Calling for “Play Nice” Rule for the NFL….

Deciding that the Senate did not have anything more important to do than police the National Football League, Senator Dick (Chew on This) Durbin, champion of the fight against big league baseball’s time-honored tradition of chewing tobacco [See Chew on This! Hugh Betcha Confronts Anti-Tobacco Chewing Senators at World Series, Canada Free Press 10/19/11] has now called for Senate hearings into the practice of paying football players to injure or incapacitate opponents during NFL games. And his old friend, Hugh Betcha, Chief of the International Sports Bureau of the Stoos Views media conglomerate was there for an exclusive.

Hugh, recently named the World’s Most Trusted Reporter, 2012 by MSNBC--a reporter who moves with equal ease between both aisles of Congress, walks with kings and princes and hails from Wynstone, South Dakota, where the air is clean, the crime rate low, and the folks vote red-- rushed from Stoos Views headquarters, hopped aboard his politically correct, algae-powered private jet and answered the Senator’s call for an exclusive interview in Foggy Bottom this week. “Of course we have runaway debt, have never passed a budget in three years, are fighting in an unwinnable war which has killed many young Americans bravely defending borders thousands of miles away while “undocumented persons” cross our southern flank; sure we have the highest percentage of unemployment in years.

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Yes, the President refuses to allow a pipeline which would bring us oil from a friendly neighbor and provide hundreds of thousands of union jobs to build the entire Keystone project. Yes we are incurring insurmountable debt which we can never pay off and will in time spell the ruination of our country. However, in my mind there is nothing more important--other than perhaps the need to eliminate tobacco chewing among big league baseball players--than the subject of playing nice on the football field,” he said, with brows furrowed as he pointed to the reporter. “But since the Commissioner leveled heavy fines and suspended several coaches and players--punishment unheard of in sports history--don’t you think this sport can police itself?” Hugh inquired, incredulous. “No, only Washington knows best. When I hear that some of these football players are hitting each other hard, or using late hits, or trying to injure another player, why it sends me through the roof. This should be a crime and I intend to hold hearings over the course of several weeks to get to the bottom of this practice.” “But aren’t there already about a million and a half federal crimes in this country?” “Perhaps--but none so important as this. These football players need to learn to play nice and I--Dick Durbin--plan to force them to or go to prison.” “How would this work?” Hugh inquired. “Well, we would impose fines for the first offense and, thereafter a year in jail for each subsequent offense. We would post Federal agents on the sidelines of each game and arrest anyone on the spot suspected of a late hit or intentional injury to the opposition.” “Did you know that there were fifty people shot in Obama’s hometown last week, including a six year old girl in some of the worst random violence in the history of that city? Right in your own backyard?” Hugh asked the Senator from Illinois. “Of course, but that is Chicago--happens all the time. Football players treating each other badly? Well, that is another thing altogether. That must stop.” “Well, you certainly have important work to do. What else is on your plate after you investigate football players acting badly?” “Ever notice every time you go into a movie theatre, some idiot has put some old chewing gum under the seat….” “…Don’t tell me…” “Yes, we are going to hold hearings on that practice. Very unsanitary you know. Oughta be a crime as well--” “--You cannot be serious---“ “--and then there is the matter of puppies. The mistreatment of puppies…we need to look into---“ Whereupon the reporter, thanking the Senator for his time, abruptly took his leave, returned to the Midwest, where things made a little more sense, and filed this report. © 2012 Stoos Views and William Kevin Stoos