What was supposed to be a night of roasting Rob Lowe turned into a brutal attack on Ann Coulter, the infamous conservative pundit known for her inflammatory comments.

On Monday night, Comedy Central aired its long-awaited roast centered on Lowe, famous for his sex tape, DirecTV commercials, failed pilots, and occasional notable acting along the way. While many of the jokes jabbed at Lowe’s involvement with a 16-year-old and his acting career, the attention shifted and the rest of the roasters took their swings at Coulter.

Coulter showed up to do a promotional spiel on her new book, ‘In Trump We Trust.’ When it finally came time for her to talk about it, she was met with boos from the audience.

Coulter sat seemingly lifeless as each insult came, like a frog in a pot of boiling water unaware that it’s being slowly burned alive.

Here are 10 of the best insults sent her way:

1. Rob Lowe

“Why is Ann Coulter here tonight? Because the right-to-lifers wanted everyone to see what an abortion looks like up close.”

2. Pete Davidson

“Ann Coulter, if you’re here, who is scaring the crows away from our crops?”

It’s not going to be a good night for Ann Coulter #LoweRoast pic.twitter.com/LRuTG4w6Gi

— Nate (@BarstoolNate) September 6, 2016

3. Nikki Glaser

“Ann Coulter has written 11 books — 12 if you count ‘Mein Kampf'”

4. Peyton Manning

“I just realized I’m not the only athlete up here. As you all know, earlier this year Ann Coulter won the Kentucky Derby.”

5. Jewel

“As a feminist, I can’t support everything that’s being said up here tonight. But as someone who hates Ann Coulter, I’m delighted.”

6. Nikki Glaser

“The only person you will ever make happy is the Mexican who digs your grave.”

7. David Spade

“Ann seems stiff and conservative, but she gets wild in the sheets — just ask the Klan.”

8. Jewel

“Jeff Ross is going to party like its 1999, Ann Coulter is going to vote like its 1899.”

9. Jimmy Carr

“Ann Coulter is one of the most repugnant, hateful bitches alive — but it’s not too late to change, Ann. You could kill yourself.”

10. David Spade

“Is Pete white? Is he black? Ann Coulter needs to know so she can decide if she hates him”

Then it was Coulter’s time to speak, and she continued to plummet.

Audience reaction to Ann Coulter on the Rob Lowe roast are about perfect pic.twitter.com/SkI00cyLgZ

— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) September 6, 2016

After that really rough night for Coulter, this post feels more like a eulogy.

Julia Bryant

Julia Bryant is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street from Howard County, Maryland. She is a junior at the University of Maryland, College Park, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Economics. You can contact Julia at JBryant@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Top 10 Ann Coulter Insults from the Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe appeared first on Law Street.

Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning was poised to go down as one of the greats after his record breaking Super Bowl win set himself up for a “story book” retirement. But now Manning is struggling to keep his clean-cut image intact after 20-year-old sexual assault allegations from his time at the University of Tennessee were brought back into the national spotlight thanks to a recent lawsuit.

The 39-year-old football star was cited in a lawsuit filed by six anonymous women last Tuesday who claim the University of Tennessee violated Title IX by fostering a “hostile sexual environment” that allowed for sexual assault and rape allegations to be met with “deliberate indifference.”

To reiterate that point, testimony was included from Dr. Jamie Naughright, a highly regarded Tenessee trainer, who claims that in 1996 Manning forcefully maneuvered his naked testicles and rectum directly on her face with his penis on top of her head while she was examining him for a foot injury. According to ESPN, Dr. Naughright reported the incident, but Manning was never investigated by the police. She went on to file a lawsuit against him, but in 1997 it was settled and she was forced to leave the university.

Manning apparently wrote about the encounter from his perspective in 2000 in an autobiography titled “Manning: A Father, His Sons and A Football Legacy.” In the book he denies the sexual assault allegations saying instead that he was “mooning” track athlete Malcolm Saxon, he also describes Dr, Naughright as having a “vulgar mouth.”

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Title IX is a federal law that bans gender discrimination at schools that receive federal funding. If the University of Tennessee officials did fail to properly investigate sexual assault allegations in a deliberate attempt to protect student athletes, that would make them in violation of the law.

But Manning wasn’t the only athlete named in the new lawsuit. According to ESPN, the lawsuit names 10 former Tennessee players in total, including Manning and former football players A.J. Johnson and Michael Williams. The latter two are both awaiting separate trials for aggravated rape charges.

Some people have come to Manning’s defense, criticizing the allegations against Manning based on how old they are, but, as ESPN writer Sarah Spain puts it, the matter deserves a second look as more details surface. For example, in the 74-paged court document  Saxon, the supposed recipient of the “mooning”, clearly refuted Manning’s story and even told Manning in a letter that he lost his student athlete eligibility over the matter.

Saxon wrote,

Peyton, you messed up. I still don’t know why you dropped your drawers. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe not. But it was definitely inappropriate. Please take some personal responsibility here and own up to what you did.

These potential revelations are the last thing Manning needed, after already suffering a beating to his image when Al Jazeera alleged he was part of an illegal doping ring in an undercover investigative piece. If the football star does in fact intend on hanging up his cleats for good soon, these accusations may end up a permanent stain on his once-clean image.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Tennessee Sexual Assault Scandal Threatens Peyton Manning’s Legacy appeared first on Law Street.

An in-depth investigative report from Al Jazeera released Sunday has accused several professional athletes, including superstar Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, of illegally using performance enhancing drugs in order to gain an edge on the competition.

The documentary enlisted the help of 37-year-old British hurdler Liam Collins, who spent six months undercover working on behalf of Al-Jazeera’s investigative unit to secretly record meetings with doctors, pharmacists, and suppliers of the drugs.

Collins posed as a prospective buyer, looking to do “whatever necessary” to once again compete at an international level and qualify for the Rio Olympics. Armed with hidden cameras, Collins recorded his interactions with several drug suppliers.

However, the brunt of the investigation relied on a series of recordings with a pharmacist named Charlie Sly, who in 2011 worked at an anti-aging clinic where Manning sought treatment for a sidelining neck injury. Sly told Collins that Peyton and his wife, Ashley, would visit the Guyer Institute after hours and receive IV treatments. He also claimed that the clinic regularly sent shipments of human growth hormone or HGH to Ashley, but he believed the drugs were actually intended for Peyton.

According to the report, prescribing HGH in the U.S. is extremely limited, and is only used to treat patients suffering with HIV, pituitary tumors, and shortened bowels. Some athletes take the drug illegally in order to retain muscle mass or recover from injuries.

HGH isn’t the only drug Al Jazeera claims Sly provided to professional athletes. In the hidden camera footage, Sly also brags about supplying Delta-2, another banned substance, to Green Bay’s Mike Neal, Julius Peppers, and Clay Matthews. He also claimed to have supplied drugs to baseball players Ryan Zimmerman of the Washington Nationals and Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies, and football players Dustin Keller, formerly of the Miami Dolphins, and James Harrison of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Al Jazeera contacted each of the accused athletes for comment but all either declined to comment or outright denied the doping claims. Manning addressed the report Sunday, telling ESPN he was “disgusted” by the claims vowing to sue the news organization for defamation. Manning told ESPN,

It’s completely fabricated, complete trash, garbage — there’s more adjectives I’d like to be able to use. It really makes me sick.

Since the report was released, Sly uploaded a scripted video response recanting any and all statements he made to Al Jazeera. But while most of his recorded conversations with Collins sounded like an exaggerated name-dropping session, there very well may be truth to his original claims–no one knows yet.

The sports industry has been privy to many doping scandals in the past, but the bevy of athletes from different sports believed to be involved in this doping ring causing serious concern for the integrity of our country’s athletics.

So far there has been no word of any formal investigation into the legitimacy of Al Jazeera’s claims, but the likelihood of one is strong. Given the recorded evidence, it would be irresponsible to ignore these allegations, even if they do involve one of football’s most beloved athletes.

Watch Al Jazeera’s Investigation Below

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Al Jazeera Documentary Links Peyton Manning, Others to Illegal Doping Ring appeared first on Law Street.

The NFL regular season is coming to a close, and with it, a plethora of fantasy-football dreams. Typically, friends draft a team of their favorite stars before the start of the season and depending on their team’s performance, a fantasy dueler can win bragging rights or bets made within the group. Except today, what started as a competition among friends has evolved into a multi-million dollar enterprise. Websites like DraftKings and FanDuel have capitalized on this competition by changing the fantasy landscape. These sites hold weekly competitions allowing users to choose players weekly for a fee. Although this option bypasses the heartache of seeing a number one draft pick go down with a season-ending injury, this type of competition raises some interesting concerns. Instead of bragging rights, friends can compete for millions of dollars against thousands of players across the globe by depositing cash for a particular contest. This sounds wonderful on paper, except it also sounds like gambling, too. Read on and find out whether you should cosign your fantasy involvement.

 What’s the latest news in the fantasy world?

Like the fantasy pro, I’ve endured the pleasure and heartbreak that fantasy football conjures. For instance, two weeks ago week I won $500. Nevertheless, the excitement that a touchdown catch enlivens is comparable to blackjack. The rush in seeing the craps table explode with shouts of hope and trembles of fear is similar to the anxiety of watching the player that you almost drafted “go-off” for three touchdowns. Although there are plenty of gambling outlets for duelers like myself to feast on, discouragement kicked in after reading this article about the Denver Broncos signing a partnership with Draftkings. Let’s face it, it wouldn’t be fair if the number one offense was in cahoots with the fantasy source. Although it’s doubtful that Peyton Manning gets a call during the game to throw an interception, these competitions craft an accessible outlet for fantasy football, which inadvertently targets kids and young adults to compete/bet/win. That worry grew after researching the inner-workings of these one-day fantasy events.

As my fellow New York Law School alum Andrew Blancato correctly noted in his article about fantasy sports gambling, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) outlaws online sports gambling. The fine distinction is based on skill and chance. But when did this all begin? Years ago, fantasy sports was limited to drafting teams before the season and hoping your team excelled in their respective positions. Today a user can bet online anywhere from 25 cents to upward of a thousand dollars on his team’s weekly performance. When did Football Sunday transform into caring more about the points a player scored, rather than the outcome of the game itself?

Image courtesy of Evangelos Siozos

When did fantasy become financial?

In July 2009, Nigel Eccles and Tom Griffiths altered the fantasy sports arena by launching their newly minted one-day fantasy competitions. Eccles, the CEO of FanDuel, based his idea on a simple premise: Letting people pick professional athletes daily and bypassing the debilitating effects of injury risks associated with season-long tournaments. Instead of one bite at the apple, these businesses capitalize on multiple game-day bites.

In 2010, Allen Tippy explained the phenomena that recently started interrupting your favorite TV or radio show with a 30 second advertisement.  “Fantasy is the steak,” Mr. Lowitz says. “We just want to be the mashed potatoes on the side.” After gorging on the traditional fantasy platter, Tippy made the change to one-day fantasy competitions.

I search out the weak players…I played in the same traditional fantasy baseball league with a group of lawyers from Mobile, Alabama for about 15 years.

That’s right. The success of one-day fantasy sports is semi-driven by the fantasy fanatics, those who play and switch their line-ups with 30 seconds to spare before the game begins. In fact, by employing these modern tactics, a one-a-day dueler can exploit an opponent’s weakness by staying alert of all injuries and penalties that keep a player sidelined. Interestingly, this awareness sounds just like skill, except in one-a-days there are a few caveats.

For example, unlike traditional gambling site, there is a higher commission taken out by the one-day fantasy servicer. Further, what separates a winner from the host of losers requires beating 60 percent of them to make a profit. Eccles calls it “fantasy for the ADD generation.” Mr. Eccles hits it on the nose, considering FanDuel paid out roughly $500 million this year alone.

After FanDuel captured 70 percent of the daily fantasy sports market, DraftKings snatched the remaining 25-30 percent. Fast forward four years: these simple startups have catapulted to infamy and success. In fact, the Fantasy Sports Trade Association acknowledged that about $1.7 billion is spent each year on fantasy sports in the U.S. and Canada. Couple this with an infinite pool of investors and big-name endorsers and one is left to wonder if any regulatory measures have been taken to ensure fair play.

So…is this even legal?

In 2006, Congress passed the UIGEA, which basically outlawed any online sports gambling that relied strictly on chance instead of skill. Whether or not fantasy sports are chance- or skill-related is a question for Socrates; however, what has been done since 2006 is quite startling, especially considering the mammoth explosion of this business. Vice Sports explained it best:

The debate over the legality of DFS revolves around the definition of skill versus chance. DFS games fall somewhere in between pure games of skill (chess, checkers) and pure games of chance (lottery, bingo). Picking a winning lineup involves a level of skill, intelligence, and talent that can be improved but also, Peyton Manning could tear his ACL in warm-ups and sorry, bro, your lineup is done.

Great, so playing fantasy sports involves both a touch of skill and a dash of luck. Easy, done. But some questions still linger. For example, since 2006, the marketing landscape changed, technology evolved, and fifth graders were given cell phones. So, what exactly is going on?

On December 2, 2014, lawyers lodged formal complaints against FanDuel in Florida Federal Court. The allegations included claims of deceptive practices by misleading customers, which tiptoes the line into fraudulent territory. Basically, FanDuel targeted customers through its promise to double any money deposited into its website. Yet, its “double your deposit” promotion didn’t double its customers’ deposits upon joining. Instead, if a user deposited $200, her money was entered into a formula, which requires a contestant to spend $5,000 in order to receive the initial $200 promised payback. This wasn’t the only lawsuit targeting the fantasy giants.

That’s when I was introduced to Christopher Langone, who filed pleadings in Illinois Federal Court to challenge the winnings of Patrick Kaiser, a FanDuel enthusiast. Months later, Langone filed another action against DraftDay.com and bypassed any jurisdiction issues by filing in San Antonio, Texas, DraftDay’s state of incorporation. What initially seemed like a theoretical query based on whether fantasy sports involved more skill than chance, created a battle of mythical proportions, perfect for the great professors who teach me.

What is being done?

In short, nothing yet. Some Federal Courts have reacted, using the judiciary power bestowed upon them to influence states to strike down fantasy football in Montana, Louisiana, Washington, Iowa, Arizona, and Puerto Rico. Or take Florida for example, where state law technically bans the “fantasy phenomenon,” and makes playing it a misdemeanor. But other than political riffraff and textualist toils over what chance and skill really are, the main concern for fantasy-player welfare has dissipated. As Mike Florio puts it,

In what would be a bizarre twist on point shaving, coaches and players could in theory be bribed to ensure that certain players will generate significant production, or that certain players will be shut down. Getting to coaches and assistant coaches who control the offensive game plan would be the most efficient approach. It also would help to grease defenders who would be inclined to slip on an invisible banana peel, springing a specific player for a touchdown or two. Or four.

Florio’s concerns express the same disbelief I have. Further, his article was written in July, way before Peyton endorsed Draftkings and Tom Brady joined DailyMVP.

Fanduel pays out 1 million dollars in prizes per day. Join my 1-day league http://t.co/oTvV4dzNZE

— Vince Wilfork (@wilfork75) August 23, 2014

With more and more players signing onto these fantasy startups, maybe it’s time to start paying attention to the inconspicuous tweets of NFL players. It’s not that Wilfork would miss a tackle to spring a runner 50 yards, it’s that he might be tempted to do so in order to capitalize on the same organization paying him to tweet.

Conclusion

Greed takes many forms. After witnessing the fall of the real estate market, we all saw the destructive nature of our fellow man. Like much of the law, Congress has slowly reacted to recent changes in technology. Today, kids and adults have online access at their fingertips. Although this doesn’t fit the bill as a pressing concern, it could become so. Anyone can click to verify that they are 18 years old in order to play on these sites. Further, not an iota of regulatory action has been taken since 2006. Although it is too early for the unforeseen consequences to materialize, it might already be too late to ensure that they don’t. Alas, chance and skill can only get a fantasy dueler so far. My hope is that there’s no one whispering in the players’ ears to strike that balance.

Resources

Primary

 Denver Broncos: Draft Kings, Broncos, Sign Partnership

Additional 

Law Street Media: Fantasy Sports: Good Fun or Illegal Gambling?

Wall Street Journal: Everyday fantasies

Boston: Single-Day Fantasy Sports

Vice Sports: The Daily Fantasy Sports Takeover

Forbes: Fanduel sued in court

Fox News; Gaming laws could pose risk for fantasy football craze

NBC: NFL Paying attention to Influence of high-stakes fantasy football leagues 

Evangelos Siozios

Evangelos Siozios is a student at New York Law School focusing on family law and real estate transactions. He is a 2012 Baruch Honors College Graduate whose interests include writing, exercising, and solving TV mysteries. Contact Evangelos at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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