NFL Kneeling Cartoons

What if NBC and the NFL had the guts to be honest about anthem protests at the Super Bowl?

NBC Sports executive producer Fred Gaudelli says NBC’s cameras will show any players who chose to kneel during the “The Star-Spangled Banner” when the network airs Super Bowl LII on Feb. 4.

“The Super Bowl is a live event, just like ‘Sunday Night Football.’ When you’re covering a live event, you’re covering what’s happening,” said Gaudelli. “So if there are players that choose to kneel, they will be shown live.”

That at first feels like a defendable point of view. They are taking the journalist’s free pass as observers, not participants. The problem is that stance is a lie.
The Super Bowl is American theatre. It is perhaps the most orchestrated live event that takes place in the U.S. today. It is designed, carefully framed, its halftime show meticulously planned and the placement of its ads, which have become key accouterments to the show, are choreographed down to the second. All that surrounds the game is such a pre-written play that even the “fans” who cheer the bands on the field at halftime all have the same wave, the same color clothes or whatever fits the performance.
The Super Bowl is not just some live event journalists are watching. It is a composed affair designed to make us feel a certain way, even to buy certain products—the central product being the NFL.
And that brand has been tarnished. Not simply harmed by the protest Colin Kaepernick began and the NFL players after him who’ve kneeled during our national anthem have continued, but fundamentally damaged by a lack of honesty from the NFL and from many of the networks that broadcast NFL games.

With no check on the players who disrespect the flag, the players who kneel are treated as civil-rights activists—heroes in our culture. Meanwhile, the point of view that the good, ol’ red, white and blue is a symbol of what is best in America, not something to protest, isn’t given a voice.

If NBC focuses a camera in on players who choose not to respect the flag and all it stands for before the big game then they aren’t just showing what happens at a live event, but are making the protest a part of their choreographed show. Might they also, during the anthem, show a group of fans holding signs saying “God Bless America”?
This is at the heart of why fans are turning away from the NFL. It isn’t really because a few players are making this game political. It is rather because in today’s political climate the NFL nor the broadcasters have the guts to challenge these players and to ask them to explain what they are protesting. The NFL and NBC refuse to publicly question if this is really the proper way to protest.
With no check on the players who disrespect the flag, and all it stands for, the players who opt to kneel are instead treated as civil-rights activists—heroes in our culture. Meanwhile, the point of view that the good, ol’ red, white and blue is a symbol of what is best in America, not something to protest, isn’t given a voice.
This is what sportscaster Al Michaels did during a panel at the Television Critics Association winter press tour when he addressed the point that attendance at games has suffered as a result when he said, “There are a lot of empty seats, especially in the beginning of the second half. Most of the seats in most of the stadiums have been sold, but you go to Atlanta, where they just opened up a new stadium. They have behind the lower bowl a 100 yard almost mall. You’ve got stores, you’ve got bars, you’ve got restaurants, you’ve got games for the kids.”
The NFL also attempted to avoid an honest debate when they tried to crassly buy off the controversy by saying they would donate millions of dollars to the United Negro College Fund and Dream Corps.
The NFL is a private organization that can put its money where it wants, but donations aren’t a real answer.
Gaudelli said that if some players kneel during the anthem that the commentators Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth would probably identify the players, say a little about the protests “and then get on with the game.”
That would be a whitewash, which isn’t fair to the players kneeling or standing or the millions and millions of fans. This discussion should honestly take place on news broadcasts where the players and others can talk openly about this as they have their opinions challenged. Trying to do this with a few sentences before the big game is out of Michaels’ and Collinsworth’s expertise and has no place in what is supposed to be a nonpartisan event designed to bring us all together.
The game should be above politics.
Frank Miniter is author of "The Future of the Gun" & "The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide". His latest book is, is "Kill Big Brother", a cyber-thriller that shows how to balance freedom with security without diminishing the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Pelosi slams company bonuses as 'crumbs' despite once praising $40 tax cut

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday slammed President Trump’s tax reform that led to companies giving as large as $2,000 bonuses as “crumbs,” despite praising Obama-era $40 tax cut to workers as a “victory for America” in 2011.

Following the passage of sweeping tax cuts, including lowering the corporate tax from 35 percent to 21 percent, multiple companies have given out bonuses and pay rises for its workers amid anticipating tax savings.

Companies such as AT&T have given $1,000 bonuses to 200,000 employees while at least 60,000 workers at Fiat/ Chrysler received bonuses worth up to $2,000.
“In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on — it’s so pathetic,” she told reporters Thursday. “I think it’s insignificant.”
Back in 2011, however, Pelosi was singing a different tune – praising a $40 payroll tax cut passed by President Obama as “a victory for all Americans” that will “make a difference.”
“The American people spoke out clearly and, thanks to President Obama’s leadership, 160 million Americans will continue to receive their payroll tax cut – nearly $40 per paycheck in the pockets of the average family,” she said at the time. “I salute the work of the unified House Democratic caucus on behalf of the American people.”
According to Saving.org’s inflation calculator, $40 in 2011 is equal to $44.06 in today’s dollars.
At least two million U.S. workers received bonuses, pay rises and other perks from at least 130 companies, The Washington Times reported. Most of these companies point to the Trump tax plan as the impetus.

Judge's DACA ruling seen by some legal scholars as problematic, report says

The judge who barred the Trump administration from turning back the Obama-era DACA program last week has some legal scholars concerned that the ruling could damage the notion of an impartial bench.

The New York Times reported Sunday that Judge William Alsup, the federal judge from the Northern District of California, used a local case before issuing the nationwide stop.

“How can a single judge decide a question for the whole country?” Samuel Bray, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, asked the paper.
Bray wrote a recent article where he spoke out against federal judges issuing nationwide injunctions, the paper reported.
“Increasingly, legal scholars are concerned about the way national injunctions are transforming the relationship between the courts and the political branches,” he said.
Alsup wrote that it is “plausible” that President Trump ended the program for racial reasons, Politico reported.
"Circumstantial evidence of intent, including statements by a decisionmaker, may be considered in evaluating whether government action was motivated by a discriminatory purpose," Alsup wrote on Friday. "These statements were not about the rescission (which came later) but they still have relevance to show racial animus against people south of our border."
DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, has protected about 800,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas. The program includes hundreds of thousands of college-age students.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement Wednesday that the ruling was “outrageous, especially in light of the president’s successful bipartisan meeting with House and Senate members at the White House on the same day.”
The Times' report said the U.S. Supreme Court might address the issue of these injunctions.
Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston, told the paper, “The justices don’t like the district courts changing national policy overnight.”

Flake's upcoming speech compares Trump's criticism of media to Stalin, report says

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., will make a speech scheduled for Wednesday where he will compare President Trump’s concerns of media objectivity to similar comments made by communist dictator Joseph Stalin.

Flake, a fervent critic of the Trump administration, is set to give the speech the same day Trump is expected to announce the winners of the so-called “fake news” awards.

The senator will use his speech to condemn Trump’s attacks on the press and for calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
In the draft of the speech, obtained by The Washington Post, Flake will then compare Trump’s comments to statements made by Stalin, who is responsible for the murder of millions.
“It is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies,” the senator is expected to say, according to the excerpts published by the Post.
“It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase ‘enemy of the people,’ that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of ‘annihilating such individuals’ who disagreed with the supreme leader.”
According to the outgoing senator’s speech excerpts, Trump “has it precisely backward — despotism is the enemy of the people,” adding that “When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn’t suit him ‘fake news,’ it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press.”
The relationship between Flake and Trump has been soured from the start. During the 2016 presidential election, Trump said Flake is “a very weak and ineffective Senator.” Last summer, the commander-in-chief praised his Republican challenger Kelli Ward, adding that the Arizona senator “is weak on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate. He's toxic!”
Flake announced his resignation in October with a scathing attack on the president, calling his behavior “reckless, outrageous, and undignified."
He also criticized the Republican Party that, in his view, had “given in or given up on the core principles in favor of a more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment,” adding that “anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy."