A’s broadcaster Glen Kuiper let go after racial slur on air
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Oakland Athletics broadcaster Glen Kuiper was let go by NBC Sports California after using a racial slur during a telecast while describing a trip to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
Kuiper was suspended by the network following his slur that aired during a pregame segment of an A’s game against the Kansas City Royals on May 5. Kuiper talked about a trip to the museum with colleague Dallas Braden but seemingly mispronounced the word “Negro,” making it sound instead like a slur.
“Following an internal review, the decision has been made for NBC Sports California to end its relationship with Glen Kuiper, effective immediately,” the network said in a statement Monday. “We thank Glen for his dedication to Bay Area baseball over the years.”
A person familiar with the investigation said “the decision was based on a variety of factors, including information uncovered in the internal review.” The person spoke on condition of anonymity and didn’t divulge specific details because the network had not publicly disclosed the results of the investigation.
Kuiper said in a statement Monday night that he mispronounced the word “negro” out of his excitement talking about his visit to the museum.
“It was a terrible but honest mispronunciation, and I take full responsibility,” he said.
Kuiper said “racism is in no way a part of me; it never has been, and it never will be.”
“I am an honest, caring, kind, honorable, respectful husband and father who would never utter a disparaging word about anybody. Those who know me best know this about me,” he said. “I wish the Oakland A’s and NBC Sports would have taken into consideration my 20-year career, my solid reputation, integrity, and character, but in this current environment traits like integrity and character are no longer considered. I will always have a hard time understanding how one mistake in a 20-year broadcasting career is cause for termination, but I know something better is in my future.”
A’s manager Mark Kotsay said the decision wasn’t made by the team and that he sympathizes with Kuiper.
“I can’t imagine being in his shoes right now,” Kotsay said. “I think personally, we missed an opportunity here maybe to use this as an educational platform. But as you said, I don’t make decisions and this isn’t a decision I was involved in and nor was the organization really. This was a decision made by NBC.”
Kuiper has been calling A’s games in the Bay Area for the last 20 years. He is the younger brother of former major leaguer and Giants announcer Duane Kuiper.
___
AP Sports Writer Tim Booth in Seattle contributed to this report
The post A’s broadcaster Glen Kuiper let go after racial slur on air appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.
Debt ceiling explained: Why it’s a struggle in Washington and how the impasse could end
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet face to face Monday after a weekend of on again, off again negotiations over raising the nation’s debt ceiling and mere days before the government could reach a “hard deadline” and run out of cash to pay its bills.
The two sides are working to reach a budget compromise before June 1, when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the country could default.
McCarthy and Republicans are insisting on spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit. Biden has come to the negotiating table after balking for months but says the GOP lawmakers will have to back off their “extreme positions.”
On Sunday evening, negotiators met again and appeared to be narrowing on a 2024 budget year cap that could resolve the standoff. After speaking with Biden by phone as the president traveled home from a trip to Asia, McCarthy sounded somewhat optimistic. But he warned that “there’s no agreement on anything.”
A look at the negotiations and why they are happening:
WHAT IS THE DEBT CEILING FIGHT ALL ABOUT?
Once a routine act by Congress, the vote to raise the debt ceiling allows the Treasury Department to continue borrowing money to pay the nation’s already incurred bills.
The vote in more recent times has been used as a political leverage point, a must-pass bill that can be loaded up with other priorities.
House Republicans, newly empowered in the majority this Congress, are refusing to raise the debt limit unless Biden and the Democrats impose federal spending cuts and restrictions on future spending.
The Republicans say the nation’s debt, now at $31 trillion, is unsustainable. They also want to attach other priorities, including stiffer work requirements on recipients of government cash aid, food stamps and the Medicaid health care program. Many Democrats oppose those requirements.
Biden had insisted on approving the debt ceiling with no strings attached, saying the U.S. always pays its bills and defaulting on debt is non-negotiable.
But facing a deadline as soon as June 1, when Treasury says it will run out of money, Biden launched negotiations with Republicans.
IS IT CLOSE TO BEING RESOLVED?
There are positive signs, though there have been rocky moments in the talks.
Start-stop negotiations were back on track late Sunday, and all sides appear to be racing toward a deal. Negotiators left the Capitol after 8 p.m. Sunday and said they would keep working.
McCarthy said after his call with Biden that “I think we can solve some of these problems if he understands what we’re looking at.”
The speaker added: “We have to spend less money than we spent last year.”
Biden, for his part, said at a press conference in Japan before departing: “I think that we can reach an agreement.”
But reaching an agreement is only part of the challenge. Any deal will also have to pass the House and Senate with significant bipartisan support. Many expect that buy-in from the White House and GOP leadership will be enough to muscle it over the finish line.
WHAT ARE THE HANGUPS?
Republicans want to roll back spending to 2022 levels and cap future spending for the next decade.
Democrats aren’t willing to go that far to cut federal spending. The White House has instead proposed holding spending flat at the current 2023 levels.
There are also policy priorities under consideration, including steps that could help speed the construction and development of energy projects that both Republicans and some Democrats want.
Democrats have strenuously objected to a Republican push to impose stiffer work requirements on people who receive government aid through food stamps, Medicaid health care and the cash assistance programs.
Biden, though, has kept the door open to some discussion over work requirements.
WHAT HAPPENS IF THEY DON’T RAISE THE DEBT CEILING?
A government default would be unprecedented and devastating to the nation’s economy. Yellen and economic experts have said it could be “catastrophic.”
There isn’t really a blueprint for what would happen. But it would have far-reaching effects.
Yellen has said it would destroy jobs and businesses and leave millions of families who rely on federal government payments to “likely go unpaid,” including Social Security beneficiaries, veterans and military families.
More than 8 million people could lose their jobs, government officials estimate. The economy could nosedive into a recession.
“A default could cause widespread suffering as Americans lose the income that they need to get by,” she said. Disruptions to federal government operations would impact “air traffic control and law enforcement, border security and national defense, and food safety.”
IS THERE A BACKUP PLAN IF TALKS FAIL?
Some Democrats have proposed that they could raise the debt ceiling on their own, without help from Republicans.
Progressives have urged Biden to invoke a clause in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment that says the validity of the public debt in the United States “shall not be questioned.” Default, the argument goes, is therefore unconstitutional.
Supporters of unilateral action say Biden already has the authority to effectively nullify the debt limit if Congress won’t raise it, so that the validity of the country’s debt isn’t questioned. The president said Sunday that it’s a “question that I think is unresolved,” as to whether he could act alone, adding he hopes to try to get the judiciary to weigh in on the notion for the future.
In Congress, meanwhile, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has launched a process that would “discharge” the issue to the House floor and force a vote on raising the debt limit.
It’s a cumbersome legislative procedure, but Jeffries urged House Democrats to sign on to the measure in hopes of gathering the majority needed to trigger a vote.
The challenge for Democrats is that they have only 213 members on their side — five short of the 218 needed for a majority.
Getting five Republicans to cross over and join the effort won’t be easy. Signing onto a “discharge” petition from the minority is seen as a major affront to party leadership, particularly on an issue as important as the debt ceiling. Few Republicans, if any, may be willing to suffer the consequences.
The post Debt ceiling explained: Why it’s a struggle in Washington and how the impasse could end appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.
Job cuts, no Social Security checks: How consumers could be pinched by a US government default
WASHINGTON (AP) — All the hand-wringing in Washington over raising the debt limit can seem far removed from the lives of everyday Americans, but they could end up facing huge consequences.
Millions of people in the U.S. rely on benefits that could go unpaid and services that could be disrupted, or halted altogether, if the government can’t pay its bills for an extended period.
If the economy tanked due to default, more than 8 million people could lose their jobs, government officials estimate. Millions of Social Security beneficiaries, veterans and military families could lose their monthly payments. Vital federal services including border and air traffic control could be disrupted if workers can’t get their government paychecks.
The economy could nosedive into a recession.
President Joe Biden and the top congressional leaders from both parties met at the White House on Tuesday to try to resolve it all, their second such meeting in as many weeks.
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
If the government’s legal borrowing limit of $31.4 trillion is not raised or suspended by June 1, the result could be financial havoc. The inability to borrow money to keep paying government obligations could mean businesses sent into bankruptcy, crashes piling up across financial markets and lasting economic pain. The damage would be financial, but the cause would be political, a breakdown between Republicans and Democrats, rather than a problem with a basically healthy U.S. economy.
WHAT’S HOLDING UP AN AGREEMENT?
Philosophical differences with financial consequences.
Republicans want spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, saying the current pace of spending is unsustainable. Biden and congressional Democrats want the debt limit raised without conditions, arguing that the two issues should not be linked.
Biden had said he would not negotiate over the debt limit, but that he would have a separate conversation with McCarthy about the federal budget.
WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE BUDGET?
First the budget is not the debt. The budget is the money the government takes in and spends each year. If it spends more than it brings in — a budget deficit — that adds to the debt that has been building basically forever.
Biden dared McCarthy to produce a budget plan, and House Republicans responded by narrowly approving a bill to reduce deficits by $4.8 trillion over 10 years. It would do so by cutting discretionary spending to 2022 levels and placing an annual 1% cap on future increases. The bill would also reclaim billions of unspent COVID-19 funding, eliminate clean energy tax credits Biden signed into law last year and reverse his student debt forgiveness and repayment plan.
It’s unclear how Democrats can get the debt ceiling increased without support from House Republicans. But Democrats say the GOP bill’s unspecified budget cuts would harm individuals — and the economy — as domestic spending would likely be cut. Moody’s Analytics estimates the Republican bill would cause the loss of 780,000 jobs next year alone.
ARE THERE ANY POSSIBLE AVENUES OF AGREEMENT?
Besides repurposing unspent COVID-19 funding, the White House and House Republicans could agree to tighten certain work requirements for federal aid programs that benefit the needy. The GOP-controlled House passed legislation that imposes more stringent conditions for people receiving food stamps, or SNAP benefits, as well as adults without dependents on Medicaid and recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which offers aid to low-income families with children.
Biden over the weekend appeared to rule out changes to Medicaid. The White House said he would reject proposals that take away people’s health coverage or push them into poverty.
WHO WOULD SUFFER THE MOST FROM A DEFAULT?
Basically everyone, because the jolt to the U.S. and global financial systems would be so “catastrophic,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday in a speech to community bankers.
But working people, those living paycheck to paycheck and people who rely on government benefits and services would face the biggest blows through job losses and the loss of income.
Yellen, in her speech, urged Congress to act quickly. “The U.S. economy hangs in the balance. The livelihoods of millions of Americans do, too,” she said.
HOW DOES IT END?
No one really knows, though McConnell, a longtime Senate Republican leader, said this after last week’s White House meeting: “The United States is not going to default. It never has and it never will.”
___
AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Seung Min Kim and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
The post Job cuts, no Social Security checks: How consumers could be pinched by a US government default appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.
☞ JOIN: HARLEM BESPOKE ON FACEBOOK
Harlem Bespoke: It has been a decade of covering everything old and new in greater Harlem! Join our growing community of over 14,655 followers on the Harlem Bespoke Facebook site and receive daily to your account by liking our page: LINK