National Anthem Protest Cartoons

House to Vote on Budget Next Week

Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) announces the 2018 budget blueprint during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 18, 2017. (REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein/Photo)

OAN Newsroom

The House is preparing to vote on a budget for the 2018 fiscal year next week.
On Thursday, House Budget Committee Chairwoman Diane Black said the new budget is the key for tax reform negotiations moving forward.
With spending deadlines pushed back to December, the budget’s main purpose is to unlock a tool known as reconciliation.
This requires a 51 vote majority to pass a bill instead of 60.
Republicans want to use reconciliation as a means to pass tax reform and bypass a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, which is something Representative Black says is critical for growing the economy.
“We see the economy growing at three, four, five percent…that’s what is going to be meaningful,” Black stated. “Where there is more money in people’s pockets there’s more business growing, and more opportunities for jobs.”
The Tennessee lawmaker believes Republicans have enough votes to pass the resolution.
The Senate Budget Committee is also expected to vote on its budget resolution when it returns from recess next week.

Supreme Court Docket Review

OAN Newsroom

The Supreme Court begins a new term next week, and will be hearing some cases impacting worker’s rights, voter’s rights, and religious freedoms.
With a Conservative majority firmly in place, the Supreme Court begins a new term with a docket full of contentious cases.
One of the biggest cases the justices will hear involves labor union fees out of Illinois.
Across the U.S. labor unions currently force state and municipal employees to pay fees whether they want to join the union or not.
The employee plaintiff in the case says requiring him to pay fees to a union he doesn’t support violates his right to freedom of speech.
Attorneys for the plaintiff say workers are being forced to subsidize a union as a condition of employment.
The case could deal a financial blow to the Democrat-leaning unions whose political clout would be weakened by the reduction in cash flow.
The court will also take on another high profile case involving gerrymandering in Wisconsin, which has been brought on by Democrats who say the way the lines are currently drawn ensures they can’t win.
Next on the list, a voter roll purge case out of Ohio where opponents are calling the state’s removal of non-participating voters from the rolls a violation of federal law.
Then out of Colorado, the court will decide if a same-sex couple’s right to civil marriage outweighs the right of a cake-baker to refuse service based on religious beliefs.
This will be the first full term for Justice Neil Gorsuch.
While Justice Anthony Kennedy remains the swing vote, the decisions that come out of the court may prove the importance of the appointment of Gorsuch to the bench.

Chelsea Handler's vulgar Melania Trump tweet sparks outrage

Chelsea Handler is in trouble again for a vulgar tweet she wrote about first lady Melania Trump.

"Melania to host a discussion on opioid abuse. She says unless you have to have sex with Donald Trump, you have no excuse to be on drugs," Handler tweeted Friday.

Fans immediately slammed the comedian on Twitter calling her joke not funny and in poor taste.
A rep for Handler did not return Fox News' request for comment.
This is hardly the first time Handler has gotten into trouble for her tweets.
The "Netflix" talk show host tweeted in August that there should be laws against "people who think racism is funny."
"2 Chinese guys were arrested in Berlin for making nazi salutes," Handler tweeted. "Wouldn't it be nice 2 have laws here for people who think racism is funny?"
Many took to Twitter to slam the comedian for her tweet, calling her hypocritical as she has advocated for free speech. Some Twitter users pointed out Handler has made racist jokes in the past.
In March, Handler faced backlash for a tweet she made in response to Eric and Lara Trump's announcement that they are expecting their first child in March.
Handler tweeted, "I guess one of @realDonaldTrump's sons is expecting a new baby. Just what we need. Another person with those jeans [sic]. Let's hope for a girl."
Donald Trump Jr. blasted the comedian's tweet in a lengthy post prefacing it on Twitter calling it a "sick tweet targeted at our family."

'Will & Grace' anti-Trump premiere alienates some viewers

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. TheWrap’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.

North Korea rocket man Cartoons

China Orders N. Korean Businesses Within Borders to Close, U.S. to Boost Military in S. Korea

China is ordering all North Korean businesses operating within its borders to close in accordance with recently approved U.N. sanctions.
The country’s commerce ministry said ventures within Chinese territory will have until the end of the year to shutdown.
Overseas joint ventures between Chinese and North Korean companies will also be dissolved, but specific deadlines for those businesses remain unclear.
The move comes as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson begins his second official trip to China amid rising tensions in the region.
Meanwhile, the president of South Korea urges Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
President Moon Jae-in made the comments during his speech at the 69th Armed Forces Day in south Korea.
He stressed his government’s efforts to help contain the rogue state’s nuclear aspirations, adding he does not want to see North Korea collapse.
He also emphasized the importance of South Korea’s cooperation with the international community to tackle the issue.
Moon also vowed to strengthen his country’s military alliance with the U.S.
On Thursday, South Korean security officials said American assets would be stationed in the region on a rotating basis before January.
This comes after the Pentagon confirmed the deployment as agreed to by Moon and President Trump at the U.N. last week.
Details on the type of assets to be sent to the region have not been confirmed but may include B-52 bombers, nuclear submarines, and aircraft carriers.

Rush Limbaugh on NFL anthem controversy: 'The left has hijacked this game'

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh weighed in Thursday on the ongoing furor over NFL players kneeling during "The Star-Spangled Banner," telling Fox News' "Hannity" that "the left has hijacked this game."

Previously a devoted pro football fan, Limbaugh told Sean Hannity that he did not watch Sunday's slate of games after hearing of the planned protests by players and vowed "I'm going to be playing golf on Sundays now."

The act of taking a knee during the pregame playing of the national anthem was started by then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick last year. Kaepernick said his action was a protest of racial inequality and police brutality.
President Trump brought the protests back into the national spotlight Friday when he asked the crowd at an Alabama rally, "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, out, he's fired?'"
Those comments were condemned by NFL owners and dozens of players took a knee prior to the weekend's games, which in turn brought a backlash from some fans.
On Thursday night, Limbaugh told Hannity that the league's owners "have to be scared to death" by the protests and their fallout.
"I don’t think they understand what’s happening to them. I don’t think they understand what’s going on," the veteran radio host said. "They think they’re relating to the majority of their fan base, they’re not! They’re driving them away.
"And I hate it," Limbaugh continued. "I don’t want the NFL to get smaller, I don’t want it to become insignificant, I don’t want it to be taken over by a bunch of wusses. I don’t want it to be taken over by left-wing social justice causes.
Addressing the player protesters, Limbaugh concluded, "Use something besides the NFL sideline, use something besides the flag, use something besides something that people use to escape."

John Stossel: The incredible threat to free speech that no one is talking about

FILE -- In this photo, people walk through Sproul Plaza near the Sather Gate on the University of California, Berkeley campus in Berkeley, Calif. The university suspended a class on Sept. 13, 2016, amid complaints that it shared anti-Semitic viewpoints and was designed to indoctrinate students against Israel.  (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

A third threat to free speech at University of California, Berkeley has led to more censorship than political rioters or college administrators.

Berkeley is expensive. Out of state students must pay $60,000 a year. But for five years, Berkeley generously posted 20,000 of its professors' lectures online. Anyone could watch them for free.
Then government regulators stepped in.
The Americans with Disabilities Act stipulates, "No qualified individual with a disability shall ... be denied the benefits of ... services."
As with most laws, people can spend years debating what terms like "denied," "benefits" and "services" mean.
President Obama's eager regulators, in response to a complaint from activists, decided that Berkeley's videos violated the ADA. The Justice Department sent the school a threatening letter: "Berkeley is in violation of title II ... (T)he Attorney General may initiate a lawsuit."
What Berkeley had done wrong, said the government, was failing to caption the videos for the hearing impaired. The ADA makes it illegal to "deny" deaf people services available to others.
Equality is a noble goal, but closed captioning is expensive.
Computers are learning to turn speech into text, but so far they're not good at it. A speech-to-text program transcribed a Harvard lecturer's comment "on our campus" as "hot Kampen good."
Captions that meet government's standards must be typed out by a person who listens to each word. Captioning Berkley's 20,000 lectures would cost millions. The school decided that, to be safe, it would just stop offering its videos. The administration even removed the existing videos from its website.
So now, instead of some deaf people struggling to understand university lectures, no one gets to hear them.
Politicians mean well when they pass rules like the ADA, but every regulation has unintended consequences. Most are bad.
In this case, fortunately, an angry entrepreneur came to the rescue. Jeremy Kauffman hates to see valuable things disappear, so right before Berkeley deleted its website, Kauffman copied the videos and posted them on his website, called LBRY (as in Library).
He says the Berkeley videos are just the start of what LBRY has planned. He wants the site to be YouTube -- but without the content restrictions.
LBRY uses a new technology that operates like Bitcoin. It's "decentralized," meaning videos posted are stored on thousands of computers around the world. That makes it nearly impossible for governments -- or even Kauffman himself -- to remove them.
"LBRY is designed to be much more decentralized, much more controlled by users" and "absolutely freer," Kauffman explains in a video I posted this week.
He acknowledges that with no censorship, his invention may end up hosting videos of bad things -- beheadings, child porn, who knows what else. But he argues that if he creates a system with censorship, "it allows us to keep the bad stuff out, which is great, but it also allows dictatorial regimes to keep content off. Do we want to make videos available to the people in Turkey, Iran and China? We say yes."
LBRY will let users flag videos depicting illegal actions. Those videos may no longer be shown on LBRY. However, other websites can show the illegal content using LBRY's technology, and Kauffman can't stop that.
Kauffman says he won't remove the Berkeley videos from his site even if he's sued because there aren't captions for deaf people.
"Is that a reason that content shouldn't be available to everyone?" asks Kauffman.
Government is force whether it is deliberately doing something cruel or just trying to solve one group's problems by imposing restrictions on others. "Do you want to put a gun to someone's face and say 'Caption those videos'? It's absurd."
It is absurd. What government does is often absurd.
Thank goodness for the internet and for people like Kauffman, someone willing to spend his own money to keep information free.
John Stossel is the author of "No They Can't! Why Government Fails -- But Individuals Succeed." Click here for more information on John Stossel.

Dershowitz mulls UC Berkeley lawsuit over possible 'content-based discrimination'

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz said Thursday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that he is considering suing the University of California, Berkeley over a stipulation that would prevent him to speak on campus.

Dershowitz told Tucker Carlson that the school prevented him from speaking on Israel because he did not give the school eight-week advance notice.

He said the school, however, usually waives the stipulation for speakers who are invited by a department, but those speakers tend to be anti-Israel, liberals and radicals.
“If no department invites us, having invited people from the other side, we will sue them arguing that the eight-week rule is a cover for content-based discrimination against moderates, liberals, conservatives and supporters of Israel,” Dershowitz said.
Dershowitz, who voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, said he was certain to find that Berkeley has already invited anti-Israel speakers from across the U.S. and that he would not receive an invitation.
“We’re testing Berkeley at this point to see if it happens there,” he said. “I wanted to speak at the school and I wanted to present to students the liberal case for Israel and if Berkeley won’t let me do it, I have a legal recourse in which I intend to take.”
Dershowitz said he hopes Berkeley will allow him to speak, whether it is a department inviting him or the school changing the rule.

NFL Player Cartoons

Stacy Washington: NFL players should hand a folded flag to a dead soldier’s family, then consider kneeling

The NFL has a choice to make and it’s an easy one: political activism or sports.  The American people will only tolerate one of those so they had best choose wisely.  There are two prevailing perspectives here and both of them cannot coexist leaving the NFL unscathed.  On one side the NFL players enjoy a league minimum pay of $465,000 a year while their fans earn a median household income of $56,515.  The players lead rarified lives that don’t appear to leave room for understanding just who their supporters are.

Football devotees utilize their hard earned money to buy $250 jerseys to wear at the expensively priced games, or to purchase a cable subscription to Sunday Ticket or Red Zone to enjoy the game at home with friends and family.  This is can’t-miss activity that some football enthusiasts attend with a regularity resembling church fervor.  But why are fans so devoted to the anthem and flag?  Aren’t they just symbols?

My experience with the flag gives a glimpse into why the majority of Americans will never accept “taking a knee.”  While on Active Duty in the Air Force I had the privilege of serving on the Air Force Honor Guard performing burial services on a team.  The pallbearers would retrieve the casket from the hearse and place it on a stand where we would unfurl a brand new, crisp U.S. flag.  We wore dress blues and white gloves.  As the folding commenced the only sounds were soft sobs, birds chirping and the snapping sound of our gloves making contact with the material of the flag.  With each sweeping motion the sound of mourning would increase a bit in time with the cathartic motions that signified the end of the ritual.

Dishonoring the flag by making it the object of protest, no matter how great the cause, is repugnant and nonsensical.

Sometimes the task of handing over the folded flag would fall to me, and I would cradle the triangle of cloth to my uniformed chest and glide over to the canopy where the family awaited.  On one occasion I handed the flag into the tiny hands of a child of perhaps four or five.  Another time I looked into the red-rimmed eyes of an older woman who thanked me through her tears.  This ceremony takes place countless times around the nation on an almost daily basis as veterans, retirees and active duty service members killed in the line of duty are laid to rest.  These people have a close connection to our flag through the service of themselves or their loved ones.
Dishonoring the flag by making it the object of protest, no matter how great the cause, is repugnant and nonsensical to these people.  Polling shows that 58 percent of NFL supporters lean to the right politically; Americans who revere both veterans and military service members.  These people love America, making the NFL players' insistence on taking a knee during the national anthem a losing proposition. There are ways to sway a community; defiling a national symbol associated with honor, service, sacrifice and bravery isn’t one of them.  If the NFL continues to indulge the players, declining ratings and lower attendance at games will become the norm.  NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the team owners must man up:  choose the fans by ending the protests.
Stacy Washington is host of the "Stacy on the Right Show," broadcast on Urban Family Talk Monday through Friday from 2-3pm in St. Louis, Missouri. Click here for more.

Michelle Obama slams women who voted for Trump

Former first lady Michelle Obama said, “Any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton voted against their own voice.”  (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst, File)

Former first lady Michelle Obama leveled harsh criticism Wednesday at women who voted for President Trump, suggesting they voted against their own interests. 

“Any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton voted against their own voice,” Obama told the audience during a talk at a marketing conference in Boston, according to Boston.com. 

She went on to suggest female voters for Trump were just going with the pack.
“It doesn’t say much about Hillary, and everybody’s trying to worry about what it means for Hillary and no, no, no what does this mean for us as women?” she asked, as reported by the Washington Times. “That we look at those two candidates, as women, and many of us said, ‘He’s better for me. His voice is more true to me.’ To me that just says, you don’t like your voice. You just like the thing you’re told to like.”
She was taking a swipe at a large swath of the population -- according to exit polls, 41 percent of women voted for Trump in November.
Obama, who campaigned for Clinton during the 2016 election, was speaking as a part of Inbound, a sales and marketing conference.
When talking directly about Trump, Obama took a different tone.
“We want him to be successful. He was elected,” she said, referring to her and former President Barack Obama’s hopes for the current president. “When you’ve been in that position, you have a different perspective.”
Her former president husband, though, has been stepping up his criticism of Trump lately, including taking to Facebook to blast the decision to roll back his DACA executive action for so-called "dreamers." 

Alleged leaker hid NSA documents in pantyhose, report says

A former National Security Agency contractor has reportedly told federal authorities that she smuggled classified documents out of the NSA office where she worked by stuffing them in her pantyhose.

The documents reportedly contained classified data on Russia’s alleged hacking during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Reality Leigh Winner, 25, a former Air Force linguist with a top-secret security clearance, was asked by an FBI agent about how she managed to get the documents out of the agency's Augusta, Ga., office.
She responded: “Folded it in half in my pantyhose,” Politico reported, citing a transcript filed by prosecutors Wednesday.
Winner worked as a government contractor in Augusta until June, when she was charged with copying a classified report and mailing it to an online news organization.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian Epps has scheduled a hearing Friday to reconsider releasing Winner on bond. He ordered her jailed in June after prosecutors said Winner may have taken more than a single classified report.
They said Winner had inserted a portable hard drive into a top-secret Air Force computer before she left the military last year.
Winner's defense lawyers argued in a court filing Saturday that prosecutors haven't accused Winner of any additional crimes more than three months later. They noted several other cases in which defendants accused of leaking multiple secret documents were freed on pre-trial bonds.
Jennifer Solari, an assistant U.S. attorney, warned the judge in June that investigators hadn't found the portable hard drive that Winner allegedly plugged into an Air Force computer and didn't know what might be on it.
Winner's lawyers included an email from Solari in their latest court filing in which the prosecutor noted that she was mistaken when she previously told the judge that Winner was recorded in a jailhouse phone conversation saying: "Mom, those documents. I screwed up."
Solari wrote that the recording shows that Winner actually told her mother: "I leaked a document."
Defense attorneys wrote that if Winner is released, her mother in Kingsville, Texas, would move to Georgia to live with her and ensure that she complies with all bond conditions.
Authorities haven't described the classified report Winner is accused of leaking or named the news outlet that received it. But the Justice Department announced Winner's arrest on the same day the Intercept reported it had obtained a classified NSA report suggesting that Russian hackers attacked a U.S. voting software supplier before last year's presidential election.
The NSA report was dated May 5, the same as the document Winner is charged with leaking.

Deep state? 78 Obama appointees 'burrowed' in gov't, report says

By the time Barack Obama's presidency ended in January 2017, 78 of his political appointees had "burrowed" into government jobs over the course of six years, a report says.

The report from the Government Accountability Office was obtained by the Washington Times.

"Burrowing" refers to a process in which political appointees are appointed to career-level jobs to protect them from being ousted once a new administration takes over.
Of the 78 such appointees identified in the GAO report, seven had switched to career jobs without first receiving necessary approval from the Office of Personnel Management, the report says. Four were later denied the positions and three later resigned.
The department with the highest number of conversions was the Department of Homeland Security, with nine appointees burrowing in. The Department of Justice was second with eight conversions.
The process of burrowing is not an uncommon for administrations on the way out. President George W. Bush had at least 26 conversions approved in his final year in office.
Obama was warned in his final year against assigning political appointees to career jobs and was asked by Republicans to implement a hiring freeze to avoid keeping workers who opposed President Donald Trump's policies.
“Not only is ‘burrowing in’ unfair to applicants without an inside connection, it further contributes to the possibility that federal workers may attempt to undermine the policies of the new president,” Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., wrote to Obama, McClatchyDC reported.

Anthony Weiner Cartoons ( Democrat )

Marc Thiessen: Want to protest Trump? Disrespecting the flag is a disgraceful way to do it

This weekend, the more than 100 NFL players who refused to stand during the national anthem were met with boos from crowds in stadiums across America — and deservedly so.

Playing in London, Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars players wouldn’t stand for the U.S. national anthem but did for “God Save the Queen” in the very country we fought to win our independence.
Worse, the players held their disgraceful protest on National Gold Star Mother’s Day, the day our country honors mothers who have lost children in war. A Gold Star mother whose son died in Afghanistan told CNN last year that when she first saw players taking a knee, “my heart kind of stopped and I lost my breath because the flag that I see is the flag that draped my son’s casket.” Imagine what she and other Gold Star mothers felt seeing 100 players do the same on the very day our country set aside to thank them.
Way to go, NFL.
In Pittsburgh, only one player — Alejandro Villanueva — a former Army Ranger who lost brothers in arms fighting under that flag — came out of the locker room to stand for the anthem. He was criticized for doing so by his coach. The fans’ response? Sales of Villanueva jerseys skyrocketed.
What these players don’t seem to understand is that Americans gave their lives so that they could have the freedom to play a kids’ game for a living. When players disrespect the flag, they disrespect that sacrifice. And it would not matter if they had done so to protest Donald Trump or Barack Obama — their actions would be equally offensive. If NFL players want to protest the president, they have plenty of other ways. Attend a rally. Speak out on Twitter. Tell the media after the game, “I stood up for America but I stand against Donald Trump.” But don’t show contempt for the flag.
Were President Trump’s comments urging owners to fire players who refused to stand incendiary? Sure. Were they politically calculated? No doubt. But that does not change the fact that he is right. And he did not start this fight. Colin Kaepernick and a handful of players did. Moreover, Trump is not the first president to speak out against disrespect for the flag. In 1988, Republican George H.W. Bush excoriated his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, for vetoing a bill requiring Massachusetts teachers to lead their students in the Pledge of Allegiance. As president he proposed a constitutional amendment to outlaw desecration of the flag.
Yes, athletes do have a constitutional right to engage in speech that is offensive to millions of Americans. But the First Amendment does not protect them from the consequences of their offensive speech. There is no constitutional right to play professional football. If an NFL player stood on the sidelines and hurled racial epithets, his speech would be protected by the First Amendment. He would also be fired.
The NFL’s game operations manual says that “all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem” and must “stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking” or face discipline “such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s).” The league regularly penalizes players for dancing in the end zone, but it allows players to violate the rules regarding the national anthem with impunity.
The NFL is also selective when it comes to the kind of speech it protects. Last September, the Dallas Cowboys asked for permission to wear helmet stickers in honor of police officers massacred in Dallas earlier last year. The league refused. So the NFL will not allow players to express their support for police with a tiny helmet decal, but it lets them disrespect the flag while distorting the work of police officers across the country?
The players’ behavior is hurting the league. NFL viewership is at its lowest point since 1998, and ESPN reports that “national anthem protests were the top reason that NFL fans watched fewer games last season, according to a new survey released by J.D. Power.” Indeed, “Sunday Night Football” had its worst ratings of the season this weekend, as millions of Americans turned off their sets in disgust.
If the NFL won’t stop its players from disrespecting the flag, then maybe Congress should take a second look at some of the federal benefits the NFL enjoys. For example, the NFL gets a special antitrust exemption in U.S. law. Democrats in Congress have already been debating whether the league should be stripped of this exemption because of its weak response to domestic violence allegations against players. Perhaps Republicans angry over anthem protests will now be willing to join them? And this might also be a good time for some public hearings into the NFL’s efforts to interfere with concussion research at the National Institutes of Health.
Last year, National Hockey League coach John Tortorella declared, “If any of my players sit on the bench for the national anthem, they will sit there the rest of the game.”
Hey, NFL, take a cue from the NHL. Every coach and owner should tell his players the same.
Marc Thiessen is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Thiessen served as chief speechwriter to President George W. Bush and to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Fight in 'empathy tent' at UC Berkeley leads to 4 arrests

Yvonne Felarca, 47, was arrested for battery and resisting arrest, police said.  (Berkeley Police)

So much for empathy. Members of opposing political groups clashed Tuesday inside a so-called "empathy tent" on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

At least four people were arrested, police said.

The empathy tent was reportedly in place to offer protesters a calm place to unwind amid the choas around them. But the tent ultimately offered little respite -- and nearly toppled during clashes between conservative students and leftist activists, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“It’s tough, but we do what we can to foster dialogue,” said Edwin Fulch, who reportedly used the tent for talks about the virtues of meditation and the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The protest was led by Joey Gibson, leader of a group called Patriot Prayer. Gibson had called for a rally after student organizers canceled a planned "Free Speech Week.”
Counterprotesters determined to shut the event down got into shouting matches and scuffles with Gibson and his supporters inside the tent and later in a city park.
Left-wing activist Yvonne Felarca was arrested for battery and resisting arrest, police said. Three men were arrested on charges including possession of body armor, carrying a banned weapon and participating in a riot.
Berkeley's reputation as a liberal bastion has made it a flashpoint for the country's political divisions since the election of President Donald Trump.
Four protests have turned violent on campus and in the surrounding streets in recent months, prompting authorities to tighten security as they struggle to balance free speech rights with preventing violence.
David Marquis, who identified himself as a senior at the school, said he was tired of the protests on campus. Marquis was outside the protest area and described the scene.
“If you look at them, it’s ridiculous,” Marquis told the Los Angeles Times. “You’ve got a guy with purple hair with a f---ing lightsaber talking about Hitler. It’s hard for me to take any of this seriously.”

American sniper's wife Taya Kyle: An open letter to the NFL

Dear NFL,

You were doing your part to bring people together and heal the world. That’s really how healing works. We heal by loving each other and leading by example; showing people what is possible when we love each other just as we are and not only recognize our differences but celebrate them and look at how we can use them together to make us jointly better than our separate parts. You were doing your part celebrating each other based on skills, talent and a joint vision without regard to color and religion.
You were doing your part and we were doing ours. We showed up cheering and groaning together to as one. We talked in the concession lines and commiserated and celebrated our team together. Did it ever occur to you that you and we were already a mix of backgrounds, races and religions? We were already living the dream you want, right in front of you.

Your desire to focus on division and anger has shattered what many people loved most about the sport. Football was really a metaphor for our ideal world -- different backgrounds, talents, political beliefs and histories as one big team with one big goal -- to do well, to win, TOGETHER.

Your desire to focus on division and anger has shattered what many people loved most about the sport. Football was really a metaphor for our ideal world -- different backgrounds, talents, political beliefs and histories as one big team with one big goal -- to do well, to win, TOGETHER.
You are asking us to abandon what we loved about togetherness and make choices of division. Will we stand with you? Will we stand with our flag? What does it mean? What does it mean if we buy a ticket or NFL gear? What does it mean if we don’t? It is the polar opposite of the easy togetherness we once loved in football.
It was simple – we loved you and you loved us – with all of our races, religions, different backgrounds and politics. Simplicity in a crazy world was pretty awesome.
You dear NFL, have taken that. You have lost me here.
If you ever want to get off your knees and get to work on building bridges, let me know. I have found screaming about the problems in service marriages or even standing in silence in front of them, hasn’t healed even one of them.
On the other hand, funding the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation, building a team and rolling up my sleeves to get in the trenches during my “off time” -- volunteering there outside of my paying jobs -- has proven to make real change.
You have a lot of strong guys, I am sure in the off season a lot of them could build some pretty big bridges if they care enough to do the hard work. That would involve getting off their knees and getting to work though. If I can do it while I raise two kids as their only parent and work through the greatest pain of my life, let’s see if they can do it for the issues they say they care so much about.
Go Longhorns and Sic ‘Em …
Sincerely,
Taya
Taya Kyle is co-author of "American Wife: Love, War, Faith and Renewal" (William Morrow, May 2015) founded the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation in honor of her late husband Chris Kyle, legendary U.S. Navy SEAL and author of the bestsellers "American Sniper" and "American Gun." The foundation is devoted to strengthening the marriages of veterans and first responders. An active public speaker, Taya Kyle makes frequent appearances at fund-raisers and other events, inspiring others to find strength and persevere through struggles. She and her two children live in Texas.

Roy Moore defeats Trump-backed Luther Strange in Alabama Senate runoff

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was projected to soundly defeat Sen. Luther Strange in Tuesday's Senate primary runoff, overcoming heavy GOP establishment support for the incumbent, including from President Trump himself.

The hard-fought Alabama runoff battle had pitted Trump against some of his most loyal supporters including former chief strategist Steve Bannon, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and a slew of House conservatives who all backed Moore. Despite his outsider image, Moore seemed to have the edge over Strange from the start.

With 92 percent of the precincts reporting, Moore led Strange by 55 percent to 45 percent, a margin of more than 41,000 votes. State officials estimated a low turnout of between 12 and 15 percent of eligible voters.
The crowd at Moore's election party broke into loud applause as media outlets called the race. Bannon took the stage to introduce Moore as supporters waving flags cheered Tuesday night.
"We have to return the knowledge of God and the Constitution of the United States to the United States Congress," Moore told the crowd. He also said he supports the president and his agenda.
Bannon declared Moore's win a victory for Trump, despite the president's support for Strange. Both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Alabama to make the case for the incumbent in the final week of the race.
In his concession statement, Strange thanked Trump and Pence for their support and vowed to "go back to work with President Trump and do all I can to advance his agenda over the next few weeks."
Addressing supporters in Birmingham, Strange admitted that "We're dealing with a political environment that I've never had any experience with."
"I'm telling you, the political seas and winds in this country right now are very hard to navigate," Strange added. "Very hard to understand."
After Strange's concession, the president Tweeted his congratulations to Moore and implored him to "WIN in [December]!"
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.
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 also said at the Alabama rally that he would campaign for Moore in the general election if he secured the nomination, but he believed Moore would have a tougher time against Jones in the general election.
Pence also flew to Birmingham on Monday evening to campaign for Strange.
The Senate Leadership Fund, a group with ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spent an estimated $9 million trying to secure the nomination for Strange. That support played into Moore's argument that the election was an opportunity to send a lesson to what he called the "elite Washington establishment."
SLF President and CEO Steven Law said Tuesday that Moore won the nomination "fair and square" and the group will now back him.
Law said Moore "has our support, as it is vital that we keep this seat in Republican hands."
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.

NFL Football Cartoons

Monday Night Football: Cowboys kneel before national anthem ( I'm ashamed of these guys.)

Dallas Cowboys players, coaches and staff took a knee prior to the national anthem Monday.  (Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports)

The Dallas Cowboys briefly kneeled before the national anthem ahead of their Monday night game against the Arizona Cardinals, capping off a weekend that saw more than 200 players kneel or sit during the anthem itself.

Both teams had discussed with each other what they had planned to do for the opening of Monday's game, according to ESPN commentators at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Monday. What they agreed to do was an individual sign of solidarity.

The Cowboys, often referred to as “America’s Team,” along with owner Jerry Jones, stood in the middle of the field before the anthem was sung and locked arms -- then took a quick knee before going back to the sidelines. Boos could be heard in the Arizona crowd.
Then, the Cardinals stood with their arms locked as well, but in the end zone, as a field-length American flag was unfurled. An announcer urged fans to lock arms with those seated next to them, “no matter the color of their jersey.”

Arizona Cardinals standing in front of a giant flag during the national anthem.  (Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports)

Singer Jordin Sparks then sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” to the cheering crowd. Both teams stood with arms locked for the duration of the national anthem.
Typically, ESPN does not televise the national anthem on Monday Night Football programming -- but the events of the weekend brought the anthem in sharp focus.
More than 200 NFL players made some form of gesture at games on Sunday — many kneeling or sitting on the bench — in reaction to comments and tweets by Trump, who called on team owners to fire players who followed former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's lead by kneeling during the national anthem. Some owners locked arms with players.
Trump's unprompted raising of this issue began with a speech Friday night in Alabama, where he told a crowd of supporters, "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners when somebody disrespects our flag to say get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he's fired, he's fired."
He then followed up with a series of inflammatory tweets over the weekend and into Monday, even drawing other sports such as the NBA and NASCAR into the fray.
Kaepernick, who no longer has a job with any NFL team, began kneeling during the anthem in the preseason a year ago to make a statement about social inequality and police treatment of blacks in the United States.
A handful of players had carried on what Kaepernick started; a half-dozen engaged in some form of protest last week.
"It certainly is our hope that people stand during the national anthem, but we also respect their right to make a personal statement or expression of their personal beliefs," NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart said in a conference call with reporters on Monday.
"In the first couple weeks of this year, it was a handful of people expressing themselves. We defended their right to do that," Lockhart said. "There were a whole lot of people this weekend doing that, and the only thing that has changed was some comments from someone who lives in Washington."