The NFL Protests Continue. Why Doesn’t Goodell Stop this Unpatriotic Disrespectful Spectacle? Because He Doesn’t Want to.

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The left has got this game in its sights. I have warned everybody about this. When I do, people think I’m a nut, a kook. “Nobody can bring down the NFL, what are you talking about, Rush? You see politics in everything and you think that these political forces on the left have the ability to bring about change.” What in the world is happening to our culture, folks? The left targets something it doesn’t like and they never give up and they keep going until they ruin it. And I’m telling you, National Football League is in their crosshairs right now. – Rush Limbaugh, September 10, 2014

Yesterday, as what is left of their national audience watched, the so-called “professionals” of the National Football League continued their inappropriate, unpatriotic, and disrespectful behavior during the playing of our Sovereign Nation’s National Anthem.

Why is this continuing?

Because the CEO of this Private Organization is allowing it.

Charlie Goodell was a pipe-chewing liberal Republican appointed to the Senate after Robert Kennedy was murdered. He staged a series of insurrections against the GOP. The biggest had him walking arm-in-arm with Coretta Scott King and George McGovern during the Vietnam Moratorium. This activated Nixon’s enemy-slaying machine. During Goodell’s ’70 election campaign, Nixon threw his not-so-tacit support to the third-party conservative candidate; vice-president Spiro Agnew called Goodell the “Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party”; Henry Kissinger whispered dirty thoughts into his secret recording system (“I despise Goodell”). Goodell finished third in a three-man race.

Roger Goodell was 11 years old on that Election Day. If I can play pop psychologist, I’d guess that event is his Rosebud. He admired Charlie Goodell’s idealism and still keeps a copy of his out-of-Vietnam speech in his NFL office. But the son had a different playbook than the father. Roger Goodell would never be outflanked by his enemies. He would rarely stray from the company line. He would accumulate power rather than challenge it — he would be the strongman, not the insurgent.            -Brian Curtis, Grantland.com, September 12, 2014

Back on November 10, 2016, just two days after average Americans elected Donald J. Trump as  the 45th President of the United States of America, cnn.com posted the following article…

One of many Americans shaken by the election of Donald Trump as president is NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who said Thursday that he was struggling to explain his victory to the women in his family. Asked whether his job was harder with Trump’s ascension, at a DealBook conference in New York, Goodell pivoted to how it challenged his home life.

“It makes my job harder at home, too,” Goodell said. “I have twin daughters and a wife, so I have to explain that to them. So, that’s yes on that front.”
 
Trump has been critical of the NFL commissioner, who became a lightning rod for controversy when the league suspended Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in the “Deflategate” scandal. Trump has claimed the Patriots quarterback as a major supporter.

Goodell nevertheless heralded how both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had handled themselves in the wake of Tuesday’s upset.
 
“I think our country has to have more respect for one another, and we have to unite. I saw some very positive signs of that yesterday,” he said. “We have to unite. We have to address some of the issues and work together. President-elect Trump is our president, so let’s get behind him.”

Before the beginning of the NFL’s 2017-2018 Season, it appears to this average American that those same Liberals whom Rush Limbaugh spoke about in 2014, had spoken to Commissioner Goodell concerning giving said “professionals” the freedom to exercise their “First Amendment Rights” during the course of Game Day Activities.

It is now quite apparent to anyone with a lick of common sense that this organized protest by the NFL Players has NEVER been about  “Police Brutality” against black Americans.

It has always been about Donald J. Trump being elected the President of the United States of America.

Just like the “New Bolsheviks” which have been paid by Billionaire Financier and Far Left Activist George Soros and others to stage “spontaneous” protests since the night of November 8, 2016, these ongoing protests by the NFL Players are designed to humiliate the president in the eyes of the world and to somehow force his departure from office.

As I wrote last week, the problem with these protests, and what makes them different from the others, including those thrown by the fascists of Antifa, is the fact that the NFL is a Private Organization and the players are violating the rules of that organization by protesting ON THE JOB.

The NFL Chapter of the “New Bolsheviks” does not seem to comprehend that they are in the process of slitting their own throats, monetarily. NFL Revenues were down 18% last week and continue to fall as these concussion-prone athletes parade their political ideology in front of an audience who did not wish to see or hear about it in the first place.

It appears to this average American, that if Goodell does not put his big boy pants on, leave his SJW Brand of Liberalism at home, and stop the financial bleeding of the NFL immediately by forbidding the NFL Players from protesting on Company time, Goodell will go down in history as the LAST COMMISSIONER OF THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

The NFL Protests and Violence in the Streets. R-E-S-P-E-C-T…It Starts in the Home.

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Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. – Proverbs 22:6 (NIV)

I really do not know what we will see during the nationally-televised NFL Games being played today.

Will the NFL Players stand with their hands over their hearts and show proper respect during our National Anthem?

Will they lock arms with their white brethren in a still-inappropriate show of “unity”?

Will they all take a knee again in full frontal disrespect, protesting, according to them, “police brutality” against black Americans?

We visited the incongruences in that excuse in an article posted two days ago titled “The NFL Protests: Goodell Holds Meeting About the “Kneeling Situation”.  May I Make a Suggestion?”.

Whatever those ungrateful overpaid brats do during under-attended professional football games today, actual events here in Realityville more worthy of their attention seem to escape their “concern”.

For example…

The Denver, Colorado CBS Affiliate reported that

A Lakewood mother was hospitalized after she was assaulted outside a movie theater.It happened Tuesday night at the Century 16 Belmar theater. Heather Piper went to a movie with a couple friends where a small group of teens was allegedly “acting out of control.”

“They were crawling over seats and yelling,” Piper said. “I asked them to be quiet several times and they wouldn’t and I finally yelled at them to ‘shush.’”

Despite her attempts to quiet the three teenagers, Piper said the group continued to act inappropriately. That’s when another movie-goer got a security guard to come into the theater and the teens behaved. Yet, when Piper left the theater with her friends, one of the raucous teens confronted her.

“She was screaming and just punched me on the side of the head,” Piper said.

Piper said her two friends ran inside to get help as the young woman continued to punch her.

“I said, ‘What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?’ And she lost it. She started hitting me again and then started crying saying, ‘Well you called me ghetto,’” Piper said.

CBS4’s Kelly Werthmann asked Piper if she used those words in the theater and she said she “probably did.”

Piper said she didn’t fight back against her attacker because she is a foster parent and didn’t want to jeopardize her license. Eventually the teen ran off and Piper was rushed to St. Anthony’s hospital in an ambulance. She has a fractured nose, several bruises and scratches.

“I had blood all over my face,” Piper said. “It was on my shirt all the way down to my shoes.”

Lakewood police are investigating the assault and are reviewing surveillance video from the Belmar shopping center. Piper said her attacker is a young, heavyset black woman, possibly between the ages of 16 to 20.

On May 5, 2015, Black Economist and Conservative Pundit, Dr. Thomas Sowell, published the following perceptive (as usual) column about the Racial Division which America was facing then and is currently still trying to deal with in the aftermath of the divisive presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.

Among the many painful ironies in the current racial turmoil is that communities scattered across the country were disrupted by riots and looting because of the demonstrable lie that Michael Brown was shot in the back by a white policeman in Missouri — but there was not nearly as much turmoil created by the demonstrable fact that a fleeing black man was shot dead by a white policeman in South Carolina.

Totally ignored was the fact that a black policeman in Alabama fatally shot an unarmed white teenager, and was cleared of any charges, at about the same time that a white policeman was cleared of charges in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.

In a world where the truth means so little, and headstrong preconceptions seem to be all that matter, what hope is there for rational words or rational behavior, much less mutual understanding across racial lines?

When the recorded fatal shooting of a fleeing man in South Carolina brought instant condemnation by whites and blacks alike, and by the most conservative as well as the most liberal commentators, that moment of mutual understanding was very fleeting, as if mutual understanding were something to be avoided, as a threat to a vision of “us against them” that was more popular.

That vision is nowhere more clearly expressed than in attempts to automatically depict whatever social problems exist in ghetto communities as being caused by the sins or negligence of whites, whether racism in general or a “legacy of slavery” in particular. Like most emotionally powerful visions, it is seldom, if ever, subjected to the test of evidence.

The “legacy of slavery” argument is not just an excuse for inexcusable behavior in the ghettos. In a larger sense, it is an evasion of responsibility for the disastrous consequences of the prevailing social vision of our times, and the political policies based on that vision, over the past half century.

Anyone who is serious about evidence need only compare black communities as they evolved in the first 100 years after slavery with black communities as they evolved in the first 50 years after the explosive growth of the welfare state, beginning in the 1960s.

You would be hard-pressed to find as many ghetto riots prior to the 1960s as we have seen just in the past year, much less in the 50 years since a wave of such riots swept across the country in 1965.

We are told that such riots are a result of black poverty and white racism. But in fact — for those who still have some respect for facts — black poverty was far worse, and white racism was far worse, prior to 1960. But violent crime within black ghettos was far less.

Murder rates among black males were going down — repeat, DOWN — during the much lamented 1950s, while it went up after the much celebrated 1960s, reaching levels more than double what they had been before. Most black children were raised in two-parent families prior to the 1960s. But today the great majority of black children are raised in one-parent families.

Such trends are not unique to blacks, nor even to the United States. The welfare state has led to remarkably similar trends among the white underclass in England over the same period. Just read “Life at the Bottom,” by Theodore Dalrymple, a British physician who worked in a hospital in a white slum neighborhood.

You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization — including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain — without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large.

Non-judgmental subsidies of counterproductive lifestyles are treating people as if they were livestock, to be fed and tended by others in a welfare state — and yet expecting them to develop as human beings have developed when facing the challenges of life themselves.

One key fact that keeps getting ignored is that the poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits every year since 1994. Behavior matters and facts matter, more than the prevailing social visions or political empires built on those visions. [Emphasis mine.]

Amen, Dr. Sowell.

When that single black mother beat the snot out of her teenage son on national television, grabbing him by his hoodie and pulling him away from the rioters in Baltimore, she had the overwhelming majority of Americans backing her actions.

Lyndon Baines Johnson told Americans, as he campaigned in 1964, that the establishment of his proposed “Great Society” was going to eliminate the problems of America’s poor.

It had the opposite effect.

Johnson’s Great Society created a dependent class, which, instead of diminishing as it’s members joined the workforce, increased from generation to generation, relying on the federal government to provide their every need.

“Uncle Sugar” became Mother, Father, Preacher, and Doctor to generations of Americans. This “plantation mentality” continues to this day, thanks to Liberal Politicians on both sides of the political aisle.

However, there are other factors among the Black American Community that reinforces this vicious cycle of Generational Poverty and Crime, which has become seemingly inescapable for some.

Back in July of 2013, CNN Reporter Don Lemon (who happens to be black) caught a bunch of grief for saying,

Just because you can have a baby, it doesn’t mean you should. Especially without planning for one or getting married first. More than 72 percent of children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock. That means absent fathers. And the studies show that lack of a male role model is an express train right to prison and the cycle continues.

Politifact.com researched the statement and found out that Lemon was correct. As of the 2010 Census, Black American Babies were experiencing a 73% illegitimacy rate.

If the NFL and its players, Modern American Liberals, both black and white, Democrat and Republican, in Municipal, State, and National Leadership Positions, would focus their angst and “concern” on the society-altering, continuing dissolution of the Black Family Unit and work instead toward the restoration of the Black Family Unit, instead of attempting to blame our city’s police officers for the violence in our streets, perhaps the stifling defeatism of the cycle of Generational Poverty and Crime, and the violence it brings, would eventually be a thing of the past, or greatly diminished, anyway.

Then, I wouldn’t be awakened every morning, by the Local News in Memphis, to stories about Black Americans killing each other, or mobs of Black Teenagers beating up innocent people, such as seen in the story from Denver featured earlier in this post.

And American Families could actually watch an enjoyable Sunday Afternoon of professional football again, without the players’ public displays of their private political ideology spoiling it for everybody.

But, then again…that would make too much sense.

Until He Comes,

KJ

From Laugh Riot Comedy to Trump Hatefest: The Return of “Will and Grace”. They Should Have Left Us Laughing.

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Will and Grace, was a “groundbreaking” (according to Hollywood Liberals) sitcom which aired on NBC from 1998-2006.

The series centered around Will, a gay lawyer and Grace, a straight interior designer. They both lived in New York. Grace was engaged to a absolute jerk,. When they broke up, she moves in with Will, who happens to be her best friend. It was only supposed to be until Grace found herself a place of her own, but she and Will wound up with each other as permanent roommates. Also featured in the ensemble were Jack, Will’s flamboyant gay friend and Karen, Grace’s secretary/assistant who didn’t really need to work because she married money several times.

As seems to be the pattern nowadays, due to a lack of good writers out in Hollyweird, “Will and Grace” has returned to NBC’s Thursday Night Lineup.

Judging from the first episode, they should have stayed gone.

FoxNews.com reports that

The premiere episode of NBC’s reincarnated “Will & Grace” was essentially a 30-minute anti-Trump infomercial on Thursday night and conservatives have taken notice.

The first episode of “Will & Grace” in 11 years referred to First Lady Melania Trump as a “hostage,” portrayed Midwesterners as people who didn’t eat vegetables until Michelle Obama  came along and featured Debra Messing’s character, Grace, complaining about the results of last year’s presidential election.

Grace has somehow landed a job redecorating the Oval Office because Trump “has been pouting that his office is a real dump.”

After a subtle jab that Melania wouldn’t hire anyone for the job who is pretty enough to attract the president, Grace and her assistant headed to the White House, where the show mocked Kellyanne Conway’s infamous couch photo and President Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s disease.

Grace is told Trump wants his the Oval Office “to look like he’s there from time to time,” another obvious shot.

People magazine even published a list of all the times the show ripped Trump.

The premiere episode did well in the ratings department, with 10.2 million viewers tuning in, making it the most-watched scripted show on television Thursday night. The Wrap’s Senior TV Reporter Tony Maglio believes future ratings could depend on viewers who side with the show politically.

“Post-premiere, ‘Will & Grace’ ratings should come back down to Earth, and will soon settle into a pretty predictable range. The return was an event [that] had the nostalgia factor going for it, plenty of promotion and generally favorable reviews,” Maglio told Fox News. ”The show does have a few things working against it though: The younger half of the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic don’t know or care at all about these characters, and a series that takes such a political stance is, by its very nature, divisive.”

Fox News’ Senior Vice President of Marketing and entertainment contributor Michael Tammero was “very excited” for the return of “Will & Grace” but didn’t stick with the episode for the entire 30 minutes.

“It was a very important show, as someone who is gay and married… it was a show that initially played a huge role in changing hearts and minds in this country and advancing LGBTQ issues,” Tammero said. “I expected some anti-Republican, anti-Trump lines, but I did not expect every single line to be some sort of jab.”

Tammero said the show “is on broadcast for a reason, ‘broad’ being they key word,” as networks typically try to to reach the largest possible audience. He can’t predict if the show’s political views will hurt viewership.

“I think it could… I think it will probably hurt the show,” he said. “In Hollywood, we’re seeing a lot of people center-right are turning off and tuning out.”

Conservatives viewers took to Twitter to react, with many noting that they wouldn’t tune in again because they were offended by the show’s politics. One viewer asked, “Why alienate a large part of America?”

Another viewer tweeted that “Will & Grace” used to be a good show but is now simply a “tool for hate,” and dubbed it “Will & Disgrace.”

The Media Research Center’s TV reporter Amelia Hamilton blasted the episode, calling the storyline “a lazy way to take shots at the president for the entire length of the show” and said it was embarrassing.

“Hollywood still hasn’t realized that shows like this do nothing but help Donald Trump,” Hamilton wrote. “When will Hollywood learn that they’re basically running his reelection campaign by doing this?”

Ironically, “Will & Grace” creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick told The Hollywood Reporter they only agreed to a reunion because former NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker isn’t involved anymore, since he is now the president of the liberal network CNN Worldwide.

“Zucker was the only reason we had a problem at NBC,” Mutchnick said. 

More than likely, Zucker was the reason that you never saw 30-minute hatefests during the series’ original run, like the before-mentioned episode.

Those in power in Hollywood, like the rest of Liberal America’s “Smartest People in the Room”, seem to be under the misguided notion that the majority of Americans think precisely like them, meaning that we all are as dedicated to hating the 45th President of the United States of America as Captain Queeq (Humphrey Bogart in “The Caine Mutiny”) was in his search for the missing strawberries.

I don’t know if their unrequited anguish over the events of November 8, 2016 has eroded their memories, or just plain sent them over the edge of sanity. However, they seem to remain oblivious of the fact that 30 states voted for Donald J. Trump on that fateful night.

During the original run of “Will and Grace”, average Americans watched the program because it was funny, plain and simple. They overlooked the less than stellar living arrangement of the title couple for that very reason.

While Liberals viewed the series as groundbreaking because of the “mainstreaming” of homosexuality, average Americans tuned in because the characters were a “hoot”.

I am sure that Jeff Zucker recognized that and probably fought behind the scenes to keep the show politically neutral in order to maximize the potential viewing audience.

The producers, it now appears, could care less about what the viewers want. Like the oblivious NFL Players, the producers of “Will and Grace” have decided to use their entertainment platform as a political launching pad for diatribes against the American President and those of us who voted for him.

While, like Hillary Clinton herself, vitriol and insults hurled incessantly at the President for 30 minutes may enthrall the “culturally hip” audiences on the East and Left Coasts, here in the Heartland, a television program so weak that it relies on 30 minutes of that to “entertain” their audience will have Americans turned off faster than Rosie O’Donnell in a thong bikini.

This current revival of “Will and Grace” has only been scheduled for 10 episodes.

That’s a wise move. However, judging from the premiere episode the new “Will and Grace” may not even last 2.

And, that would be a blessing.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

The NFL Protests: Goodell Holds Meeting About the “Kneeling Situation”. May I Make a Suggestion?

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“And the fans that don’t want to come to the game? I mean. OK. Bye. If you feel that’s something – we’re disrespecting you, don’t come to the game.” – Tennessee Titans tight end Delanie Walker 

The local CBS Affiliate in Philadelphia reports that

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell held a round-table meeting with roughly 25 owners, league executives and players on Tuesday night to discuss the national anthem demonstrations.

New York Giants linebacker Jonathan Casillas said the summit at the league’s headquarters in New York lasted roughly two hours and was attended by several of the NFL’s most prominent owners, including John Mara of the Giants, Robert Kraft of the Patriots and Art Rooney II of the Steelers. NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent also attended along with eight players from five teams.

Casillas said the group talked about what to do to move forward and how to approach the “whole kneeling situation.”

Casillas said the group talked about what to do to move forward and how to approach the “whole kneeling situation.”

“It was a whole bunch of opinions shared,” Casillas said. “There was nothing we decided we’re going to do collectively. I think it was a very conducive meeting.”

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said the gathering was one of the many conversations that have happened this week within the NFL.

“The commissioner believed with all the owners here for committee meetings it was important to bring in some players and hear directly from them,” McCarthy said in responding to an email from The Associated Press. “While the conversations will remain private, they were very informative and instructive.”

Patriots safety Devin McCourty and special teams captain Matt Slater both joined Kraft for the meeting with Goodell. McCourty said his biggest takeaway was “just understanding.”

“From both sides,” McCourty said. “I think that players saw that when owners came out with different statements on Sunday. I think the biggest thing is as players we have to keep in the forefront what we want to get (awareness for) — the inequality, the injustice. I think that’s what’s important.”

McCourty emphasized not only the unity on the Patriots, but throughout the NFL.

“I think we gotta make sure this whole thing doesn’t turn into the NFL vs. Donald Trump,” he said. “As players … we have an agenda of what we think can be done better. We’re trying to use our platform. We have to stick to that.

“It’s not really this war of whether does the NFL have our back or let’s battle Trump. But I do think (the owners) are willing to help us get some of these things going. Hopefully that is what happens out of all of this.”

So, NFL Players are standing up in support of black Americans being killed by municipal police officers.

Okay.

On July 11, 2016, one of the “Newspapers of Record” for Modern American Liberals, The Washington Post, posted the following information…

In 2015, The Washington Post launched a real-time database to track fatal police shootings, and the project continues this year. As of Sunday, 1,502 people have been shot and killed by on-duty police officers since Jan. 1, 2015. Of them, 732 were white, and 381 were black (and 382 were of another or unknown race).

But as data scientists and policing experts often note, comparing how many or how often white people are killed by police to how many or how often black people are killed by the police is statistically dubious unless you first adjust for population.

According to the most recent census data, there are nearly 160 million more white people in America than there are black people. White people make up roughly 62 percent of the U.S. population but only about 49 percent of those who are killed by police officers. African Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population. As The Post noted in a new analysis published last week, that means black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers.

U.S. police officers have shot and killed the exact same number of unarmed white people as they have unarmed black people: 50 each. But because the white population is approximately five times larger than the black population, that means unarmed black Americans were five times as likely as unarmed white Americans to be shot and killed by a police officer.

Police have shot and killed a young black man (ages 18 to 29) — such as Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. —175 times since January 2015; 24 of them were unarmed. Over that same period, police have shot and killed 172 young white men, 18 of whom were unarmed. Once again, while in raw numbers there were similar totals of white and black victims, blacks were killed at rates disproportionate to their percentage of the U.S. population. Of all of the unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2015, 40 percent of them were black men, even though black men make up just 6 percent of the nation’s population.

And, when considering shootings confined within a single race, a black person shot and killed by police is more likely to have been unarmed than a white person. About 13 percent of all black people who have been fatally shot by police since January 2015 were unarmed, compared with 7 percent of all white people.

In response to these statistics, critics of police reform — often political conservatives and police unions — typically argue that the reason more black men and women are shot and killed by police is that black Americans commit more violent crime.

“There’s too much violence in the black community,” former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said Sunday on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” “If you want to deal with this on the black side, you’ve got to teach your children to be respectful to the police, and you’ve got to teach your children that the real danger to them is not the police; the real danger to them, 99 out of 100 times, 9,900 out of 10,000 times, are other black kids who are going to kill them. That’s the way they’re gonna die.”

Responding to the wave of demonstrations across the country that have been triggered by recent police shootings of black men, Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said black parents should teach their children to be respectful to police. (Reuters)

As the New York Daily News noted: Giuliani is wrong about the so-called black-on-black crime rate. According to FBI numbers from 2014, about 90 percent of black homicide victims were killed by other black people. The “white-on-white” murder rate that same year — homicides in which a white person was killed by another white person — was 82 percent of all murders of white people.

But it is true that a disproportionate amount of murders and other violent crimes are committed by black Americans.

Because detailed FBI data on crime can lag by several years, the most-cited statistics on this point refer to 2009 data. According to that data, out of all violent crimes in which someone was charged, black Americans were charged with 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders and 45 percent of assaults in the country’s 75 biggest counties — despite the fact that black Americans made up just 15 percent of the population in those places.

My point for posting this article today is not to be some mean ol’ RAAACIIIST cracker. Rather, this post is a sounding board, as it often is, for questions that nag at me, seeking an answer.

The writer for the Washington Post noted in the article above (please bear with me for repeating the information) that “out of all violent crimes in which someone was charged, black Americans were charged with 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders and 45 percent of assaults in the country’s 75 biggest counties — despite the fact that black Americans made up just 15 percent of the population in those places.”

And, that “about 90 percent of black homicide victims were killed by other black people.”

Perhaps the truth behind the reported disparity in reported police brutality against black Americans lies within those statistics reported by the Liberally biased Washington Post.

If black Americans are committing more violent crimes, doesn’t that, through sheer numbers, increase the chance of police incidences of police brutality against the alleged perpetrators?

Some of which, as has been reported over the years, were actually Professional Football Players in the National Football League.

But, I digress.

If the NFL Players truly are concerned with the police brutality against black Americans, wouldn’t the logical thing be for them to get involved on the local level, mentoring young black boys and men, so they could achieve and contribute to American Society, instead of hanging out where and with whom they shouldn’t be and putting themselves in situations where they could be suspected of illegal activity and be placed in a situation with police that could go badly for all involved?

Not I realize that would involve more of the “disenfranchised” millionaire NFL Players precious time and money, but, there are always more cars to buy and more…err…ummm…ladies willing to help them spend their money.

And the results of helping black Americans into a better situation in life would be a lot more satisfying than losing your job because your team owners have to make cuts because Americans have stopped watching the NFL on TV and going to the games because you guys keep disrespecting our flag, our National Anthem, and all of those brave American men and women who gave their lives so you could get paid millions to play a game that we all played in our front and back yards growing up.

Giving back and helping someone have a brighter future makes a heckuva lot more sense that going down on one knee to disrespect a country which has given you everything…doesn’t it?

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

The NFL Protests: What if NFL Players Were Employees of a Private Corporation? Oh, Wait…They Are !!!

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If you were to walk into work today, take all your clothes off, put your feet up on your desk, and flip off your boss, would you still have a job?

The answer, of course, is “Not for long”.

But…wouldn’t you be exercising YOUR right to Free Speech and Self-Expression, just like the NFL Players who are taking a knee during our country’s National Anthem?

By now, some of you are saying, “But, I work for a private organization”.

SO DO THEY.

TheWrap.com reports that

It doesn’t look like any NFL players will be disciplined for kneeling or locking arms in protest during the playing of the National Anthem. But First Amendment experts say most employees can be fired from many jobs for exercising their freedom of speech.

Federal law does not protect workers in the private sector — only government employees.

“There is no federal law protecting against discrimination or retaliation for political activity” at private companies, Paula Brantner, a senior adviser at Workplace Fairness, told TheWrap. “A lot of people think they have First Amendment rights, but those only apply to government employees.”

The power of employers to dismiss workers was demonstrated in August when Google fired one of its engineers, James Damore, for circulating a memo lashing out at the Silicon Valley giant’s efforts to bring more women into the male-dominated company.

In Berkeley, the Top Dog hot dog chain parted ways with one of its cooks, Cole White, when sleuths on Twitter said he had taken part in the white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia. (He denied he is a white nationalist, and Top Dog said he had resigned, not been fired.)

Californians like Damore and White have some protections many other Americans don’t because California law forbids employers from firing workers for off-duty partisan political activity if it is legal. Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, New York, North Dakota, and Washington, D.C. have also enacted some speech protections for workers, but those protections are not absolute.

American workers in the private sector who work in states without those laws have no protection for political speech, University of Dayton law professor Jeannette Cox wrote in a recent American Bar Association article.

But government employees are in a different position, Harvard Law professor Mark Tushnet told TheWrap. He said that under the First Amendment, government workers who speak about public policy can’t be fired unless their speech interferes with their jobs — by provoking fights, for example.

“Typically, though, governments aren’t able to make that showing,” he said.

The nation’s 22 million government workers got a boost last year when the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment forbids government bosses from firing workers for supporting a political candidate the boss doesn’t like.

“The Constitution prohibits a government employer from discharging or demoting an employee because the employee supports a particular political candidate,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in the decision.

NFL owners, perhaps fearful of a public-relations backlash, have not obeyed President Trump’s Sept. 22 call on them to fire any “son of a bitch” who kneels during the National Anthem. Trump was referring to former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players who started kneeling during the National Anthem last year to protest racism and police brutality.

But NFL owners have broad freedom to fire players perceived to violate the NFL’s Personal Conduct Policy. According to the policy, posted on the NFL website, “prohibited conduct” includes “conduct that undermines or puts at risk the integrity of the NFL, NFL clubs, or NFL personnel.”

Discipline can include a fine, suspension or banishment from the league with an opportunity to reapply, the policy states.

In addition to the policy, players may be required to sign contracts with a “morals clause,” which gives team owners another potential justification for firing them if they say or do anything that might potentially make the team look bad.

According to a new Fox News Poll

Fifty-five percent of voters in the latest Fox News poll see kneeling during the national anthem as an inappropriate form of protest. That’s down six percentage points from 61 percent who felt that way a year ago (September 2016).

Those most likely to disapprove of the kneeling include majorities of men (60 percent), independents (62 percent), whites (63 percent), veterans (65 percent), Republicans (86 percent), and Trump voters (90 percent).

Overall, 41 percent consider kneeling an appropriate way to protest, up from 32 percent a year ago. The increase comes largely from a jump of 21 points among blacks, 17 points among Democrats, and 16 points among women.

Let’s look at this whole meshuggah mess from a business viewpoint.

Let’s say you are the head of a corporation which provides a product to the American Public. One dark and gloomy day, your VP of Revenue Management walks into your office, sits down, and proceeds to inform you that your company’s revenue is down 11% from last year. And, let’s say that your corporation is so big that 11% of your revenue equals $200 million Dollars.

Would that not get your attention?

So, you get your Management Staff together for a meeting to discuss this very important matter.

It turns out that a study was undertaken last year and a flaw in the product that you are presenting was shown to be unpopular with the majority of Americans.

As the CEO of that company, would you not have removed that flaw in order to increase, or at least preserve, your revenue and stop a major headache before it starts?

Well, the CEO of this fictional corporation did not, and now, that little flaw has turned into a major defect in his product, which if ignored and allowed to continue, will forever stain his product, dry up his revenue stream, and drive a permanent wedge between his corporation, his Board of Investors, and the American Consumer.

It doesn’t make any business sense at all, does it?

Of course, the corporation in this case is the National Football League. The neglectful CEO is Roger Goodell. The flaw, which has now become a major defect, is the tone-deaf, self-centered, disrespectful NFL Player Protest of taking a knee during the playing of our National Anthem. The Board of Investors are the Advertisers and Merchandisers who have made deals with NFL, based on projected yearly revenue. And, finally, the American Consumer, well, that’s YOU AND ME.

If Goodell and the Team Owners do not come to their senses fast and put a stop to the reprehensible actions of their employees, soon, they will see what happens when a corporation tries to sell their customers a product which they are unwilling to buy.

As Apple is finding out with the iPhone 8, timing and presentation are everything.

By allowing their “disenfranchised” millionaire Football Players to disrespect the symbol of our nation live on millions on televisions around the world, the NFL is “killing the Golden Goose”.

Pretty soon, some of the NFL Players are going to be sorry that they did not take their own tests in college.

Repeat after me, “gentlemen”…

Would you like fries with that?

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

 

Moore Defeats Strange. A Refudiation of Trump or An Object Lesson for the Vichy Republicans? – A KJ Analysis

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As “Stars Fell on Alabama” last night, another Professional Politician was defeated by an “outsider”.

Foxnews.com reports that

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was projected to soundly defeat Sen. Luther Strange in a GOP primary runoff that pitted President Donald Trump against some of his most loyal supporters, including former chief strategist Steve Bannon, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and a slew of conservative members of the House of Representatives.

With 42 percent of the precincts reporting, Moore lead Strange 57 percent to 43 percent, a margin of just over 25,000 votes. State officials estimated a low turnout of between 12 and 15 percent of eligible voters.

Moore is now the favorite in December’s general election against Democrat Doug Jones, a lawyer and former U.S. attorney during President Bill Clinton’s administration. The winner of that race will complete the Senate term started by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and be up for re-election in 2020.

Strange lost despite the endorsement of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, both of whom traveled to Alabama to make the case for the incumbent in the final week of the race.

At a rally in Huntsville Friday, Trump portrayed Strange as loyal to him and said he appreciated how Strange agreed to vote for ObamaCare replacement legislation this summer without asking any favors from him. However, Trump’s endorsement was overshadowed nationally by his attack on NFL players who kneel during the National Anthem prior to games.

Trump posted a Tweet before voting began Tuesday morning, imploring Alabamians to “Finish the job [and] vote for ‘Big Luther.'”

Pence also flew to Birmingham on Monday evening to campaign for Strange.

“Luther Strange is a real conservative. He’s a leader and a real friend to President Trump. I got to tell you, Big Luther has been making a big difference in Washington,” Pence said before exiting the stage to the tune of “Sweet Home Alabama.”

A super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Kentucky also pumped millions of dollars into the race on behalf of Strange – a move that likely played into Moore’s pitch as the anti-establishment candidate.

“Mitch McConnell needs to be replaced and your vote tomorrow may determine that,” Moore said Monday at a Fairhope rally attended by Bannon, Brexit leader Nigel Farage, and “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson.

Bannon told the crowd that Alabama can show the world “that this populist, nationalist, conservative movement is on the rise.”

“A vote for Roy Moore is a vote for Donald J. Trump,” Bannon said.

Wearing a white cowboy hat and leather vest at the rally Monday night, Moore repeated the conservative Christian themes he has used his entire public career. He also lashed out at attack ads run against him in the race, including one suggesting he was weak on gun rights. “I believe in the Second Amendment,” Moore said, pulling a handgun from his pocket.

Moore, known in Alabama as the “Ten Commandments Judge,” has a colorful political history that has both fueled and complicated his rise.

Moore first received national attention in the 1990s as a county judge when he hung a wooden Ten Commandments plaque on the wall of his courtroom. The ACLU filed a lawsuit against him.

Benefiting from his popularity after the episode, Moore then ran and won a race for chief justice of the state’s Supreme Court in 2000. But he was ousted after refusing to remove a 5,280-pound granite Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state judicial building.

Moore resurrected his political career in 2012, when he was elected chief justice again. But his second tenure was short-lived: in 2016, Moore was suspended as chief justice after he directed probate judges not to issue marriage certificates to gay couples.

Strange, the former attorney general in Alabama, was temporarily appointed to the seat in April by then-Gov. Robert Bentley, who has since resigned in disgrace. Opponents have used the appointment against Strange, accusing Bentley of naming him to the seat so he could install someone who might be more sympathetic to him in the state attorney general’s office.

On the outskirts of Montgomery, 76-year-old Air Force retiree John Lauer said Trump’s endorsement swayed him to vote for Strange on Tuesday.

“I voted for Strange. I’m a Trump voter. Either one is going to basically do the Trump agenda, but since Trump came out for Luther, I voted for Luther,” said Lauer said.

Merlene Bohannon, a widow with three grown children, said she had planned to vote for Strange until seeing Bannon stump for Moore on Fox News on Monday night.

“Steve Bannon and God spoke to me, and this morning when I went in I voted for Moore,” said Bohannon, 74.

What you will be hearing and seeing through the Main Stream Media all day long today, is how this is a repudiation of president Trump, since he went out to stump for him.

The thing is, as an “outsider” who is desperately trying to get Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Vichy Republicans in the Senate to get up off their posteriors and help him fulfill his campaign promises to the American People, he really had no choice.

I am sure that the behind he scene conversation between the President and Mitch “Turtle” McConnell included some wheeling and dealing which lead to the President and Vice-President endorsing “Big Luther” over Roy Moore, in exchange for the Vichy Republicans’ “co-operation”.

While Trump was fulfilling his part of the likely bargain, the Establishment Republicans whom he was stumping for were, once again, doing what they do best…nothing.

The Senate will not vote on the Graham-Cassidy bill to repeal Obamacare, Republican leaders announced Tuesday, dealing a devastating blow to President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers who tried to make a last-ditch attempt to deliver on the party’s years-long campaign promise. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the decision at a lunch with fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill, conceding what had become clear Monday night: They didn’t have the votes.

“We haven’t given up on changing the American health care system. We are not going to be able to do that this week,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “But it still lies ahead of us, and we haven’t given up on that.”
 
Even as McConnell and his colleagues vowed that their goal of overhauling the country’s health care system was far from over, Tuesday marked a clear end to the latest campaign to try to jam through a partisan bill to gut the Affordable Care Act. The budget vehicle Republicans were using to move the bill forward without any Democratic support was set to expire at the end of this week.

The sponsors of Graham-Cassidy said they were disappointed but would try again — next time through a more transparent process. The new plan, they said, is to take another crack at health care through the 2019 budget reconciliation process (which would again only require 50 votes for passage) and hold committee hearings, markups and reach out to Democrats.

Spineless Vichy Republicans have been a barrier to Republican victory for as long as I can remember. Like Quakers, Establishment Republicans seem to believe that passive resistance and reaching out to their sworn enemies as “friends”, is the way to defeat those who oppose you.

It was especially bad during Obama’s reign, as the House and Senate Republican Leadership apparently cherished their friendship with the Democrats more than they did the wishes of the folks back home. Yes, they talked a good game, but so did Jon Lovitz in those “Liar Sketches” during the old days of Saturday Night Live, back when they were actually funny.

Yeah,  my wife Morgan Fairchild. Yeah, that’s it. That’s the ticket!

and now, in the ninth month of Trump’s Presidency, Congress remains oblivious to the anger of average Americans, living here in the Heartland, during the 2016 President Election, which gave them control of Capitol Hill.

It is that same anger that led to the defeat of Luther Strange and the victory of the “outsider”, Former Judge Roy Moore.

The President needs to hold meetings with Congressional Leaders and point out the glaring lesson in the state of Modern American Politics that Alabama taught yesterday.

Americans have had their fill of Establishment Politicians on both sides of the aisle, who only pretend to listen to “the folks back home” during obligatory Town Hall Meetings and when they are out stumping for re-election to their phony baloney jobs.

“Hrumph!”

Like the Far Left Democrats, the Vichy Republicans find themselves, once again, completely out-of-touch with the Americans whom they purport to represent.

And, like the before-mentioned Democrats, McConnell, Ryan, et al, will also find themselves out of power if they do not start treating average Americans here in the Heartland who placed an “outsider” in the Presidency, with the respect due us…

…AS THEIR BOSS.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

The Assimilation of the NFL by the “New Borg” Continues as the Cowboys Take a Knee and Villanueva Apologizes

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If you are a Star Trek Fan, you already know who “The Borg” are.

For those of you who have never heard of them, the Borg are an alien manufactured “race” that appear as “bad guys” in the Star Trek franchise. The Borg are a seemingly endless attack force of “drones”, or cybernetic organisms who are linked together in a hive mind called “the Collective”, or “the Hive”. The Borg acquire through the means of force the technology and knowledge of other alien species to the Collective via a process of “assimilation”. They forcibly transform individuals into drones by violently implanting microscopic machines, or nanoprobes, into their bodies while augmenting them with cybernetic components. The Borg’s ultimate goal is “achieving perfection”.

Why did I begin my post with Star Trek Lore?

Because, boys and girls, America is now fighting our own war with a “New Borg”…

And they are assimilating everyone and every American Institution in their path.

Their current target for assimilation is the NFL.

And, according to the already-assimilated Main Stream Media, they have succeeded.

Per The New York Times

The image was striking — several owners of N.F.L. teams locking arms with their players on the sidelines Sunday in a dramatic statement of defiance to a president who ridiculed their sport and condemned players for refusing to stand during the national anthem as a protest against racism.

And then on Monday night, the league’s most prominent owner knelt with his entire team.

Beyond the appearance of unity, though, is a far different reality: The owners have done little to support players who protest to fight social injustice. A few owners have told their players that kneeling for the anthem is inappropriate.

The owners by and large are a white, conservative group of billionaires, several of them big-dollar donors to President Trump. They have generally discouraged their players, about three quarters of whom are African-American, from anything that overshadows throwing passes and making tackles.

These are the same owners who allowed junk science produced by league-sponsored doctors to paper over the growing scientific consensus that repeated head hits are linked to long-term brain damage. They have warred repeatedly, aggressively and publicly with players over labor issues.

And as for Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who inspired the anthem protests by kneeling in order to raise awareness about racial oppression and police brutality toward African-Americans, no owner has deemed him worthy of job, despite widespread handicapping that, while not in his prime, he certainly still is of a caliber to play.

It is certainly true that some owners, most notably Arthur M. Blank of the Atlanta Falcons and Stephen M. Ross of the Miami Dolphins, have tried through charitable work to address the many thorny problems around racism, poverty and policing. It took a rebuke from Mr. Trump to compel many of them to choose between remaining silent or publicly siding with the players.

Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, keeping with his preference for dramatic flourishes, went further than any other owner when he knelt with his team before the national anthem for his team’s game with the Cardinals in Glendale, Ariz. Before Monday, Jones had been among the most vocal owners in saying he preferred that his players stand for the anthem.

But the public demonstration of unity and support may be short-lived.

While it is too early to know if the protests will continue, and in what form, Shahid Khan, the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars and on Sunday the first owner to be seen linking arms with his players on the sidelines, has said he would not continue the practice in the coming weeks.

“I’m not a crusader, but this was a Rosa Parks moment for the Jaguars,” he said. “I do not plan any future sideline appearances.”

The owners’ decision to go with the players at least this time struck some as a fallback to protecting the league brand, embodied in its ubiquitous shield emblem with the American flag motif.

“This issue is about protecting the shield,” said Andy Dolich, a former N.F.L. team executive. “There’s a subliminal dollar sign in that shield, so it is fair to be cynical” about the owners’ motives.

League executives, however, said they had minimal involvement in the owners’ or players’ actions.

And, if you haven’t hurled yet, this should bring your last meal up…

The only member of the Pittsburgh Steelers to take the field for the anthem now says he regrets his actions and apologized to his teammates and coach Monday. Alejandro Villanueva, a Steelers lineman and U.S. Army veteran, was pictured standing alone before Sunday’s game during the national anthem while the rest of the team refused to take the field in protest. His stand has made his jersey one of the top sellers in the NFL.

“Unfortunately I threw my teammates under the bus, unintentionally,” Villanueva said in a press conference Monday. “Every single time I see that picture of me standing by myself I feel embarrassed.”

The team had apparently agreed Saturday evening to stay in the tunnel, but Villanueva made a last-minute decision Sunday to get a look at the flag, telling only the team leaders. However, when the anthem started with him alone, outside the tunnel, he said it would have “looked extremely bad” to walk back to his teammates, according to ESPN.

He apologized for breaking ranks without giving others the opportunity to join him.

“When everybody sees a picture of me standing by myself, everybody thinks the team and the Steelers are not behind me, and that’s absolutely wrong,” Villanueva said. “The entire team would have been out there with me, even the ones who wanted to take a knee would have been there with me.”

Villanueva said his team would have joined him if they had known about the “extreme circumstances” he was going through before the game. Villanueva said he had soldiers and wounded veterans texting him to make sure he would take the field. He said the fact that they were about to play at Soldier Field also influenced him.

According to WPXI, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and defensive lineman Cam Heyward wanted to go with him in solidarity, but were blocked by congestion in the tunnel before the anthem. Villanueva confirmed that report Monday, according to the station.

Villanueva, who has been celebrated widely by those who aren’t in favor of NFL players kneeling in protest, said he feels bad that his action broke an appearance of unity among the Steelers.

“I’ve made the Steelers look bad, and that is my fault and my fault only,” Villanueva said. He also apologized to coach Mike Tomlin and the rest of the team.

The situation, which we as a nation, find ourselves in today, is one which our Founding Fathers sought valiantly to avoid.

Thanks to a Previous Imperious Presidency, we are suffering under a “Tyranny of the Minority”.

This minority is not based on color, rather, it is one based on political ideology and self-interest.

If this  minority, including the Main Stream Media, had gotten their wish, the Queen of Mean, Hillary Clinton, would have been elected President of our country, and what we are witnessing on our streets, on our college campuses, and now on our Professional Football Stadiums, would not be happening.

Unfortunately, I believe that we are experiencing only the opening rounds of a long fight, the fascist tyranny which the poor losers of a political minority are now attacking our nation with will not only continue, it will EXPAND.

As the past several years have shown, this minority, buoyed by money from their “sponsors”, including the Halls of Power in Washington, DC, are willing to shut down anyone who threatens “what they’ve got” by ANY MEANS NECESSARY, including political devices, such as heavily weighted push polls, and a sycophantic totally bought and paid for Main Stream Media helping them to promote and espouse a belief system, which we, as a country, have gone to war against in the past.

My late father was one of thousands of brave young American men, who landed on the beaches of Normandy , France on June 6, 1944, in the military operation which broke the backs of the Nazis, leading to the end of World War II,  now known as D-Day.

World War II was a war against Fascism.

What is Fascism? Per merriam-webster.com, it is a

political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Ladies and gentlemen, I firmly believe that America is now fighting a new war against fascism.

It’s not a war that is being fought with guns and bullets, But instead with state referendums, Congressional votes, Executive Orders, judicial activism, and FAR Left-sponsored and organized Political Activists.

And, it’s not our Brightest and Best who are dying on this field of battle, but rather, it is our American Way of Life, our History, and our Institutions which are dying an ignoble death, pierced by the arrows of socialism and political correctness.

By now, there’s some out there in the audience saying, “Oh Lord, the crazy old cracker’s overreacting again.”

No, Skippy, I’m not.

If you try to talk to a Liberal about this New Fascism, they will deny that there is any fascism going on at all. In fact, they will tell you that this is “the will of the people” and they will site Democratically stacked push polls in order to back their opinion up.

In other words, just like the fictional Borg, this New Borg WILL assimilate you or else you will be branded a racist and a “fascist”, which, in itself, is an extremely sick bit of irony.

I have no doubt that Villanueva, the Former Army Ranger who stood out in that tunnel with his hand over his heart during our national anthem last Sunday, was lectured to the point of assimilation by his coach, his teammates, and perhaps even the Team Ownership.

In Star Trek, there was a “Borg Queen”, who was controlling the “Hive-Mind”. Now, you probably think that I will tell you that Roger Goodell is the “Borg King” in this situation. However, I believe that he is just another drone, taking orders from the Liberal Hierarchy in Washington, D.C., where his old friend, Former President Barack Hussein Obama lives.

There is another name that I could mention. However, you have probably thought of a certain puppet master’s name, already.

The saving grace in this situation is the indomitable will of average Americans, who showed how they felt about the failed political ideology behind the NFL Protests went they elected Donald J Trump as our 45th President.

That conviction and strength of will among average Americans has not changed, as shown through the very public backlash against the NFL, which includes a diminishing income for the league.

Just like those who have gone on before us, average Americans will continue to fight fascism and the failed political ideology that it always brings with it.

We will continue to “rage against the dying of the light”.

And, the Star Spangled Banner will still wave,

O’er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Day After: The NFL Vs. America…”All This For A Flag”…A KJ Analysis

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It is the night of September 13, 1814.  The British fleet are bombarding Fort McHenry in the harbor at Baltimore, Maryland. Francis Scott Key, a 34-year old lawyer-poet, is watching the attack from the deck of a British prisoner-exchange ship. Key had gone seeking the release of a friend. They were told that they had to remain aboard the vessel until the end of the attack. When the battle was over, the following morning, Key had his telescope on the fort and saw the American flag was still waving. The sight of the tattered Stars and Stripes was so moving that he pulled a letter from his pocket and began to write the poem. This poem eventually became the national anthem of the United States – “The Star Spangled Banner”.

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight’
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

It does, sir. Regardless of a the actions of an ungrateful millionaires.

Speaking of the National Football League, Foxnews.com reports that

A defiant President Trump said Sunday afternoon that the outrage over NFL players kneeling during the national anthem “has nothing to do with race,” but rather is about “respect for our country.” 
 
Speaking on the tarmac in New Jersey before boarding Air Force One, Trump doubled down on his comments about the NFL and its players.

“This has nothing to do with race. I never said anything about race,” Trump said. “This has to do with respect for our country and respect for our flag.”

When asked if players who kneeled today should be fired as he suggested earlier, the president said, “I think the owners should do something about it. It’s very disrespectful to our flag and our country.”

Trump, however, noted that he “watched a little bit” of Sunday’s football games, and said, “there was tremendous solidarity for our flag and for our country.”

Top Trump administration officials defended the president’s comments over the weekend.

“I think what the president is saying is that the owners should have a rule that players should have to stand in respect for the national anthem,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told ABC News’ “This Week.” “This isn’t about Democrats. It’s not about Republicans. It’s not about race. It’s not about free speech. They can do free speech on their own time.”

Trump touched off a firestorm Friday night at a political rally in Alabama when he said: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b—- off the field right now.'”

NFL owners and league Commissioner Roger Goodell were among the first to disagree with Trump’s remarks.

But by Sunday, the overwhelming response by players was of full display, with many kneeling or locking arms during the playing of the anthem. Three teams chose to stay in their locker rooms.

On “Fox News Sunday,” Marc Short, the White House director of legislative affairs, argued that players indeed have a First Amendment right to kneel, “but NFL owners also have the right to fire those players.”

And he said he didn’t think Trump had “re-opened racial wounds.”

Short also appeared to defend Trump for tweeting Saturday that he’d rescinded Golden State Warrior Stephen Curry’s invitation to a White House event honoring his team’s 2017 NBA championship, after Curry suggested a day earlier that he wouldn’t go.

“He’s the one who injected politics into the invitation to come to the White House,” Short said. “That is what the president is reacting to. The president said fine, don’t come.”

Short and Mnuchin each seemed to try to frame the issue as something larger than Trump’s views.

Short argued that high school coaches across the country are getting punished for leading their players in prayer. 

“This is about respect for the military and first-responders in the country,” Mnuchin argued.

So where does this disrespect for Old Glory come from?

It starts at the top.

Let’s go back to 9/13/11, 2 days after America solemnly remembered the 10th anniversary of the worst attack ever on American soil by Islamic Terrorists.  James Robbins wrote the following story for The Washington Times, in which he illuminated a whispered conversation between the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, and First Lady, Michelle Obama:

The internet was buzzing this week with video of First Lady Michelle Obama apparently showing extreme disrespect to the American flag at a ceremony in honor of the victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. As police and firefighters fold the flag to the sound of marching bagpipers, a skeptical looking Mrs. Obama leans to her husband and appears to say, “all this just for a flag.” She then purses her lips and shakes her head slightly as Mr. Obama nods.

And, it filters to the home.

Back in the 60s, President Lyndon Johnson (whose big hand I once shook, at his ranch, as a little boy, after his presidential term) and the Democrats, brought forth a plan, called “the Great Society”. It was decided, in order to ensure that everyone would have an equal opportunity in America, that Uncle Sugar would step in to fill in the gaps.

Two seminal pieces of legislation were passed.

First, the Civil Rights Bill that JFK promised to sign, before his assassination, was passed into law. This Act banned discrimination based on race and gender in employment and ending segregation in all public facilities.

It also helped to cement in stone, minorities’ loyalty to the Democratic Party, which continues to this day.

The second bill that LBJ signed into law was the sweeping ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ACT OF 1964. It created the Office of Economic Opportunity whose stated purpose was to attack the roots of American poverty. A Job Corps was then established to provide vocational training.

A preschool program designed to help disadvantaged students arrive at kindergarten ready to learn, named HEADSTART, was then established. Then came VOLUNTEERS IN SERVICE TO AMERICA (VISTA), which was set up as a domestic Peace Corps. Schools in impoverished American regions would now receive volunteer teaching attention. Federal funds were sent to struggling communities to attack unemployment and illiteracy.

What Johnson told Americans, as he campaigned in 1964, was that the establishment of this “Great Society” was going to eliminate the problems of America’s poor.

It had the opposite effect

The Great Society created a dependent class, which, instead of diminishing as it’s members joined the workforce, increased from generation to generation, relying on the federal government to provide their every need.

Uncle Sugar became Mother, Father, Preacher, and Doctor to generations of Americans. This “plantation mentality” continues to this day.

A few years ago, I worked at our county’s State Employment Center Office.

While at the Employment Office, I was able to observe Americans, both Black and White, down on their luck, struggling to find work and survive in this economy. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of “unemployed ” who came to this particular office were Black.

I saw Black American Families whose existence living on the Government Dole, had become generational.

It is these people whom Obama and the Democrats have hypnotized into believing that Uncle Sugar loves them, and is their only solution to surviving a stifling existence.

They are so, so wrong.

The strength and vitality of America does not come from the benevolence of a Nanny-state Federal Government.

As the greatest American President of my lifetime, Ronald Reagan said:

The nine words you never want to hear are: I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.

Being enslaved to the Government Dole steals one’s ambition. It takes away any impetus or desire to create a better life for yourself and your family, to challenge yourself to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and pursue the American Dream. It makes you reliant on a politically motivated spider’s web full of government bureaucrats who view you and your family as job security.

I watched American citizens trapped in this web of government bureaucracy, so numbed of any initiative that they once had, that they seemed offended that they actually had to prove that they inquired about three jobs that week in order to keep their “benefits”. Others seemed puzzled that they had to search through the state data base and pick out a job that they wanted to talk to an interviewer about receiving a referral to, and weren’t just simply handed a job when they walked through the door.

Instead of moving forward, by exercising the self-reliance that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached so well, these people I saw, were content on being “taken care of” by Uncle Sugar, as if being held down by their own poor, miserable circumstance, was a good thing.

I am sure that it would have offended you, Dr. King, to hear the tenants of Marxism, i.e., “sharing the wealth” and Class Envy, being “preached” to the same Black Americans whom you tried so mightily to raise up and inspire.

For the past several years, the results of LBJ’s “Great Society” have been the lead story in every television newscast, on every newspaper front page, and on every internet news/political website.

Dr King, I am sorry to tell you that racism and injustice is still going on in America. Unfortunately, it will not end any time soon, There are too many race-baiters profiting off of it.

Including, a Former President of the United States.

President Barack Hussein Obama is as responsible for what happened in Ferguson, New York, Baltimore, and what is still happening in cities like St. Louis, on college Campuses, and within football stadiums across America,  as any thug wannabe or “disenfranchised” millionaire taking an ungrateful knee.

However, he is not alone in his responsibility.

Also responsible are the black political leaders, who make their living and get their 15 minutes of fame by exacerbating racially divided situations. Their silence speaks volumes.

For example, by the Mayor of Baltimore, purposely giving carte blanche to the rioters to destroy her city by ordering the police to stand down, she, like the Roman Emperor Nero, lit the match that set her kingdom ablaze.

If Black Lives truly do matter, as Former NFL Player Burgess Owens said on Fox & Friends yesterday morning, it is the black community who are going to have to save themselves.

Let me tell you about our responsibility is, and every generation has done this throughout the history of our country, is to give our kids more hope than we had. My parents’ generation, my grandparents’ generation succeeded [in sowing hope]. That’s how they fought racism.

We have the greatest country and the most freedom today, and we have more people, particularly black Americans, who have less hope and that’s because they have very successful men telling them that they can do it but that black Americans can’t do it.

It’s really time for us to stand up as men and say: ‘Listen guys, this country gives us everything we want and if I did it, you can do it too.’ And stop the whole thing…if you wanna have demonstrations, demonstrate someplace else, but not against our flag that gives us the freedom to be the greatest people in the history of mankind.

With a nationwide illegitimate birth rate of 74%, black Americans, with help from Uncle Sugar, have succeeded in tearing apart the very thing that kept them safe and strong for decades: the Black Family Unit.

Until that Sacred Foundation, which taught individual responsibility to generations of black Americans, is restored, the violence and disrespect for others will continue.

I remember, as a 9-year-old in Memphis, Tennessee, watching my parents’ black and white television as the National Guard was called into action on the night that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.

I remember after that Civil Defense Announcement that President Lyndon Johnson come on national television to make the announcement of Dr. King’s death. I remember a feeling of helplessness and of fear, as a nine-year-old, that I had not felt before.

It wasn’t just the fact that we were living in Midtown Memphis, that made me afraid.

It wasn’t just the fact of the out-of-control violence itself, that caused my consternation.

It was watching my beloved Hometown on the verge of going up in flames.

And now, 48  years later, Memphis is the #2 Most Dangerous City in America, as ranked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and has borne witness to 145 homicides so far this year, the overwhelming majority of which were black Memphians killing one another.

Words can hurt or words can heal.

A President who was supposed to bridge the Racial Divide in this nation…instead, widened it.

And, with every divisive word he and the political activists whom he championed spoke, the chasm of Racial Divisiveness, which has created a gaping hole in the fabric of American Society, grew wider.

Words mean things.

The part of Dr. King’s magnificent speech about “the content of their character” has been purposefully ignored by the professional race-baiters, assorted politicians (but, I repeat myself), and now, “disenfranchised” Millionaire professional athletes, who seek to blame the country which gives them the freedom to earn exorbitant amounts of money for playing a game while dishonoring a symbol of our nation which brave American Men and Women have fought and died for.

Dr. King, your call for self-reliance has apparently fallen on deaf ears of some of those who have the financial means to help their blighted neighborhoods and the young people roaming their streets.

So, how can we expect these young people to respect OUR FLAG, when they have no respect for THEMSELVES?

To those of you read this today, who somehow believe that dishonoring OUR FLAG, makes you more enlightened than the rest of us, and it is your “right”, okay.

However, it is my right, as the son of an American Soldier, who stepped off a perfectly good boat, in a hail of gunfire, onto Normandy Beach to protect our American Freedom, to call you out because of your disrespect of Old Glory and the sacrifices made by those who cherished our nation’s flag.

Yes, children, including the NFL Players who showed their backsides to America yesterday by dishonoring our flag and Former First Lady Michelle Obama.,,

All this for a flag.  And, for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in its service.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Weekend That the NFL and the NBA Flipped Off Average Americans – A KJ Op Ed

 

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Please allow me to make a confession. It has been quite a few years since I was a serious NFL or NBA Fan. I’ve kept up from afar, just so I could engage in Water Cooler Talk at work. However, I enjoy college football and basketball nowadays infinitely more than I do the professional product.

I suppose that it is because of my rather youthful age of 58 and having grown up during some of the greatest times in professional sports history, during which I was able to watch the incredible Undefeated Miami Dolphins, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Dallas Cowboys make the 1970s an NFL Fan’s dream.

In the NBA, I can remember the Knicks, Celtics, Lakers, and Pistons playing hurt and leaving everything that they had out there on the court.

I am also a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals Fan, and, as an alumni, my heart beats University of Memphis Tiger Blue.

But, I digress…

The reason that I have drifted away from being a big fan of the NFL and the NBA is that they have drifted away from me.

As a average American, living here in the Heartland, I still believe in Traditional American Values, such as Faith, Hard Work, Loyalty, Gratitude, and Respect.

The recent actions and words being seen and heard coming from the outrageously-paid professional athletes of the NFL and the NBA, are not the words and actions of “professionals”. Rather, they are the whining, screaming, and lashing out of cry-baby millionaires, who neither respect their fan base, nor those who have made their path to fame and fortune possible through the shedding of their blood for the flag and country which they are so intent on insulting and diminishing.

And now, their displays of arrogance and ingratitude are not just being manifested by refusing to honor the sacrifices made for them by brave men and women who died in service to the flag that they are insulting by kneeling during our National Anthem, now these Special Snowflakes are refusing to meet with our nation’s President, simply because the fact that he is our president OFFENDS them.

Well, listen up, you ungrateful overpaid pampered pu…err wussified excuses for professional athletes.

You cry-babies offend US!!!

By “us”, I am referring to average Americans just like me, who are out here killing ourselves in our 40-plus hour a week jobs, just to make it from paycheck-to-paycheck, including those of us who actually still attend your games, shell out our hard-earned cash, just to see you disrespect our country and, at times, sleepwalk your way through games on your way to collect your millions.

You misanthropic ungrateful jackanapes are not worthy to lace up the cleats and tennis shoes of those who have gone before you in your chosen field of athletic endeavor.

Those American Athletes knew whom they were playing for and who paid their salaries. And, they also had the sense to honor the country in which they were able to have the freedom to have the job that they wanted and be paid handsomely for it. They also had the home-training and grace to go to the White House and meet the sitting president, if they were lucky enough to be a part of a team which won their league’s championship.

They knew that young boys followed their every word and action, idolizing them as sports heroes. And, the overwhelming majority of professional athletes back in the day, took that very seriously.

You guys do not seem to take anything seriously…except your own notoriety and your enormous paycheck.

So, Colin, Steff, LeBron, and the rest of you “disenfranchised” millionaires…

As you watch your popularity, the fans in the stands, and your undeserved paychecks dwindling before your eyes…just remember:

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. – Proverbs 16:18 (KJV)

Perhaps Peyton Manning can get you a job with Papa John’s Pizza…delivering.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Once A Vichy Republican, Always a Vichy Republican: McCain Screws Fellow Republicans…and Us…Again. Will Not Vote to Appeal Obamacare.

‘Twas the day before the night before Christmas,

And up in D.C.,

Not a Congresscritter was stirring,

They all had to flee.

After 2 years in session,

Americans would like to forget,

They doubled-down on tone-deafness,

Like Beethoven writing a minuet.

From Obamacare to Bailouts,

From Porkulous to Ft. Hood,

They paid us no attention,

It was for our own good.

So, how did this happen?

From whence did this start?

It seems like a bad dream,

Like Christmas traffic at Walmart.

While we were sleeping,

Our country was sold,

Idiots elected Obama,

Like Alinsky, he was bold.

He came in on a promise,

Of needed hope and change.

Americans bought this malarkey,

Thus began the Regime’s reign.

The Sleeping Giant woke up,

The Tea Parties were formed,

They stood up for our freedom,

And Townhalls were stormed.

Rallies were held,

Americans spoke out,

Obama got angry,

And started to pout.

The Midterms got here,

Americans did vote,

The results were historic,

Shocked Libs took note.

“Let’s act like nothing happened!”

Obama said with a grin.

“We’ll ignore this mandate,

That way we’ll still win.”

A strategy was formed,

And a plan was set.

They said, “Up yours, America!

We ain’t done, yet!”

“Pass this bill!  Pass that bill!

Pass all that you can.

Our time here is short.

We must finish our scam.”

From Zadroga to START,

And Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,

All these got passed,

The Public, go to… well…

They added Food Safety,

An unnecessary bill,

Like wearing pink camouflage,

While storming a hill.

So, now they are gone,

Like thieves in the night,

Having damaged our country,

Convinced they were right.

Leave Grayson, Leave Harry,

Leave Steny and Mitch.

Flee Weiner, Flee Lindsey,

Run Nancy, you witch.

Run, all you cowards,

Your damage is done.

The deficit expanded,

We know you had fun.

But, with a New Year comes hope,

For good men and true,

Founded this country,

Not losers like you.

Our Free Republic remains,

Freedom’s bells still ring,

America will survive,

Of Thee I Sing.

Your ideology has failed,

Every place it has been.

Your cowardice failed epically,

Gaining not gold, but tin.

So, this Congress is over,

And America is glad.

On Santa’s Naughty or Nice List,

You’ve been marked down as BAD.

**Based upon the poem by Clement Clarke Moore, with my humble apologies.**

I published this poem on December 23, 2010.

Back then, I and other Americans thought that if we could just gain control of both the Executive and Legislative Branches of our government, we could reverse Obama and the Democrats’ quest to turn American into a Socialist Paradise.

Little did we know that those whom I subsequently dubbed the “Vichy Republicans”, would stand in our way.

For example,

The New York Times reported yesterday that

Senator John McCain of Arizona announced on Friday that he would oppose the latest proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act, leaving Republican leaders with little hope of succeeding in their last-ditch attempt to dismantle the health law and fulfill their longstanding promise to conservative voters. For Mr. McCain, it was a slightly less dramatic reprise of his middle-of-the-night thumbs-down that killed the last repeal effort in July. This time, the senator, battling brain cancer and confronting his best friend in the Senate, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, issued a statement saying that he could not “in good conscience” support the proposal by Senators Graham and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.

“I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried,” Mr. McCain said. “Nor could I support it without knowing how much it will cost, how it will affect insurance premiums, and how many people will be helped or hurt by it.”

With two other Republican senators likely to vote no, Mr. McCain’s opposition to the bill could be fatal. With Democrats united in opposition, Senate Republicans can afford to lose only two of their members.

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said this week that he would not vote for the bill because it did not dismantle enough of the Affordable Care Act. And Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, has expressed broad concerns about the legislation, strongly suggesting that she, too, would vote against it, just as she voted no in July along with Mr. McCain and a third Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Ms. Collins said on Friday that she was “leaning against” the proposal.

For months, Mr. McCain has lamented a Senate legislative process that avoided hearings or formal bill-drafting procedures and excluded Democrats. On Friday, he said those tactics were intolerable.

“We should not be content to pass health care legislation on a party-line basis, as Democrats did when they rammed Obamacare through Congress in 2009,’’ Mr. McCain said. “If we do so, our success could be as short-lived as theirs when the political winds shift, as they regularly do.’’

A bill of this magnitude “requires a bipartisan approach,’’ Mr. McCain added.

Those concerns were compounded by the decision of Republican leaders to press forward with a vote next week before the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office could complete a full analysis of the Graham-Cassidy legislation. The budget office is expected to estimate the cost of the bill early in the week, but it indicated that it would not be able to complete an analysis of the bill’s effects on health insurance coverage or premiums by Sept. 30.

That date is critical because Republicans, who hold 52 seats in the Senate, have until the end of this month to make use of special budget rules that would allow them to pass a repeal bill in the Senate with only a simple majority, rather than 60 votes. If Republicans could get 50 votes, Vice President Mike Pence would break the tie in their favor.

“Of course, I’m disappointed,” Mr. Cassidy said in an interview, “but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop working for those folks who can’t afford their premiums. We are still working. We are still hoping.”

Mr. Graham, mindful of their longstanding relationship, was gracious. “My friendship with John McCain is not based on how he votes,” Mr. Graham said, “but respect for how he’s lived his life and the person he is.”

Mr. Pence was not giving up. “President Trump and I are undeterred,” he said at a speech in Indiana.

A spokeswoman for the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, declined to comment on whether he would press forward with a vote.

“Partisan Approach.”

Uh huh.

Senator McCain, where was that partisan approach when the Dems passed Obamacare in the middle of the night WITH NO REPUBLICAN VOTES?

McCain’s record as a Center-Left, Vichy Republican, who has no love for Conservative Americans, is fair game and well-documented.

For example, here’s an article from the July 27, 2011 edition of The New York Times…

The fiery, independent version of the Republican senator from Arizona took to the floor of the Senate Wednesday morning. Demanding “straight talk,” Mr. McCain accused conservatives of abandoning reason by opposing the House Republican leader’s plan to resolve the debt crisis.

Mr. McCain mocked Tea Party-allied Republicans in the House for believing — wrongly, he said — that President Obama and Democrats will get the blame for a default if Republicans refuse to increase the nation’s debt ceiling.

By that flawed logic, “Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced budget amendment and reform entitlements and the Tea Party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth,” he said, quoting a Wall Street Journal editorial.

“This is the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell into G.O.P. nominees,” he jeered, referring to two losing Tea Party candidates for the Senate in 2010.

Mr. McCain’s comments recall the visage of the senator prior to the 2008 presidential campaign against President Obama, when Mr. McCain eventually abandoned his “straight talk” mantra and ran as a more conventional conservative. And during Mr. McCain’s reelection campaign in 2010, he downplayed the “maverick” label that he had long proudly worn in the Senate.

But on Wednesday morning, it looked like the maverick had returned.

Mr. McCain assailed the conservative Republicans in the House who are threatening passage of the debt cutting plan by the House speaker, John A. Boehner, calling their political logic “bizarro” and noting sarcastically that they have only been in office a short time.

“Maybe some people who have only been in this body for six or seven months or so really believe that,” he said. “Others know better. Others know better.”

Yeah, Mav…that worked out.

And then, in July of 2015, Senator McCain said this about Donald Trump, and all those who might be listening to what he has to say…

Trump has tapped into “some anger” in the state over the conditions at the border, McCain told The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza in an article published Thursday.

“It’s very bad,” the Republican senator said. “This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful to me,” McCain said. “Because what he did was he fired up the crazies.”

Trump’s latest polling numbers would seem to suggest that his message is resonating with Republican voters.

McCain, a longtime supporter of comprehensive immigration reform as a member of the Senate’s Gang of Eight, noted his battles with the far right, “very extreme element” of his state’s party over the years on the issue.

Funny…polls at that time showed that most Americans continued to oppose granting amnesty to those who have entered our country illegally.

This is what I don’t understand about Vichy Republicans like ol’ “Maverick”.

They run around telling everybody how Conservative they are, when in reality, they actually hold the same beliefs as Liberal Democrats.

Ronald Reagan gave a famous stump speech about the fact that the Republican Party during his time, needed “bold colors, not pale pastels”.

From what I’m seeing out of Vichy Republicans like McCain, they’re not even presenting Americans with pale pastels.

They are showing their color to be Liberal Blue, while they claim to be Conservative Red.

It is almost as if they believe that the Political Tsunami, which resulted in Republicans holding both Houses of Congress, and which propelled an American Businessman and Entrepreneur to the Presidency, came about because they made themselves look like Democrats.

McCain and the rest of the RINOs need to come down off of Capitol Hill every now and then.

And, visit Realityville.

And, if Lindsey Graham wasn’t a Vichy Republican himself, he would have punched McCain right in the mouth.

Until He Comes,

KJ