What A Day - NCAA It Forward

Episode Date: December 17, 2020

Congressional leaders think they could pass a roughly $900 billion stimulus bill by the end of the week, which might include direct payments, but won't include money for states and localities. A deal can’t come soon enough: eight million Americans have been pushed into poverty since this summer, while jobless claims (and COVID cases) are rising.The Supreme Court announced it will hear a case on compensation of athletes in the NCAA. Players think the NCAA’s cap on student athlete compensation violates antitrust laws… not to mention, college sports bring in billions in revenue each year on the backs of majority Black athletes.And in headlines: Bezos’s ex Mackenzie Scott gave away $6 billion in 2020, Jackass guys got broke off on day two of filming, and at long last Trump gets new shower-head rules on the books.

It's Thursday, December 17th. I'm Akili Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What The Day, where we are calling for mall Santas to get the vaccine immediately. That's right. And I feel like if the mall Santas get the vaccine, then maybe they could go mall shopping and save the malls. Because, like, you know, that's the next thing on the list. They're going to be popping into Sephora Forever 21, looking fly and safe at the same time. On today's show... Show me the money!

Jerry, you better go! Show me the money! That's right. We're going to be talking about our reviews of Jerry Maguire. No, we are actually talking about student athletes who want to get paid and why the Supreme Court is going to weigh in. Then some headlines. But first, the latest.

So what they actually come up with, we'll see. I'm understanding that it could be maybe some direct payments in lieu of state and local. And what would those look like? The direct payments, because that was a big sticking point. Obviously, the progressives in the House really want that. So how much? No, I don't know.

I can't speak to that. I know it wouldn't be more than $1,200, but I think it'll be in the $600, probably $500, $600 range. You know, what we got now is not enough, but it is something. And I'm just simply happy to say that as we enter the holiday season,

when so many people are worried about how they're going to pay their bills, whether they get evicted, whether they're going to feed their kids, at least at least among other things, there'll be six hundred dollars per adult and five or six hundred dollars per child as well. That's a start. I want to do better. That was Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Bernie Sanders talking about these never-ending negotiations on COVID economic relief. Earlier in the week, we talked about how the recent bipartisan plan had gotten split into two parts with the hope that something could pass before Congress hits the road. So it is now Thursday. Where do things stand? The state of our union and our Congress is strong, as it always is. Just kidding.

As of late Wednesday afternoon, we hadn't seen a final deal, but there was actually a pretty significant update we were hearing. The top line is that congressional leaders were expressing confidence that by the end of the week, they could pass a roughly $900 billion bill that now would include stimulus checks, which is what they were talking about.

Okay, mission accomplished, folks. Easy, we're out of here. Not so fast. There is a catch. In fact, many. According to the Washington Post, it's broadly going to include new funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, $300 a week in federal unemployment benefits. That, of course, used to be $600 earlier in the year. Money for

schools and vaccines and $25 billion for emergency rental assistance, which is something that Democrats got into the bill. But here's where things have changed since the last time we talked about this. State and local relief funding and liability shields for certain businesses have been dropped from the package. We don't have a crystal ball here, but the second they split those from the original package, it kind of seemed like only a matter of time before state and local money got the boot. That leftover money is what could end up going towards direct checks, but there was talk yesterday of that being only $600 instead of $1,200 like earlier in the year. I guess enough for one gaming console? Yeah, I mean, maybe if you're in that PlayStation 5 line and you get lucky.

But it just gets us back to what Manchin and Sanders were saying at the top of the show. Yes, so Manchin seems intent on just getting the deal done. And Sanders' point is the inclusion of direct payments is a start, but they need to keep going to raise them higher. Additionally, there was some concern that in order to get the direct payments, they might have to shorten how long unemployment lasts. So means tested trade-offs on top of trade-offs in a major crisis for folks. And as he explained to the Post, Sanders didn't quite understand how Democrats had so quickly approved of a package that was $900 billion when a more recent figure presented by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin

back in October was actually larger. And at that point, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it wasn't sufficient. Then meanwhile, in recent days, there were members of the House Progressive Caucus going for more, looking for $2,000 direct payments. Yeah, that'd be tight. Yeah, I mean, seriously. And then when and if this gets done, the thing that seems to be on a lot of people's minds is what could happen when Biden takes over. And a big part of that is going to be what the Senate looks like next year. Yeah, I love it when all the storylines converge at once. And the runoffs in Georgia seem to be playing a factor. So McConnell seems scared that people in Georgia also like action from the federal government and aren't just voting because they're mad their

voting machine was hacked by Hugo Chavez. Yes, exactly. He is slightly concerned that people are facing reality. The New York Times reported that in a call yesterday with Republicans, McConnell said that Senators Loeffler and Perdue were, quote, getting hammered for the broader failure of Congress to deliver aid and that President Trump has also pushed for stimulus checks and would sign this bill. So that's not what getting hammered means. We'll give it. We'll give him a pass. It's not the worst thing that he has said. But yes, maybe they also are doing the other version that we are more familiar with. But anyway, that is all playing into how this is all shaping up.

But politics aside, people in Georgia and throughout the country are really, really hurting because of all of this procrastination. Almost 8 million Americans have been pushed into poverty since the summer. Jobless claims are beginning to go up again. Spending is down and the pandemic is wildly, wildly out of control. And there's a potential gap in time before anything that is passed in Congress can get fully implemented. Yeah, they should really be ashamed of themselves for letting people wait like this. And then lastly, let's touch on the impact of excluding that state and local money. Yeah, it could be a really big problem. So there's some talk that there would be other ways to give this money out within the broader package, including maybe approving FEMA money and distributing that, but we don't know really if that's going to happen yet. system seems to have barely avoided a plan that could have cut city subway service by 40 percent. And cities across the country have been staring down the barrel of hiring freezes and cuts for

all sorts of municipal workers. So we'll be keeping track of all of that, of course. But we wanted to take the opportunity to bring attention to a slightly under the radar story that we found interesting this week. And it has to do with NCAA athletes. Yeah. So you've probably heard the groundswell of support for college athletes to be compensated for their work. But for the first time since 1984, the Supreme Court of the United States is willing to hear this issue, which the court announced yesterday. So this is what's being argued. Players believe that the NCAA's cap on student-athlete compensation violates antitrust laws. But the NCAA claims that they're just trying to protect amateurism and maintain a basic competitive equality between schools that play each other.

Plus, they say that the current model helps support non-revenue generating sports, though there's some questions about whether the money is really going to them or more to big time coaches and stadiums. Coach Cal was nowhere to be found for comment. But SCOTUS will basically be answering the question, are student athletes students

or are they employees of the schools? College athletics are a goldmine for universities with successful programs, and the sales of merch and tickets alone merits the case being heard. Yeah, and we talked about this issue overall when the NCAA was considering these rule changes with none other than Andrew Yang. They were trying to get ahead of legislation in the courts. It's funny that he was involved in all of this. But now, how exactly did this case make its way to the Supreme Court? So it's kind of interesting. A lower court basically sided with players in saying that these pay caps were, in fact,

in violation of antitrust laws and ordered the NCAA to allow colleges to offer student athletes education-related benefits, such as graduate school scholarships, study abroad opportunities, or computers for educational use. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld that decision. Then the NCAA appealed to SCOTUS, and now we're expecting arguments this term and a decision in the summer. And the NCAA thinks it's a good sign that SCOTUS will hear this case because they're confident that they'll overturn the lower court decision. But they also kind of need that to happen because dozens of states have legislation proposed or in the works to allow students to profit from their personal brands. And if SCOTUS or Congress doesn't step in, NCAA will lose their right to control some

1,200 schools' athletic program compensation models. The National College Players Association, which advocates for players, is hoping that the court will go beyond upholding the lower court ruling and actually expand it to benefit the athletes. Yeah, that would be quite a thing indeed. And you mentioned that Congress could step in here. How exactly would that work? Yeah, so some Dems are proposing a Players' Bill of Rights, which sounds awesome, to create a revenue share agreement

that favors individual players, while Republicans have a competing bill that would basically give the FTC jurisdiction over this and then have them choose a private entity, probably the NCAA, to develop and enforce new rules for compensation. And a final but important point here is that college sports brings in billions of dollars in revenue each year on the backs of majority black athletes. So the optics aren't great

on having them work for free while the schools and the NCAA rake in this much dough. But hey, ain't that America? Yeah, that's like the big storyline in college sports. The fact that, you know, there's billions of dollars that come through in March Madness and everybody's doing it for free. And also this year, you know, COVID has also put a focus on athletes' rights and broader safety therein. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we'll let you know what the court has to say when they issue their decision. But that's the latest for now. It's Thursday, WOD Squad, and for today's Tim Check, we're talking about an abundance of lobsters. In Australia, the delicious crustaceans are being sold for about half the normal price amid poor diplomatic relations with China. Australia usually sends more than 90% of

their lobsters to China, but China isn't importing them now as payback for Australia's calls to investigate China's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Uh-oh. Two large Australian grocery chains are now limiting lobster purchases to four per customer so that more people can get in on the deal. So Giddy, my question for you is four lobsters enough? It's enough for me because like, I don't think that I'm really going to be eating or cooking them, you know? So like I would find, I would find the right recipient, perhaps a local red lobster franchise and say, I purchased these four for a great deal and if you're running low i can help you out i i want to say though this all seems like a cover for something deeper that is happening between australia and china like interesting geopolitical stuff that is going on that seems pretty darn feisty and

then they're like oh but don't think about it go to your grocery store. Yeah, buy one, get one free lobster deal. Yeah. But okay, so you're going to the store. Yeah. Is Four going to cut it? Is Four going to cut it? I mean, here's the thing. Like, I feel like this is a great opportunity to start a business. You know, people don't realize that they maybe really miss buffets and they miss lobsters.

So it's like you can bring the buffet to them. Yes. Prepare it a few different ways and then go door to door selling lobster meats that you created or just like release them back into the ocean. I feel like if it's that many lobster, it's probably bad for like biodiversity. Like I'm pretty sure the lobsters would kill whatever is hanging out thinking that they're safe. So I don't know. I mean, personally, I've never cooked lobster and I've only had it maybe five times in my life. We just weren't a big seafood family.

So like, you know, I feel like they're probably giving me a really big gift and I'm like, I don't understand. What do I do? I know there's butter that you're supposed to dip it in maybe. I think that's right. And also, okay, so if we're really going to go there, I do think that, you know, these crustaceans that you have to disassemble with your hands at

the dinner table, you're really making it sound great. It's not, it's not for me. And I don't think that that's coming back, uh, post COVID by the way. I just, it seems, it seems like, uh, we're, we're not going to all be at the, the boil or whatever, like ripping apart the crawdads and whatever the hell other people do. Yeah. You know, I do. I hope that we can just remember the good times and not do any food that requires us to, like, get it under our fingernails and stuff. No, absolutely not. Well, just like that, we checked our temps. Stay safe.

Get in on this lobster deal. And we'll be back with some headlines. Headlines. We are still getting updates on the massive Russian hack of the U.S. federal government and private companies. The hack stems from a breach of SolarWinds software, where hackers added malware to an update in March that was downloaded by thousands of clients, including U.S. federal agencies. The hack went unnoticed for months, despite tens of billions of dollars being spent by the U.S. government

on so-called cyber-offensive capabilities meant to detect oncoming attacks and launch preventative counter-strikes. That's according to a new report in the New York Times. So the Russian hackers did good work. But before you make a movie about their amazing skills, you should know that the SolarWinds update server was accessible by the password SolarWinds123 as recently as the end of 2019. Oh, God.

OK, the password was later changed, and it's not clear whether it had any role in the hack, but it suggests the company might have been less cyber secure than the average grandma's Facebook account. Now, the Russian government continues to deny any involvement in the hack. I want my tens of billions of dollars back. I could have done a better password than that. Easy. Ten better passwords. Yeah, I mean, how much money they got. Okay, well, divorce just got a major endorsement,

as it allowed the former wife of Jeff Bezos, Mackenzie Scott, to give away nearly $6 billion in 2020. Scott received $38.3 billion in Amazon stock when she split from the world's richest and scroogiest man in 2019, and she's been donating that money at a record rate. Her charitable efforts this year will benefit over 348 organizations ranging from large nonprofits like the NAACP to smaller ones like an affordable housing lender in Minnesota with the money given all at once and with no strings attached. In a Medium post yesterday, Scott described the une it, meaning the pandemic, has substantially increased the wealth of

billionaires. Fact check, true. The wealth of U.S. billionaires went up by $560 billion this year, which is probably something they toasted as they drank glasses of the Pfizer vaccine like three weeks ago. As for Jeff Bezos, he still hasn't signed the giving pledge to donate at least half his wealth during his lifetime. Scott signed it just months after the divorce. It's always tough to make a marriage work when only one person has a functioning soul. It's true. There's an echo and then there's a soul.

Just don't go together. Our nation's hospitals are being tested yet again. Production is underway for a fourth jackass movie and two of the stars have already been seriously injured. Here is Bam Margera describing the crisis in a recently unearthed cameo video. The second day filming Jackass already and Steve-O and Knoxville are hospitalized by jumping on a full speed treadmill with band equipment. Like a fucking tuba. I hate to say it. I would give my life for these men.

Guys, these are the sacrifices filmmakers make every single day. That's another reason why we should make Medicare kick in at 35 if your job is getting thrown off shopping carts or letting alligators bite you on the nipple. In other movie news, leaked audio from the set of Mission Impossible 7

has revealed Tom Cruise screaming at the crew for violating COVID-19 safety safety protocols here are some of that i'm on the phone with every studio at night insurance companies producers and they're looking at us and using us to make their movies we are creating thousands of jobs. His name is Ethan Hunt and the people he spoke to are his prey. I truly can't overstate how intently I'd be staring at my craft services, nature Valley bar. If I was there when that happened.

Yeah. I'm like, honestly, this is why they pay him the big bucks because his yell travels, you know, all over the globe. The new theme song is just him yelling. All right.

And lastly, to close the loop on a story that's captivated us all year, Trump's Department of Energy has successfully rolled back regulations on the amount of water that can shoot at you from showerheads, following the president's extremely personal, impossible to relate to campaign against weak showers. In between saying that U.S. toilets don't suck down waste with enough force and dishwashers must run 12 times to work, Trump has said that Americans are needing to take longer showers due to limited flow. Under the new regulations, people will be able to install multiple shower heads with the standard 2.5 gallon per minute flow rate, allowing everyone to become the Poseidon of their own personal shower ocean. Environmentalists have said these rollbacks will allow for more water and energy to be wasted and are out of step with the climate crisis. He better still let me flush that toilet 15 times, though.

I'm just saying. Yeah, it's honestly the only pastime I have in COVID. And those are the headlines. newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And don't yell at us, Tom Cruise. Yell with us. Yeah, we want to join you in this impossible mission. Why can't we all yell together? That's what we're here for. That's what we shoot movies for. To scream as one. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis.

Sonia Tan is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our executive producers are Katie Long, Akilah Hughes, and me. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka.