"Yoooooooooooooooou suck!"

As always, I apologize in advance for splashing politics into your sports bourbon, but we can’t go a full business week lately without a politician trying to act like he’s a sports expert. In this case, the politician is South Dakota state representative Steve Hickey, who wrote quite the essay on his blog on Saturday about why he doesn’t want mixed martial arts in the Mount Rushmore State, because the state’s Senate Commerce and Energy Commission voted yesterday on a bill to create a state athletic commission to regulate MMA and boxing, among other combat sports.

Hickey, who is also the pastor at Church at the Gate in Sioux Falls, has no problem with South Dakota allowing boxing and traditional martial arts events, but he will be darned to heck if he’s going to let MMA rear its ugly face. And as he’s telling his detractors to “school up” on Twitter, let’s take a look at what kind of lesson he’s teaching.

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Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick hanging out with Guy Fieri on New Year's is only half the problem.

Politicians are the worst people on this planet, so it shouldn’t have surprised people this morning when news leaked of the sordid inclusions in the fiscal cliff deal, from a heavier rum tax on Puerto Rico to financing Goldman Sachs’ new headquarters. Good, those guys needed a break. But also included is the so-called “NASCAR loophole”, which has a lot of people really pissed off right now.

However, it’s not like the government is just giving a ton of our hard-earned cash to the good ol’ boys who spend their days turning left. It’s much sneakier and more complex than that. Basically, it’s a nice, big tax break for the billionaires behind the International Speedway Corporation, and most notably the France family. So what, then, does this loophole give them?

The so-called NASCAR loophole allows anyone who builds a racetrack to receive a small tax benefit through accelerated depreciation. This tax break cost roughly $43 million the past two years and will get extended for another year. Sounds tawdry, right? And yet, supporters claim the break is necessary so that NASCAR can compete on a level playing field with other theme parks. Looks like they got their wish. (Via Washington Post)

Now I’m no fancy, big city slicker lawyer type with a degree in smartness, but I’ve read enough USA Today pie charts in my day to know that this isn’t much of a surprise. Look, millionaires and billionaires get all the breaks. We’ve just got to learn to live with that. I mean, take Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, for example. He fleeced an entire major city government into funding his ridiculous, giant new stadium, and he did it all on the paper wings of a promise that he was committed to building a contender. Classic rich dude crapping on our dreams scenario.

Instead of Loria, though, it’s just NASCAR and International Speedway executives who get to act out the “We need these tax breaks to build new tracks and fix the old ones so we can create jobs because America!” routine. But this is all unfair speculation and the biased ramblings of a lower class American just trying to get his next meal. Let’s see what the NASCAR fatcats have to say in response…

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Ugh, I’m so sorry, you guys, but I’m really pissed off so we’re going to talk about politics for just a second. Philadelphia 76ers center Spencer Hawes is 24-years old, attended a highly-regarded prep school, and went to the University of Washington. Because he’s 7-foot-1, he’s been able to play basketball his whole life and he parlayed that into being the 10th player selected in the 2007 NBA Draft.

In his 5th season in the NBA, Hawes averaged 9.6 points per game during the lockout-shortened season, while only actually playing in 37 games due to injury. But despite injury, he still collected more than $4 million in salary from the Sixers. Not counting endorsements, Hawes has earned roughly $13,566,963 during his NBA career, and that’s important to note because he thinks we live in a communist country because the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Obamacare.

It’s ironic that Hawes, a millionaire, is complaining about living in a communist country on Twitter, the greatest example of free speech that has ever existed. A lot of people agreed with Hawes’ chain of Tweets, that he posted while taking time out from his basketball camp for children today. And a lot of people disagreed. On the surface, he came across as just another dude mindlessly spouting anti-government rhetoric without actually justifying his argument. Then he made a joke about a bald eagle crying, and it wasn’t funny. Seriously, it was stupid.

I won’t get into my politics because you don’t care about my politics and I hate politics, so it’s a waste of time. I only bring this whole stupid mess up because we often criticize athletes for staying out of politics, but when they do speak up, we jump all over them for expressing their beliefs. I think Hawes is a hypocritical jerk, but I also respect that he’s willing to be himself.

Above all, though, I think the most important thing to take away from today’s news about socialized health care is this…

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After a recently proposed 75,000-seat stadium was approved by state legislature to be built in the City of Industry, environmental groups in California are protesting another proposed NFL stadium that would be constructed right next to the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Both stadiums, however, will provide a great boost for the local economy as scores of fans will flock to watch all zero professional football teams in LA.

The City of Industry stadium was approved after lawmakers waived certain environmental obligations for the builders, causing major concerns that the same would happen for the downtown LA stadium. These groups have sent a letter to the same lawmakers, demanding that they investigate the stadium’s impact on traffic, noise and air pollution, to which the lawmakers responded, “Any of you ever been to Los Angeles before?”

Put a daisy in my rifle, LA Times:

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Let's mix it up with a fun little rant.  Today the New York Times turns its critical eye on something that has pissed me off for a long time: how the New York Yankees are the only team to play "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch of every home game (a holdover from an MLB practice after 9/11, though the song is still played in all stadiums on Sundays and holidays), and how their ushers prevent crowd movement during the song by holding up chains across the aisles.

“Mr. Steinbrenner wanted to do all games to remind the fans about how important it is to honor our nation, our service members, those that died on Sept. 11 and those fighting for our nation,” [spokesman Howard] Rubenstein said.

The chains were implemented because a bunch of fans sent angry emails about how people didn't respect the song properly.

I'm amused by what people consider patriotic.  I've always placed the Bill of Rights and the Constitution over a song praising a country's geography, but what do I know?  I'm just some stupid Marine Corps combat veteran.  For the record: I stand at attention from the first note to the last note of the National Anthem because that's what Marine Corps order dictates; however, there is no law (Marine or otherwise) that requires me to stand still during "God Bless America," a song that I've never particularly liked in the first place. 

Patriotism is a nice gesture, but it shouldn't be confused for freedom — and I'd like the freedom to move around when I damn well please.  I think I've earned it.