by Thomas Gallatin: What exactly are those NFL players protesting? Racism? Cops? The flag? The national anthem? Some ill-defined perception of systematic injustice? America itself? After Colin Kaepernick started the whole fiasco last football preseason when he sat pouting on the bench, it seems at that moment even he had no clear idea what he was protesting, or even that he was protesting at all. Was Kaepernick motivated by some altruistic concern over the lack of justice, or was he frustrated by his own playing situation? Due to poor play, he had lost the starting quarterback job the season prior, a precipitous fall after having led the San Francisco 49ers to Super Bowl XLVIII. But his sitting on the bench during the national anthem happened to be caught on camera and questions were quickly raised. Only then came Kaepernick’s explanation that his refusal to stand for the anthem was out of protest against police brutality and racial injustice, among other things. Thus a Leftmedia “hero” was born to rally folks to the anti-America social “justice” cause. An example that exposes the lack of a cohesive message or understanding among the players themselves comes from former NFL wide receiver Donté Stallworth. The now CNN reporter explained the message confusion: “[Players are] telling me it’s also about the gender pay gap, it’s also about housing discrimination — they have so many things that they are interested in and advocating for.” If the supposed pay gap is an issue, it’s ironic that no NFL cheerleaders have seen fit to join the players in protesting the anthem.
The trouble is that as the kneeling fad spread throughout the NFL, most fans and much of the country were rightly offended by this disrespectful display. Rather than any kind of specific and relatable social problem, it shouldn’t have been surprising that protesting the flag and anthem, no matter what the cause, was perceived as hating America.
When Donald Trump, with his finger on the pulse of much of Middle America, publicly blasted players who were protesting the flag, NFL ratings, which were already down, took a nosedive. The NFL commissioner responded by issuing a memo pressing players to stand.
But liar-Hillary Clinton, evidently still striving for relevancy, recently weighed in on the kneeling protests. On Monday, while at a literature festival in London, liar-Hillary said that people should resist “what are very clear dog-whistles” by Trump. She continued, “That’s what black athletes kneeling was all about. That’s not against our anthem or our flag.” She even opined, “Actually, kneeling is a reverent position. It was to demonstrate in a peaceful way against racism and injustice in our criminal system.”
Trump responded, “Well, that’s why she lost the election. I mean, honestly, it’s that thinking — that is the reason she lost the election. When you go down and take a knee … for our great national anthem, you’re disrespecting our flag and you’re disrespecting our country. … I think that her statement in itself is very disrespectful to our country.”
And that is exactly the point that liar-Clinton, Democrats and the Left don’t seem to understand. The political brand they are attempting to sell to Americans is one that is in essence anti-American. Telling Americans that they are the problem, that their freedoms amount to social “injustice” and need to be increasingly limited, that to be patriotic and proud of one’s country is to be bigoted and racist — that message just doesn’t ring true for much of America. It is not a sin to be an American.
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/51890
VIDEOS
by National Security Desk: President Donald Trump announced Friday that he will not certify Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action), something that is required every 90 days under the terms of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015. Having twice gritted his teeth and certified Iranian compliance while his administration was conducting a thorough review of its Iran policy options, the president appears finally to have had enough of people advising him that the United States is better off sticking with a flawed deal than no deal at all. His senior advisers are themselves split on the issue. Secretary of Defense James Mattis maintains the deal remains in the best interest of the United States. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also reportedly favors keeping the deal even though he has acknowledged Iran’s material breach of its obligations. Meanwhile, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster has called the JCPOA “fundamentally flawed” but has not gone as far as stating the United States should withdraw from it. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, on the other hand, made the case for decertification. Yet even she said Sunday, “Right now, we’re in the deal to see how we can make it better. And that’s the goal. It’s not that we’re getting out of the deal. We’re just trying to make the situation better so that the American people feel safer.”
The Leftmedia punditocracy wasted no time shifting into maximum outrage mode, with some even offering their views on what Iran should do to out-fox the president. The New York Times opined that withdrawing “would be the rashest, most foolish act of the Trump administration to date.” Others claimed that there were no benefits to withdrawing from the JCPOA.
The three European nations that have been indispensable in the ongoing 14-year effort to block Iran’s nuclear aspirations — France, the UK and Germany — all registered their displeasure, stating bluntly that they support maintaining the JCPOA. On the other side of the fence, Israel and Saudi Arabia both welcomed President Trump’s decision. Israel has long been wary of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile advances. Saudi Arabia meanwhile has been in a shooting war with Iranian proxies in Yemen for nearly three years, and understands better than most the malign influence of Iran in the Middle East.
Trump unquestionably has sole authority in providing or withholding his certification to Congress. The Review Act calls upon the president to certify four specific issues: Iran’s full, transparent implementation of the deal’s terms; whether or not Iran has committed a material breach of the deal; that Iran is not acting in ways that would advance its nuclear weapons capability; and whether the suspension of U.S. sanctions called for in the JCPOA remains in the best interest of the United States. The last provision is the one most clearly immune to arguments about technicalities of Iranian compliance or what is known about their nuclear weapons program, and it is also the one that opens the door to considering Iran’s overall behavior since the JCPOA took force.
Refusing to certify Iran’s compliance will not by itself take the United States out of the JCPOA. In a must-read examination of the possible outcomes, The Weekly Standard’s Reuel Marc Gerecht suggests that the best-case option could even be to de-certify the deal while continuing to waive sanctions, and then working to influence our European allies to ramp up economic pressure on Iran in an effort to get Tehran to accept modifications to the deal. He also makes a key point often left out of recent discussions of the Iran deal — namely the absolute need for a credible threat of military force as a last resort. Without that threat hovering in the background, Iran probably would think it could weather economic pain and wear down its western adversaries with endless go-nowhere talks. After all, the mullahs successfully ran out the clock on the Bush administration with that approach, and they know that President Trump, like George W. Bush before him, won’t be in office forever.
We fully support the president’s effort either to rectify the JCPOA’s serious deficiencies or to begin the process of withdrawing from it. But no one should ignore the very difficult, focused effort that must be put forth over the coming months and even years to bring about rectification, and neither the president nor the Republican Congress have distinguished themselves of late in the focus department.
Supporters of the JCPOA — and there are many of them — will deny its flaws and argue that it remains the best way to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons. Our international relations with friends and allies may suffer in the short term. As we said at the time, Barack liar-nObama inflicted a double injury to the United States with the Iran deal, first with the deal itself and second with the need for some future president to undo it and damage our relation with European allies. But whatever the short-term fallout, the Unites States must begin the work of correcting the worst foreign policy blunder of the liar-nObama administration.
North Korea has demonstrated what a determined adversary can achieve, in both nuclear and missile capability, if given enough time. Fourteen years have now elapsed since Iran’s nuclear program came to light. In less than that amount of time many of the JCPOA’s restrictions will come to an end, and Iran will be free to establish an industrial-scale nuclear fuel cycle. So we urge the president and like-minded members of Congress not to let up in their efforts to deal with this problem. Time is not on our side. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/51865
{townhall.com} ~ From Washington, D.C. to the NFL and Hollywood, America's idols are tumbling down. This is not a bad thing. For too long, we have wasted precious time and money worshipping these so-called “social justice” warrior hypocrites who continue to disappoint.
Here’s to hoping all this disappointment will lead us back to what really matters, but don’t count on it.
Truth is, though, social justice is an oxymoron based on the false premise that the cure for injustice is leveling the playing field and redistributing wealth. As former Vice President Joe loose lips-Biden once said, “You may call it redistribution of wealth – I just call it being fair.”
Karl Marx would be so proud.
Marx hated religion, private property and Judeo-Christian values as much as leftists do today. That’s why you should bolt out of any place of worship that combines Jesus, social justice and the government in the same sentence.
In his book, “The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism,” economist Friedrich Hayek nails what’s really at stake: “The aim of socialism is no less than to affect a complete redesigning of our traditional morals, law and language – and on this basis to stamp out the old order and the supposedly inexorable, unjustifiable conditions that prevent the institution of reason, fulfillment, true freedom and justice.”
They harp about injustice and claim only they can fix it, which is one of the most arrogant, egotistical piles of hogwash you’ll ever hear.
All that, while they divide us into two groups, normal folks and them. They believe normal folks are about as smart as slugs, therefore incapable of coherent reasoning and self-care. To them, everyday Americans aren’t diamonds in the rough, they are pliable, moldable objects used to reshape America into a socialist nightmare like Venezuela.
As I’ve said before, Democrats’ sacrosanct belief that the government was created to control how fairness is spread around is nothing more than a modern-day effort to reinvent Robin Hood, without all the chivalry and green tights.
Those who romantically embrace the concept of social justice believe the misnomer that stealing from some and passing it on to those who should have had it in the first place will result in some sort of righteous leveling.
Leftists don’t own the market on charity. Normal folks leave government out of the mix and combine their compassion with common sense. They bring food in one hand and a rifle in the other, knowing if they teach someone how to hunt, they’ll eat for a lifetime.
In comparison, leftists bring Trader Joe’s bagels in one hand and a voter’s registration card in the other. Seizing the opportunity to convert their victims into non-thinking entitlement aficionados, they stop at nothing to meet an immediate need, then lead them by their noses to leftist-run metropolises where crime and government handouts abound.
I know, the devil is always in the details, but I’ll go ahead and say it anyhow. Forced “charity” doesn’t bring about justice. Instead, it creates injustice when it stirs up animosity between the less fortunate and those being penalized, taxed, for their hard work under penalty of prosecution.
In sharp contrast, there is a power in authentic generosity that no amount of government social-engineering could or will ever match. The social justice crowd should dust off the knees they protest with and try it sometime.
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