"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a b***h off the field right now. Out! He's fired. He's fired!'"
-Donald Trump at a recent special-election rally in Alabama
With Puerto Rico in a gigantic mess because of Hurricane Maria, among other huge issues, the head of the American people finds it more important to denigrate National Football League players who've taken a knee during the singing/playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" to protest bigotry, racism, and police brutality right here on these shores.
Vintage Trump.
YECCH!
Trump was in the Heart of Dixie on 9-23-2017 to help Luther Strange, the Republican who inherited- and is trying to keep- the US Senate seat that Jeff Sessions gave up to become this country's attorney general (or top shyster, now that Sessions has the top spot in the Justice Department).
All the former host of NBC's The Apprentice did was unleash the biggest day of protest in NFL history.
19 of the league's 32 squads participated in protests of some kind or another; in total, 200 players took a knee or sat down during what the late George Carlin called the world's only national anthem that mentions rockets and bombs.
And three entire teams- including the Pittsburgh Steelers- wouldn't even come out of the locker room for our national tune.
This time, some team owners (one of them was Washington's Daniel Snyder) joined those protesting players in solidarity.
Now if one- just one- of those team magnates would just sign the man who brought taking a knee during Francis Scott Key's claim to fame to football...
Right now, a lot of those teams are off to terrible starts on the gridiron. Week 3 of the 2017 NFL campaign is in the books, and the Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants (a playoff team last season), San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Chargers [yep...they moved back to Tinseltown (their 1960 home as one of eight original American Football League teams) after spending the 1961-2016 period in San Diego] are still winless.
Seven more- the New York Jets, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Chicago Bears, New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals, and Seattle Seahawks (another 2016 playoff squad)- are 1-2-0 right now.
Maybe one of them could use a Colin Kaepernick...even as a second-stringer or third-stringer, if not as a starter.
All the former University of Nevada star was doing, starting with the NFL's 2016 preseason, was calling attention to racism and police brutality here in these fifty states.
He wasn't disrespecting the national anthem or the flag the song praises.
And the Constitution's First Amendment guarantees Kaepernick and America's other 321 million citizens the same right to take a knee, sit down, sprawl on the floor, etc., etc. to protest injustice.
Check this out:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech (emphasis mine), or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
If you've got a copy of the 2017 World Almanac and Book of Facts, crack open Page 511. You'll find the above paragraph.
Maybe that'd be something Trump can somehow get up the courage to do.
Oh, by the way, football isn't the only sport where players at any level you can name are taking knees in protest.
This past weekend, Bruce Maxwell of baseball's Oakland A's became that sport's first player to protest by kneeling during "The Star-Spangled Banner."
If Trump and other Republicans found out about Maxwell's feat, how would they react?
How about you?
If kneeling while someone sings his or her heart out prior to the beginning of a sports event doesn't cut it for you, what's a better way to protest injustice from sea to shining sea (and then some)?
Yesterday, for the second (and final) time in his life, Barack Obama took the oath of office as President of the United States. (I ended up making a DVD copy of the inauguration ceremonies, then watching C-SPAN's rerun of the ceremonies when I got home from work last night.)
And as much as I liked Obama's first inaugural address (1-20-2009), I liked his second one better.
One phrase kept sticking out as the nation's 44th chief executive gave what turned out to be a 14-minute speech: "We the People."
In addition, one other word stuck out: "Together."
The former US senator from Illinois talked about how it's on ALL of us to keep this undertaking called America going...by using solutions that are unique to OUR time, OUR day and age to deal with the problems that we're right now facing.
And, just as Ronald Reagan put the glow on the conservative point of view when he gave his first address as this country's president (1-20-1981), Obama put the halo on the liberal way of doing things in government. [Well, I like to think so! After all, take a look at what happened to the earning power and the buying power of rank-and-file Americans since the former host of TV's General Electric Theater assumed the biggest role he ever had. (They've gone down since 1981.)]
Last week (in fact, on 1-16-2013), this father of two daughters signed 23 executive orders into law. And it was all part of the most extensive gun-control plan since...well, since Reagan got in. (If not that, since an assault-weapon ban was signed into law in 1994 by none other than Bill Clinton.)
The new executive orders include more sharing of government data for background checks, better databases, and government research into why we've got gun violence here in the US. (Don't worry: Improved school safety and better mental-health services will be covered through the new directives.)
On top of that, I like how we're finally going to have a new chief at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
It'd been far too long since an ATFE chief was appointed.
The vacancy- and so many other appointments- would've been filled these last four years if it hadn't been for (let's not kid ourselves) all those Republicans in Congress.
One of those sticks in the mud (oops, I mean Republicans), US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), wants to get legislation pushed through to block all 23 executive orders. (Paul the Younger thinks Obama's acting like a king.)
Then you've got US Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX), who just got back the same seat he had in the mid-1990s, about the time Clinton signed the assault-weapon ban into law.
All Stockman wants is the impeachment of the newest lefthander to call the shots from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Stockman thinks the executive orders are a White House overreach.
No, it's just like Sasha's and Malia's dad said: "We're all in this together." (And what's to do when a Republican-led House simply won't act on one issue after another?)
The previous (112th) Congress passed the fewest bills of any such group since the Congresses Harry Truman had to deal with in the late 1940s: 68 of 'em. Instead of tackling the budget, the debt ceiling, America's infrastructure, and jobs (that last one was the issue all those new US reps who got elected in 2010 loudly proclaimed they'd deal with first and foremost), the House Republicans have, instead, gone on witch hunts...trying to take down not only Obama himself, but also Attorney General Eric Holder as well as the millions of women who use contraceptives.
I don't know if either Paul (Rand or his father Ron) showed up to the inaugural proceedings. Can't tell you if Stockman came to the Capitol to see the ceremonies. But I did see House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) walk across my TV screen (and millions of other people's TV screens).
And Ryan and Boehner might have been thinking: "What am I doing here?"
Speaking of Ryan, I like how BHO shot down both PDR's notion that we're a nation of takers and the whole idea that the three most successful government programs to come out these United States (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) have weakened the country.
Those three programs have actually helped Americans live longer than was the case in the 1930s.
To sum it all up, I like what Michelle's husband wants to do with the next four years...and I like his message that, regardless of what we look like, what we believe for a religion, where we were born, etc., etc., we've ALL got a stake in trying to improve the world's most talked-about, most envied, most closely-watched nation there is.
And I'm going to try my best to help. (How about you?)
Allow me to introduce myself.
You see, four months ago, when you spoke at a fundraiser in Boca Raton, FL, you referred to a certain group of people who want the US government to feed them, house them, provide them with health care, etc., etc., etc.
You labeled them as Americans who don't pay their taxes.
You said that these people make up 47% of this country's population.
And you stated that they're going to vote to keep Barack Obama in the White House.
What's more, Mr. Romney, you made it clear that you're giving up on trying to reach them (in spite of your recent claim in Miami, FL, that you were going to be the President of 100% of the nation's population).
Yes, I'm one of the country's low-income wage earners; and yes, I voted for Obama in 2008...one of 69.5 million to do that on 11-4-2008 (out of 131.3 million who voted that day...when the United States had 225.5 million eligible to cast ballots).
That's actually less than 31% of this land's eligible electors four years back...not 47%.
And as a matter of fact, I actually DO pay my taxes.
Okay, Mr. Romney, I've received money back from the State of Nebraska every year since I moved back here in 1997 from my birth state of Iowa...but it's been years since I got a refund from the Internal Revenue Service. (Okay, all right...for tax year 2011, I received a tax refund check of $109 from our state's Department of Revenue...while paying the United States Treasury $62.)
And I didn't go for the one-time US senator from Illinois because I wanted to be a freeloader.
I filled in the oval next to Obama's and Joe Biden's names because I thought the 2008 Democratic ticket could help more Americans than that year's Republican ticket...you know, John McCain and Sarah Palin.
By the way, when you gave that speech to 25 of your fellow bluebloods down in Boca Raton this past spring, you said you couldn't convince the so-called forty-seven-percenters to take responsibility for their lives.
Well, guess what?
I most certainly DO take responsibility for myself AND for my own life.
I know you're some kind of busy right now, but if you get a chance to read this blog (or its predecessor on http://www.freeblogit.com), you'll find that I've been at the same place of work (a factory) since 1-26-2004, and that I'm also an independent performer (old-time piano- check out http://r2rfestival.webs.com).
Last time I checked, that DIDN'T sound like someone not taking self-responsibility.
I remember when you made a campaign appearance late last year (at the height of the Occupy movement); a man attending the rally identified you as one of America's 300,000 wealthiest people. (Okay...he called you a one-percenter.)
I remember you calling him a divider.
As far as I'm concerned, the remarks you made this past May in that fast-growing Sunshine State city (86,445 lived there in 2009, up from a 2000 total of 74,764) are totally divisive.
If telling folks that Hispanic people giving their 2012 votes to the one-time Illinois state senator would ruin this nation isn't divisive, then...you were never governor of Massachusetts!
One more thing...I feel that this presidential election cycle, the way the Republicans have been running it, is the culmination of 48 years of- let's not kid ourselves- your party courting and attracting proven racists and sexists (in response to Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act into law in 1964).
By the way...every schoolboy and schoolgirl knows (or is about to learn) that America's government works best when all three branches- executive, legislative, and judicial- actually participate in decisions. And that goes for BOTH major political parties!
Your GOP buddies in the US House and the US Senate made it clear, right from the start of the current administration, that they were going to block every piece of legislation that BHO proposed...even if previous Republican lawmakers (or the current ones themselves) championed that legislation before.
The Republicans took back control of this country's House loudly proclaiming that jobs would be what they'd be working on.
It hasn't happened.
IN FACT, THIS STRATEGY HAS HELD THIS COUNTRY'S RANK-AND-FILE CITIZENS HOSTAGE!!
You knew darn good and well that if you refused to work to bring America's economy back up to snuff, you'd get enough sympathy from citizens at large to get The Prize back.
Speaking of economy...if the trickle-down economic philosophy Republicans have espoused since 1980 is so darn great...why hasn't the money trickled all the way down to us rank-and-file Americans?
After all, CEO pay here in America has skyrocketed since 1981 (and the pay for middle-income and low-income Americans has flatlined or, at times, even gone down).
That's not jive. That's research from Mother Jones.
To wrap it up, I'm going to vote the exact same way I did on 11-4-2008. (The Democrats- and independents- not only, as a whole, are talking the talk when it comes to putting America back on its feet. They're walking the walk.)
Barack Obama knows what and who he is.
Now, if you can just puh-leez figure out who you are...
Thank you for this opportunity to address you.
Sincerely, Jim Boston
