90 Miles From Tyranny

Monday, November 6, 2017

NFL Continues to Suffer Massive Numbers of Empty Seats on Gameday

With the NFL facing cratering TV ratings, it is also important to note that fans are staying away from the stadiums, too.

Fans have remarked on the sparse crowds at several games since last Thursday night.

For instance, Levis Stadium in San Francisco did not appear to have many fans in the seats.

Another Twitter user claimed that two thirds of the seats were empty this weekend.

Others were just as shocked at how empty the stadium was.

The Giants game did not seem to fare any better.

Jaguars fans also stayed home from EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida.

The Houston Texans also saw sparse attendance as they took on the Indianapolis Colts, according to fans on Twitter.

Finally, Thursday’s Jets game at Metlife Stadium didn’t draw many fans.

On the other hand, Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee, was filled to the brim as 95,551 fans turned out to see the Volunteers meet Southern Mississippi on Saturday. Neyland has a capacity of just over 105,000 seats, so that turnout was quite a feat.

On a side note, as the NFL’s ratings and attendance continue to fall, some advertisers are telling the broadcast networks that if they continue to show the

Princes, ministers and a billionaire are 'imprisoned' in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton while the Saudi Arabian Army is said to be in an uproar.

The House of Saud’s King Salman devises an high-powered “anti-corruption” commission and appoints his son, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, a.k.a. MBS, as chairman.

Right on cue, the commission detains 11 House of Saud princes, four current ministers and dozens of former princes/cabinet secretaries – all charged with corruption. Hefty bank accounts are frozen, private jets are grounded. The high-profile accused lot is “jailed” at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton.

War breaks out within the House of Saud, as Asia Times had anticipated back in July. Rumors have been swirling for months about a coup against MBS in the making. Instead, what just happened is yet another MBS pre-emptive coup.

A top Middle East business/investment source who has been doing deals for decades with the opaque House of Saud offers much-needed perspective: “This is more serious than it appears. The arrest of the two sons of previous King Abdullah, Princes Miteb and Turki, was a fatal mistake. This now endangers the King himself. It was only the regard for the King that protected MBS. There are many left in the army against MBS and they are enraged at the arrest of their commanders.”

To say the Saudi Arabian Army is in uproar is an understatement. “He’d have to arrest the whole army before he could feel secure.”

Prince Miteb until recently was a serious contender to the Saudi throne. But the highest profile among the detainees belongs to billionaire Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal, owner of Kingdom Holdings, major shareholder in Twitter, CitiBank, Four Seasons, Lyft and, until recently, Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp.

Al-Waleed’s arrest ties up with a key angle; total information control. There’s no freedom of information in Saudi Arabia. MBS already controls all the internal media (as well as the appointment of governorships). But then there’s Saudi media at large. MBS aims to “hold the keys to all the large media empires and relocate them to Saudi Arabia.”

So how did we get here?

DEL RIO, TX (WBOC) – U.S. Border Patrol agents working on the Mexico-Texas border arrested a man who was in the U.S. illegally and had a previous conviction for child rape in Delaware, authorities said.

On Oct. 20, Border Patrol agents arrested Victor Manuel Velasquez-Perez, a 42-year-old Guatemalan national, near the Rio Grande River in Eagle Pass, Texas.

Authorities said that during processing, records checks revealed that Velasquez-Perez was convicted in 2012 of felony rape of a child under the age of 12 in Georgetown, Delaware.

After serving time for the rape conviction, Velasquez-Perez was removed from the United States and deported to Guatemala. He currently faces charges of illegal reentry after deportation with a possible maximum sentence of...