US prosecutors drop case against Armstrong/USPS

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Oct 30, 2010
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I have to comment. I'm not a regular contributor to this forum but I feel I have to register my disgust at this decision. I'm not going to get into the whole 'what's justice in the USA?' thing, but just to say that if anybody thinks anything other than Lance Armstrong has completely got away with it, they're fooling themselves.

It's a terrible thing to have to contemplate, but in the eyes of the world this decision will mean that Lance is seen as being innocent of doping. We all know this is bo****ks, but that's the way it is and there's nothing we will be able to do about it.

It's a very dark day indeed.
 
FoxxyBrown1111 said:
I am on your side here. And it´s not only happened to cycling. This whole sharholder value/co operate capitalism BS swashed over to europe and is basically destroying our hard fought for social societies, like it did destroy south america in the 60/70s. But Rome was also swept away. So there is hope. Unluckily we´ll not see it happen in our lifetime...

Edit: And you´ll see once McQuaid is gone and Vaughters has built his franchise cycling BS (constructed like NFL/NBA) how good cycling still was in 2012. It´s the time when you have to pay entrance to watch the riders on mountain stages, when TV dictates schedules, when the smaller races are made kaputt, when the TdF can only be seen by some rich grumpy old white men in pay per view. It´s all coming. Thank you USA.:mad:

I have always said that Mr. Armstrong, his methods and way of going about things, was simply the incarnation of a corporate praxis and world view that, in these times, has taken all the culture and romanticism out of everything, and not only out of cycling, but the world in general. Performance is no longer about the human spectacle of a variegated mosaic, but the crushing potency of an invincible force. It has reduced everything to maniacal calculations for profit and gain, under the forces of the hyper-business-commercialization machine, for which simplicity is replaced by sophistication and there may well soon come a time "when you have to pay entrance to watch the riders on mountain stages, when TV dictates schedules, when the smaller races are made kaput, when the TdF can only be seen by some rich grumpy old white men in pay per view. It´s all coming..." Blah, puke, vomit!
 
May 18, 2009
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Mods,

Can you put a lid on the America bashing in this thread? I've got a whole arsenal of smack I can talk about other countries, but I don't want to go there unless I get the OK from you. I see ferminal is quick to shield RR's feelings upthread from rightly getting the bashing he deserves, but I see USA is fair game.

So, can we start country bashing in here?

Thanks.
 
Feb 4, 2012
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whither Lemond

So that's it then - Lance is in the clear (pun intended). Wonder who he paid off.... err,... I mean made a charitable dontation to this time. :D

More than anything I feel bad for Lemond.
 
Aug 1, 2009
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ChrisE said:
Mods,

Can you put a lid on the America bashing in this thread? I've got a whole arsenal of smack I can talk about other countries, but I don't want to go there unless I get the OK from you. I see ferminal is quick to shield RR's feelings upthread from rightly getting the bashing he deserves, but I see USA is fair game.

So, can we start country bashing in here?

Thanks.

So you are going to defend your own country by talking "smack" about others?
 
Jun 15, 2009
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rhubroma said:
I have always said that Mr. Armstrong, his methods and way of going about things, was simply the incarnation of a corporate praxis and world view that, in these times, has taken all the culture and romanticism out of everything, and not only out of cycling, but the world in general. Performance is no longer about the human spectacle of a variegated mosaic, but the crushing potency of an invincible force. It has reduced everything to maniacal calculations for profit and gain, under the forces of the hyper-business-commercialization machine, for which simplicity is replaced by sophistication and there may well soon come a time "when you have to pay entrance to watch the riders on mountain stages, when TV dictates schedules, when the smaller races are made kaput, when the TdF can only be seen by some rich grumpy old white men in pay per view. It´s all coming..." Blah, puke, vomit!

Agree here too. Thanks also. :)

ChrisE said:
Mods,

Can you put a lid on the America bashing in this thread? I've got a whole arsenal of smack I can talk about other countries, but I don't want to go there unless I get the OK from you. I see ferminal is quick to shield RR's feelings upthread from rightly getting the bashing he deserves, but I see USA is fair game.

So, can we start country bashing in here?

Thanks.

What you complain? We just described how things are. I like the USA, a beautiful country, have many friends there, will enjoy the superbowl with them tonight. But you can´t discuss away that some greedy psychos rule your country and spoil "everthing" around the world in the name of "freedom" and "democracy". You shall understand a little bit that we are p...sd when our traditions get destroyed.
 
Aug 31, 2011
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oh stop it, I'm American and

ChrisE said:
Mods,

Can you put a lid on the America bashing in this thread? I've got a whole arsenal of smack I can talk about other countries, but I don't want to go there unless I get the OK from you. I see ferminal is quick to shield RR's feelings upthread from rightly getting the bashing he deserves, but I see USA is fair game.

So, can we start country bashing in here?

Thanks.

the criticism is desperately what we need. The problem with the Armstrong issue is that his defenders are clinging to their prejudices and their agendas rather than looking at the issue dispassionately. Their greatest criticism of Armstrong's detractors is that they're haters. This permeates most of your offerings.



Here's a criticism of America from one of the most important Americans of the 20th Century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#Opposition_to_the_Vietnam_War

Opposition to the Vietnam War

See also: Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War

Starting in 1965, King began to express doubts about the United States' role in the Vietnam War. In an April 4, 1967 appearance at the New York City Riverside Church—exactly one year before his death—King delivered a speech titled "Beyond Vietnam".[92] He spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, insisting that the U.S. was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony"[93]:107 and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today".[93]:102 He also argued that the country needed larger and broader moral changes:


A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."[93]:


I want people to criticize America, our greatness is balanced out by our meanness and stupidity. Should people like MLK Jr. be told to shut up?
 
Mar 8, 2010
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ChrisE said:
Mods,

Can you put a lid on the America bashing in this thread? I've got a whole arsenal of smack I can talk about other countries, but I don't want to go there unless I get the OK from you. I see ferminal is quick to shield RR's feelings upthread from rightly getting the bashing he deserves, but I see USA is fair game.

So, can we start country bashing in here?

Thanks.
Ok, Germany would be an easy thing.
We just are and will always be the Nazis. :D
 
Jun 15, 2009
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Cobblestoned said:
Ok, Germany would be an easy thing.
We just are and will always be the Nazis. :D

Quatsch. That´s 12 years of 1.000+ years tradition. One bad episode... and the shame is, nobody learned out of it. Especially "gods own country".
 
Aug 31, 2011
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HL2037 said:
So you are going to defend your own country by talking "smack" about others?

You didn't see that Armstrong's primary method of defense was recriminations?

He's legitimized this for their "fans."
 
Mar 17, 2009
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thehog said:
Agreed. Has nothing to do with the US. Coca-Cola began sponsorship even before LeMond.

What took the sport from Europe was the Internet. It went from a sport whereby outside Europe you'd be reduced seeing photographs of the races weeks after it occurred in the cycling magazines and maybe a 30 second television report to having the race live. First it was text updates and pictures later that day to what you see today.

Armstrong was fortunate. His time of winning co-insidered with the boom in the Internet.

ASO are to be commended. They jumped on board the internet ship. They provisioned the journalists with the most up to date information in regards to the race. Whats held them back is the UCI in terms of bringing more technology to the race.

We shouldn't point the fingers as the US for the mis-carriage of justice. The Federal investigation had very little to do with cycling and lot more to do with fraud and good deeds paid in kind.

Also the sport is much bigger and better not because of America but because of the Internet.

good post. armstrongs first tour wins got average people here more interested(especially because of the cancer angle), but it was the fact that info was widely available for the first time that made the sport start to catch on with a much broader audience. it wasn't just a couple of mags with racing news once a month, it was real time info, race results, team and rider websites, message boards and then forums to discuss. my local bike shop owner went from a small shop catering more to bmx and skateboarders (1999) with two or three cheap road bikes to retirement ten years later, with a business that was booming, and a shop filled almost exclusively with high end road bikes and components.
 
May 18, 2009
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HL2037 said:
So you are going to defend your own country by talking "smack" about others?

It is not the basic method of justice, it is the people ultimately involved in the system (jury makeup) that caused this to be dropped. If you want to talk about Americans, vs the country, then so be it. I usually don't have a habit of defending idiots, and this country is full of them. I will defend the basis of our government over all others, though.

So, we can get all things out in the open about all countries and lets just have a knock-down drag-out. OK? Or, you guys can move on and realize the evidence was not there to convict in front of an American jury.
 
Dec 7, 2010
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So, any news since my last visit to The Clinic?

Oh, look! My favorite comedian, Phil Liggett, has a good one:

“It's over - now the sport and Lance can move on. I'm looking forward to 2012 and a g8 competitive season.”
https://twitter.com/#!/PhilLiggett/status/165718723796271104
Which is really quite funny when one considers this:

“Despite the US Attorney closing an investigation into the US Postal Service team and Lance Armstrong, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) head still expects that evidence gathered in the case will be shared with anti-doping authorities.”

“USADA CEO Travis Tygart indicated yesterday that his agency is prepared to obtain evidence from the government toward its own investigation "of doping in cycling".
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/wada-head-expects-sharing-of-armstrong-evidence
So it would seem that DOPING part, ergo the actual CYCLING-RELATED part of this whole fiasco is only just beginning to take shape. Huh. Imagine that.

As difficult as it can be to ascertain evidence or eyewitness accounts of doping in pro cycling, it would be interesting if some federal agency—ya’ know, the type that has the power of subpoena and the leverage of the threat of perjury if given false statements, yeah, one of those—had recently acquired testimony that would corroborate and expand upon other recent revelations about what actually went on behind closed doors on those teams run by Bruyneel and Armstrong (ya’ see, this is the part that relates to the whole “Lance” thing, and why I’m posting it in this thread).

Yeah, that would be interesting.
Especially if there was testimony from more than just one person.
Maybe as many as 123456 or 7 people.
Former teammates even. Yikes.
That could make for some awesome testimony. lol

Of course if something like that did start to pick up steam and actually gain momentum, I’d be willing to bet that one of the first avenues of information for such a thing would be the same source that has pretty much been way ahead of the curve on countless stories for years now: Race Radio.
 
Dec 7, 2010
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Yup, I’ve learned an awful lot from Race Radio over the years. And that goes back long before I jumped on to this ship of misfits. Yeah, I’d really like to buy that guy a beer one day. Actually, only one beer would be impolite, especially considering how generous he’s been with so much information about a topic that I really find quite interesting.

Many, many times he has shared links to long forgotten articles, intriguing interviews, and been able to connect the dots in so many ways that shed light on just who was associated with who, when and where certain events took place, and he has been expert in cataloguing statements by the movers and shakers in cycling so that when they lie or outright contradict themselves (that is, whenever they give interviews), Race Radio has been right there to kindly remind the offending party of their own previous statements that would seem to shift like the wind as best suits their political agenda at any given moment. And then there are the countless times (1234567...) when he pointed the compass towards sub-plots that even the most intrepid reporters seemed unaware of. But eventually most of them would catch up, even if it took a long while and we had throughly dissected the details in the interim.

But c’mon, you guys already know all that. I’m preachin’ to the choir here! Even those out-of-tune voices in the back that never bothered to figured out which piece we were singing, even YOU guys have become so accustomed to being ahead of the mainstream and cycling media on most subjects that you’ve lost all perspective. You can’t seem to stay away from this place FCOL! Lot’s of information surfaces here before anywhere else. Sure is easy to pretend otherwise though.

Take this whole Federal investigation, with the tax thingy, and the money laundering whosey, and the drug watchamacallit...yeah, you guys were probably on to that long before the rest of us. I mean, you were, weren’t you? Ya’ know, waaaaay back when, when not a single source in the media was even whispering about such things but we were discussing it here. You guys were just watching us play catch up with what you already knew, isn’t that it? Because the investigation by the feds, that was real. That was a real thing that actually took place. Of course some wanted to “argue” that it wasn’t even about Armstrong but that seems kind of quaint now that they’ve dropped the case “against Armstrong.” But whose counting.

Now all of sudden, the carpet seems to have been pulled right out from under Mr. Novitsky’s feet. Poor guy supposedly only got a 30 minute heads up that all his hard work was being pushed aside. 30 minutes! Even Race Radio didn’t know about it ahead of time. But this has caused some confusion among the rabid contributors to this overly convoluted forum. Yes, quite a bit of confusion.

It’s not as if Mr. Novitsky was allowed to do his job but then failed at getting the green light from the Grand Jury. Nor should it be equated with him having taken this whole thing to trial only to end up with not being able to convince a jury of the crimes at hand. No. Not at all. Someone just flipped the OFF switch. Which is really a shame in my humble opinion.
 
Dec 7, 2010
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You see, I’m not like a lot of the others around here. So many people trying desperately to dodge the dreaded “hater” label. Not me. I’ve always embraced it. I hate everything I see when it comes to the narcissistic, manipulative, bullying, intimidating, petty, vindictive, and outright lying side of Lance Armstrong. I really do. I think “hate” is the appropriate word for me. Maybe some people are attracted to that kind of behavior. Maybe they like working for people like that, or doing business with people like that, or get some sort of satisfaction from seeing people like that succeed. Not me. I hate that.

You see, this whole sordid affair sort of began because, well, Lance Armstrong used to be a very successful professional cyclist. And this place here, as it turns out, is a website dedicated to professional cycling. How cool is that! We get to come together to discuss all things cycling! Now, there is a dark side to all of this. Shhhh, it’s not very pretty. As it turns out, there have been whispers, rumors, innuendo, even eyewitness accounts, that suggest that Lance Armstrong broke some of the rules along the pathway to his 7-times of awesomeness. So naturally, this topic ended up being discussed on here. Lot’s of different opinions on the matter. Makes for quite a fun read if you have a several months to peruse the forum archives.

Lance denied this all along, of course. Can you blame him? He’s a friggin’ champion! His awesomeness is known around the world! He doesn’t have to concern himself with other peoples “rules.” What do you think he is, some sort of loser? But Lance wasn’t happy with what some people were saying about him. Even said some very nasty things himself about those people who told some of those dirty little secrets. He really doesn’t care for that sort of thing.

But now, all of a sudden, there is word that the people in charge of making sure that athletes DO play by the rules seem to have a renewed interest in Lance’s background. As it turns out, there’s a chance, a pico-chance at least, that those same people will gain access to some of this recent testimony we’ve been hearing so much about. Yup, THAT testimony. Oh boy. This is definitely NOT the kind of thing that funny man Phil Liggett wants us to know about. No siree. That wouldn’t make for very good commentary just prior to sidekick Paul’s warning us about the dangers of touching one’s breaks in the middle of a sprint build up. Nope. Nor would that sort of thing look good if spelled out to us by one of those fancy Nike chalkbots. Words like Christian Vande Velde just have too many darn letters for that type of thing anyway. Although, I suppose they could just use acronyms to fit in the relevant parts. EPO would probably fit. Most likely.

It’s kind of funny when you think about it, really. Isn’t this where we started? Doping in cycling, Lance lying about his doping, others confirming his doping? Wow, we’ve come full circle. Kind of like laps on the Champs-Élysées! It goes a little bit up, it goes a little bit down, it can get going pretty quickly at times, it’s always bumpy...and you never know just when someone from the crowd is going step out of line and bring the whole thing crashing down. But everyone always gets back up again and the race continues on. But with each passing year, it does become more and more predictable. Lot’s of people don’t even bother watching that stage of the race anymore. SSDD.

But if this latest chapter does contain any new stories, you guys will know all about it long before 60 Minutes, Sports Illustrated or ESPN. Long before Bill Strickland gets teary-eyed about it. Long before The Boulder Report uses too many words to describe it (the nerve). Even long before Daniel Benson beats Velonews by 36 hours to inform the rest of the cycling world. Yup, you guys will already be in-the-know.

How so? The advanced info will be playing on your favorite station! Duh. And you’ll be tuned in, as always. Of course you’ll do your best to create static. You’ll try to move the antennas around a bit, you’ll even fight over the dial and do your best to change to another station (which really isn’t very nice, especially when someone else is driving). Then the mods will threaten to pull the car over if you don’t stop. No worries though. They won’t. They never do. They might spank a few of you. They might even slow the car down pretending like they’re going to stop, but they won’t. And neither will you. You’ll just keep at it. But if the same old tricks don’t work, you’ll just turn up the volume so that EVERYTHING that comes out sounds distorted. I used to do that when my sister would listen to the soundtrack from Grease, over and over again, on the family record player.

I got chiiiills, they’re mutliplyin’
and I’m loooosin’ control
‘cause the power, you’re supplyin’
it’s electrifyin’!
 
Aug 31, 2011
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ChrisE said:
It is not the basic method of justice, it is the people ultimately involved in the system (jury makeup) that caused this to be dropped. If you want to talk about Americans, vs the country, then so be it. I usually don't have a habit of defending idiots, and this country is full of them. I will defend the basis of our government over all others, though.

So, we can get all things out in the open about all countries and lets just have a knock-down drag-out. OK? Or, you guys can move on and realize the evidence was not there to convict in front of an American jury.

http://nyvelocity.com/content/features/2012/justice-servedon-platter

So what does that leave us? Did Armstrong’s hiring of Mark Fabiani finally pay off? The anonymous provacateur @theraceradio tweeted, “Those (who) wonder why Fabiani and his business partner Chris Lehane were hired now you know. In the White House Lehane worked daily with Clinton's Lawyer Lanny Breuer....who is now head of the Fed's Criminal division.” Or maybe the truth is less insidious. Maybe Birotte just didn’t have the stomach to take on a popular sporting hero in an election year.
 
Mar 17, 2009
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MarkvW said:
Those darned Americans. Why do they keep interfering in Europe . . ..

......so the map won't be covered in swastikas. hey foxxy, sorry we interfered in your traditions ;)
 
FoxxyBrown1111 said:
1++

You are so right. Thank you for that. It needed to be said. Agree 100%.

...and the TDU is what? A monument? A Belgium Kermesse or a beer fuelled 6-Day race where as the riders would shoot up and drink on the inside of the track - I think you guys have a "romantic" view of cycling which is not exactly true. The sport was ridiculous and over the top before the American riders came in force. Ever heard of Euro-Trash?
 
Aug 13, 2009
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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/m...cutors-cyclist-fight-legacy-article-1.1017146

"Victory" is short lived and exists only in press releases

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