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The Brew's Mark Reutter, who is the preeminent expert on the shitty, shitty plutocratic shitheads who consecutively owned and looted Bethlehem Steel, weighed in Tuesday with this news: Several thousand former steelworkers who got their pensions ripped off by the hedge-fund corporate-raider asshole Ira Rennert will get about $1,400 each after a lawsuit by the Pension benefit Guaranty Corp was settled in mediation. The lawyers involved will bank $7.8 million. Reutter walks readers through the corporate chicanery that allowed Rennert and other Sparrows Point owners to duck their pension obligations before declaring bankruptcy. He also includes a picture of Rennert's palatial mansion in the Hamptons, which he reportedly built with money looted from another company he took over—Magnesium Corp of America. Great reporting and a great reminder of how America works. (Edward Ericson Jr.)
Nacho Mama's, purveyor of hubcap margaritas and transphobia, are considering a move out of Canton, a neighborhood it helped build, according to a story from The Sun's Wesley Case. Owners Jackie McCusker and Phil Gelso and "landlord John Koukides are divided on whether Nacho Mama's should pay to rehab and shift into an adjoining building and whether the restaurant should cede its liquor license to Koukides." On Facebook, Nacho Mama's posted, "Our lease is coming up & people are asking about other parts of the city. So you tell us, North, South, East or West?" Case sorts through the finer details of restaurant ownership, but big takeaway is this, as Sean Patrick Flanagan, president of the Canton Community Association, puts it: "You can't believe there would be Canton and a Square without Nacho Mama's. It's one and the same." (Brandon Weigel)
In July 2014, NFL defensive end Greg Hardy was found guilty of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Nicole Holder, and threatening her. After he was found guilty (though the charges were later dropped after Hardy appealed, because the victim didn't appear in court to testify), the league put him on the exempt list, meaning that he could keep his salary but couldn't participate in any team activities. Then the Dallas Cowboys signed him to a one-year contract in March 2015. Hardy had a four-game suspension from the NFL, but now he's able to play, and spoke to the media on Tuesday for the first time since the Cowboys signed him.
But instead of even pretending to be repentant, Hardy dodged all questions about the charges and talked about how he hoped to "come out guns blazing" this season. It's worth noting that "Hardy threw Holder onto a futon covered with at least four semiautomatic rifles and three other guns, dragged her by her hair from room to room, shoved her against a wall and put his hands around her neck, applying enough pressure to leave visible marks," as Christine Brennan wrote, so talking about "guns blazing" is some pretty poor word choice—word choice that was seemingly OK with the NFL, which published his comments on the league's website. Then, when he was asked a question about playing against Tom Brady, Hardy decided to instead comment about how he found Brady's wife attractive.
Katie Nolan, host of "Garbage Time" on Fox Sports 1, took Hardy—and the NFL and sports media—to task in a clip that circulated Twitter yesterday. "Greg Hardy had to pretend to respect women for 12 minutes—just 12 minutes!—and he couldn't even do that," she said. "And what's worse, no one stopped him. They let him go on about girlfriends and guns, they posted video of it on DallasCowboys.com because who fucking cares, right? Women won't see it. Women only care about football during those events they run that tell them what to cook on Game Day and give them free manicures." Watch the whole thing, and then watch it again. And then read Jessica Luther's post about Greg Hardy and the NFL's unwillingness to deal with domestic violence, why it matters, and what the NFL could do to actually hold abusers accountable. (Anna Walsh)