Fitzgerald: Kneeling’s a kick in the stomach to our country

Boston Herald

"The ongoing flap over NFL players disrespecting our national anthem is lowbrow theater at best, casting jocks as deep thinkers whose moral indignation demands everyone’s attention.

"So they take a knee when “The Star-Spangled Banner” is played as a way of alerting the rest of us that we live in an imperfect world.

. . . 

"Though for most Americans it’s a kick in the stomach to see anyone trashing or denigrating the symbols of this great nation, it’s not shocking when the venom is spewed by sabre-rattling megalomaniacs like the sociopath now calling the shots in North Korea.

"But it is a bit much to seriously regard the bruised sensitivities of conscience-stricken NFL players who’ve been blessed beyond measure with free education and stratospheric salaries because they are able to advance a football 100 yards.

"America offends them? Please. This country they so blithely disparage is, for them, a land of milk and honey." . . .

Harvey Weinstein is not the nastiest thing going on in Hollywood

Earick Ward

As now brave celebrities come forward to condemn Harvey Weinstein, how many will extend that bravery to the most innocent in Hollywood: child victims of pedophilia?

. . . "Sadly, Harvey Weinstein's act isn't the darkest in Hollywood's repertoire – at least that we know of.  As has been reported, the women Harvey sexually abused were adults.  But did Harvey rape or sexually abuse any minors?  Corey Feldman?  Corey Haim?  Drew Barrymore?  The Olsen twins?

In 2011 interview with ABC News, Corey Feldman stated:

"I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia. That's the biggest problem for children in this industry. ... It's the big secret[.] ...

I was surrounded by [pedophiles] when I was 14 years old. ... Didn't even know it. It wasn't until I was old enough to realize what they were and what they wanted ... till I went, Oh, my God. They were everywhere.

"Feldman credits pedophilia as a contributing factor in the death of his best friend, Corey Haim, his co-star in the movie The Lost Boys." . . .

Stupidity Is Timeless

"In the new civil war, no one needs to die for their cause.  Violence is the left’s purview.  The right just needs to defeat and delegitimize the irrational ideas of the left, as well as their violent tactics.  As in the past, leftists will retreat and become pacifistic, lying in wait for their next opportunity.  But, it will not be as easy as it sounds.  A lot of social and emotional upheaval will be required for this to happen.  And we must understand that the incredibly misguided ideology of the left will never die as long as humans are involved."

Dark Angel Politics

"In my younger years, studying world and American history in school, I used to wonder how people of those past times could have been so stupid.  How could people actually believe that Hitler was a righteous man?  How could they be convinced that Jews were evil, and Nazism was good?  Germans and Japanese at that time must have been crazy.
. . . 

"How could it have been possible for Josef Stalin to starve tens of millions of Ukrainians to death with no resistance?  How could Mao, as leader of the world’s largest population, assassinate a major portion of his own people without opposition?  It seems impossible, almost like fiction.

"After 65 years of my existence, I now realize that people have not changed.  The ignorance of man is not a fantasy, it is real and enduring."

"In our modern, so sophisticated Western world, we welcome the conquerors and assassins of an ancient culture into our society, where they can continue conquering and assassinating us with our complete cooperation.

"We welcome laws suppressing our freedom to speak, to own property, to operate a small business, and to defend ourselves.  We actively oppose the Constitution that brought us where we are today.

In America, we built a thriving civil society, amazing the world with our wealth, our perseverance, our moral strength, and our positive ideology.  We were the saviors of humanity.

"And now, we show that we are truly fallible humans, in the process of destroying it all. "  

Stalin-induced famine in Ukraine

Weinstein and the rich and famous Democrats

Friends, Media Turning on Hillary Due to Silence on Harvey Weinstein
. . . "I saw some tweets about reporters not asking Hillary about the Weinstein accusations, but Eli Watkins and Dan Merica at CNN reported that the network has asked her spokesman for a comment. They have not received any response from Hillary or the Obamas:

Representatives for the Clintons have not responded to comment for this story, and Obama’s office declined to comment. Clinton did not mention Weinstein during an appearance Monday night at the University of California, Davis, as part of her book tour, her first public appearance since the story broke.

Longtime Hillary Clinton aides have been confused by the former secretary of state’s silence on the issue, questioning — in private — why she has not weighed in at all.

Weinstein has long been a Clinton donor with ties to the political family. Weinstein was one of many from Hollywood who donated to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund in the 1990s, a Washington Post report from the time stated. More recently, the Clintons rented a home next to Weinstein in the Hamptons in 2015, and Weinstein served as a connector between Hollywood stars and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

Weekly Standard: The Human Stain: Why the Harvey Weinstein Story Is Worse Than You Think

It goes much deeper than one big creep.

. . . "Bill Clinton offered get-out-of-jail-free cards to a whole army of sleazeballs, from Jeffrey Epstein to Harvey Weinstein to the foreign donors to the Clinton Global Initiative. The deal was simple: Pay up, genuflect, and get on with your existence. It was like a papacy selling indulgences, at the same time that everyone knew that the cardinals were up to no good. The 2016 election demolished Clinton world once and for all, to be replaced by the cult of Obama, an austere sect designated by their tailored hair shirts with Nehru collars. “That is not who we are as Americans,” they chant, as Harvey Weinstein’s ashes are scattered in the wind."

A Vicious Virtue; When tragedy strikes, you probably deserve it — if you’re a conservative.

Victor Davis Hanson

Note the logic: Once again, whether or not the loss of so many innocent lives is a tragedy hinges on the perceived politics of the murdered. 

Is vicarious violence and crudity the means by which the modern soft suburbanite — like a Colbert, Michael Moore, or Bill Maher — messages his inner bravery and progressive authenticity?

"Not long ago, late-night comedian and would-be philosopher Steven Colbert signaled the nation his virtuous outrage over the Trump presidency. Colbert offered that Trump had “a feeble f***ing anemic firefly of a soul.” His puerile efforts at alliteration were not helped by the redundant “anemic.” 

"Obscenity in service to an announced virtuous progressive cause is apparently now Colbert’s brand — and the more vulgar, the more virtuous. 

"Of Trump, Colbert had earlier announced crudely on national television: “You talk like a sign-language gorilla that got hit in the head. In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c*** holster.” Do Americans stay up late to hear that? 

"Yet Colbert’s incoherent crudity is mild compared with the epidemic of assassination chic in which politicians, celebrities, actors, and academics vie to kill Trump by symbolically stabbing, decapitating, hanging, shooting, and maiming his likeness. (The various ways of killing or torturing Trump have exhausted the imagination of the virtuous.) It is as if the more macabre one can be in imagining how to eviscerate Trump, the more virtuous one becomes." . . .

Virtue signalling. Virtue signalling is the conspicuous expression of moral values by an individual done primarily with the intent of enhancing that person's standing within a social group.  Virtue signalling - Wikipedia

Obama's $1.5-billion ego project

Monica Showalter   . . . "What the $1.5 billion boondoggle will be about is blocking community roads, putting public park space off limits, fundraising for Obama causes, community organizing, shoveling pork for South Side denizens such as basketball courts, and...satisfying President Obama's gargantuan ego.

"Where did anyone get the idea that taxpayers owe ex-presidents this kind of golden parachute?  This is Ozymandias (Pharoah Rameses II)-style excess.  Or if you want to be much less charitable: Mobuto stuff.  Much of the complex itself will be privately funded, of course, but taxpayers are certainly going to be paying for millions of it, and there doesn't seem to be a cap on how much.

"Even the private-sector funding is a bit eyebrow-raising.  The kind of money this project requires is the kind of money a presidential campaign to the finish requires.  That takes fundraising, and small-dollar donors aren't going to cut it.  Big-dollar donors might.  But that kind of donors – from Goldman Sachs-style investment banks, Hollywood heavies like Harvey Weinstein, foundation fat cats like George Soros – are going to be asking something in return.  And what's more, if they have already given the money, it's worth looking at what they got in return.  Post presidencies are notorious for bribe cash to flow in in exchange for favors already delivered.  And as the Clintons demonstrated so ably, leftist presidencies are historically for sale."

UIC Releases Ambitious Obama Presidential Library Proposal

Below: artists conception of visitors at the library.

Antifa proclaims: November 4 It Begins: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

Via Bloviating Zeppelin

Refuse Fascism

"From the Call for Nov 4:"

… ON NOVEMBER 4, 2017:

We will gather in the streets and public squares of cities and towns across this country, at first many thousands declaring that this whole regime is illegitimate and that we will not stop until our single demand is met: This Nightmare Must End: the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

Our protest must grow day after day and night after night—thousands becoming hundreds of thousands, and then millions—determined to act to put a stop to the grave danger that the Trump/Pence Regime poses to the world by demanding that this whole regime be removed from power…

Who’s Funding the Anti-Trump Resistance? The Money Trail Leads Back to Soros

. . . "The Emergent Fund is directly linked to Soros, as is the Center for Media Justice.  United We Dream is also, surprise surprise, connected directly to Soros.  The list goes on.  And on.

"Soros has his divisive, hateful, and destructive footprints all over just about any and every leftist attempt at an insurgent political movement in recent memory.  Occupy?  Soros.  Antifa?  Soros.  Women’s March?  Soros.  LaRaza, newly rebranded?  Soros.

"It’s actually quite amazing how he can con leftists into believing all these “organic movements” are their very own ideas, their passions.  He must be laughing his butt off at their supreme ignorance and malleability.  He has them, the dictionary definition of useful idiots, dancing to his tune.

"Swept up in and funding the Soros-anti-Trump resistance are a variety of unions, including (to no one’s surprise) the NFL players’ union." . . .

Courage: DNC 'Gives Away' Small Fraction of Weinstein Money to...Democratic Groups

Townhall

"Imagine, for a moment, if a major newspaper had published a bombshell investigative report late last week exposing how one of the Koch brothers has spent decades serially subjecting women to high-grade sexual harassment. And imagine that as all of the seedy details -- seriously, read this -- emerged, people throughout the conservative movement started spilling to reporters that this Koch brother's predatory behavior had been an open secret for a long time. Please try to picture the tone of the resulting media coverage, the organized boycotts of Koch Industries, the finger-wagging from sanctimonious celebrities, the outraged statements from women's groups, the football-spiking from Harry Reid, the Democratic Party's extravagant high dudgeon, late night comedians' insult-happy bonanza, and the endless calls for every Republican official with any tie whatsoever to the Kochs to denounce the offending conduct and to return every last cent of Koch-tied money he or she had ever received." . . .

ESPN Faces Surprising Boycott After Suspending Jemele Hill

Daily Caller

"ESPN, already unpopular with conservatives, is now facing the possibility of a boycott from furious liberals over the sports network’s suspension of host Jemele Hill.

"ESPN suspended Hill for calling for a boycott of the Dallas Cowboys’ advertisers after Cowboys owner Jerry Jones threatened to bench any player who kneeled during the anthem. Hill’s boycott was her second violation of ESPN’s social media policies, the network said. She previously stirred controversy by calling President Trump a “white supremacist” on Twitter.

Report: ESPN’s Left-Wing Politics Are Driving Away Viewers  “ 'Middle America wants to pop a beer and listen to sports talk, they don’t want to be lectured about why Caitlyn Jenner is a hero, Michael Sam is the new Jackie Robinson of sports, and Colin Kaepernick is the Rosa Parks of football,” Travis wrote in a blog post Wednesday. “ESPN made the mistake of trying to make liberal social media losers happy and as a result lost millions of viewers.”

Al Sharpton In Full Media Whore Mode As He Leads Protest Outside ESPN Offices Over Jemele Hill Suspension

California To Have Harsher Penalty For Pronoun Violations Than For Knowingly Spreading HIV

Daily Caller

. . . "California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation on Friday lowering the maximum penalty for knowingly infecting or exposing a person to HIV to six months in prison — down from a maximum of eight years. Also last week, Brown signed legislation allowing for penalties of up to one year in jail for health care workers who “willfully and repeatedly” use the “wrong” pronouns to refer to a senior transgender patient. (RELATED: Legal Experts: Transgender Pronoun Mandates Are Unconstitutional)

"Democratic state Sen. Scott Weiner*sponsored both pieces of legislation.

“ 'The most effective way to reduce HIV infections is to destigmatize HIV,” Weiner told CNN. “To make people comfortable talking about their infection, get tested, get into treatment.”

"Weiner has also dismissed concerns about religious freedom regarding the criminal punishments for health care workers who don’t use transgender pronouns." . . .

*No relation to Anthony Weiner, but he does come by his politics honestly:  "Wiener joined Assemblymember Todd Gloria to author a SB 239, which aims to change the laws that make it a felony to expose someone to HIV without their knowledge (and thus without their consent)^[13]. Wiener said that the laws unfairly single out HIV positive people.^[14] The bill passed and was signed by governor Jerry Brown on October 6, 2017.^[15] Wiener partnered with Senator Toni Atkins to author SB 179 to create a third, non-binary gender option on government documents.^[16]Wiener authored SB 219, which protects the rights of LGBT seniors living in long-term care facilities.^[17] The bill was opposed by groups who argued the bill criminalized bathroom gender designations and would force care providers to address those under their care with gender appropriate language.^[18] Wiener called these arguments "transphobic" and "absurd."   Wikipedia

Bill Maher Torches Democrats For Sucking At Politics, What We Do 'Makes People Hate Us' (Strong language)

Did I remember to say "strong language"?

Matt Vespa  

"HBO host Bill Maher often gets under conservatives’ skin. He’s blunt, at times—crude, and unabashedly against religion. He mocks the GOP. He mocks conservative politics, but there are areas of agreement. He’s sick of the political correctness virus that’s infecting young progressives and college campuses. He’s right about the threats posed by Islamic extremism and especially the political correctness that has infested that debate. Now, he’s set his sights on the Democratic Party itself and he was quite blunt in his assessment of the party that he supports: we suck. We suck and because we suck, we’re not winning elections.

"He spoke eloquently about the over-regulation ethos that is the hallmark characteristic of liberalism. He mentioned the latest bill in Congress: the Hot Cars Act of 2017. Yes, it’s self-explanatory; it’s mandates that cars be equipped with a sensor that goes off if you leave your kid in a hot car. It’s common sense that’s now becoming a regulation. Maher added that over 17 million cars were sold in 2016; are we seriously going to force all of them to get this sensor installed?"

NFL owner who knelt with players during anthem now says 'disrespect' for the flag will not be tolerated

Jones may be trying to retrieve [an] irretrievable situation.  However, his stance on the protests is too little, too late.He and the players have sown the wind.  Now let them reap the whirlwind.

Rick Moran  "One of the most powerful owners in the NFL says that any player who disrespects the flag won't play.

"Jerry Jones, owner of the league's flagship franchise, the Dallas Cowboys, was asked to comment on Vice President Mike Pence walking out of the stadium following an anthem protest in Indianapolis.

Dallas Morning News:

"I don't know about that. But if there is anything that is disrespectful to the flag then we will not play," Jones said after the Cowboys' 35-31 loss. "You understand? If we are disrespecting the flag then we won't play. Period.

"We're going to respect the flag, and I'm going to create the perception of it. And we have."

Jones addressed the media for 22 minutes after the game. He spent the final seven minutes talking about how he's adamant that Cowboys and other NFL players should stand for the national anthem in the wake of dozens of players around the league kneeling the first five weeks of the season.

"Jones was singing a different tune a couple of weeks ago." . . .