Pittsburgh Sports, Opinion and Politics | Just Watch the Game Blog

The Boston Bruins were invited to the White House yesterday to be congratulated on their Stanley Cup win by president Obama.

Their most valuable player, goalie Tim Thomas didn’t go. Here’s why:

“I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People. This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.”

Can’t say that I disagree with him. My first reaction was that I thought he should have sucked it up and joined in the celebration.

Then I read Kevin Paul Dumont of the Boston Globe rip Thomas in his column.

And I learned that, when Red Sox GM Theo Epstein and owner John Henry turned down an invitation to visit George W Bush at the White House in 2007 and there wasn’t a peep out of the Boston Globe.

So, I say, good for Tim Thomas.

I have a feeling that, if it were a Republican president and Thomas declined an invitation as a sign of solidarity with the 1%, the reaction would have been a lot different.

The Green Bay Packers’ fans may not want to hear this, but playing at home is still a huge advantage in the NFL postseason.

Kerry Byrne of Coldhardfootballfacts.com will be on my talk show today at 1:00 on TribLive radio.

He always has lots of amazing stats that very often bust myths.

For the foreseeable future, you are going to be hearing a lot of whining about how much money Mitt Romney has and how much he pays in taxes.

He said on Tuesday that he pays the 15% rate because most of his income is from investments.

He also said that he makes a “little bit ‘ from speeches.

The Class Envy Society at MSNBC had a lot of fun with that because Romney made $374,000 giving speeches last year.

You’ll be hearing a lot of discussion in the next few weeks ab0ut how rich Romney is and how unfair it is that he pays only 15% in income taxes.

Fox and MSNBC will get a lot of mileage out of it and just about everybody will miss the point, which is that nobody should pay ANY income tax.  The other Republican candidates are pressuring Romney to release his income tax information and he has promised to do so in April.

Only Ron Paul had the guts to say that he thought the income tax rate should be zero. The others were more than happy to play the class envy card.

All of this is a good lesson in why the Founders went out of their way NOT to allow the federal government to tax the fruits of our labor. How much money Mitt Romney has or how much he earns should be nobody’s business.

Especially not the government’s.

Now, let’s turn it over to the incomparable Walter E Williams.

The Steelers were Tebowed last week and on Saturday the Broncos were Brady-ed.

The Tebow haters will make it all about Tebow and he played a major role in the loss but Brady completed 76% of his passes and it was a lot more about the Broncos’ defense.

(I’ve still never seen a QB get more time to throw to more wide open receivers than Brady gets on a weekly basis.)

Steelers fans should be wondering why the Steelers only had three points at half time against that defense.

Steelers fans might also be asking how the Patriots were able to do so much better against the Broncos’ opiton and running game.

At one point, the Patriots’ defense had created 13 negative plays. That’s a lot of sacks and a lot of running backs caught behind the line of scrimmage.

As bad as Tebow looked at times, he still made enough good plays in the game to make me think he can be a good NFL quarterback if he’s used properly.

Then you have the Packers. They gagged.

They lost six fumbles in the regular season and lost three yesterday to the Giants.

They dropped eight passes.

Aaron Rodgers averaged about five yards per competion –half of what he averaged in the regular season. Amazing what a good pass rush will do.

If Rodgers wins the regular season MVP (I’d vote for Brees) he will (thanks to Coldhardfootballfacts.com)  be the 11th straight regular season MVP not to win the Super Bowl.

The Saints-49ers game is easy to explain. The Saints turned it over. The 49ers didn’t.

Same thing with the Ravens and Texans. Houston turned it over too many times.

No interceptions for Joe Flacco. Three for T.J. Yates.

I’ve always wanted to ask a radical feminist if that equality stuff applied to lifeboats.

Have they been in  favor of an “every person for him or herself” policy?

Unfortunately, the chance to answer that question was presented when the Costa Concordoia  ran aground off the coast of Italy.

“Also speaking to the newspaper, Fabio Costa, a crewmate, said: ‘We were giving priority to kids and women and trying to leave the men until last, but they were not accepting it because it was their families.”

Is that OK now —not as it applies to kids, obviously — but as it applies to women?

Just wondering.

It will be interesting to hear if the men are villified –as they should be — if they did fight women for spots on the lifeboats. I’m not talking about the women who believe in equal rights for women.

I’m talking about the ones who are offended when you open a door for them.

The bad news for the Steelers is that their kicker, Shaun Suisham was the 34th best field goal kicker in the NFL in the regular season. (Some teams used more than one kicker.)

He made 74.2 % of his kicks.

The good news is that most of the really accurate kickers are on a beach somewhere because their teams didn’t make the playoffs.

There may be more stupidity per square foot on college campuses than anywhere else in America.

Here are some nominees for the most outrageous campus moments of 2011.

(My brother Bill is mentioned in item 7.)