How you LIVin?

"In mansion and benzes, givin' ends to my friends and it feels stupendous." - Notorious B.I.G.

LIV players sure love it when we call them big poppa.  They are cashing checks, gettin no respect, and asking "What's Next?"  Next was suiting up!  Law suiting up.  Put the polo in the closet and grab the Jacket and Slacks so you can try to get a judge to give you that Tour status back.  LIV players lawyered up to challenge their former non-employer to play for the cup.  Some players qualified for the tour championship and wanted to get in that tourney.  Jay Monahan told them all to meet him on the 9th green at 9.  (If you don't understand that reference please see Happy Gilmore)  Jay went ahead and put out a few poorly worded memos to his players.  Its odd... he supports them while simultaneously putting them down.  The last memo, if  you read it, calls the LIV tour the "Saudi Golf League" and calling the players employees of this tour.  We could call the PGA Tour the "pretending to be a charity for non-profit tax status league" but we wont.    

LIV golf is backed financially by the Saudi Arabian public investment fund and is also non employing golfers but they invented this brand new kind of compensation guarantee.  They call them contracts.  The PGA Tour only employs people to run golf tournaments.  The players that play the tournaments are not employees of the PGA Tour and gives no financial guarantees.  LIV has also taken fondly to this model with one kicker of contractual guaranteed compensation.  Does that make them better or worse?  The PGA Tour players are classified as "independent contractors."  Are they really independent contractors?  They are required to show up for specific dates, times, and locations for events.  They can not control the hours or destinations of the these events.  They are required to play in a specific amount of events or risk losing status.  It sounds a lot like your college kid at tax time... they say they are independent but they keep hitting you up for money.   They need the money so they can buy you a Christmas gift.  So, you give them $100 dollars and end up with a pair of socks and a used Tin Cup DVD.  As you sit on the couch with warm feet watching Roy hit his 3rd ball in the water you start to wonder what the kid did with the other $95.  

Jay Monahan concluded his remarks like a captain trying to keep his crew from a mutiny.
"This is your TOUR, built on the foundation that we work together for the good and growth of the organization... and then you reap the rewards.  It seems your former colleagues have forgotten one important aspect of that equation."  AY AY Captain!  Unlike our usual made up quotes this one is an actual quote from the Tour commissioner Jay Monahan.  Besides it being poorly worded, it is confusing on whether or not the TOUR knows what the mission of the TOUR is.  

The TOUR is classified as a charity and the rewards (we're assuming he's talking about monetary rewards) can not be legally given out to its members/shareholders.  (Guess thats why the players arent employees then?)  Unless those rewards are the good fuzzies you get from doing charity work the players cant legally reap the rewards of the TOUR.  The TOUR's mission is built on the foundation that they work for the good and growth of GOLF professionals.  NOT the PGA ORGANIZATION.  Growth of an organization should never be paramount to the people the organization serves.  It seems that Mr. Monahan may have forgotten about these important aspects of the equation.  If the PGA Tour shut down tomorrow, people would still play golf.  The PGA Tour is a part of golf not the other way around, Jay.  

A lot of current and former players have spoken out about LIV golf tour.  Most of the ones that you hear making comments are the ones that have been moderately to highly successful on the PGA Tour.  Makes sense, no one wants to hear from the guy that played in the Waterbury Open that one year and missed the cut.  Most former successful players are upset, angered, and confused about why players would go play on another tour.  Firstly, almost all players played a tour before they got to play on the PGA tour.  Everyone played non PGA Tour tournaments at some point before qualifying for the PGA tour.  Secondly, if you ask the players that have been successful on the PGA tour it means that the PGA system has worked really well for them... SO, OF COURSE THEY LIKE HOW THE SYSTEM IS.  "Hey Tiger how do you like the PGA?  Oh, you mean the system that made me a billionaire?  It's dumb we should change it!"  (almost a real quote)  It worked for us so it works perfect.  

Several LIV golfers showed up to the BMW championship and caught some serious "my ex just showed up at the party" vibes.  "They are just here for the OWGR points" a non LIV competitor was quoted as saying.  Oh competitor, what are you here for?  Are you also here to play a golf tournament, for money, and world golf rankings points?  Oh, snap.  What a crazy coincidence, us too!  We believe if the golfer showed up to a golf tournament they are most likely interested in getting all that normal stuff that professional golfers get when they play in a tournament.  Except for John Daly.  He's just there to party.  Other than that you can bet everybody is there for the same reason.  It's like yelling at someone going into a library... "Hey jerk hole you're just here for the books aren't you?"  Welp, you shore can't learn what you think you already know.  Let those irony waves wash over you and see how you feel.  If we were a LIV golfer and someone yelled at us "Hey you!  I bet you're just here to play golf and get points and money and stuff?"  Yes, yes we are... Why?  What are you here for?  That same stuff?  We should be friends.  

We are a lil suspicious of this feud.  It is odd how they PGA Tour is so against LIV.  Do they understand their constant feud is fueling the LIV storm?  LIV is making it rain and some players are setting up rain barrels.  Do you blame the players for that?  Or do you blame the PGA Tour?  It feels similar to the feud between Notorious B.I.G. and 2Pac.  We're starting to wonder if this feud is just to garner attention for the both of them?  It is.  One side of the coin may have flipped to a frowny face but we don't know why the haters are so mad...  LIV golf be throwin out Mo' Money and we all know that only brings Mo' Problems.  

Free Speech

 

Speaking is not always free.  Ask Alex Jones.  Dont know who he is?  He's the thing you get when you combine copious amounts of insanity and adderall shove it in a blender and shoot it into space.  Mr. Jones has found himself counting the crows he has to eat and totally twitter trending on the bankruptcy feed.  He is well known for his conspiracy theories and using scare tactics to enrich himself.  Dont believe us.  See the John Oliver's "Last Week Tonight" episode on him.  It is horrifically entertaining.  If entertainment means you want to curse humanity for 1. Listening to and possibly believing Alex Jones' insane ramblings and 2. Actually giving him and his company money.   Thanks to people buying his overpriced supplements and spewing chunks of nonsense Alex Jones is worth an estimated $100+ million?!  Dang!  Are we sad or impressed?  (Sad... very, very sad.)  His company ironically enough is called Free Speech Systems LLC.  This system of free speech is gonna cost Alex Jones and his company $965 million.  So... he used to be worth $100+ million. 

This extremely enormous judgement rained down unto Jones because he ridiculously claimed the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax.  His unfounded conspiracy theory was that a shooting at an elementary school was a fictional broadcast by the "main stream" media in order to make the case for tougher gun laws.  We agree the thought of someone shooting several children should be fiction and we would also like to believe that it never happened, but unfortunately it did.  Our conspiracy theory is that the Alex Jones' judgment is a hoax.  The $965 million judgment is just a thing made up by the courts to deter lunatics from wanting to eject toxicity from their mouth holes.  Hoax or not it sounds like a win for humanity.

We arent good at math but the numbers dont look good for Alex.  $965 mill is probably a lot more than he's got, but we're not his accountants.  (Good thing for him because we would have donated millions of his dollars to charity.)  He'll surely file for bankruptcy.  If he is not actually insane he also probably has hidden untold millions through some offshore tax shelter.  Because he's a true American!  He's probably stuffed his closet full of dollar bills preparing for this situation.  Its right next to the belt that he uses for autoerotic asphyxiation.  This is just a theory.  It is our opinion that Alex Jones is into some weird stuff.  We mean he does weird stuff in front of a camera imagine what he does when its off... (No. Stop. Dont imagine that, your mind may never recover.) Unlike Alex Jones, we state that our opinions are just theories when we have no proof of the things we make up.  We will show you a picture of a belt he could use for asphyxiation though.  Alex Jones also is a Russian Spy.  He's been in a sleeper cell in plane sight.  He also has murdered several endangered species.  Including a Bald Eagle.  He was quoted as saying "I represent Amercia, Not You"  right before he shot it out of the sky.  These things are of course just theories.  Although, it is way too easy to picture him doing and being these things.

We usually reserve our opinions here at GoPunMe but like Will Smith we're gonna get judgy wit it.  The worst kind of people are the people that use freedom of speech as a guise to take away a persons freedom.  You can't prove its not true so we can say whatever we want.  Freedom of speech is not the freedom to say lies as they were truths.  You are not free to coerce people under false pretenses.  You are not free to scare people in order to enrich yourself.  These are scammers.  There is nothing worse than scammers.  They scare you.  They take advantage of you.  The make you into a person that no longer even trusts yourself.  Alex Jones is a scam artist, a liar, and should spend time in jail.  (Yes, we know defamation is a tort and not criminal)

You are free to speak but must understand that when your speech harms others you should be held libel.  Anarchy is not freedom.  The parents who survived their childrens deaths only to find they could not be consoled at the funeral without worry of retaliation from Alex Jones troll mafia.  These words did not go free.  They came with a cost.  They hurt, scared, and punished those who had already lived through tragedy.  Just because speech is free does not mean it should be care free.  Words carry weight, carry feelings, and carry thoughts.  So, carry the wait of your speech with a little respect because it always comes with a cost.