lived together. The officers who responded to the 911 call referred her to the Columbus City Attorney’s Office, according to the police report.

The prosecutor determined after reviewing the evidence that the “conflicting and inconsistent information” was not sufficient to charge Elliott. Ohio law also dictates that domestic violence charges can only be brought when a couple lives together, and law enforcement could not confirm Elliott lived with the woman at any point.

After the City Attorney’s Office concluded its investigation, it released all of the evidence collected, including witness statements, copies of text messages, and photographs of Elliott’s accuser’s injuries. Those documents showed that she was not truthful about the events of July 22.

On the night in question, the woman texted her friend who had accompanied her that evening and asked her to lie to police about what had occurred.

“If they ask he dragged me out of my car,” the text read. The friend later texted Elliott’s accuser to ask if she wanted her to lie. The accuser said yes.

The witness statements from that night contradicted her version of events, too. Of the five eyewitnesses who gave statements, including the woman’s friend, none corroborated Elliott’s accuser’s story. All five witnesses said no contact occurred between the woman and Elliott on that night.

The friend also confirmed that the woman had been involved in a physical altercation with another woman at a club earlier in the evening. Elliott told police that the woman’s bruises were the result of that fight.

Columbus prosecutor Robert S. Tobias said in October 2016 that he believed Elliott had been physical with his accuser but that his office didn’t have enough evidence to bring charges.

“For the Ezekiel Elliott matter, I personally believe that there were a series of interactions between Mr. Elliott and (his accuser) where violence occurred. However, given the totality of the circumstances, I could not firmly conclude exactly what happened. Saying something happened versus having sufficient evidence to criminally charge someone are two completely different things. Charging decisions are taken very seriously and we use best efforts to conduct thorough and detailed investigations,” Tobias wrote in an email to USA Today.

Why would the league suspend Elliott even though he was never charged?

The league’s policy does not rely on the same burden of proof as the legal system does. The personal conduct policy says that “persons who fail to live up to this standard of conduct are guilty of conduct detrimental and subject to discipline, even where the conduct itself does not result in conviction of a crime.”

The league is fully within its rights to suspend Elliott for conduct detrimental to the league, even though he wasn’t charged.

The NFL has a public relations problem when it comes to its handling of violence against women, and for good reason. The league has been inconsistent in doling out discipline.

In July 2014, Roger Goodell initially issued a two-game suspension to Ray Rice after Rice knocked his then-fiancée out in an elevator. The light suspension was reportedly the result of lobbying by the Ravens owner. Rice received an indefinite suspension and was cut by the Ravens after TMZ released a video of the incident.

Former Giants kicker Josh Brown was suspended for only one game by the NFL to start the 2016 season, despite a known history of violence against his wife. After re-opening the investigation based on “new information,” the NFL issued a new 6-game suspension to Brown on Sept. 8 — coincidentally, the day it expected a ruling from a federal court in Texas on a temporary restraining order that would allow Elliott to remain on the field.

With Elliott’s suspension, the NFL sets an example and illustrates that even a popular player isn’t above the league’s rules and consequences for violating them.

What did the NFL find in its investigation?

Elliott’s accuser made false statements to police about the night of July 22, 2016. But the NFL believed there was credible evidence that Elliott had been violent toward her three separate times earlier that week.

The league’s investigation reviewed police reports, witness statements, photographic evidence, texts and other metadata. It also interviewed Elliott, the accuser, and a dozen witnesses.

In the NFL’s letter to Elliott, it says the four external advisors to the investigation “individually were of the view that there is substantial and persuasive evidence supporting a finding that you engaged in physical violence against (the accuser) on multiple occasions during the week of July 16, 2016.”

Former Attorney General of New Jersey Peter Harvey, an independent advisor appointed by the league, spoke to the media via phone about what they learned over the course of the investigation. Harvey said that he came to the conclusion that Elliott had been physically violent toward his former girlfriend.

Harvey said it “raised suspicions” when witnesses who had given affidavits did not want to be interviewed by the NFL. He was also struck by an inability of Elliott’s representatives to explain the accuser’s injuries any other way, even with the bar fight she was reportedly in earlier in the evening on July 22, 2016.

“Mr. Elliott’s representatives suggested that maybe she was in a fight with another woman and the bruises, for example a bruise to her eye, and perhaps other bruises on her body, were sustained in that altercation,” Harvey said. “The NFL’s investigators talked to people who witnessed that altercation and it was revealed that neither woman landed a punch on the other; they pulled each other’s hair but they never hit each other with a balled-up fist or in any other way.”

The letter the league sent to Elliott suggests that Goodell shares that sentiment.

"However, in the Commissioner's judgment, there has been no persuasive evidence presented on your behalf with respect to how (the accuser’s) obvious injuries were incurred other than conjecture based on the presence of some of her bruising, which pre-dates your arrival in Columbus on July 16, 2016,” the letter read.

In another incident reviewed by the NFL, Elliott was caught on video lifting up a woman’s top in public at a St. Patrick’s Day parade. Elliott was not charged or arrested, and the league said it wasn’t a factor in Elliott’s suspension. The NFL did, however, say in its letter to Elliott that the behavior was “inappropriate and disturbing, and reflected a lack of respect for women.”

Elliott’s accuser also filed an incident report against Elliott for simple battery with the Aventura (Fla.) Police Department in Feb. 2016. That case was suspended, and Elliott was not charged. The league did not consider that case in its investigation because it happened before he was in the NFL.

Why did Elliott get a six-game suspension when other players didn’t?

Six games is the baseline punishment for first-time offenders who commit domestic violence. This standard was established after the league botched its handling of the Rice situation.

With Rice, the league issued a two-game suspension that was later changed to an indefinite ban after the video of Rice knocking out his then-fiancee went public. Rice’s wife, the victim, was present at his disciplinary hearing and gave a statement in support of her husband.

Goodell admitted he “didn’t get it right” with Rice’s discipline, and the league revised its domestic violence policy as a result and instituted that six-game threshold for players who violate it.

Greg Hardy was accused, and initially convicted, of domestic violence against a former girlfriend. The complaint alleged that Hardy hit her, dragged her, and threw her on a futon covered with firearms. Hardy’s conviction was overturned on appeal, in part because his accuser did not cooperate with prosecutors.

She also did not cooperate with the league’s investigation. Still, Hardy was suspended for 10 games, which is more than the baseline. The policy allows for that if there are “aggravating factors.” But his suspension was reduced to four games on appeal.

Perhaps the most shocking application of the personal conduct policy was the league’s decision to issue a one-game suspension to former Giants kicker Josh Brown after he was arrested for domestic violence against his wife. Brown referred to the incident that led to his arrest as “just a moment,” but police records showed that Brown had been accused of more than 20 acts of violence against his now-former wife.

The NFL defended the minimal consequences for Brown based on the fact that his former wife did not cooperate with the league’s investigation. The league later re-opened its investigation when documents were released in which Brown admitted to abusing his wife repeatedly. They issued a six-game suspension at the conclusion of that investigation.

Elliott’s accuser did cooperate with the league’s investigation into her allegations. She met with league investigators six times. They had concerns with her credibility, but the independent advisors assigned to the investigation found the woman’s version of events credible even when taking into account her false statement to police on July 22 and other inconsistencies.

The letter to Elliott announcing his suspension also noted that a lack of cooperation from Elliott wasn’t a factor. If Elliott had failed to cooperate, his suspension might have been longer.

Why did the investigation take so long?

Elliott and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones both lamented the length of the league’s investigation. It took over a year for a few reasons, including the NFLPA waiting until May to turn over Elliott’s phone records and other relevant documents to the NFL.

An NFL investigation into player conduct involves several moving parts. The league won’t even begin its inquiry until law enforcement finishes its process and determines whether or not to file charges. For Elliott, that happened when the Columbus City Attorney’s Office declined to pursue charges against him in Sept. 2016.

League investigators interviewed 12 different witnesses, including Elliott and his accuser, and reviewed thousands of text messages and other documents related to the domestic violence allegations. The text messages available to league investigators exceeded what law enforcement had to work with during its initial investigation, according to The Washington Post.

The NFL also reviewed forensic photographic evidence and consulted with two medical experts to determine the timeframe in which Elliott’s accuser’s injuries were likely to have occurred. The NFL said in its letter to Elliott that on three occasions the medical experts agreed photographs of the woman’s injuries looked “recent and consistent” with her version of what happened.

Who made the decision to suspend Elliott?

The decision to suspend Elliott was Goodell’s alone.

Goodell notably did not participate in the interviews conducted with Elliott or his accuser, according to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio. Harvey also said that the group of advisors spoke to Goodell individually to give him their opinions. Article 46 of the current collective bargaining agreement gives Goodell absolute power over player discipline.

The actual investigation was undertaken by several people. The league had multiple investigators talk to witnesses and work through the evidence.

A panel of independent advisors interviewed Elliott and evaluated the findings of the investigation. Those four people were Harvey, former player and Hall of Famer Kenneth Houston, Women of Color Network CEO Tonya Lovelace, and former United States Attorney and Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White. White was also instrumental in the Saints’ Bountygate investigation.

What happened with Elliott’s appeal with the NFL?

Elliott officially filed an appeal with the league on the Tuesday after he was suspended. The hearing began on Aug. 29 and concluded on Aug. 31. On Tuesday, Sept. 5, Henderson announced his decision on Elliott’s appeal. The suspension was upheld.

Henderson released a statement regarding his decision.

"As his designated Hearing Officer in this matter, my responsibility is to determine whether the Commissioner's decision on discipline of Mr. Elliott is arbitrary and capricious, meaning was it made on unreasonable grounds or without any proper consideration of circumstances,” Henderson said, via Adam Schefter. “It is not the responsibility, nor within the authority of, the Hearing Officer to conduct a de novo review of the case and second guess his decision.”

A foundation of Elliott’s appeal was to call his accuser’s credibility into question, according to Clarence Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The woman’s false statement to police about the events of the night of July 22, 2016, as well as her request that her friend lie to police on her behalf will surely be a part of it.

The information Hill obtained was part of the league’s 160-page report detailing the findings of the investigation. According to those documents, Lisa Friel, the NFL’s lead investigator, and Kia Roberts, the league’s director of investigations, both had concerns about Elliott’s accuser’s credibility.

The Star-Telegram reported that Roberts recommended no suspension for Elliott, and her recommendation was ignored. The interview Roberts conducted with Elliott’s accuser was extensive. Transcripts of some of the conversations with Elliott’s accuser, which were obtained by the Dallas Morning News, show that Roberts thoroughly questioned Elliott’s accuser about discrepancies in her account of these events.

A transcript of the appeal hearing obtained by the Dallas Morning News reveals that Elliott’s representatives did attack that point doggedly. Attorneys representing Elliott and the NFLPA identified what they identified as several flaws in the investigative approach, like Roger Goodell not meeting with either Elliott or his accuser and not making the accuser available to testify under oath at the appeal.

The NFL’s investigators were called to testify about the inconsistencies with the evidence and witness statements. Elliott’s representative, Jeffrey Kessler, said he believed it was the first time that a report had been filed from an NFL investigation without an investigator’s recommendation for discipline included.

The league leaned heavily on its use of forensic data and medical expert evaluation of photographs of Elliott’s accuser’s injuries in its decision to suspend. But Kessler said the forensic evidence was insufficient to fill the credibility gap. The NFLPA brought as a witness a medical expert who Kessler said would testify that you cannot assess the age of bruises from photos, which was an approach the league’s medical experts employed in the investigation.

Included in the league’s report of its findings is the revelation that the woman admitted to discussing the possibility of releasing videos of herself and Elliott having sex, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Charles Robinson. She and a friend spoke via text about using the videos for blackmail or selling them for a profit. The woman told investigators that she did not intend to blackmail Elliott, but this is likely to come up in Elliott’s appeal as well.

Elliott filed a report with the Frisco, Texas Police Department in Sept. 2016 alleging that his accuser had harassed him. Elliott said she called him more than 50 times over the span of a few hours and had hacked into his email account. That case is no longer active.

The appeal could have been heard either by Goodell or by an arbitrator Goodell designated. Goodell selected Harold Henderson, who also heard the appeals of Hardy and Adrian Peterson. Henderson has denied a request from Elliott’s representatives to make his accuser available to testify during the appeal hearing. Henderson also declined to release transcripts and notes from meetings with Elliott’s accuser.

In Hardy’s case, Henderson determined that the 10-game suspension issued by the league was excessive. Henderson reduced Hardy’s suspension to four games. Henderson upheld Peterson’s suspension. Both Peterson and Hardy were suspended before the league adopted its current domestic violence policy in Dec. 2014.

Elliott, Roberts, and the NFLPA’s forensics expert all testified before Henderson. The appeal hearing was initially scheduled for two days, but was extended after the NFL decided to make a witness available by telephone after initially refusing.

Henderson had three options: overturn the suspension, uphold the six-game suspension, or reduce the number of games Elliott is suspended. Henderson chose to uphold the suspension.

What happened in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas?

The NFLPA and Elliott’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas to vacate any suspension that may be handed down after the appeals process, citing “the most fundamentally unfair arbitral processes conceivable.”

On Friday, Sept. 8, Judge Amos Mazzant, a federal court judge in Texas, ruled on a motion for a temporary restraining order or an injunction to block Elliott’s suspension until Elliott’s lawsuit against the NFL is completed. Mazzant ruled in Elliott’s favor and issued the injunction.

The NFLPA issued a statement immediately after the ruling.

Our statement on today's ruling on the temporary restraining order in the Ezekiel Elliott case: http://pic.twitter.com/g46h7qh2GI

— NFLPA (@NFLPA) September 8, 2017

Mazzant said that he issued the injunction because this is not a matter of guilt or innocence, but whether or not the disciplinary process was applied properly.

“The Court finds, based upon the injunction standard, that Elliott was denied a fundamentally fair hearing by Henderson’s refusal to allow Thompson and Goodell to testify at the arbitration hearing,” Mazzant said in the ruling.

The following Monday, the NFL filed an appeal of the injunction. Two days later, the NFLPA filed an opposition, saying “The NFL faces no threat of irreparable harm if the stay is not granted, while others, including both Elliott and the Cowboys, will suffer substantial — in fact, severe and irreparable — harm."

In its motion, the NFL said that if Mazzant did not issue a ruling by the close of business on Thursday, Sept. 14, that it would appeal to a higher court. Mazzant did not issue a decision, and the NFL filed an emergency motion with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals the following morning, according to sports and gaming attorney Daniel Wallach.

Elliott’s team didn’t take long to issue a response via a statement obtained by NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

“The NFL’s latest maneuvering appears to be indicative of a league with an agenda: trying to navigate a public relations crisis rather than focus on fairness and fact finding,” the statement read.

Mazzant later ruled that the injunction would stand.

What happened in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals?

In the NFL’s motion to the 5th Circuit Court, the league challenged Mazzant’s subject matter jurisdiction because the case was filed before the NFL appeal was settled. The league’s attorneys relied on labor case law that grants deference to labor arbitrators in these matters.

An oral argument was held in before a three-judge panel in the 5th Circuit Court on Oct. 2 on the NFL’s emergency motion for a stay. Elliott was not present, but representatives for the NFLPA and NFL were.

The league asserted that allowing Elliott to take the field did irreparable harm to the NFL, as it challenged the league’s ability to enforce the CBA and impacted competitive advantage. In its response, the NFLPA countered that it was in fact the NFL and its appointed arbitrator who were interfering with CBA procedures because of the way Elliott’s investigation was handled.

Two key questions were presented by the panel of judges, one to each side, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. They asked Elliott’s and the NFLPA’s attorneys if any court had accepted the argument that a lawsuit could be filed prior to the NFL’s arbitrator issuing a decision.

The NFL’s representatives were asked to explain why the league was willing to let Elliott play in Week 1 when the crux of their emergency motion was that it would cause irreparable harm to the league.

The court finally issued its decision on Thursday, Oct. 12. The panel of three judges sided with the NFL in a split decision on the basis that the federal court that issued the injunction did not have subject matter jurisdiction. Elliott’s six-game suspension was reinstated, and the NFL said it is effective immediately.

The court also ordered the District Court of Eastern Texas to dismiss Elliott’s case entirely. The NFLPA asked the court to recall that mandate, but the court denied that motion.

However, Elliott’s representatives have asked for a rehearing. They petitioned the court for an en banc hearing, which would involve all of the judges in the 5th Circuit as opposed to a panel of three judges.

What happened in the U.S. District Court in New York?

On Oct. 16, the NFLPA filed a motion for a temporary restraining order with the New York Southern District Court. A judge granted the TRO on Oct. 17, but it only remained in place until Oct. 30. Elliott was eligible to play during this time.

This is the same court that heard Tom Brady’s Deflategate appeal. In that case, it sided with the NFL and upheld Brady’s suspension. However, the issue of “fundamental fairness” is the crux of Elliott and the NFLPA’s argument.

The NFLPA filed with this court for a preliminary injunction. There was an evidentiary hearing on Oct. 30 involving both sides. Judge Katherine Polk Failla issued her decision that evening, ruling against Elliott. The court issued a 24-hour stay on the order reinstating Elliott’s suspension to give the NFLPA an opportunity to file an emergency appeal.

The union did file an appeal and as expected Judge Failla did not overturn her own ruling. The NFLPA then filed an emergency appeal with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Failla’s husband was one of the attorneys who worked on crafting the collective bargaining agreement, which caused some to raise the question of whether or not Failla should have recused herself from a case involving the NFL and NFLPA. This is not a true conflict of interest, and she is under no legal obligation to do so, according to sports and gaming law attorney Daniel Wallach.

What happened in the 2nd Circuit Court?

The NFLPA appealed Judge Failla’s ruling, and Elliott was granted a temporary stay on Friday, Nov. 3 by the 2nd Circuit. That allowed Elliott to play in the Cowboys’ Week 9 matchup against the Chiefs, but it was not a resolution.

The NFLPA asked for an injunction from the court to allow Elliott to continue playing after Week 9. A hearing was held on that on Thursday, Nov. 9, but a three-panel judge denied an emergency injunction for Elliott. The decision said that Elliott “failed to meet the requisite standard” for injunctive relief. Elliott’s suspension then began immediately. He did not play in the Cowboys’ Week 10 loss to the Falcons, and three days later, Elliott announced that he was dropping all appeals.

Elliott will serve his entire six-game suspension and will return on Dec. 24 against the Seahawks.

Who else has been involved in the situation?

Elliott, who has maintained his innocence throughout this process, responded swiftly via his personal Twitter account after the league’s decision was first announced in August:

http://pic.twitter.com/NYTawLdplN

— Ezekiel Elliott (@EzekielElliott) August 12, 2017

Elliott’s attorneys also released a statement that day.

"The NFL's findings are replete with factual inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions and it 'cherry picks' so called evidence to support its conclusion while ignoring other critical evidence,” the statement read in part.

Jones was reportedly “furious” about the league’s decision, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Jones had maintained that he did not expect Elliott to face discipline.

“There’s nothing,” Jones told USA Today in July. “I have reviewed everything. There is absolutely nothing, not one thing I’ve seen that has anything to do with domestic violence. I’ve seen nothing.”

On the day Elliott filed his appeal, Jones declined to comment.

“I don’t have anything to say about any of the appeal or anything about that issue, today,” Jones said via the team’s website. “But certainly I’ll be visiting with you guys about it in the future. Right now, today, is just not the time for me to talk about it.”

Elliott spoke to the media after the 2nd Circuit granted him a stay for Week 9.

“This is my name and my reputation,” Elliott said, via ESPN’s Josina Anderson. “That’s something I have to live with beyond football, so every day is worth fighting.”

Why are the NFL and NFLPA trading barbs about Elliott’s case?

The NFL and NFLPA engaged in a war of words via Twitter about the situation after the suspension was annouced:

New NFL statement http://pic.twitter.com/KJ64RDHVB2

— Brian McCarthy (@NFLprguy) August 16, 2017

The public statement issued on behalf of every NFL owner is a lie. The NFLPA categorically denies the accusations made in this statement. http://pic.twitter.com/OFOGQY91Ai

— NFLPA (@NFLPA) August 16, 2017

The league wasn’t happy with Elliott’s plan to discredit his accuser in his appeal or the NFLPA’s role in it. While the record shows that the woman was dishonest at times, shifting blame to a victim is “shameful,” in the words of NFL Executive Vice President of Communications Joe Lockhart.

On the NFLPA side, it simply said the league was lying and it never leaked derogatory information about Elliott’s accuser to the media. This contentious back-and-forth has continued throughout the court process.

After the 5th Circuit Court sided with the NFL, the NFLPA said, “The appellate court decision focuses on the jurisdictional issues. The failures of due process by the NFL articulated in the district court's decision were not addressed.”

The NFPA had one final, point statement, after Elliott announced he was dropping his appeal:

"On behalf of all players, the Union appealed the suspension of Ezekiel Elliott to its logical conclusion and we are withdrawing our lawsuit.

“Our vigilant fight on behalf of Ezekiel once again exposed the NFL's disciplinary process as a sham and a lie. They hired several former federal prosecutors, brought in “experts” and imposed a process with the stated goal of "getting it right," yet the management council refuses to step in and stop repeated manipulation of an already awful League-imposed system."

Is it really over?

Yes. Although Elliott accepted his suspension, the NFLPA could have continued to fight the NFL in court. The union’s battle with the league was always about the collective bargaining agreement, not about whether Elliott was innocent or guilty.

But the NFLPA dropped its lawsuit once Elliott decided he would serve his six-game suspension without any further appeals.

It took longer than three months for Elliott to begin his suspension, which isn’t nearly as long as Deflategate lasted. There’s clearly a big difference between domestic violence and deflating footballs, but both dealt with labor law matters.

Brady served a four-game suspension to start the 2016 season for his role in the Deflategate controversy. The league announced Brady’s suspension on May 11, 2015, and the NFLPA filed an appeal on Brady’s behalf on May 14. The appeal was set for June 23, and Goodell announced that he would uphold the suspension on June 28.

Brady filed a federal lawsuit, and nearly a year later the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals eventually determined Goodell did have the authority to issue the suspension. Brady announced on July 15, 2016 that he would accept the suspension and not take the case to the Supreme Court.

Because of the precedent set by that ruling, Elliott and the NFLPA likely would have had the same fate in court if they had continued to fight it. And it would have lasted many more months.

[tvbits-blog]

Trump will not win. in fact, the US could possibly be about the brink of a liberal renaissance

For significantly of days gone by year, Donald Trump had lived something of a charmed political life. Sure, he scapegoated Mexican immigrants along with Muslims (not some, however all). He lobbed crude insults in a female journalist and something having a disability. He attacked his opponents together with monikers for example “Lyin’ Ted” along with “Little Marco”, mocked Jeb Bush if anyone are “low energy” and in comparison Ben Carson to a child molester. He even went following previous Republican presidential nominees, which includes 2008 nominee John McCain, which he has been quoted saying ended up being simply no war hero as the North Vietnamese captured him. and he demonstrated, repeatedly, that he ended up being immensely unqualified for your job involving president regarding United States.

Yet none regarding it seemed to matter for you to Republican voters. Trump’s poll numbers steadily increased, his main along with caucus victories steadily piled up then one Republican opponent following yet another fell through the wayside, not in any position to stop him. Even recent polls confirmed him neck and neck using the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump repeatedly calls Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’ But last week, when Trump launched a new vicious as well as nakedly racist attack against Gonzalo Curiel, your judge in his Trump College fraud case, the particular halo about Trump began to compromise – plus it offered a new beneficial reminder concerning why Trump features practically zero possibility of winning your presidency. Very simply, your Republican electorate looks absolutely nothing such as the remaining American electorate. Trump has systematically alienated the particular demographic teams which he will need to acquire the particular White House Trump’s broadsides against Judge Curiel certainly surpassed any line. Your presumptive GOP nominee suggested that the judge’s “bad decisions” against him were not the effect of Curiel’s interpretation in the law, yet rather because, as Trump place it, he’s the “Mexican” (Curiel was born within Indiana). Since Trump has a harsh take a look at illegal immigration via Mexico, Trump alleged in which Curiel’s ethnic heritage made it impossible pertaining to him in order to provide unbiased judgments on Trump’s case. This is, as even Republicans have pointed out, the textbook definition of racism. Trump additionally intimated in which Curiel should be investigated and also that will if he wins the actual White Residence he might even retaliate against the judge directly. In Which he's openly attacking the particular federal judiciary, as he runs to get an office with the duty of appointing federal judges, represents the fundamental disrespect for your rule of the law and also raises legitimate issues concerning whether Trump, as president, would enforce court orders using which usually he disagrees. Still, it’s tough to find out how Trump’s remarks about Curiel had been just about any more serious compared to his earlier feedback with regards to Mexican criminals or his proposed Muslim ban. they practically pale next to his sinister pledge to investigate Amazon, since its CEO furthermore owns your Washington Submit and Trump has been unhappy with the few of that paper’s coverage involving him. Inside your American constitutional system, this would be an impeachable offence. What has changed is usually that Trump has shifted his attacks coming from foreign targets to real American citizens, rendering it harder for even Republicans in order to defend them. Moreover, the context in which these were delivered has been completely different. Throughout the particular Republican primaries, GOP voters are not a lot involved with regards to Trump’s xenophobic and bigoted attacks. all associated with his fellow presidential aspirants were calling pertaining to Syrian Muslims to become banned from getting into the actual US, often railed against illegal immigration along with more than several implicitly referred in order to as for the US to commit war crimes throughout its fight from the Islamic State. Trump just went a step further along with there’s significant evidence that they assisted him one associated with the Republican rank and file. The stories anyone must read, in a new single handy email read more But today, Trump isn't battling pertaining to support among Republican voters – he’s attempting to earn more than Democrats and also independents. Rather when compared with facing opponents have been largely unbothered by simply Trump’s bigotry, he’s now in the fight against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party. they possess a very different view upon these matters. This, inside a nutshell, will be Trump’s problem: to win the actual Republican nomination he needed to take extreme positions on a host of issues. He required to demonise illegal immigration. that strategy doesn’t perform amongst non-Republican voters. Indeed, regarding all the concerns raised through liberals in regards for you to the possibility that Trump could win, less attention continues in order to be paid for the undeniable fact that Trump is a uniquely unpopular figure – strongly THE BEST TRUMP VIDEO disliked by Democrats, independents and even many Republicans. Current polls reveal that Hillary Clinton scores greater than Trump among females voters simply by a lot a lot more than 20 points. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Current polls demonstrate that Hillary Clinton scores greater than Trump amongst women voters by more than 20 points. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP The purpose offers significantly to do using demographics: Trump provides systematically alienated the demographic teams which he will need to acquire your White House. four many years ago, when Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney inside the presidential election, he won by 5 million votes. starting through that will baseline, Trump requirements in order to regain a minimal of 2.5 million votes just to destroy even within the well-known vote. Nevertheless to complete so he'd must boost upon Romney’s dismal 27% assistance among Hispanic voters. that will be difficult with regard to Trump, thinking about that, according to a quantity of polls, he’s viewed unfavourably simply by a lot much more than 80% of Hispanics. This year, an estimated 30% with the US electorate will possibly be non-white. Trump will most likely do a whole lot worse compared to Romney as well as acquire a new little fraction of these votes. Then you will find his problems with females voters. Throughout 2012, Obama won these simply by 11 points more than Romney. recent polls display Clinton winning this group through more than 20 points. of course, whilst there are no assures that will these quantities hold up, if just so long as Clinton does also as Obama did 4 a long time ago, she is going to be very difficult to beat. Proper now, she’s outperforming him. There can additionally be the Democrats’ advantage within the electoral college, the proven fact that Trump doesn’t possess a lot marketing campaign money and virtually simply no marketing campaign infrastructure and the fact that numerous Republicans are usually trying to distance on their own coming from him. Indeed, it’s so tough to see how Trump could earn that the real issue regarding 2016 is most likely not your White House, nevertheless rather Congress, that Republicans currently control and, inside the case regarding an electoral bloodbath for the GOP, could potentially lose. In your event that that were for you to happen, Hillary Clinton would use a Democratic Congress as well as the possibility to push through dozens regarding pieces of progressive legislation. Ironically, Trump’s rise, instead of signalling any turn towards nativist, authoritarian politics inside the US, could, within the electorate’s rejection regarding him, usher in a more progressive political era. Michael Any Cohen is author involving Are Living Through your Marketing Campaign Trail: Your Greatest Presidential campaign Speeches in the Twentieth Century and That They Shaped Modern America

[imalicious-blog1]

Trump will not win. Inside fact, the US could possibly be on the brink of the liberal renaissance

For much associated with yesteryear year, Donald Trump had lived something of your charmed political life. Sure, he scapegoated Mexican immigrants and Muslims (not some, however all). He lobbed crude insults in a female journalist and something having a disability. He attacked his opponents along with monikers like “Lyin’ Ted” along with “Little Marco”, mocked Jeb Bush for being “low energy” and in comparison Ben Carson in order to a younger child molester. He even went right after prior Republican presidential nominees, which includes 2008 nominee John McCain, that he has been quoted saying was zero war hero since the North Vietnamese captured him. And Also he demonstrated, repeatedly, which he has been immensely unqualified for that job associated with president associated with United States. Yet none associated with it seemed for you to make a difference for you to Republican voters. Trump’s poll quantities steadily increased, his main and caucus victories steadily piled up and something Republican opponent following an additional fell by the wayside, not able to stop him. Also recent polls confirmed him neck and also neck with the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump repeatedly calls Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’ But last week, when Trump launched a vicious along with nakedly racist attack against Gonzalo Curiel, the particular judge in his Trump College fraud case, the halo about Trump began to hack – plus it offered any useful reminder as to why Trump provides practically zero potential for winning your presidency. Fairly simply, the actual Republican electorate looks nothing like the remaining portion associated with the American electorate.

Trump offers systematically alienated the demographic groups he will have to acquire the particular White House Trump’s They Said He Couldn't Win broadsides against Judge Curiel certainly surpassed a line. Your presumptive GOP nominee suggested the judge’s “bad decisions” against him were not the end result of Curiel’s interpretation of the law, yet rather because, as Trump put it, he’s a new “Mexican” (Curiel was created in Indiana). Since Trump includes a harsh look at illegal immigration coming from Mexico, Trump alleged that Curiel’s ethnic heritage made it impossible with regard to him for you to supply unbiased judgments upon Trump’s case. This particular is, as even Republicans have pointed out, the textbook definition of racism. Trump additionally intimated in which Curiel needs to always be able to be investigated and also that if he wins your White Home he might even retaliate from the judge directly. that he is openly attacking the actual federal judiciary, as he runs to have an workplace with the responsibility associated with appointing federal judges, represents the fundamental disrespect for your rule regarding regulations and raises genuine concerns regarding whether Trump, as president, would enforce court orders using that he disagrees. Still, it’s hard to see how Trump’s feedback concerning Curiel were any more serious as compared to his earlier feedback about Mexican criminals or perhaps his proposed Muslim ban. That They practically pale subsequent for you to his sinister pledge to investigate Amazon, simply because its CEO additionally owns the particular Washington Submit and Trump continues to be unhappy with the few of the paper’s coverage involving him. Throughout the particular American constitutional system, this would be an impeachable offence. What has changed is that Trump provides shifted his attacks via foreign targets for you to actual American citizens, which tends to end up being able to make it more challenging for even Republicans to defend them. Moreover, your context in which these folks were delivered ended up being totally different. during the Republican primaries, GOP voters were not much worried regarding Trump’s xenophobic along with bigoted attacks. Just About All of his fellow presidential aspirants were calling with regard to Syrian Muslims being banned from going into the particular US, often railed against illegal immigration and more than several implicitly known as for your US in order to commit war crimes inside its fight against the Islamic State. Trump just went a step further and there’s significant evidence that they helped him among the Republican rank and file. The stories an individual have to read, in the single handy email Study more But today, Trump is not battling for assistance among Republican voters – he’s trying to acquire more than Democrats along with independents. Rather when compared with facing opponents have been mainly unbothered simply by Trump’s bigotry, he’s now inside a fight against Hillary Clinton and additionally the Democratic party. They Will possess a different view in these matters. This, in the nutshell, can be Trump’s problem: in order to win the particular Republican nomination he needed to adopt extreme positions on a host regarding issues. He needed to demonise illegal immigration. In Which strategy doesn’t perform amongst non-Republican voters. Indeed, pertaining to every 1 regarding the concerns raised through liberals in regards to end up being able to the possibility in which Trump could win, less focus has been paid for the undeniable fact that Trump is truly a uniquely unpopular figure – strongly disliked through Democrats, independents and also many Republicans. Current polls demonstrate that Hillary Clinton scores greater than Trump amongst women voters simply by more than 20 points. Facebook Twitter Pinterest recent polls reveal that Hillary Clinton scores more than Trump among females voters through greater than 20 points. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP The purpose has much to complete along with demographics: Trump offers systematically alienated the actual demographic groups which he will have to acquire the White House. four a lengthy time ago, when Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney within the presidential election, he won through 5 million votes. starting from that will baseline, Trump needs in order to get back a minimal of 2.5 million votes just to destroy even in the well-liked vote. Nevertheless to accomplish therefore he would have to boost about Romney’s dismal 27% assistance amongst Hispanic voters. that will be tough pertaining to Trump, considering that, according to a few polls, he’s viewed unfavourably through a lot more than 80% of Hispanics. This year, an estimated 30% in the US electorate will most likely be non-white. Trump will most likely do even worse than Romney and earn a new tiny fraction regarding these votes. Then there are his problems with females voters. Within 2012, Obama won all of them by simply 11 points more than Romney. Current polls show Clinton winning this team by simply more than 20 points. Associated With course, whilst there are not really any assures that will these quantities hold up, if just such a extended time as Clinton really does too as Obama does four a prolonged time ago, the lady is likely to be extremely challenging to beat. Proper now, she’s outperforming him. There can additionally be the particular Democrats’ benefit within the electoral college, the fact that Trump doesn’t possess much marketing campaign money along with virtually no campaign infrastructure as well as the fact that lots of Republicans are usually trying to length themselves coming from him. Indeed, it’s thus tough to find out how Trump can get the real issue for 2016 may not really be your White House, yet rather Congress, that Republicans at present control and, within the case regarding an electoral bloodbath for the GOP, could potentially lose. When that were for you to happen, Hillary Clinton would use a Democratic Congress and in addition the possibility to push by means of dozens involving bits of progressive legislation. Ironically, Trump’s rise, instead of signalling any turn toward nativist, authoritarian politics within the US, could, within the electorate’s rejection regarding him, usher inside a more progressive political era. Michael Any Cohen is actually author involving live Through your campaign Trail: Your Greatest Presidential campaign Speeches with the Twentieth Century as well as how They Shaped Modern America

[goldzzona-blog]

Trump will not win. Within fact, the particular US might be about the brink of the liberal renaissance

For a lot associated with the past year, Donald Trump had lived something of your charmed political life. Sure, he scapegoated Mexican immigrants and also Muslims (not some, however all). He lobbed crude insults at a female journalist and one with a disability. He attacked his opponents with monikers for example “Lyin’ Ted” and “Little Marco”, mocked Jeb Bush if an individual are “low energy” and also in comparison Ben Carson for you to a child molester. He even went right after previous Republican presidential nominees, including 2008 nominee John McCain, whom he said was absolutely no war hero because the North Vietnamese captured him. Along With he demonstrated, repeatedly, which he has been immensely unqualified for your job regarding president associated with United States. Yet none regarding it seemed to become able to issue for you to Republican voters. Trump’s poll figures steadily increased, his main and also caucus victories steadily piled up and one Republican opponent following an additional fell from the wayside, struggling to quit him. Actually recent polls confirmed him neck and also neck with the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump repeatedly calls Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’ But last week, when Trump launched the vicious along with nakedly racist attack against Gonzalo Curiel, the actual judge inside his Trump College fraud case, your halo around Trump began to crack – also it offered the beneficial reminder as to why Trump has practically absolutely no potential for winning the particular presidency. Fairly simply, the actual Republican electorate looks nothing like the remaining portion involving the American electorate. Trump provides systematically alienated the particular demographic groups that he will must acquire the particular White House Trump’s broadsides against Judge Curiel certainly intersected a new line. The Actual presumptive GOP nominee suggested that the judge’s “bad decisions” against him are not the finish result associated with Curiel’s interpretation of the law, however rather because, as Trump place it, he’s the “Mexican” (Curiel came in order to be within Indiana). Since Trump features a harsh take a peek at illegal immigration via Mexico, Trump alleged which Curiel’s ethnic heritage managed to end up being able to get impossible for him in order to supply unbiased judgments in Trump’s case. This is, as even Republicans get pointed out, the actual textbook definition of racism. Trump furthermore intimated which Curiel ought for you to be investigated along with in which if he wins your White Home he might even retaliate contrary to become able to the judge directly. Which he could be openly attacking the actual federal judiciary, as he runs to get an office with all the duty involving appointing federal judges, represents any fundamental disrespect for your rule involving regulations as well as raises genuine problems as to whether as well as not Trump, as president, would enforce court orders using that he disagrees. Still, it’s tough to observe how Trump’s comments about Curiel had been any kind of even worse when compared with his earlier feedback concerning Mexican criminals as well as his proposed Muslim ban. they practically pale subsequent to always be able to his sinister pledge to analyze Amazon, since its CEO additionally owns the actual Washington Submit as well as Trump may be unhappy with some of the paper’s coverage regarding him. Throughout the particular American constitutional system, this will be an impeachable offence.

What has changed is the very fact that Trump features shifted his attacks via foreign targets in order to real American citizens, rendering it tougher for even Republicans in order to defend them. Moreover, the context by which these folks were delivered was totally different. Throughout the actual Republican primaries, GOP voters weren't much concerned concerning Trump’s xenophobic and bigoted attacks. Just About All of his fellow presidential aspirants were calling regarding Syrian Muslims being banned from coming into the US, often railed against illegal immigration along with more than several implicitly known as for your US to commit war crimes within its fight against the Islamic State. Trump just went a stride further and there’s significant evidence they helped him among the Republican rank along with file. The stories anyone have to read, in the single handy email read more But today, Trump is not battling regarding support amongst Republican voters – he’s trying to earn over Democrats as well as independents. Rather compared to facing opponents who were largely unbothered through Trump’s bigotry, he’s now inside a fight against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party. That They have a very different view on these matters. This, inside a nutshell, is actually Trump’s problem: to acquire the particular Republican nomination he necessary to take intense positions on the host regarding issues. He needed to demonise illegal immigration. that strategy does not work among non-Republican voters. Indeed, for every 1 associated with the concerns raised by simply liberals concerning the possibility that Trump could win, less focus continues in order to be paid out for the proven fact that Trump can end up being a uniquely unpopular figure – strongly disliked by simply Democrats, independents as well as many Republicans. Latest polls reveal that Hillary Clinton scores higher than Trump among ladies voters by simply greater than 20 points. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Latest polls demonstrate that Hillary Clinton scores greater than Trump among females voters by a lot much more than 20 points. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP The purpose features significantly to do along with demographics: Trump features systematically alienated the demographic teams which he will have to acquire your White House. four years ago, when Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in the presidential election, he won simply by 5 million votes. Beginning from that will baseline, Trump wants to be able to get back a minimal of 2.5 million votes just to destroy even inside the well-known vote. However to complete thus he'd must improve on Romney’s dismal 27% assistance amongst Hispanic voters. that will most likely be difficult for Trump, considering that, in accordance with some polls, he’s viewed unfavourably by simply greater than 80% of Hispanics. This year, an estimated 30% in the THE BEST TRUMP VIDEO US electorate is likely to be non-white. Trump will likely do more serious than Romney along with win any little fraction regarding these votes. Then you may find his problems with women voters. Within 2012, Obama won these people through 11 factors more than Romney. Latest polls show Clinton winning this team simply by greater than twenty points. Involving course, although there are no ensures in which these quantities hold up, if just so very long as Clinton will also as Obama did 4 years ago, the girl is likely to be extremely hard to beat. right now, she’s outperforming him. There can furthermore be the Democrats’ benefit within the electoral college, the particular proven fact that Trump doesn’t possess significantly marketing campaign money and also virtually zero marketing campaign infrastructure and the fact that many Republicans are generally wanting to length themselves coming from him. Indeed, it’s therefore tough to observe how Trump can easily get that the real issue for 2016 may not necessarily be the White House, nevertheless rather Congress, which in turn Republicans currently control and, inside the case regarding an electoral bloodbath for that GOP, could potentially lose. When that get been to happen, Hillary Clinton would possess a Democratic Congress as well as the opportunity to push by means of dozens associated with bits of progressive legislation. Ironically, Trump’s rise, rather than signalling a new turn toward nativist, authoritarian politics inside the US, could, in the electorate’s rejection regarding him, usher inside a more progressive political era. Michael A New Cohen will be author involving Are Living Via the Marketing Campaign Trail: The Particular Greatest Presidential Marketing Campaign Speeches with the 20th Century and also how They Shaped Modern America

[junker-town]

Ezekiel Elliott's suspension and appeal, explained

Here’s everything you need to know about what led to Elliott’s suspension.

On Aug. 11, the NFL finally announced a six-game suspension for Ezekiel Elliott to start this season, after an investigation spanning more than a year. The suspension stems from domestic violence allegations made against Elliott in July 2016.

A woman who identified herself as Elliott’s ex-girlfriend filed a police report claiming Elliott had been abusive over the course of five days in July 2016. She filed two separate reports with the Columbus Police Department. Witnesses who claimed to have been present did not corroborate her statements, and police and prosecutors decided not to bring charges against Elliott.

Elliott filed an appeal, which was upheld, but it didn’t end there. The NFL and NFLPA were publicly at odds and took their fight to several different courts. In the end, Elliott will serve his full suspension..

Here’s everything that happened.

Why wasn’t Elliott charged?

Elliott’s accuser called police on July 22, 2016 to report a series of violent altercations with Elliott. Police did not arrest or charge Elliott at the time because they couldn’t confirm the woman’s version of the events or whether or not she and Elliott ever lived together. The officers who responded to the 911 call referred her to the Columbus City Attorney’s Office, according to the police report.

The prosecutor determined after reviewing the evidence that the “conflicting and inconsistent information” was not sufficient to charge Elliott. Ohio law also dictates that domestic violence charges can only be brought when a couple lives together, and law enforcement could not confirm Elliott lived with the woman at any point.

After the City Attorney’s Office concluded its investigation, it released all of the evidence collected, including witness statements, copies of text messages, and photographs of Elliott’s accuser’s injuries. Those documents showed that she was not truthful about the events of July 22.

On the night in question, the woman texted her friend who had accompanied her that evening and asked her to lie to police about what had occurred.

“If they ask he dragged me out of my car,” the text read. The friend later texted Elliott’s accuser to ask if she wanted her to lie. The accuser said yes.

The witness statements from that night contradicted her version of events, too. Of the five eyewitnesses who gave statements, including the woman’s friend, none corroborated Elliott’s accuser’s story. All five witnesses said no contact occurred between the woman and Elliott on that night.

The friend also confirmed that the woman had been involved in a physical altercation with another woman at a club earlier in the evening. Elliott told police that the woman’s bruises were the result of that fight.

Columbus prosecutor Robert S. Tobias said in October 2016 that he believed Elliott had been physical with his accuser but that his office didn’t have enough evidence to bring charges.

“For the Ezekiel Elliott matter, I personally believe that there were a series of interactions between Mr. Elliott and (his accuser) where violence occurred. However, given the totality of the circumstances, I could not firmly conclude exactly what happened. Saying something happened versus having sufficient evidence to criminally charge someone are two completely different things. Charging decisions are taken very seriously and we use best efforts to conduct thorough and detailed investigations,” Tobias wrote in an email to USA Today.

Why would the league suspend Elliott even though he was never charged?

The league’s policy does not rely on the same burden of proof as the legal system does. The personal conduct policy says that “persons who fail to live up to this standard of conduct are guilty of conduct detrimental and subject to discipline, even where the conduct itself does not result in conviction of a crime.”

The league is fully within its rights to suspend Elliott for conduct detrimental to the league, even though he wasn’t charged.

The NFL has a public relations problem when it comes to its handling of violence against women, and for good reason. The league has been inconsistent in doling out discipline.

In July 2014, Roger Goodell initially issued a two-game suspension to Ray Rice after Rice knocked his then-fiancée out in an elevator. The light suspension was reportedly the result of lobbying by the Ravens owner. Rice received an indefinite suspension and was cut by the Ravens after TMZ released a video of the incident.

Former Giants kicker Josh Brown was suspended for only one game by the NFL to start the 2016 season, despite a known history of violence against his wife. After re-opening the investigation based on “new information,” the NFL issued a new 6-game suspension to Brown on Sept. 8 — coincidentally, the day it expected a ruling from a federal court in Texas on a temporary restraining order that would allow Elliott to remain on the field.

With Elliott’s suspension, the NFL sets an example and illustrates that even a popular player isn’t above the league’s rules and consequences for violating them.

What did the NFL find in its investigation?

Elliott’s accuser made false statements to police about the night of July 22, 2016. But the NFL believed there was credible evidence that Elliott had been violent toward her three separate times earlier that week.

The league’s investigation reviewed police reports, witness statements, photographic evidence, texts and other metadata. It also interviewed Elliott, the accuser, and a dozen witnesses.

In the NFL’s letter to Elliott, it says the four external advisors to the investigation “individually were of the view that there is substantial and persuasive evidence supporting a finding that you engaged in physical violence against (the accuser) on multiple occasions during the week of July 16, 2016.”

Former Attorney General of New Jersey Peter Harvey, an independent advisor appointed by the league, spoke to the media via phone about what they learned over the course of the investigation. Harvey said that he came to the conclusion that Elliott had been physically violent toward his former girlfriend.

Harvey said it “raised suspicions” when witnesses who had given affidavits did not want to be interviewed by the NFL. He was also struck by an inability of Elliott’s representatives to explain the accuser’s injuries any other way, even with the bar fight she was reportedly in earlier in the evening on July 22, 2016.

“Mr. Elliott’s representatives suggested that maybe she was in a fight with another woman and the bruises, for example a bruise to her eye, and perhaps other bruises on her body, were sustained in that altercation,” Harvey said. “The NFL’s investigators talked to people who witnessed that altercation and it was revealed that neither woman landed a punch on the other; they pulled each other’s hair but they never hit each other with a balled-up fist or in any other way.”

The letter the league sent to Elliott suggests that Goodell shares that sentiment.

"However, in the Commissioner's judgment, there has been no persuasive evidence presented on your behalf with respect to how (the accuser’s) obvious injuries were incurred other than conjecture based on the presence of some of her bruising, which pre-dates your arrival in Columbus on July 16, 2016,” the letter read.

In another incident reviewed by the NFL, Elliott was caught on video lifting up a woman’s top in public at a St. Patrick’s Day parade. Elliott was not charged or arrested, and the league said it wasn’t a factor in Elliott’s suspension. The NFL did, however, say in its letter to Elliott that the behavior was “inappropriate and disturbing, and reflected a lack of respect for women.”

Elliott’s accuser also filed an incident report against Elliott for simple battery with the Aventura (Fla.) Police Department in Feb. 2016. That case was suspended, and Elliott was not charged. The league did not consider that case in its investigation because it happened before he was in the NFL.

Why did Elliott get a six-game suspension when other players didn’t?

Six games is the baseline punishment for first-time offenders who commit domestic violence. This standard was established after the league botched its handling of the Rice situation.

With Rice, the league issued a two-game suspension that was later changed to an indefinite ban after the video of Rice knocking out his then-fiancee went public. Rice’s wife, the victim, was present at his disciplinary hearing and gave a statement in support of her husband.

Goodell admitted he “didn’t get it right” with Rice’s discipline, and the league revised its domestic violence policy as a result and instituted that six-game threshold for players who violate it.

Greg Hardy was accused, and initially convicted, of domestic violence against a former girlfriend. The complaint alleged that Hardy hit her, dragged her, and threw her on a futon covered with firearms. Hardy’s conviction was overturned on appeal, in part because his accuser did not cooperate with prosecutors.

She also did not cooperate with the league’s investigation. Still, Hardy was suspended for 10 games, which is more than the baseline. The policy allows for that if there are “aggravating factors.” But his suspension was reduced to four games on appeal.

Perhaps the most shocking application of the personal conduct policy was the league’s decision to issue a one-game suspension to former Giants kicker Josh Brown after he was arrested for domestic violence against his wife. Brown referred to the incident that led to his arrest as “just a moment,” but police records showed that Brown had been accused of more than 20 acts of violence against his now-former wife.

The NFL defended the minimal consequences for Brown based on the fact that his former wife did not cooperate with the league’s investigation. The league later re-opened its investigation when documents were released in which Brown admitted to abusing his wife repeatedly. They issued a six-game suspension at the conclusion of that investigation.

Elliott’s accuser did cooperate with the league’s investigation into her allegations. She met with league investigators six times. They had concerns with her credibility, but the independent advisors assigned to the investigation found the woman’s version of events credible even when taking into account her false statement to police on July 22 and other inconsistencies.

The letter to Elliott announcing his suspension also noted that a lack of cooperation from Elliott wasn’t a factor. If Elliott had failed to cooperate, his suspension might have been longer.

Why did the investigation take so long?

Elliott and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones both lamented the length of the league’s investigation. It took over a year for a few reasons, including the NFLPA waiting until May to turn over Elliott’s phone records and other relevant documents to the NFL.

An NFL investigation into player conduct involves several moving parts. The league won’t even begin its inquiry until law enforcement finishes its process and determines whether or not to file charges. For Elliott, that happened when the Columbus City Attorney’s Office declined to pursue charges against him in Sept. 2016.

League investigators interviewed 12 different witnesses, including Elliott and his accuser, and reviewed thousands of text messages and other documents related to the domestic violence allegations. The text messages available to league investigators exceeded what law enforcement had to work with during its initial investigation, according to The Washington Post.

The NFL also reviewed forensic photographic evidence and consulted with two medical experts to determine the timeframe in which Elliott’s accuser’s injuries were likely to have occurred. The NFL said in its letter to Elliott that on three occasions the medical experts agreed photographs of the woman’s injuries looked “recent and consistent” with her version of what happened.

Who made the decision to suspend Elliott?

The decision to suspend Elliott was Goodell’s alone.

Goodell notably did not participate in the interviews conducted with Elliott or his accuser, according to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio. Harvey also said that the group of advisors spoke to Goodell individually to give him their opinions. Article 46 of the current collective bargaining agreement gives Goodell absolute power over player discipline.

The actual investigation was undertaken by several people. The league had multiple investigators talk to witnesses and work through the evidence.

A panel of independent advisors interviewed Elliott and evaluated the findings of the investigation. Those four people were Harvey, former player and Hall of Famer Kenneth Houston, Women of Color Network CEO Tonya Lovelace, and former United States Attorney and Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White. White was also instrumental in the Saints’ Bountygate investigation.

What happened with Elliott’s appeal with the NFL?

Elliott officially filed an appeal with the league on the Tuesday after he was suspended. The hearing began on Aug. 29 and concluded on Aug. 31. On Tuesday, Sept. 5, Henderson announced his decision on Elliott’s appeal. The suspension was upheld.

Henderson released a statement regarding his decision.

"As his designated Hearing Officer in this matter, my responsibility is to determine whether the Commissioner's decision on discipline of Mr. Elliott is arbitrary and capricious, meaning was it made on unreasonable grounds or without any proper consideration of circumstances,” Henderson said, via Adam Schefter. “It is not the responsibility, nor within the authority of, the Hearing Officer to conduct a de novo review of the case and second guess his decision.”

A foundation of Elliott’s appeal was to call his accuser’s credibility into question, according to Clarence Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The woman’s false statement to police about the events of the night of July 22, 2016, as well as her request that her friend lie to police on her behalf will surely be a part of it.

The information Hill obtained was part of the league’s 160-page report detailing the findings of the investigation. According to those documents, Lisa Friel, the NFL’s lead investigator, and Kia Roberts, the league’s director of investigations, both had concerns about Elliott’s accuser’s credibility.

The Star-Telegram reported that Roberts recommended no suspension for Elliott, and her recommendation was ignored. The interview Roberts conducted with Elliott’s accuser was extensive. Transcripts of some of the conversations with Elliott’s accuser, which were obtained by the Dallas Morning News, show that Roberts thoroughly questioned Elliott’s accuser about discrepancies in her account of these events.

A transcript of the appeal hearing obtained by the Dallas Morning News reveals that Elliott’s representatives did attack that point doggedly. Attorneys representing Elliott and the NFLPA identified what they identified as several flaws in the investigative approach, like Roger Goodell not meeting with either Elliott or his accuser and not making the accuser available to testify under oath at the appeal.

The NFL’s investigators were called to testify about the inconsistencies with the evidence and witness statements. Elliott’s representative, Jeffrey Kessler, said he believed it was the first time that a report had been filed from an NFL investigation without an investigator’s recommendation for discipline included.

The league leaned heavily on its use of forensic data and medical expert evaluation of photographs of Elliott’s accuser’s injuries in its decision to suspend. But Kessler said the forensic evidence was insufficient to fill the credibility gap. The NFLPA brought as a witness a medical expert who Kessler said would testify that you cannot assess the age of bruises from photos, which was an approach the league’s medical experts employed in the investigation.

Included in the league’s report of its findings is the revelation that the woman admitted to discussing the possibility of releasing videos of herself and Elliott having sex, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Charles Robinson. She and a friend spoke via text about using the videos for blackmail or selling them for a profit. The woman told investigators that she did not intend to blackmail Elliott, but this is likely to come up in Elliott’s appeal as well.

Elliott filed a report with the Frisco, Texas Police Department in Sept. 2016 alleging that his accuser had harassed him. Elliott said she called him more than 50 times over the span of a few hours and had hacked into his email account. That case is no longer active.

The appeal could have been heard either by Goodell or by an arbitrator Goodell designated. Goodell selected Harold Henderson, who also heard the appeals of Hardy and Adrian Peterson. Henderson has denied a request from Elliott’s representatives to make his accuser available to testify during the appeal hearing. Henderson also declined to release transcripts and notes from meetings with Elliott’s accuser.

In Hardy’s case, Henderson determined that the 10-game suspension issued by the league was excessive. Henderson reduced Hardy’s suspension to four games. Henderson upheld Peterson’s suspension. Both Peterson and Hardy were suspended before the league adopted its current domestic violence policy in Dec. 2014.

Elliott, Roberts, and the NFLPA’s forensics expert all testified before Henderson. The appeal hearing was initially scheduled for two days, but was extended after the NFL decided to make a witness available by telephone after initially refusing.

Henderson had three options: overturn the suspension, uphold the six-game suspension, or reduce the number of games Elliott is suspended. Henderson chose to uphold the suspension.

What happened in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas?

The NFLPA and Elliott’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas to vacate any suspension that may be handed down after the appeals process, citing “the most fundamentally unfair arbitral processes conceivable.”

On Friday, Sept. 8, Judge Amos Mazzant, a federal court judge in Texas, ruled on a motion for a temporary restraining order or an injunction to block Elliott’s suspension until Elliott’s lawsuit against the NFL is completed. Mazzant ruled in Elliott’s favor and issued the injunction.

The NFLPA issued a statement immediately after the ruling.

Our statement on today's ruling on the temporary restraining order in the Ezekiel Elliott case: http://pic.twitter.com/g46h7qh2GI

— NFLPA (@NFLPA) September 8, 2017

Mazzant said that he issued the injunction because this is not a matter of guilt or innocence, but whether or not the disciplinary process was applied properly.

“The Court finds, based upon the injunction standard, that Elliott was denied a fundamentally fair hearing by Henderson’s refusal to allow Thompson and Goodell to testify at the arbitration hearing,” Mazzant said in the ruling.

The following Monday, the NFL filed an appeal of the injunction. Two days later, the NFLPA filed an opposition, saying “The NFL faces no threat of irreparable harm if the stay is not granted, while others, including both Elliott and the Cowboys, will suffer substantial — in fact, severe and irreparable — harm."

In its motion, the NFL said that if Mazzant did not issue a ruling by the close of business on Thursday, Sept. 14, that it would appeal to a higher court. Mazzant did not issue a decision, and the NFL filed an emergency motion with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals the following morning, according to sports and gaming attorney Daniel Wallach.

Elliott’s team didn’t take long to issue a response via a statement obtained by NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

“The NFL’s latest maneuvering appears to be indicative of a league with an agenda: trying to navigate a public relations crisis rather than focus on fairness and fact finding,” the statement read.

Mazzant later ruled that the injunction would stand.

What happened in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals?

In the NFL’s motion to the 5th Circuit Court, the league challenged Mazzant’s subject matter jurisdiction because the case was filed before the NFL appeal was settled. The league’s attorneys relied on labor case law that grants deference to labor arbitrators in these matters.

An oral argument was held in before a three-judge panel in the 5th Circuit Court on Oct. 2 on the NFL’s emergency motion for a stay. Elliott was not present, but representatives for the NFLPA and NFL were.

The league asserted that allowing Elliott to take the field did irreparable harm to the NFL, as it challenged the league’s ability to enforce the CBA and impacted competitive advantage. In its response, the NFLPA countered that it was in fact the NFL and its appointed arbitrator who were interfering with CBA procedures because of the way Elliott’s investigation was handled.

Two key questions were presented by the panel of judges, one to each side, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. They asked Elliott’s and the NFLPA’s attorneys if any court had accepted the argument that a lawsuit could be filed prior to the NFL’s arbitrator issuing a decision.

The NFL’s representatives were asked to explain why the league was willing to let Elliott play in Week 1 when the crux of their emergency motion was that it would cause irreparable harm to the league.

The court finally issued its decision on Thursday, Oct. 12. The panel of three judges sided with the NFL in a split decision on the basis that the federal court that issued the injunction did not have subject matter jurisdiction. Elliott’s six-game suspension was reinstated, and the NFL said it is effective immediately.

The court also ordered the District Court of Eastern Texas to dismiss Elliott’s case entirely. The NFLPA asked the court to recall that mandate, but the court denied that motion.

However, Elliott’s representatives have asked for a rehearing. They petitioned the court for an en banc hearing, which would involve all of the judges in the 5th Circuit as opposed to a panel of three judges.

What happened in the U.S. District Court in New York?

On Oct. 16, the NFLPA filed a motion for a temporary restraining order with the New York Southern District Court. A judge granted the TRO on Oct. 17, but it only remained in place until Oct. 30. Elliott was eligible to play during this time.

This is the same court that heard Tom Brady’s Deflategate appeal. In that case, it sided with the NFL and upheld Brady’s suspension. However, the issue of “fundamental fairness” is the crux of Elliott and the NFLPA’s argument.

The NFLPA filed with this court for a preliminary injunction. There was an evidentiary hearing on Oct. 30 involving both sides. Judge Katherine Polk Failla issued her decision that evening, ruling against Elliott. The court issued a 24-hour stay on the order reinstating Elliott’s suspension to give the NFLPA an opportunity to file an emergency appeal.

The union did file an appeal and as expected Judge Failla did not overturn her own ruling. The NFLPA then filed an emergency appeal with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Failla’s husband was one of the attorneys who worked on crafting the collective bargaining agreement, which caused some to raise the question of whether or not Failla should have recused herself from a case involving the NFL and NFLPA. This is not a true conflict of interest, and she is under no legal obligation to do so, according to sports and gaming law attorney Daniel Wallach.

What happened in the 2nd Circuit Court?

The NFLPA appealed Judge Failla’s ruling, and Elliott was granted a temporary stay on Friday, Nov. 3 by the 2nd Circuit. That allowed Elliott to play in the Cowboys’ Week 9 matchup against the Chiefs, but it was not a resolution.

The NFLPA asked for an injunction from the court to allow Elliott to continue playing after Week 9. A hearing was held on that on Thursday, Nov. 9, but a three-panel judge denied an emergency injunction for Elliott. The decision said that Elliott “failed to meet the requisite standard” for injunctive relief. Elliott’s suspension then began immediately. He did not play in the Cowboys’ Week 10 loss to the Falcons, and three days later, Elliott announced that he was dropping all appeals.

Elliott will serve his entire six-game suspension and will return on Dec. 24 against the Seahawks.

Who else has been involved in the situation?

Elliott, who has maintained his innocence throughout this process, responded swiftly via his personal Twitter account after the league’s decision was first announced in August:

http://pic.twitter.com/NYTawLdplN

— Ezekiel Elliott (@EzekielElliott) August 12, 2017

Elliott’s attorneys also released a statement that day.

"The NFL's findings are replete with factual inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions and it 'cherry picks' so called evidence to support its conclusion while ignoring other critical evidence,” the statement read in part.

Jones was reportedly “furious” about the league’s decision, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Jones had maintained that he did not expect Elliott to face discipline.

“There’s nothing,” Jones told USA Today in July. “I have reviewed everything. There is absolutely nothing, not one thing I’ve seen that has anything to do with domestic violence. I’ve seen nothing.”

On the day Elliott filed his appeal, Jones declined to comment.

“I don’t have anything to say about any of the appeal or anything about that issue, today,” Jones said via the team’s website. “But certainly I’ll be visiting with you guys about it in the future. Right now, today, is just not the time for me to talk about it.”

Elliott spoke to the media after the 2nd Circuit granted him a stay for Week 9.

“This is my name and my reputation,” Elliott said, via ESPN’s Josina Anderson. “That’s something I have to live with beyond football, so every day is worth fighting.”

Why are the NFL and NFLPA trading barbs about Elliott’s case?

The NFL and NFLPA engaged in a war of words via Twitter about the situation after the suspension was annouced:

New NFL statement http://pic.twitter.com/KJ64RDHVB2

— Brian McCarthy (@NFLprguy) August 16, 2017

The public statement issued on behalf of every NFL owner is a lie. The NFLPA categorically denies the accusations made in this statement. http://pic.twitter.com/OFOGQY91Ai

— NFLPA (@NFLPA) August 16, 2017

The league wasn’t happy with Elliott’s plan to discredit his accuser in his appeal or the NFLPA’s role in it. While the record shows that the woman was dishonest at times, shifting blame to a victim is “shameful,” in the words of NFL Executive Vice President of Communications Joe Lockhart.

On the NFLPA side, it simply said the league was lying and it never leaked derogatory information about Elliott’s accuser to the media. This contentious back-and-forth has continued throughout the court process.

After the 5th Circuit Court sided with the NFL, the NFLPA said, “The appellate court decision focuses on the jurisdictional issues. The failures of due process by the NFL articulated in the district court's decision were not addressed.”

The NFPA had one final, point statement, after Elliott announced he was dropping his appeal:

"On behalf of all players, the Union appealed the suspension of Ezekiel Elliott to its logical conclusion and we are withdrawing our lawsuit.

“Our vigilant fight on behalf of Ezekiel once again exposed the NFL's disciplinary process as a sham and a lie. They hired several former federal prosecutors, brought in “experts” and imposed a process with the stated goal of "getting it right," yet the management council refuses to step in and stop repeated manipulation of an already awful League-imposed system."

Is it really over?

Yes. Although Elliott accepted his suspension, the NFLPA could have continued to fight the NFL in court. The union’s battle with the league was always about the collective bargaining agreement, not about whether Elliott was innocent or guilty.

But the NFLPA dropped its lawsuit once Elliott decided he would serve his six-game suspension without any further appeals.

It took longer than three months for Elliott to begin his suspension, which isn’t nearly as long as Deflategate lasted. There’s clearly a big difference between domestic violence and deflating footballs, but both dealt with labor law matters.

Brady served a four-game suspension to start the 2016 season for his role in the Deflategate controversy. The league announced Brady’s suspension on May 11, 2015, and the NFLPA filed an appeal on Brady’s behalf on May 14. The appeal was set for June 23, and Goodell announced that he would uphold the suspension on June 28.

Brady filed a federal lawsuit, and nearly a year later the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals eventually determined Goodell did have the authority to issue the suspension. Brady announced on July 15, 2016 that he would accept the suspension and not take the case to the Supreme Court.

Because of the precedent set by that ruling, Elliott and the NFLPA likely would have had the same fate in court if they had continued to fight it. And it would have lasted many more months.

[junker-town]

Ezekiel Elliott's suspension and appeal, explained

Here’s everything you need to know about what led to Elliott’s suspension.

On Aug. 11, the NFL finally announced a six-game suspension for Ezekiel Elliott to start this season, after an investigation spanning more than a year. The suspension stems from domestic violence allegations made against Elliott in July 2016.

A woman who identified herself as Elliott’s ex-girlfriend filed a police report claiming Elliott had been abusive over the course of five days in July 2016. She filed two separate reports with the Columbus Police Department. Witnesses who claimed to have been present did not corroborate her statements, and police and prosecutors decided not to bring charges against Elliott.

Elliott filed an appeal, which was upheld, but it didn’t end there. The NFL and NFLPA were publicly at odds and took their fight to several different courts. In the end, Elliott will serve his full suspension..

Here’s everything that happened.

Why wasn’t Elliott charged?

Elliott’s accuser called police on July 22, 2016 to report a series of violent altercations with Elliott. Police did not arrest or charge Elliott at the time because they couldn’t confirm the woman’s version of the events or whether or not she and Elliott ever lived together. The officers who responded to the 911 call referred her to the Columbus City Attorney’s Office, according to the police report.

The prosecutor determined after reviewing the evidence that the “conflicting and inconsistent information” was not sufficient to charge Elliott. Ohio law also dictates that domestic violence charges can only be brought when a couple lives together, and law enforcement could not confirm Elliott lived with the woman at any point.

After the City Attorney’s Office concluded its investigation, it released all of the evidence collected, including witness statements, copies of text messages, and photographs of Elliott’s accuser’s injuries. Those documents showed that she was not truthful about the events of July 22.

On the night in question, the woman texted her friend who had accompanied her that evening and asked her to lie to police about what had occurred.

“If they ask he dragged me out of my car,” the text read. The friend later texted Elliott’s accuser to ask if she wanted her to lie. The accuser said yes.

The witness statements from that night contradicted her version of events, too. Of the five eyewitnesses who gave statements, including the woman’s friend, none corroborated Elliott’s accuser’s story. All five witnesses said no contact occurred between the woman and Elliott on that night.

The friend also confirmed that the woman had been involved in a physical altercation with another woman at a club earlier in the evening. Elliott told police that the woman’s bruises were the result of that fight.

Columbus prosecutor Robert S. Tobias said in October 2016 that he believed Elliott had been physical with his accuser but that his office didn’t have enough evidence to bring charges.

“For the Ezekiel Elliott matter, I personally believe that there were a series of interactions between Mr. Elliott and (his accuser) where violence occurred. However, given the totality of the circumstances, I could not firmly conclude exactly what happened. Saying something happened versus having sufficient evidence to criminally charge someone are two completely different things. Charging decisions are taken very seriously and we use best efforts to conduct thorough and detailed investigations,” Tobias wrote in an email to USA Today.

Why would the league suspend Elliott even though he was never charged?

The league’s policy does not rely on the same burden of proof as the legal system does. The personal conduct policy says that “persons who fail to live up to this standard of conduct are guilty of conduct detrimental and subject to discipline, even where the conduct itself does not result in conviction of a crime.”

The league is fully within its rights to suspend Elliott for conduct detrimental to the league, even though he wasn’t charged.

The NFL has a public relations problem when it comes to its handling of violence against women, and for good reason. The league has been inconsistent in doling out discipline.

In July 2014, Roger Goodell initially issued a two-game suspension to Ray Rice after Rice knocked his then-fiancée out in an elevator. The light suspension was reportedly the result of lobbying by the Ravens owner. Rice received an indefinite suspension and was cut by the Ravens after TMZ released a video of the incident.

Former Giants kicker Josh Brown was suspended for only one game by the NFL to start the 2016 season, despite a known history of violence against his wife. After re-opening the investigation based on “new information,” the NFL issued a new 6-game suspension to Brown on Sept. 8 — coincidentally, the day it expected a ruling from a federal court in Texas on a temporary restraining order that would allow Elliott to remain on the field.

With Elliott’s suspension, the NFL sets an example and illustrates that even a popular player isn’t above the league’s rules and consequences for violating them.

What did the NFL find in its investigation?

Elliott’s accuser made false statements to police about the night of July 22, 2016. But the NFL believed there was credible evidence that Elliott had been violent toward her three separate times earlier that week.

The league’s investigation reviewed police reports, witness statements, photographic evidence, texts and other metadata. It also interviewed Elliott, the accuser, and a dozen witnesses.

In the NFL’s letter to Elliott, it says the four external advisors to the investigation “individually were of the view that there is substantial and persuasive evidence supporting a finding that you engaged in physical violence against (the accuser) on multiple occasions during the week of July 16, 2016.”

Former Attorney General of New Jersey Peter Harvey, an independent advisor appointed by the league, spoke to the media via phone about what they learned over the course of the investigation. Harvey said that he came to the conclusion that Elliott had been physically violent toward his former girlfriend.

Harvey said it “raised suspicions” when witnesses who had given affidavits did not want to be interviewed by the NFL. He was also struck by an inability of Elliott’s representatives to explain the accuser’s injuries any other way, even with the bar fight she was reportedly in earlier in the evening on July 22, 2016.

“Mr. Elliott’s representatives suggested that maybe she was in a fight with another woman and the bruises, for example a bruise to her eye, and perhaps other bruises on her body, were sustained in that altercation,” Harvey said. “The NFL’s investigators talked to people who witnessed that altercation and it was revealed that neither woman landed a punch on the other; they pulled each other’s hair but they never hit each other with a balled-up fist or in any other way.”

The letter the league sent to Elliott suggests that Goodell shares that sentiment.

"However, in the Commissioner's judgment, there has been no persuasive evidence presented on your behalf with respect to how (the accuser’s) obvious injuries were incurred other than conjecture based on the presence of some of her bruising, which pre-dates your arrival in Columbus on July 16, 2016,” the letter read.

In another incident reviewed by the NFL, Elliott was caught on video lifting up a woman’s top in public at a St. Patrick’s Day parade. Elliott was not charged or arrested, and the league said it wasn’t a factor in Elliott’s suspension. The NFL did, however, say in its letter to Elliott that the behavior was “inappropriate and disturbing, and reflected a lack of respect for women.”

Elliott’s accuser also filed an incident report against Elliott for simple battery with the Aventura (Fla.) Police Department in Feb. 2016. That case was suspended, and Elliott was not charged. The league did not consider that case in its investigation because it happened before he was in the NFL.

Why did Elliott get a six-game suspension when other players didn’t?

Six games is the baseline punishment for first-time offenders who commit domestic violence. This standard was established after the league botched its handling of the Rice situation.

With Rice, the league issued a two-game suspension that was later changed to an indefinite ban after the video of Rice knocking out his then-fiancee went public. Rice’s wife, the victim, was present at his disciplinary hearing and gave a statement in support of her husband.

Goodell admitted he “didn’t get it right” with Rice’s discipline, and the league revised its domestic violence policy as a result and instituted that six-game threshold for players who violate it.

Greg Hardy was accused, and initially convicted, of domestic violence against a former girlfriend. The complaint alleged that Hardy hit her, dragged her, and threw her on a futon covered with firearms. Hardy’s conviction was overturned on appeal, in part because his accuser did not cooperate with prosecutors.

She also did not cooperate with the league’s investigation. Still, Hardy was suspended for 10 games, which is more than the baseline. The policy allows for that if there are “aggravating factors.” But his suspension was reduced to four games on appeal.

Perhaps the most shocking application of the personal conduct policy was the league’s decision to issue a one-game suspension to former Giants kicker Josh Brown after he was arrested for domestic violence against his wife. Brown referred to the incident that led to his arrest as “just a moment,” but police records showed that Brown had been accused of more than 20 acts of violence against his now-former wife.

The NFL defended the minimal consequences for Brown based on the fact that his former wife did not cooperate with the league’s investigation. The league later re-opened its investigation when documents were released in which Brown admitted to abusing his wife repeatedly. They issued a six-game suspension at the conclusion of that investigation.

Elliott’s accuser did cooperate with the league’s investigation into her allegations. She met with league investigators six times. They had concerns with her credibility, but the independent advisors assigned to the investigation found the woman’s version of events credible even when taking into account her false statement to police on July 22 and other inconsistencies.

The letter to Elliott announcing his suspension also noted that a lack of cooperation from Elliott wasn’t a factor. If Elliott had failed to cooperate, his suspension might have been longer.

Why did the investigation take so long?

Elliott and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones both lamented the length of the league’s investigation. It took over a year for a few reasons, including the NFLPA waiting until May to turn over Elliott’s phone records and other relevant documents to the NFL.

An NFL investigation into player conduct involves several moving parts. The league won’t even begin its inquiry until law enforcement finishes its process and determines whether or not to file charges. For Elliott, that happened when the Columbus City Attorney’s Office declined to pursue charges against him in Sept. 2016.

League investigators interviewed 12 different witnesses, including Elliott and his accuser, and reviewed thousands of text messages and other documents related to the domestic violence allegations. The text messages available to league investigators exceeded what law enforcement had to work with during its initial investigation, according to The Washington Post.

The NFL also reviewed forensic photographic evidence and consulted with two medical experts to determine the timeframe in which Elliott’s accuser’s injuries were likely to have occurred. The NFL said in its letter to Elliott that on three occasions the medical experts agreed photographs of the woman’s injuries looked “recent and consistent” with her version of what happened.

Who made the decision to suspend Elliott?

The decision to suspend Elliott was Goodell’s alone.

Goodell notably did not participate in the interviews conducted with Elliott or his accuser, according to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio. Harvey also said that the group of advisors spoke to Goodell individually to give him their opinions. Article 46 of the current collective bargaining agreement gives Goodell absolute power over player discipline.

The actual investigation was undertaken by several people. The league had multiple investigators talk to witnesses and work through the evidence.

A panel of independent advisors interviewed Elliott and evaluated the findings of the investigation. Those four people were Harvey, former player and Hall of Famer Kenneth Houston, Women of Color Network CEO Tonya Lovelace, and former United States Attorney and Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White. White was also instrumental in the Saints’ Bountygate investigation.

What happened with Elliott’s appeal with the NFL?

Elliott officially filed an appeal with the league on the Tuesday after he was suspended. The hearing began on Aug. 29 and concluded on Aug. 31. On Tuesday, Sept. 5, Henderson announced his decision on Elliott’s appeal. The suspension was upheld.

Henderson released a statement regarding his decision.

"As his designated Hearing Officer in this matter, my responsibility is to determine whether the Commissioner's decision on discipline of Mr. Elliott is arbitrary and capricious, meaning was it made on unreasonable grounds or without any proper consideration of circumstances,” Henderson said, via Adam Schefter. “It is not the responsibility, nor within the authority of, the Hearing Officer to conduct a de novo review of the case and second guess his decision.”

A foundation of Elliott’s appeal was to call his accuser’s credibility into question, according to Clarence Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The woman’s false statement to police about the events of the night of July 22, 2016, as well as her request that her friend lie to police on her behalf will surely be a part of it.

The information Hill obtained was part of the league’s 160-page report detailing the findings of the investigation. According to those documents, Lisa Friel, the NFL’s lead investigator, and Kia Roberts, the league’s director of investigations, both had concerns about Elliott’s accuser’s credibility.

The Star-Telegram reported that Roberts recommended no suspension for Elliott, and her recommendation was ignored. The interview Roberts conducted with Elliott’s accuser was extensive. Transcripts of some of the conversations with Elliott’s accuser, which were obtained by the Dallas Morning News, show that Roberts thoroughly questioned Elliott’s accuser about discrepancies in her account of these events.

A transcript of the appeal hearing obtained by the Dallas Morning News reveals that Elliott’s representatives did attack that point doggedly. Attorneys representing Elliott and the NFLPA identified what they identified as several flaws in the investigative approach, like Roger Goodell not meeting with either Elliott or his accuser and not making the accuser available to testify under oath at the appeal.

The NFL’s investigators were called to testify about the inconsistencies with the evidence and witness statements. Elliott’s representative, Jeffrey Kessler, said he believed it was the first time that a report had been filed from an NFL investigation without an investigator’s recommendation for discipline included.

The league leaned heavily on its use of forensic data and medical expert evaluation of photographs of Elliott’s accuser’s injuries in its decision to suspend. But Kessler said the forensic evidence was insufficient to fill the credibility gap. The NFLPA brought as a witness a medical expert who Kessler said would testify that you cannot assess the age of bruises from photos, which was an approach the league’s medical experts employed in the investigation.

Included in the league’s report of its findings is the revelation that the woman admitted to discussing the possibility of releasing videos of herself and Elliott having sex, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Charles Robinson. She and a friend spoke via text about using the videos for blackmail or selling them for a profit. The woman told investigators that she did not intend to blackmail Elliott, but this is likely to come up in Elliott’s appeal as well.

Elliott filed a report with the Frisco, Texas Police Department in Sept. 2016 alleging that his accuser had harassed him. Elliott said she called him more than 50 times over the span of a few hours and had hacked into his email account. That case is no longer active.

The appeal could have been heard either by Goodell or by an arbitrator Goodell designated. Goodell selected Harold Henderson, who also heard the appeals of Hardy and Adrian Peterson. Henderson has denied a request from Elliott’s representatives to make his accuser available to testify during the appeal hearing. Henderson also declined to release transcripts and notes from meetings with Elliott’s accuser.

In Hardy’s case, Henderson determined that the 10-game suspension issued by the league was excessive. Henderson reduced Hardy’s suspension to four games. Henderson upheld Peterson’s suspension. Both Peterson and Hardy were suspended before the league adopted its current domestic violence policy in Dec. 2014.

Elliott, Roberts, and the NFLPA’s forensics expert all testified before Henderson. The appeal hearing was initially scheduled for two days, but was extended after the NFL decided to make a witness available by telephone after initially refusing.

Henderson had three options: overturn the suspension, uphold the six-game suspension, or reduce the number of games Elliott is suspended. Henderson chose to uphold the suspension.

What happened in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas?

The NFLPA and Elliott’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas to vacate any suspension that may be handed down after the appeals process, citing “the most fundamentally unfair arbitral processes conceivable.”

On Friday, Sept. 8, Judge Amos Mazzant, a federal court judge in Texas, ruled on a motion for a temporary restraining order or an injunction to block Elliott’s suspension until Elliott’s lawsuit against the NFL is completed. Mazzant ruled in Elliott’s favor and issued the injunction.

The NFLPA issued a statement immediately after the ruling.

Our statement on today's ruling on the temporary restraining order in the Ezekiel Elliott case: http://pic.twitter.com/g46h7qh2GI

— NFLPA (@NFLPA) September 8, 2017

Mazzant said that he issued the injunction because this is not a matter of guilt or innocence, but whether or not the disciplinary process was applied properly.

“The Court finds, based upon the injunction standard, that Elliott was denied a fundamentally fair hearing by Henderson’s refusal to allow Thompson and Goodell to testify at the arbitration hearing,” Mazzant said in the ruling.

The following Monday, the NFL filed an appeal of the injunction. Two days later, the NFLPA filed an opposition, saying “The NFL faces no threat of irreparable harm if the stay is not granted, while others, including both Elliott and the Cowboys, will suffer substantial — in fact, severe and irreparable — harm."

In its motion, the NFL said that if Mazzant did not issue a ruling by the close of business on Thursday, Sept. 14, that it would appeal to a higher court. Mazzant did not issue a decision, and the NFL filed an emergency motion with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals the following morning, according to sports and gaming attorney Daniel Wallach.

Elliott’s team didn’t take long to issue a response via a statement obtained by NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

“The NFL’s latest maneuvering appears to be indicative of a league with an agenda: trying to navigate a public relations crisis rather than focus on fairness and fact finding,” the statement read.

Mazzant later ruled that the injunction would stand.

What happened in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals?

In the NFL’s motion to the 5th Circuit Court, the league challenged Mazzant’s subject matter jurisdiction because the case was filed before the NFL appeal was settled. The league’s attorneys relied on labor case law that grants deference to labor arbitrators in these matters.

An oral argument was held in before a three-judge panel in the 5th Circuit Court on Oct. 2 on the NFL’s emergency motion for a stay. Elliott was not present, but representatives for the NFLPA and NFL were.

The league asserted that allowing Elliott to take the field did irreparable harm to the NFL, as it challenged the league’s ability to enforce the CBA and impacted competitive advantage. In its response, the NFLPA countered that it was in fact the NFL and its appointed arbitrator who were interfering with CBA procedures because of the way Elliott’s investigation was handled.

Two key questions were presented by the panel of judges, one to each side, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. They asked Elliott’s and the NFLPA’s attorneys if any court had accepted the argument that a lawsuit could be filed prior to the NFL’s arbitrator issuing a decision.

The NFL’s representatives were asked to explain why the league was willing to let Elliott play in Week 1 when the crux of their emergency motion was that it would cause irreparable harm to the league.

The court finally issued its decision on Thursday, Oct. 12. The panel of three judges sided with the NFL in a split decision on the basis that the federal court that issued the injunction did not have subject matter jurisdiction. Elliott’s six-game suspension was reinstated, and the NFL said it is effective immediately.

The court also ordered the District Court of Eastern Texas to dismiss Elliott’s case entirely. The NFLPA asked the court to recall that mandate, but the court denied that motion.

However, Elliott’s representatives have asked for a rehearing. They petitioned the court for an en banc hearing, which would involve all of the judges in the 5th Circuit as opposed to a panel of three judges.

What happened in the U.S. District Court in New York?

On Oct. 16, the NFLPA filed a motion for a temporary restraining order with the New York Southern District Court. A judge granted the TRO on Oct. 17, but it only remained in place until Oct. 30. Elliott was eligible to play during this time.

This is the same court that heard Tom Brady’s Deflategate appeal. In that case, it sided with the NFL and upheld Brady’s suspension. However, the issue of “fundamental fairness” is the crux of Elliott and the NFLPA’s argument.

The NFLPA filed with this court for a preliminary injunction. There was an evidentiary hearing on Oct. 30 involving both sides. Judge Katherine Polk Failla issued her decision that evening, ruling against Elliott. The court issued a 24-hour stay on the order reinstating Elliott’s suspension to give the NFLPA an opportunity to file an emergency appeal.

The union did file an appeal and as expected Judge Failla did not overturn her own ruling. The NFLPA then filed an emergency appeal with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Failla’s husband was one of the attorneys who worked on crafting the collective bargaining agreement, which caused some to raise the question of whether or not Failla should have recused herself from a case involving the NFL and NFLPA. This is not a true conflict of interest, and she is under no legal obligation to do so, according to sports and gaming law attorney Daniel Wallach.

What happened in the 2nd Circuit Court?

The NFLPA appealed Judge Failla’s ruling, and Elliott was granted a temporary stay on Friday, Nov. 3 by the 2nd Circuit. That allowed Elliott to play in the Cowboys’ Week 9 matchup against the Chiefs, but it was not a resolution.

The NFLPA asked for an injunction from the court to allow Elliott to continue playing after Week 9. A hearing was held on that on Thursday, Nov. 9, but a three-panel judge denied an emergency injunction for Elliott. The decision said that Elliott “failed to meet the requisite standard” for injunctive relief. Elliott’s suspension then began immediately. He did not play in the Cowboys’ Week 10 loss to the Falcons, and three days later, Elliott announced that he was dropping all appeals.

Elliott will serve his entire six-game suspension and will return on Dec. 24 against the Seahawks.

Who else has been involved in the situation?

Elliott, who has maintained his innocence throughout this process, responded swiftly via his personal Twitter account after the league’s decision was first announced in August:

http://pic.twitter.com/NYTawLdplN

— Ezekiel Elliott (@EzekielElliott) August 12, 2017

Elliott’s attorneys also released a statement that day.

"The NFL's findings are replete with factual inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions and it 'cherry picks' so called evidence to support its conclusion while ignoring other critical evidence,” the statement read in part.

Jones was reportedly “furious” about the league’s decision, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Jones had maintained that he did not expect Elliott to face discipline.

“There’s nothing,” Jones told USA Today in July. “I have reviewed everything. There is absolutely nothing, not one thing I’ve seen that has anything to do with domestic violence. I’ve seen nothing.”

On the day Elliott filed his appeal, Jones declined to comment.

“I don’t have anything to say about any of the appeal or anything about that issue, today,” Jones said via the team’s website. “But certainly I’ll be visiting with you guys about it in the future. Right now, today, is just not the time for me to talk about it.”

Elliott spoke to the media after the 2nd Circuit granted him a stay for Week 9.

“This is my name and my reputation,” Elliott said, via ESPN’s Josina Anderson. “That’s something I have to live with beyond football, so every day is worth fighting.”

Why are the NFL and NFLPA trading barbs about Elliott’s case?

The NFL and NFLPA engaged in a war of words via Twitter about the situation after the suspension was annouced:

New NFL statement http://pic.twitter.com/KJ64RDHVB2

— Brian McCarthy (@NFLprguy) August 16, 2017

The public statement issued on behalf of every NFL owner is a lie. The NFLPA categorically denies the accusations made in this statement. http://pic.twitter.com/OFOGQY91Ai

— NFLPA (@NFLPA) August 16, 2017

The league wasn’t happy with Elliott’s plan to discredit his accuser in his appeal or the NFLPA’s role in it. While the record shows that the woman was dishonest at times, shifting blame to a victim is “shameful,” in the words of NFL Executive Vice President of Communications Joe Lockhart.

On the NFLPA side, it simply said the league was lying and it never leaked derogatory information about Elliott’s accuser to the media. This contentious back-and-forth has continued throughout the court process.

After the 5th Circuit Court sided with the NFL, the NFLPA said, “The appellate court decision focuses on the jurisdictional issues. The failures of due process by the NFL articulated in the district court's decision were not addressed.”

The NFPA had one final, point statement, after Elliott announced he was dropping his appeal:

"On behalf of all players, the Union appealed the suspension of Ezekiel Elliott to its logical conclusion and we are withdrawing our lawsuit.

“Our vigilant fight on behalf of Ezekiel once again exposed the NFL's disciplinary process as a sham and a lie. They hired several former federal prosecutors, brought in “experts” and imposed a process with the stated goal of "getting it right," yet the management council refuses to step in and stop repeated manipulation of an already awful League-imposed system."

Is it really over?

Yes. Although Elliott accepted his suspension, the NFLPA could have continued to fight the NFL in court. The union’s battle with the league was always about the collective bargaining agreement, not about whether Elliott was innocent or guilty.

But the NFLPA dropped its lawsuit once Elliott decided he would serve his six-game suspension without any further appeals.

It took longer than three months for Elliott to begin his suspension, which isn’t nearly as long as Deflategate lasted. There’s clearly a big difference between domestic violence and deflating footballs, but both dealt with labor law matters.

Brady served a four-game suspension to start the 2016 season for his role in the Deflategate controversy. The league announced Brady’s suspension on May 11, 2015, and the NFLPA filed an appeal on Brady’s behalf on May 14. The appeal was set for June 23, and Goodell announced that he would uphold the suspension on June 28.

Brady filed a federal lawsuit, and nearly a year later the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals eventually determined Goodell did have the authority to issue the suspension. Brady announced on July 15, 2016 that he would accept the suspension and not take the case to the Supreme Court.

Because of the precedent set by that ruling, Elliott and the NFLPA likely would have had the same fate in court if they had continued to fight it. And it would have lasted many more months.

[junker-town]

Ezekiel Elliott's suspension and appeal, explained

Here’s everything you need to know about what led to Elliott’s suspension.

On Aug. 11, the NFL finally announced a six-game suspension for Ezekiel Elliott to start this season, after an investigation spanning more than a year. The suspension stems from domestic violence allegations made against Elliott in July 2016.

A woman who identified herself as Elliott’s ex-girlfriend filed a police report claiming Elliott had been abusive over the course of five days in July 2016. She filed two separate reports with the Columbus Police Department. Witnesses who claimed to have been present did not corroborate her statements, and police and prosecutors decided not to bring charges against Elliott.

Elliott filed an appeal, which was upheld, but it didn’t end there. The NFL and NFLPA were publicly at odds and took their fight to several different courts. In the end, Elliott will serve his full suspension..

Here’s everything that happened.

Why wasn’t Elliott charged?

Elliott’s accuser called police on July 22, 2016 to report a series of violent altercations with Elliott. Police did not arrest or charge Elliott at the time because they couldn’t confirm the woman’s version of the events or whether or not she and Elliott ever lived together. The officers who responded to the 911 call referred her to the Columbus City Attorney’s Office, according to the police report.

The prosecutor determined after reviewing the evidence that the “conflicting and inconsistent information” was not sufficient to charge Elliott. Ohio law also dictates that domestic violence charges can only be brought when a couple lives together, and law enforcement could not confirm Elliott lived with the woman at any point.

After the City Attorney’s Office concluded its investigation, it released all of the evidence collected, including witness statements, copies of text messages, and photographs of Elliott’s accuser’s injuries. Those documents showed that she was not truthful about the events of July 22.

On the night in question, the woman texted her friend who had accompanied her that evening and asked her to lie to police about what had occurred.

“If they ask he dragged me out of my car,” the text read. The friend later texted Elliott’s accuser to ask if she wanted her to lie. The accuser said yes.

The witness statements from that night contradicted her version of events, too. Of the five eyewitnesses who gave statements, including the woman’s friend, none corroborated Elliott’s accuser’s story. All five witnesses said no contact occurred between the woman and Elliott on that night.

The friend also confirmed that the woman had been involved in a physical altercation with another woman at a club earlier in the evening. Elliott told police that the woman’s bruises were the result of that fight.

Columbus prosecutor Robert S. Tobias said in October 2016 that he believed Elliott had been physical with his accuser but that his office didn’t have enough evidence to bring charges.

“For the Ezekiel Elliott matter, I personally believe that there were a series of interactions between Mr. Elliott and (his accuser) where violence occurred. However, given the totality of the circumstances, I could not firmly conclude exactly what happened. Saying something happened versus having sufficient evidence to criminally charge someone are two completely different things. Charging decisions are taken very seriously and we use best efforts to conduct thorough and detailed investigations,” Tobias wrote in an email to USA Today.

Why would the league suspend Elliott even though he was never charged?

The league’s policy does not rely on the same burden of proof as the legal system does. The personal conduct policy says that “persons who fail to live up to this standard of conduct are guilty of conduct detrimental and subject to discipline, even where the conduct itself does not result in conviction of a crime.”

The league is fully within its rights to suspend Elliott for conduct detrimental to the league, even though he wasn’t charged.

The NFL has a public relations problem when it comes to its handling of violence against women, and for good reason. The league has been inconsistent in doling out discipline.

In July 2014, Roger Goodell initially issued a two-game suspension to Ray Rice after Rice knocked his then-fiancée out in an elevator. The light suspension was reportedly the result of lobbying by the Ravens owner. Rice received an indefinite suspension and was cut by the Ravens after TMZ released a video of the incident.

Former Giants kicker Josh Brown was suspended for only one game by the NFL to start the 2016 season, despite a known history of violence against his wife. After re-opening the investigation based on “new information,” the NFL issued a new 6-game suspension to Brown on Sept. 8 — coincidentally, the day it expected a ruling from a federal court in Texas on a temporary restraining order that would allow Elliott to remain on the field.

With Elliott’s suspension, the NFL sets an example and illustrates that even a popular player isn’t above the league’s rules and consequences for violating them.

What did the NFL find in its investigation?

Elliott’s accuser made false statements to police about the night of July 22, 2016. But the NFL believed there was credible evidence that Elliott had been violent toward her three separate times earlier that week.

The league’s investigation reviewed police reports, witness statements, photographic evidence, texts and other metadata. It also interviewed Elliott, the accuser, and a dozen witnesses.

In the NFL’s letter to Elliott, it says the four external advisors to the investigation “individually were of the view that there is substantial and persuasive evidence supporting a finding that you engaged in physical violence against (the accuser) on multiple occasions during the week of July 16, 2016.”

Former Attorney General of New Jersey Peter Harvey, an independent advisor appointed by the league, spoke to the media via phone about what they learned over the course of the investigation. Harvey said that he came to the conclusion that Elliott had been physically violent toward his former girlfriend.

Harvey said it “raised suspicions” when witnesses who had given affidavits did not want to be interviewed by the NFL. He was also struck by an inability of Elliott’s representatives to explain the accuser’s injuries any other way, even with the bar fight she was reportedly in earlier in the evening on July 22, 2016.

“Mr. Elliott’s representatives suggested that maybe she was in a fight with another woman and the bruises, for example a bruise to her eye, and perhaps other bruises on her body, were sustained in that altercation,” Harvey said. “The NFL’s investigators talked to people who witnessed that altercation and it was revealed that neither woman landed a punch on the other; they pulled each other’s hair but they never hit each other with a balled-up fist or in any other way.”

The letter the league sent to Elliott suggests that Goodell shares that sentiment.

"However, in the Commissioner's judgment, there has been no persuasive evidence presented on your behalf with respect to how (the accuser’s) obvious injuries were incurred other than conjecture based on the presence of some of her bruising, which pre-dates your arrival in Columbus on July 16, 2016,” the letter read.

In another incident reviewed by the NFL, Elliott was caught on video lifting up a woman’s top in public at a St. Patrick’s Day parade. Elliott was not charged or arrested, and the league said it wasn’t a factor in Elliott’s suspension. The NFL did, however, say in its letter to Elliott that the behavior was “inappropriate and disturbing, and reflected a lack of respect for women.”

Elliott’s accuser also filed an incident report against Elliott for simple battery with the Aventura (Fla.) Police Department in Feb. 2016. That case was suspended, and Elliott was not charged. The league did not consider that case in its investigation because it happened before he was in the NFL.

Why did Elliott get a six-game suspension when other players didn’t?

Six games is the baseline punishment for first-time offenders who commit domestic violence. This standard was established after the league botched its handling of the Rice situation.

With Rice, the league issued a two-game suspension that was later changed to an indefinite ban after the video of Rice knocking out his then-fiancee went public. Rice’s wife, the victim, was present at his disciplinary hearing and gave a statement in support of her husband.

Goodell admitted he “didn’t get it right” with Rice’s discipline, and the league revised its domestic violence policy as a result and instituted that six-game threshold for players who violate it.

Greg Hardy was accused, and initially convicted, of domestic violence against a former girlfriend. The complaint alleged that Hardy hit her, dragged her, and threw her on a futon covered with firearms. Hardy’s conviction was overturned on appeal, in part because his accuser did not cooperate with prosecutors.

She also did not cooperate with the league’s investigation. Still, Hardy was suspended for 10 games, which is more than the baseline. The policy allows for that if there are “aggravating factors.” But his suspension was reduced to four games on appeal.

Perhaps the most shocking application of the personal conduct policy was the league’s decision to issue a one-game suspension to former Giants kicker Josh Brown after he was arrested for domestic violence against his wife. Brown referred to the incident that led to his arrest as “just a moment,” but police records showed that Brown had been accused of more than 20 acts of violence against his now-former wife.

The NFL defended the minimal consequences for Brown based on the fact that his former wife did not cooperate with the league’s investigation. The league later re-opened its investigation when documents were released in which Brown admitted to abusing his wife repeatedly. They issued a six-game suspension at the conclusion of that investigation.

Elliott’s accuser did cooperate with the league’s investigation into her allegations. She met with league investigators six times. They had concerns with her credibility, but the independent advisors assigned to the investigation found the woman’s version of events credible even when taking into account her false statement to police on July 22 and other inconsistencies.

The letter to Elliott announcing his suspension also noted that a lack of cooperation from Elliott wasn’t a factor. If Elliott had failed to cooperate, his suspension might have been longer.

Why did the investigation take so long?

Elliott and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones both lamented the length of the league’s investigation. It took over a year for a few reasons, including the NFLPA waiting until May to turn over Elliott’s phone records and other relevant documents to the NFL.

An NFL investigation into player conduct involves several moving parts. The league won’t even begin its inquiry until law enforcement finishes its process and determines whether or not to file charges. For Elliott, that happened when the Columbus City Attorney’s Office declined to pursue charges against him in Sept. 2016.

League investigators interviewed 12 different witnesses, including Elliott and his accuser, and reviewed thousands of text messages and other documents related to the domestic violence allegations. The text messages available to league investigators exceeded what law enforcement had to work with during its initial investigation, according to The Washington Post.

The NFL also reviewed forensic photographic evidence and consulted with two medical experts to determine the timeframe in which Elliott’s accuser’s injuries were likely to have occurred. The NFL said in its letter to Elliott that on three occasions the medical experts agreed photographs of the woman’s injuries looked “recent and consistent” with her version of what happened.

Who made the decision to suspend Elliott?

The decision to suspend Elliott was Goodell’s alone.

Goodell notably did not participate in the interviews conducted with Elliott or his accuser, according to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio. Harvey also said that the group of advisors spoke to Goodell individually to give him their opinions. Article 46 of the current collective bargaining agreement gives Goodell absolute power over player discipline.

The actual investigation was undertaken by several people. The league had multiple investigators talk to witnesses and work through the evidence.

A panel of independent advisors interviewed Elliott and evaluated the findings of the investigation. Those four people were Harvey, former player and Hall of Famer Kenneth Houston, Women of Color Network CEO Tonya Lovelace, and former United States Attorney and Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White. White was also instrumental in the Saints’ Bountygate investigation.

What happened with Elliott’s appeal with the NFL?

Elliott officially filed an appeal with the league on the Tuesday after he was suspended. The hearing began on Aug. 29 and concluded on Aug. 31. On Tuesday, Sept. 5, Henderson announced his decision on Elliott’s appeal. The suspension was upheld.

Henderson released a statement regarding his decision.

"As his designated Hearing Officer in this matter, my responsibility is to determine whether the Commissioner's decision on discipline of Mr. Elliott is arbitrary and capricious, meaning was it made on unreasonable grounds or without any proper consideration of circumstances,” Henderson said, via Adam Schefter. “It is not the responsibility, nor within the authority of, the Hearing Officer to conduct a de novo review of the case and second guess his decision.”

A foundation of Elliott’s appeal was to call his accuser’s credibility into question, according to Clarence Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The woman’s false statement to police about the events of the night of July 22, 2016, as well as her request that her friend lie to police on her behalf will surely be a part of it.

The information Hill obtained was part of the league’s 160-page report detailing the findings of the investigation. According to those documents, Lisa Friel, the NFL’s lead investigator, and Kia Roberts, the league’s director of investigations, both had concerns about Elliott’s accuser’s credibility.

The Star-Telegram reported that Roberts recommended no suspension for Elliott, and her recommendation was ignored. The interview Roberts conducted with Elliott’s accuser was extensive. Transcripts of some of the conversations with Elliott’s accuser, which were obtained by the Dallas Morning News, show that Roberts thoroughly questioned Elliott’s accuser about discrepancies in her account of these events.

A transcript of the appeal hearing obtained by the Dallas Morning News reveals that Elliott’s representatives did attack that point doggedly. Attorneys representing Elliott and the NFLPA identified what they identified as several flaws in the investigative approach, like Roger Goodell not meeting with either Elliott or his accuser and not making the accuser available to testify under oath at the appeal.

The NFL’s investigators were called to testify about the inconsistencies with the evidence and witness statements. Elliott’s representative, Jeffrey Kessler, said he believed it was the first time that a report had been filed from an NFL investigation without an investigator’s recommendation for discipline included.

The league leaned heavily on its use of forensic data and medical expert evaluation of photographs of Elliott’s accuser’s injuries in its decision to suspend. But Kessler said the forensic evidence was insufficient to fill the credibility gap. The NFLPA brought as a witness a medical expert who Kessler said would testify that you cannot assess the age of bruises from photos, which was an approach the league’s medical experts employed in the investigation.

Included in the league’s report of its findings is the revelation that the woman admitted to discussing the possibility of releasing videos of herself and Elliott having sex, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Charles Robinson. She and a friend spoke via text about using the videos for blackmail or selling them for a profit. The woman told investigators that she did not intend to blackmail Elliott, but this is likely to come up in Elliott’s appeal as well.

Elliott filed a report with the Frisco, Texas Police Department in Sept. 2016 alleging that his accuser had harassed him. Elliott said she called him more than 50 times over the span of a few hours and had hacked into his email account. That case is no longer active.

The appeal could have been heard either by Goodell or by an arbitrator Goodell designated. Goodell selected Harold Henderson, who also heard the appeals of Hardy and Adrian Peterson. Henderson has denied a request from Elliott’s representatives to make his accuser available to testify during the appeal hearing. Henderson also declined to release transcripts and notes from meetings with Elliott’s accuser.

In Hardy’s case, Henderson determined that the 10-game suspension issued by the league was excessive. Henderson reduced Hardy’s suspension to four games. Henderson upheld Peterson’s suspension. Both Peterson and Hardy were suspended before the league adopted its current domestic violence policy in Dec. 2014.

Elliott, Roberts, and the NFLPA’s forensics expert all testified before Henderson. The appeal hearing was initially scheduled for two days, but was extended after the NFL decided to make a witness available by telephone after initially refusing.

Henderson had three options: overturn the suspension, uphold the six-game suspension, or reduce the number of games Elliott is suspended. Henderson chose to uphold the suspension.

What happened in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas?

The NFLPA and Elliott’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas to vacate any suspension that may be handed down after the appeals process, citing “the most fundamentally unfair arbitral processes conceivable.”

On Friday, Sept. 8, Judge Amos Mazzant, a federal court judge in Texas, ruled on a motion for a temporary restraining order or an injunction to block Elliott’s suspension until Elliott’s lawsuit against the NFL is completed. Mazzant ruled in Elliott’s favor and issued the injunction.

The NFLPA issued a statement immediately after the ruling.

Our statement on today's ruling on the temporary restraining order in the Ezekiel Elliott case: http://pic.twitter.com/g46h7qh2GI

— NFLPA (@NFLPA) September 8, 2017

Mazzant said that he issued the injunction because this is not a matter of guilt or innocence, but whether or not the disciplinary process was applied properly.

“The Court finds, based upon the injunction standard, that Elliott was denied a fundamentally fair hearing by Henderson’s refusal to allow Thompson and Goodell to testify at the arbitration hearing,” Mazzant said in the ruling.

The following Monday, the NFL filed an appeal of the injunction. Two days later, the NFLPA filed an opposition, saying “The NFL faces no threat of irreparable harm if the stay is not granted, while others, including both Elliott and the Cowboys, will suffer substantial — in fact, severe and irreparable — harm."

In its motion, the NFL said that if Mazzant did not issue a ruling by the close of business on Thursday, Sept. 14, that it would appeal to a higher court. Mazzant did not issue a decision, and the NFL filed an emergency motion with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals the following morning, according to sports and gaming attorney Daniel Wallach.

Elliott’s team didn’t take long to issue a response via a statement obtained by NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

“The NFL’s latest maneuvering appears to be indicative of a league with an agenda: trying to navigate a public relations crisis rather than focus on fairness and fact finding,” the statement read.

Mazzant later ruled that the injunction would stand.

What happened in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals?

In the NFL’s motion to the 5th Circuit Court, the league challenged Mazzant’s subject matter jurisdiction because the case was filed before the NFL appeal was settled. The league’s attorneys relied on labor case law that grants deference to labor arbitrators in these matters.

An oral argument was held in before a three-judge panel in the 5th Circuit Court on Oct. 2 on the NFL’s emergency motion for a stay. Elliott was not present, but representatives for the NFLPA and NFL were.

The league asserted that allowing Elliott to take the field did irreparable harm to the NFL, as it challenged the league’s ability to enforce the CBA and impacted competitive advantage. In its response, the NFLPA countered that it was in fact the NFL and its appointed arbitrator who were interfering with CBA procedures because of the way Elliott’s investigation was handled.

Two key questions were presented by the panel of judges, one to each side, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. They asked Elliott’s and the NFLPA’s attorneys if any court had accepted the argument that a lawsuit could be filed prior to the NFL’s arbitrator issuing a decision.

The NFL’s representatives were asked to explain why the league was willing to let Elliott play in Week 1 when the crux of their emergency motion was that it would cause irreparable harm to the league.

The court finally issued its decision on Thursday, Oct. 12. The panel of three judges sided with the NFL in a split decision on the basis that the federal court that issued the injunction did not have subject matter jurisdiction. Elliott’s six-game suspension was reinstated, and the NFL said it is effective immediately.

The court also ordered the District Court of Eastern Texas to dismiss Elliott’s case entirely. The NFLPA asked the court to recall that mandate, but the court denied that motion.

However, Elliott’s representatives have asked for a rehearing. They petitioned the court for an en banc hearing, which would involve all of the judges in the 5th Circuit as opposed to a panel of three judges.

What happened in the U.S. District Court in New York?

On Oct. 16, the NFLPA filed a motion for a temporary restraining order with the New York Southern District Court. A judge granted the TRO on Oct. 17, but it only remained in place until Oct. 30. Elliott was eligible to play during this time.

This is the same court that heard Tom Brady’s Deflategate appeal. In that case, it sided with the NFL and upheld Brady’s suspension. However, the issue of “fundamental fairness” is the crux of Elliott and the NFLPA’s argument.

The NFLPA filed with this court for a preliminary injunction. There was an evidentiary hearing on Oct. 30 involving both sides. Judge Katherine Polk Failla issued her decision that evening, ruling against Elliott. The court issued a 24-hour stay on the order reinstating Elliott’s suspension to give the NFLPA an opportunity to file an emergency appeal.

The union did file an appeal and as expected Judge Failla did not overturn her own ruling. The NFLPA then filed an emergency appeal with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Failla’s husband was one of the attorneys who worked on crafting the collective bargaining agreement, which caused some to raise the question of whether or not Failla should have recused herself from a case involving the NFL and NFLPA. This is not a true conflict of interest, and she is under no legal obligation to do so, according to sports and gaming law attorney Daniel Wallach.

What happened in the 2nd Circuit Court?

The NFLPA appealed Judge Failla’s ruling, and Elliott was granted a temporary stay on Friday, Nov. 3 by the 2nd Circuit. That allowed Elliott to play in the Cowboys’ Week 9 matchup against the Chiefs, but it was not a resolution.

The NFLPA asked for an injunction from the court to allow Elliott to continue playing after Week 9. A hearing was held on that on Thursday, Nov. 9, but a three-panel judge denied an emergency injunction for Elliott. The decision said that Elliott “failed to meet the requisite standard” for injunctive relief. Elliott’s suspension then began immediately. He did not play in the Cowboys’ Week 10 loss to the Falcons, and three days later, Elliott announced that he was dropping all appeals.

Elliott will serve his entire six-game suspension and will return on Dec. 24 against the Seahawks.

Who else has been involved in the situation?

Elliott, who has maintained his innocence throughout this process, responded swiftly via his personal Twitter account after the league’s decision was first announced in August:

http://pic.twitter.com/NYTawLdplN

— Ezekiel Elliott (@EzekielElliott) August 12, 2017

Elliott’s attorneys also released a statement that day.

"The NFL's findings are replete with factual inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions and it 'cherry picks' so called evidence to support its conclusion while ignoring other critical evidence,” the statement read in part.

Jones was reportedly “furious” about the league’s decision, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Jones had maintained that he did not expect Elliott to face discipline.

“There’s nothing,” Jones told USA Today in July. “I have reviewed everything. There is absolutely nothing, not one thing I’ve seen that has anything to do with domestic violence. I’ve seen nothing.”

On the day Elliott filed his appeal, Jones declined to comment.

“I don’t have anything to say about any of the appeal or anything about that issue, today,” Jones said via the team’s website. “But certainly I’ll be visiting with you guys about it in the future. Right now, today, is just not the time for me to talk about it.”

Elliott spoke to the media after the 2nd Circuit granted him a stay for Week 9.

“This is my name and my reputation,” Elliott said, via ESPN’s Josina Anderson. “That’s something I have to live with beyond football, so every day is worth fighting.”

Why are the NFL and NFLPA trading barbs about Elliott’s case?

The NFL and NFLPA engaged in a war of words via Twitter about the situation after the suspension was annouced:

New NFL statement http://pic.twitter.com/KJ64RDHVB2

— Brian McCarthy (@NFLprguy) August 16, 2017

The public statement issued on behalf of every NFL owner is a lie. The NFLPA categorically denies the accusations made in this statement. http://pic.twitter.com/OFOGQY91Ai

— NFLPA (@NFLPA) August 16, 2017

The league wasn’t happy with Elliott’s plan to discredit his accuser in his appeal or the NFLPA’s role in it. While the record shows that the woman was dishonest at times, shifting blame to a victim is “shameful,” in the words of NFL Executive Vice President of Communications Joe Lockhart.

On the NFLPA side, it simply said the league was lying and it never leaked derogatory information about Elliott’s accuser to the media. This contentious back-and-forth has continued throughout the court process.

After the 5th Circuit Court sided with the NFL, the NFLPA said, “The appellate court decision focuses on the jurisdictional issues. The failures of due process by the NFL articulated in the district court's decision were not addressed.”

Is it really over?

We think so. Although Elliott accepted his suspension, the NFLPA could have continued to fight the NFL in court. The union’s battle with the league was always about the collective bargaining agreement, not about whether Elliott was innocent or guilty.

But that does not appear to be the case:

My understanding is the plan now is to drop the entire Zeke Elliott case, not just the battle for the administrative stay. So finally, it’s over.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) November 15, 2017

It took longer than three months for Elliott to begin his suspension, which isn’t nearly as long as Deflategate lasted. There’s clearly a big difference between domestic violence and deflating footballs, but both dealt with labor law matters.

Brady served a four-game suspension to start the 2016 season for his role in the Deflategate controversy. The league announced Brady’s suspension on May 11, 2015, and the NFLPA filed an appeal on Brady’s behalf on May 14. The appeal was set for June 23, and Goodell announced that he would uphold the suspension on June 28.

Brady filed a federal lawsuit, and nearly a year later the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals eventually determined Goodell did have the authority to issue the suspension. Brady announced on July 15, 2016 that he would accept the suspension and not take the case to the Supreme Court.

Because of the precent set by that ruling, Elliott and the NFLPA likely would have had the same fate in court if they had continued to fight it. And it would have lasted many more months.