Karl Malone

He was seldom the most talented player, but always went back to his strong work-ethic to make up the difference. He also appeared on the Ali G Show, where interviewer Ali G persuaded him to try out his rapping skills. This became the hallmark of Karl's career. Ralph Nader appears in an episode of The Simpsons that aired after the 2004 presidential election in which he is portrayed as a clandestine member of the Springfield Republican Party and is thanked for all the fine work he has done for the Republicans. He was uneligible to play his first year because of low grades and he worked hard to raise his average to qualify. Nader stands 6' 4" (1.93m) tall. Karl played for three years at Louisiana Tech University. Nader's harsh and uncompromising critiques of corporate and political wrongdoing have earned him a reputation as an angry and gloomy "national scold." Yet, despite this caricature, which no doubt reflects the seriousness and intensity with which Nader approaches his work, people well-acquainted with Ralph Nader generally speak of his persistent optimism, his abiding sense of humor, and his unfailing wit.

. However, the consumer advocate has made more than $15 million in his lifetime, most of which he has given away. He is also considered to be one of the best players ever to have never won a NBA championship ring. [9] Nader's total net worth is between $4.1 million and $5 million. Malone was famous for his extremely well-defined physique, which rivalled bodybuilders. According to the mandatory financial disclosure report that he filed with the Federal Election Commission in 2000, he then owned more than $3 million worth of stocks and mutual fund shares; his single largest holding was more than $1 million worth of stock in Cisco Systems, Inc. He then played one season for the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2003-04 season before retiring from the game. Nader has never been married, and has denied rumors that he was gay while running for president in 2000.

Malone spent his first 18 seasons (1985 - 2003) as the star player for the Utah Jazz. Fears that Nader would play a "spoiler" role that would harm the Democrats proved unfounded — unlike 2000, Kerry's margins of loss in states won by Bush were all substantially larger than the percentage of votes gathered by Nader. He was nicknamed in college as the Mailman for his consistency ("a Mailman always delivers"), and as Hot Karl for his numerous playoff performances, and was arguably the greatest power forward ever in the NBA. Nader's vote total placed him only slightly more than 63,000 votes ahead of the fourth-place candidate, Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party, who appeared on 49 ballots. Karl Malone (born July 24, 1963 in Bernice, Louisiana) is a former professional basketball player. Nader received many fewer votes than he had in 2000, dropping from about 2.9 million votes (2.74 percent of the popular vote) to just over 459,000 (less than 0.4 percent). He teamed with Diamond Dallas Page and lost to Dennis Rodman & Hulk Hogan of the nWo. http://www.eff.org/Activism/Reform/none_of_the_above.article.

Malone wrestled a match for World Championship Wrestling on July 12, 1998 at Bash at the Beach. Nader has also been one of the champions of including the so-called "NOTA" (none of the above) option on election ballots, to increase voter choice; a 1994 "In the Public Interest" piece by Nader laid out the case for NOTA. He also used to enjoy riding his Harley prior to games. For several decades, Nader has been a leading advocate of fairer ballot access, campaign finance reform, and more representative election systems; Nader's first published law review article, "Do Third Parties Have A Chance?" (co-authored with Theodore Jacobs and published in the Harvard Law Record, October 9, 1958) was on ballot access reform, and Nader has founded several important organizations (including Public Citizen) dedicated to election law reform; whereas the Democratic Party establishment has consistently demonstrated its opposition to more open ballot access and alternative voting methods. He has become known for his unusual hobby of trucking in the offseason. However, Nader's supporters thought that such pleas were insincere and off the mark. He has considered running for governor of Arkansas on the Republican Party ticket. Some Democrats, including Howard Dean, argued that Nader should not run for president but should instead concentrate on promoting fairer ballot access laws, campaign finance reform, and alternative voting methods.

Malone enjoys outdoors fishing and hunting and is also a staunch supporter of the National Rifle Association. Supporters of Ralph Nader often countered that an alternative presidential bid can be extremely valuable (for example, by raising important issues and enhancing an otherwise money-dominated and inane political dialogue), regardless of the ultimate number of votes the candidate receives. His appearance and accent were frequently parodied by comedian Jimmy Kimmel (who impersonated Malone) on Comedy Central's The Man Show in the late 90s. Nader for trying to change the electoral system through an impractical presidential campaign, pointing out that independent or third-party presidential candidates are highly unlikely to win an election under the current system. Malone played a minor acting role in the 1994 bomb Rockwell: A Legend of the Wild West about Orrin Porter Rockwell. A significant number of progressives criticized Mr. He has also made workout tapes. The Nader campaign contended that the donations it received were given by "people who agree with him on the issues and want him to get his message out to the public." Nader also responded to such claims by pointing out that Democratic opponent John Kerry received $10.7 million dollars from donors who also contributed to Bush or to some other Republican candidate - nearly 100 times that of the $111,700 Nader received.

He has a rigorous work-out routine in the offseason which includes running up and down mountains. Another approach was taken by “RalphPlease.org”, which gathered conditional contributions – pledges to donate to Public Citizen if Nader would withdraw from the race. Malone is a workout freak who was perhaps the first NBA player to have a body chiseled like that of a bodybuilder. Even Nader’s running mate in 1996 and 2000, Winona LaDuke, endorsed Kerry, as did filmmaker Michael Moore, who had championed Nader in the 2000 campaign. Karl was very critical of the NBA's decision to allow Magic Johnson to play despite having tested positive for HIV. Bush. Karl later professed that he thought all those people were out to celebrate his birthday. A group of Nader’s supporters from 2000 endorsed Vote to Stop Bush, a statement urging voters in swing states to vote for Kerry, in order to prevent a second term for President George W.

The Jazz placed Karl in one of the vehicles in the Parade and the people cheered him as he passed by. The Reform Party nominee in 2000 had been conservative Pat Buchanan; some anti-Nader Democrats took this as evidence that Nader was being helped by supporters of Bush, but many conservatives had left the Reform Party after Buchanan's poor showing in 2000. July 24th is Pioneer Day in Utah, but it also happens to be Karl's birthday. In Florida and several other states, Nader’s ballot access came because of his nomination by the Reform Party. Karl arrived in Salt Lake City to join the Jazz on July 24th 1985. Nader's campaign countered that John Kerry had received far more money in 2004 from individual Republican donors than Nader had, and that Nader was in fact not accepting organized Republican help. The first time Karl Malone got to Utah (in a highschool game) he thought it was a European country. These groups, as well as some journalists, pointed to FEC filings showing that the Nader campaign had accepted campaign contributions from several individual donors who were also contributing to Bush's campaign, including a donation from one individual who had helped to fund televised advertisements by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that attacked Kerry's military service record in the Vietnam War and Kerry's subsequent activity in the 1970s as a leader of the antiwar group Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Malone's daughter, Cheryl Ford, plays for the Detroit Shock in the WNBA, and was a key component of their WNBA Championship team in 2003. Democratic Party groups urging voters to worry about the so-called "spoiler effect," such as "Up for Victory," were formed specifically to dissuade people from voting for Nader and to knock him off the ballot in as many states as possible. Bryant had come out with very critical words towards Malone alleging he made suggestive comments to Bryant's wife. What is known about Nader's ballot access in Arizona in 2004 does lend credence to the notion that Kerry supporters did not want Nader on the ballot, as lawyers working on behalf of the Democratic Party successfully blocked Nader from getting on the Arizona ballot in 2004, despite Nader's having apparently submitted more than enough signatures to qualify. Has a feud with Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant which is rumored to have led to Malone's rejection of the Lakers after the 2004 finals and decision to retire. Blumenthal's article based this allegation on an anonymous source and never provided additional evidence. Karl's 1985 draft day suit as well as that of Charles Barkley are continuously mocked on sports TV shows until today for their dreadful colors and designs. [8] Mr.

Some critics of Miller suggest that it was compensation for not being paid as much as other NBA superstars during their prime. [7] In Arizona, according to an article by Max Blumenthal that appeared on a pro-Kerry website two weeks before the 2004 election, a company called Voters Outreach of America, headed by a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, had been involved in gathering Nader signatures. The owner of the Jazz, Larry Miller, partnered with them to start this dealership. Lending credence to that opinion, a Republican organization in Michigan worked to gather petition signatures to place Nader on the Michigan ballot after Democratic Party lawyers defeated Nader's effort to appear on the Michigan ballot as the Reform Party's nominee. In Salt Lake City the Stockton-to-Malone phrase is commemorated by a car dealership with the name Stockton to Malone Honda. The expectation among many analysts was that Nader’s candidacy would benefit Bush by taking more votes from Kerry than from Bush. Malone was ranked #13 on Slam Magazine's Top 75 NBA Players of all time in 2003. Ballot access ultimately became one of the most significant issues of the Nader campaign - in his concession speech, Nader characterized ballot access as a "civil liberties issue" and noted that Democratic attempts to challenge his ballot access were rejected in the "overwhelming majority" of state courts.

Voted to three NBA All-Defensive teams and one second team. In the general election, Nader appeared on the ballot in 34 states and the District of Columbia. MVP of the All-Star game in 1989 and co-MVP in 1993 with Stockton. states. Voted an All-Star 14 times. The Reform Party has a ballot line in only some U.S. Voted to 11 All-NBA first teams, two second teams and one third team. Specifically, the court ruled that the term "national party" must be interpreted as broadly as possible.

Voted in 1996 to the NBA's 50 Greatest Players list. The court rejected the arguments that the Reform Party did not meet the requirements of the Florida election code for access to the ballot — that the party must be a "national party" and that it must have nominated its candidate in a "national convention" — and therefore Nader should have attempted to file as an independent candidate. Malone received the NBA Most Valuable Player Award twice while playing for the Jazz, in 1997 and 1999 seasons. On September 18, 2004, the Florida Supreme Court ordered that Nader be included on the 2004 ballot in Florida as the Reform Party candidate. Between them, they hold almost every major statistical record for the Utah Jazz franchise. Nader appealed this decision to the US Supreme Court, but a decision did not arrive before the 2004 election. Both hold many records of longevity, having faced very few long term injuries in their careers and having played for 19 seasons each. Secretary of State Bill Bradbury disqualified many of his signatures as fraudulent; the Marion County Circuit Court ruled that this action was unconstitutional as the criteria for Bradbury's disqualifications were based upon "unwritten rules" not found in electoral code, but the state Supreme Court ultimately reversed this ruling.

They are two-time Olympic Gold medalists, having won one in 1992 and another 1996 in Atlanta. He vowed to gather the necessary signatures in a petition drive. Olympic basketball team that was the first to feature professional NBA players. This subtraction left Nader 218 short of the 15,306 needed. Both he and Stockton were selected to be a part of the Dream Team, the legendary 1992 U.S. "Unwritten rules" disqualified over 700 valid voter signatures, all of which had already been verified by county elections officers, who themselves signed and dated every sheet with an affidavit of authenticity (often with a county seal as well). Stockton holds the NBA record for most career assists and steals, while Malone holds the records for most free throws attempted and made, as well as being second all-time on the NBA career scoring list, behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. On April 5, 2004, Nader failed in an attempt to get on the Oregon ballot.

Stockton and Malone shattered many NBA records while playing together. Nader's failure to take the Green Party's nomination meant that he could not take advantage of the Green Party's ballot access in 22 states, and that he would have to achieve ballot access there independently. He wore number 11 for the Los Angeles Lakers (number 32 was retired honoring Magic Johnson) and also for the Dream Team (the players wore 4 to 15 to adhere to FIBA rules). Ralph Nader), as a candidate in favor of David Cobb, an attorney and Green Party activist. Karl Malone wore number 32 for the Utah Jazz. Later in June, however, the national convention of the Green Party of the United States rejected Nader, whose supporters were voting for "nobody" (a.k.a. Although several NBA teams sought his services for the 2004-2005 season, Malone decided to retire as a player on February 13, 2005. Shortly thereafter, Nader announced that he would accept (although he was not actively seeking) the endorsement, but not nomination, of the Greens as their presidential candidate.

His bid failed as the Lakers were defeated by the Detroit Pistons in 2004. On June 21, 2004, Nader announced that Peter Camejo, a former two-time gubernatorial candidate of the California Green Party, would be his vice presidential running mate. Karl stayed for one more season, joining the Los Angeles Lakers to try and win a championship, the only major achievement that had eluded him in his career. The following day, the Democracy Action Team's Stop Nader campaign announced they would air TV commercials in key battleground states. Eventually, Stockton would retire at the end of the 2003 season. They both sought to reduce the effect of Nader upon Democratic voters that might be persuaded to vote for him. In 1999 (the year after Jordan's retirement), the Jazz were the favorites to win, but instead started a gradual decline that was a reflection of the aging of their two superstar players. On the same day, two Democratic leaning groups, the National Progress Fund and the Democracy Action Team, were formed.

They finally got there in 1997 and 1998 but were defeated both times by the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls. The meeting itself ended in disagreement. By the mid-90's the Utah Jazz had risen to power as one of the top five teams in the league and had started to knock on the doors of the NBA Finals. Nader refused to withdraw from the race, citing specifically the importance to him of the removal of troops from Iraq. Some of those who suffered collisions with Karl include Isiah Thomas, David Robinson, Shawn Bradley and Steve Nash. for a private session, concerning Nader's factor in the 2004 election. Compounded with his great strength, this led to accusations of dirty play or attempts to intentionally harm other players. On May 19, 2004, Nader met with John Kerry in Washington D.C.

He was also a physical defender and rebounder. The Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe argued that Nader had a "distinguished career, fighting for working families" and McAuliffe "would hate to see part of his legacy being that he got us eight years of George Bush.". As a result, he would lead the NBA in free throws made seven separate season (an NBA record). On February 22, 2004, Nader announced on NBC's Meet the Press that he would indeed run for president as an independent, saying, "There's too much power and wealth in too few hands." Because of the controversies over vote-splitting in 2000, many Democrats urged Nader to abandon his candidacy. He liked to draw contact and put other players in foul trouble. Nader announced on December 24, 2003 that he would not run for president in 2004 on the Green Party ticket; however, he did not rule out running as an independent. Karl was a very physical player. Main article: Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2004.

Playing Jerry Sloan's scrappy and tough style and perfecting the pick and roll to a maximum degree of efficiency, the Jazz became a staple to make it to the playoffs and to have a winning record in the regular season. (Despite what their supporters argued, there was no evidence that Nader and McReynolds had anything other than a 'friendly-foe' respect for each other.). For many years, he and Stockton played together on the Jazz, forming one of the most productive guard-forward combinations in NBA history. Ironically, Greens in some states turned on supporters of David McReynolds, the Socialist Party USA candidate in the 2000 race, and used similar tactics to try to push McReynolds supporters to "get in line" and support Nader. It was also at the end of that season that the Jazz as a team rose to national prominence after an amazing playoffs series against the Magic Johnson-led Los Angeles Lakers. Some Democrats attempted to convert those who supported Nader by claiming that doing so made them "dupes" of the Republican party. The three would be inseparable for 16 seasons. Thus, Gore supporters tried to persuade voters who preferred Nader to vote for Gore in order to prevent the election of the "greater evil" (referring to Bush).

That season was also the first for head coach Jerry Sloan. Such fears often plague third-party or independent candidates, especially those perceived as likely to draw most of their support from demographics who would otherwise support one or the other candidate. By 1987 Karl was the foundation of the offense and Stockton was the floor general and both had all-star seasons. The "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" slogan, which supporters of Gore urged against Nader, was an instance of the so-called spoiler effect phenomenon, in an election where more than two candidates are running and it is feared that the presence of more than one candidate with relatively similar views will split the vote that is cast "against" another candidate, who becomes the beneficiary of the split vote. At the same time, reserve point guard, John Stockton, was winning the trust of the coaching staff. Nader and his campaign explained that they were running in every state and that they were encouraging voters to vote according to conscience. He also added a long range jump shot which made him virtually unguardable. Even though "Nader trading" had the theoretical potential to allow Al Gore to win the election and at the same time to earn the Green Party the 5% that would lead to a possible award of FEC party convention funding, Nader himself declined to endorse the "vote-trading" idea in 2000.

Karl's work ethic features prominently in his formative years in the NBA where he raised his free throw shooting percentage from below 50% to 75% in a few years. This strategic idea, which was championed by law professor Jamin Raskin, was based on the observation that, under the electoral college system, individual votes for a losing presidential candidate within a given state (or individual "surplus" votes for the winner within a state) are necessarily wasted. So, they traded star forward, Adrian Dantley, to the Detroit Pistons and decided to build around him. Anticipating the type of close election results that in fact happened in Florida in 2000, some voters attempted to minimize the "spoiler" problem by engaging in strategic "vote-pairing," or so-called Nader trading, in which Nader-inclined voters in swing states would agree to vote for Gore in exchange for Gore-inclined voters in safe Bush states to vote for Nader. After his rookie season, the Jazz saw in him the potential to be the corner-stone of their offense. During a press conference in support of Peter Camejo for California Governor, pranksters hit Nader in the face with a pie [6]. Karl Malone was chosen by the Jazz in 1985 out of Louisiana Tech with the 13th overall pick in the draft. presidential election, 2000 was hounded by the Florida situation, and some Nader supporters suggested that the Democrats should blame the Supreme Court for calling a halt to the Florida recount, thereby effectively declaring Bush the winner.

The U.S. Nader supporters said that Gore's campaign themes were largely a creature of the "centrist" and corporate-supported Democratic Leadership Council, which had once been chaired by then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Bush. Nader supporters also maintained that the Democrats should handily have won the election against Bush (whom Nader referred to during the campaign as "a giant corporation masquerading as a human being"), with a better campaign or with a better candidate than Gore, who they say made a series of blunders throughout the campaign, including in his debates against George W.

For their part, Nader supporters countered that, instead of blaming Nader, Gore should accept responsibility because his own failure to win his home state of Tennessee was a "but-for cause" of Gore's loss. Even Nader, both in his book Crashing the Party, and on his website, stated: "In the year 2000, exit polls reported that 25% of my voters would have voted for Bush, 38% would have voted for Gore and the rest would not have voted at all." [5]) Most political analysts and experts believe that Nader's presence on the ballot in Florida in 2000 was one of many factors that combined to give Bush the election. Many analysts believed that a substantial number of Nader supporters would more likely have chosen Gore over Bush. As it turned out, Nader's vote total exceeded Bush's margin over Gore in Florida (as did each other third party candidate's) and in New Hampshire, which meant that, all else being the same, Gore would have won the Electoral College vote (and thus the presidency) if even a small fraction (as little as 1%) of Nader's 97,488 supporters in Florida had instead voted for Gore, or if a larger fraction of the Nader's 22,198 supporters in New Hampshire had done so.

Running as the Green Party's nominee in 2000, Nader indicated that he would support Green candidates who ran against even the most progressive Democrats, such as Paul Wellstone and Russ Feingold. However, at other moments Nader said that, because the Democratic Party had slid so low and had become so beholden to corporate power in his opinion, the Democratic Party deserved to go the way of the Whigs. When Nader argued that he would hold the Democrats' "feet to the fire," he was suggesting that he wanted to move the Democratic Party in a more progressive direction. Nader suggested at times that his campaign was offering a chance to save the Democratic Party, but at other times made the contradictory argument that the party was not worth saving.

When challenged with complaints that he was taking away votes from Al Gore, Nader replied that the voters who preferred Nader did not "belong" to Gore, and that it would be more accurate to say that Gore was trying to take away votes from Nader, by scaring voters into voting for the lesser of two evils. Nader and many of his supporters, however, claimed that while Gore was perhaps marginally preferable to Bush, the differences between the two were not great enough to merit support of Gore. Many prominent liberal politicians, activists, and celebrities made this argument to voters in swing states. Bush.

Before the election, a number of those who supported Gore asserted that Nader had no realistic chance of winning in the close election, so those who supported Nader should instead vote for Gore, the theory being that a victory for Gore was preferable to a victory for George W. The extremely close race between the two major presidential candidates, Al Gore and Bush, helped to create some additional controversy around the Nader campaign. He opposed pollution credits that make it more profitable to pollute than conserve, and giveaways of publicly-owned assets. Nader campaigned against the pervasiveness of corporate power and spoke on the need for campaign finance reform, environmental justice, universal healthcare, affordable housing, free education through college, workers' rights, legalization of commercial hemp, and a shift in taxes to place the burden more heavily on corporations than on the middle and lower classes.

This time he received 2.7% of the popular vote, missing the 5% needed to qualify the Green Party for federally distributed public funding in the next election. Nader ran again in 2000 as the candidate of the Green Party of the United States, which had been formed in the wake of his 1996 campaign. He refused to raise or spend more than $5,000 on his campaign, presumably to avoid meeting the threshold for Federal Elections Commission reporting requirements; the unofficial Draft Nader committee could (and did) spend more than that, but was legally prevented from coordinating in any way with Nader himself. Nader qualified for ballot status in relatively few states, garnering less than 1% of the vote, though the effort did make significant organizational gains for the party.

However, many activists in the Green Party USA worked actively to campaign for Nader that year. He was not formally nominated by the Green Party USA, which was, at the time, the largest national Green group; instead he was nominated independently by various state Green parties (in some areas, he appeared on the ballot as an independent). Nader was drafted as a candidate for President of the United States on the Green Party ticket during the 1996 presidential election. This could be seen as voting against the Democrats because a vote for Nader would not be a vote for Bill Clinton.

Surprisingly, given Nader's left-wing views, he received more votes from Republican voters than from Democrats. Nader waged a minor write-in campaign for "None of the Above" in the 1992 New Hampshire primary, which had the unintended effect of resulting in a few thousand votes for Nader himself. He stated that the Democratic Party had become "so bankrupt, it doesn't matter if it wins any elections." He suggested a serious third party could address needs such as campaign-finance reform, worker and whistle-blower rights, government-sanctioned watchdog groups to oversee banks and insurance agencies, and class-action lawsuit reforms. Nader considered launching a third party around issues of citizen empowerment and consumer rights.

Ralph Nader's name was also invoked in 1972 as a desirable and worthy presidential candidate, by members of a small political organization known as the New Party, but this "Draft Nader" effort had no ballot line to offer, nor did Nader authorize his name to appear on any ballot until 1996. Nader, who was (and remains) a registered independent, made it clear that he would decline any such offer. McGovern selected Thomas Eagleton and eventually, after Eagleton stepped down, Sargent Shriver. During the 1972 presidential election, Nader's name was floated as a possible running mate for Senator George McGovern, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee.

Some of these books include:. Nader has authored, co-authored and edited many books. For example, in his critique of television news as largely empty sensationalism, Nader acknowledges that most Americans may have been trained to behave as passive "consumers" of what passes for news, but Nader's call for engagement urges citizens to work together to organize community-based news production. Nader's "consumer" should not be conceived as a free-spending shopper, but rather as an active participant in democratic institutions.

According to Nader, mass advertising creates artificial and often harmful desires. On the contrary, his message of civic engagement (citizen activism in the public interest), like his harsh critique of "rapacious" corporations, calls for resistance to commercially-driven consumer culture. Because much of his early work involved advocacy to protect consumers (and workers) from unsafe products, Ralph Nader is often referred to as a "consumer advocate." This description should not be misunderstood to suggest that Nader is an advocate of consumption. He went on to start a variety of non-profit organizations:.

In 1980, Nader resigned as director of Public Citizen to work on other projects, especially campaigning against the believed dangers of large multinational corporations. Their various divisions include:. Their work is credited with helping to pass the Safe Drinking Water Act and Freedom of Information Act and prompting the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Today, Public Citizen has over 140,000 members and numerous researchers investigating Congress, health, environmental, economic, and other issues.

In 1971, Nader founded the NGO Public Citizen as an umbrella organization for these projects. They came to be known as "Nader's Raiders" and, led by Nader, they investigated corruption throughout government, publishing dozens of books with their results:. Hundreds of young activists, inspired by Nader's work, came to DC to help him with other projects. 1970).

General Motors Corp., 307 N.Y.S.2d 647 (N.Y. Nader v. Nader's lawsuit against GM was ultimately decided by the high Court of New York, whose opinion in the case expanded the privacy rights that can be remedied in tort. Upon learning of this harassment, Nader successfully sued the company for invasion of privacy, forced it to publicly apologize, and used much of his $284,000 net settlement to expand his consumer rights efforts.