The ugly Americans of soccer

. . . "The ball, as they say, is in the U.S. Women’s National Team court. Will they find humility in their win, or continue to serve themselves (and a radical Leftist agenda)?"

The Slammer

US National team: from: ‘for God and country’ to: self, political ideology and sexual proclivity  . . . "The USWNT victory could (should) have been a victory for the US, and for US women’s (and girls’) soccer. Megan Rapinoe, through her selfish antics, her hatred for Donald Trump and the plurality of citizens who support our President, and her insistence that her being homosexual was integral to our teams’ success, ruined what otherwise might have been a great opportunity for the women’s game."
. . . "The President took the high-road in their victory, by tweeting;

Congratulations to the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team on winning the World Cup! Great and exciting play. America is proud of you all!

Ugly Americans: US Women’s Soccer Embarrasses the Country With Their Petty Displays, Cursing at the President, and Stomping on US Flag

The Ugly Americans of soccer

. . . Like all things suffused in political correctness these days, the girls don't seem to feel joy in the simple act of playing soccer.  Rather, they seem intent on winning as some kind of vendetta against the world in general and America in particular.  This accounts for the mean edge that cuts through their statements, actions, and post-goal or post-game celebrations.
Well, girls, you didn't make me love soccer this year, but you sure made me dislike each and every one of your very ugly American profiles in pomposity.  And you made it all look so easy.  Michael James

Rapinoe in another of her "look at me, everybody" moments: 

LA Times photo

 For some the United States flag is a revered symbol of the greatest nation on earth. For others it is a prop to be thrown away when not wanted for the cameras. Put U.S. soccer player Allie Long in the latter category.

"In their first game the US women’s team stomped on the women from Thailand 13-0 and rubbed it in their faces."

"In a later match against England US soccer star Alex Morgan mocked the Brits by pretending to drink tea after a goal."Somewhere in France today, a group of ugly American female soccer players are sipping tea from imaginary cups to mock a polite society they make no efforts to understand or respect.  The Americans are loud and ostentatious.  They are ugly Americans personified. Michael James

The Fox broadcast caught a player holding a flag, letting it drag on the ground before dropping it altogether.

National Review: The U.S. Women Are Winners, Not Victims  . . . "It has been reported that the U.S. women’s team has been generating more game revenue than the U.S. men the past couple of years. This is telling, although not quite in the way that those who allege pay discrimination think. The women are celebrities and cultural heroes, winners of four Olympic gold medals and four World Cups. The men are nobodies who failed to qualify for last year’s World Cup. Yet from 2016 to 2018, according to the Wall Street Journal, the women barely out-earned the men, $50.8 million to $49.9 million."  . . .

Breaking: Bill Clinton Issues Statement On Jeffrey Epstein, Doesn’t Help Himself

Weasel Zippers

"The problem with that?  

"Flight logs show he took at least 26 trips on the plane, with at least five of them without the Secret Service.

Former President Bill Clinton was a much more frequent flyer on a registered sex offender’s infamous jet than previously reported, with flight logs showing the former president taking at least 26 trips aboard the “Lolita Express” — even apparently ditching his Secret Service detail for at least five of the flights, according to records obtained by FoxNews.com.

Clinton’s presence aboard Jeffrey Epstein’s Boeing 727 on 11 occasions has been reported, but flight logs show the number is more than double that, and trips between 2001 and 2003 included extended junkets around the world with Epstein and fellow passengers identified on manifests by their initials or first names, including “Tatiana.” The tricked-out jet earned its Nabakov-inspired nickname because it was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young girls.

"Notice Clinton’s statement doesn’t actually say he only was on the plane four times, but it’s constructed to have you read it that way. It just says he took four trips between 2002 and 2003.

"And he was frequently traveling with New York socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein’s assistant, Sarah Kellen, both of whom were investigated by the FBI and Palm Beach Police for recruiting girls for Epstein and his friends.

"Victoria Roberts, one of the victims, claims she saw Clinton on the island, although the logs do not show that."

Katie Pavlich: Bill Clinton Denies Knowing Anything About His Pedophile Friend Jeffery Epstein But Flight Logs Show Otherwise

Furious Home Depot shoppers say they’re boycotting the store and cutting up their cards . . .

. . . "after one of the home-improvement retailer’s founders said he’d donate some of his fortune to Trump’s reelection campaign."

News

"The Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus is an avowed supporter of US President Donald Trump, and that seems to be costing the home-improvement store at least some customers.

"The billionaire sparked an online backlash when he recently told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he planned to donate to the president’s 2020 reelection bid. Marcus said that while he didn’t “agree with every move” Trump had made, the president had still “produced more than anybody else.” He added: “If we look at this country, I would say that we are better off today than we were eight years ago or six years ago.”

"Marcus retired from Home Depot back in 2002, and the company did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment. The businessman, who Forbes reports is worth $5.9 billion, is no stranger to the realm of politics.

"He’s become an increasingly outspoken conservative figure, appearing once on Fox News to argue that Democratic politicians “don’t have any brains” for failing to support Trump’s tax plan.

"And when it comes to conservative causes, Marcus isn’t all talk. For years, the billionaire, along with the early Home Depot backer Ken Langone, have functioned as megadonors for the Republican Party. Marcus donated $7 million to Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

"But, nonetheless, the billionaire’s latest comments appear to have prompted calls on Twitter for a boycott." . . .

The Lost Left; An outbreak of the disturbed, depraved, and the dingbats in the Democratic Party.

Never has an American political party been so determined to cast itself as anti-American. It’s only a matter of time before the country gets to return the sentiment during election season next year.

The Spectator  "What an amazing last week we’ve had. It’s almost like half of America’s political class set out to prove George Orwell correct in every particular.
"Orwell, the author of 1984 and Animal Farm, the two most cogent takedowns of socialism ever written through the lens of fiction, famously said that “there is the horrible — the really disquieting — prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.”
"In America, too, as it turns out, because the prevalence of cranks among today’s Democrats, who are unquestionably socialist in their political orientation, last week became a critical mass.

"It wouldn’t be correct to judge where the week started, as every one of the Democrats’ unnerving errors built upon a previous gaffe. For example, there was Frederica Wilson, the abjectly, obscenely idiotic congresswoman from the Miami area, who threw a tantrum and demanded that people who make fun of members of Congress ought to be “prosecuted.”. . . 

Megan Rapinoe’s anthem protests hurt the fight for gender equity | Marc Thiessen
. . . "During the World Cup of Hockey in 2016, U.S. coach John Tortorella announced that “If any of my players sit on the bench for the national anthem, they will sit there the rest of the game.” Asked why, Tortorella told ESPN: “It is probably the most disrespectful thing you can do as a U.S. citizen.” He noted that “there are men and women that give their lives for their flag,” and those who have suffered “traumatic physical injuries, traumatic mental injuries.” Their service and sacrifice, Tortorella said, make it possible for athletes to play a game for a living. " . . .

Democrats Double Down On Hating America  . . . “ 'Detention camps are bad? Oh yeah, well I’ll raise you – now they’re concentration camps! And you’re racist!' ” . . .

Would President Joe Biden Become 25th Amendment Material?

Victor Davis Hanson

The epic hero Biden has repeatedly offered up fantasies in which he poses as a crusading avenger, either eager to beat up bullies or in fact as a veteran of such knight-in-shining-armor intercessions.He has now on two occasions mentioned Trump as just the sort of tormenter that Biden in his youth used to take behind the gym, and would thus “beat the hell out of him.”  . . .

"I speculate only because since January 2017 our popular culture and intelligentsia have suggested President Trump is crazy and should be removed under the 25th Amendment. Apparently, accusations about the mental health of presidents and would-be presidents are now legitimate political attack strategies under the new progressive rules.

"After all, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe once bragged that he tried with former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to remove a supposedly unhinged Trump. Democratic members of Congress called in a Yale psychologist, Bandy X. Lee, to brief them that such Ivy League experts had diagnosed Trump in absentia as certainly unhinged. (She later attempted to walk back those claims.) The 25th Amendment, along with impeachment, the ossified Logan Act, and the Emoluments Clause, have now been mainlined by progressives as the sort of natural suspicions we cast on an elected president of the opposite party.

"Yet, under these new progressive protocols, could a President Joe Biden be written off as delusional?

"Addled Biden?"Biden once suggested that George Bush get on TV after the 2008 meltdown in the manner that President Roosevelt had addressed the nation after the 1929 market crash: “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed.” Biden was referring to a time when neither FDR was president nor was television commercially available."  . . .

Victor Davis Hanson is an American military historian, columnist, former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He was a professor of classics at California State University, Fresno, and is currently the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author most recently of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict was Fought and Won (Basic Books).

CNN does ‘disservice to voters’ by naming Don Lemon debate moderator, critic says

Watching Don Lemon "arguing" in the video at the bottom brings to mind this argument in Monty Python, does it not?:

Fox News  "CNN announced on Monday that Don Lemon will follow in the footsteps of MSNBC’s far-left opinion host Rachel Maddow as a Democratic presidential primary debate moderator -- and one critic called the decision a "disservice to voters all across the political spectrum.”
"Lemon will join Dana Bash and Jake Tapper for the two-night event on July 30-31 from Detroit. Debate moderators are historically straight-news journalists, as opposed to partisan pundits, but CNN’s decision mirrors NBC’s strategy to allow Maddow to moderate last month’s Democratic Debate.

THIS IS CNN? PRIMETIME SHOWS FILLED WITH LIBERAL OPINION, NOT STRAIGHT NEWS AS NETWORK CLAIMS

"The New York Times reportedly forbids its reporters from appearing on both Maddow and Lemon’s programs, because they are considered too partisan even for the Times – which is often criticized for leaning left itself. Conservative strategist Chris Barron told Fox News that CNN’s decision is “a disservice to voters all across the political spectrum” because Lemon is so open about his own views.
“ 'They are more interested in the political version of a church revival than an actual debate,” Barron said.
"The far-left Maddow was front and center during NBC’s technical-issue-plagued debate and conservatives critics condemned her performance. BlazeTV White House correspondent Jon Miller told Fox News that Maddow “served up questions about her favorite conspiracy theories” that were “unbefitting of a news organization. ' ” . . .

Watch Lemon drown the conservative out. It appears to me to be, well, Python-esque. TD

Allie Long, Megan Rapinoe Drop American Flag During World Cup Celebration

The late-night talk show hosts will praise you for this, ladies.

Daily Caller
"U.S. women’s national soccer team members Allie Long and Megan Rapinoe stepped on an American flag after Long dropped it on the ground as they posed for post-game photos Sunday." . . .

Watch the Twitter video

Rapinoe

. . . "Benghazi hero John “TIG” Tiegen spotted the dropped flag and responded to the team via Instagram." . . .
. . . Crediting the original video to @Mikewishniausa, Tiegen added the caption, “What should be an amazing occurrence, is hijacked by the clown show to promote disrespect …” 
"Noting that the USWNT had likely given a briefing on proper flag etiquette, Tiegen continued, “I know dragging it on the ground and throwing it down like it’s a piece of paper isn’t part of that. It’s not hard to hand it off and celebrate. Your coaching staff or trainers are there to take it. Damn Amazing disrespect for a photo op. Thank you to I think @kelleyohara for running in there and picking it up.' ”

Yahoo Sports called Rapinoe "a national hero"

Rapinoe’s insults toward America are not edgy or a form of productive activism but simply demeaning to the people that live here and love it here. If Rapinoe feels differently, she’s free to move, but her decision to use her position to disparage her home country on an international stage is a disgrace.

 Kelley O’Hara RESCUES the American flag after teammate drops it during a World Cup victory dance 

Kelley O'Hara wins over the internet with US flag rescue, post-game kiss, locker room
celebration

Kelley O’Hara Saves Old Glory After Rapinoe, Teammates Drop American Flag

The ugly Americans

O'Hara

. . . "Will they continue to show disrespect towards the President and nation or will they attend a reception with Trump and most likely a McDonalds buffet.
"After their victory, Rapinoe and several teammates once again disrespected their country by throwing the American flag on the turf and walking on it, before Old Glory was rescued by teammate Kelley O'Hara*.
"Despite Rapinoe being the ‘star’ of the team on the field, off the field, O'Hara has won over millions of Americans after she recovered Rapinoe’s shoddy flag handling." . . .

*Spelling corrected by TD

Latest outrage: Air Conditioning Is Sexist!

Legal Insurrection

Deplorable!

"I honestly do not know where to start with this insanity. Penelope Green at The New York Times asked in a recent article if Americans need an air conditioner.

"The Atlantic staff writer Taylor Lorenz jumped onto this notion by declaring air conditioning is sexist because, of course, it is.

"Green noted in her article a study performed by Nature.com that stated “how building temperatures, once set to the comfort preferences of 1960s-era men in suits, disregard the ‘thermal comfort’ of female staffers.”

"However, Green pointed out that building managers control the temperatures, often relying on industry standards set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers. These standards suggest 67 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit.

"I give Green credit because she shows both sides of the story, including one business in Philadelphia that tried to go a summer without air conditioning, which failed because employees complained about the sweltering summer heat.

"Here is a significant portion of Green’s article (emphasis mine):" . . .

Democrats being Democrats; Why is this nation not outraged?

The Democrats’ Situational Racism  . . . "MSNBC regular and Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson, “related the flag to other symbols of hate such as the Nazi

swastika and burning crosses.” Why? Because the situation called for it. Anything to fan the flames of racism at a time when minority unemployment is at an all-time low in advance of a presidential election.

"Yet the situation was different just a few years ago when the left was celebrating the first black president. In 2013, behind Barack Obama at his second inaugural, flew not one, but two Betsy Ross flags." . . .

When you stand for nothing, it’s easy to live in the moment, from one situation to the next, outrage burning in the eyes of the beholder, regardless of the past. After Joe Biden, who’s next?

 A congresswoman sending paid staff to Mexico to teach illegals how to cheat their way into the US?  "If there's any question left about Democrats having a political interest in fuelling the border surge, read no farther than this shocking straight news item in the Washington Examiner:  . . ."

This is clearly a crime that the congresswoman must be held to account for.  If illegals can't be held responsible for crimes they commit, then maybe holding their sponsors to account should send the message.

 Ritual Suicide of the Democratic Party  . . . "Equal pay for totally different jobs! The Democrats raise high the banner of injustice and wave it enthusiastically.

Under [Warren's] proposed executive order, contractors would be barred from asking about past salaries and criminal records, and from using forced arbitration and noncompete clauses.

"It won’t be long before one of the Democratic contenders offers a proposal to require random hiring and pay for all private sector jobs. To which one might respond to the government: you go first."

Did You Know Democrats Are Packing Congressional Seats Via Millions Of Non-Citizen Votes?

A little sarcasm shouldn't hurt: The Democratic Clown Car Caravan Rolls On- Dispatches From The Campaign Trail  . . . "And finally, in a wide-ranging interview, Joe Biden said that Russian interference on his watch did not occur.  He stated he came to that conclusion after consulting with many world leaders including Margaret Thatcher and Charles de Gaulle.  He further noted that China was a big threat to the United States and things would be better of Mao Tse-Tung were removed from office."

Former DNC public relations consultant furious he was told to leave restaurant after berating diner in MAGA hat   . . . "A mere few years ago, I wouldn’t have thought it possible that anyone would see a hat on someone’s head and then behave so far outside the bounds of civility, of decency, of socially acceptable behavior. But the progressive/socialist/anarchist left has sunk to these lows in astounding numbers and with astonishing frequency over the past three or so years." . . .

We Were Told That Kaepernick Was Protesting Police Brutality, Not The Flag. Now The Truth Has Finally Come Out.

Daily Wire:  "There is almost nothing to say about the fact that Nike recalled a patriotic American flag shoe after Colin Kaepernick complained. It is so self-evidently absurd and disgraceful — such a cowardly surrender to political correctness — that analysis is rendered moot." . . .

. . . "Kaepernick, who started it all, said that he was trying to call attention to "police violence" and "systematic oppression." He and his fellow kneelers always insisted that this was not about the flag itself. Well, in case anyone was ever fooled by all of the misdirection, the truth should now be clear: It was indeed about the flag. It was always about the flag.

"Colin Kaepernick does not like this country. That much is clear, by now. He is rich and famous and free — all things that he would not be if he lived in any number of other countries around the globe — but his privilege has made him bitter to his core. And he is free to be bitter. He is free to hate the United States and its flag and all it stands for. But he should be honest about where he really stands (or kneels) on the issue.". . . 

Gold Star Mom Unloads On Colin Kaepernick In Emotional Speech

"When I look at this country today and I tell people, and I've wanted to say this loud so many times, Colin Kaepernick was getting paid $14 million dollars a year to throw a ball," Jacobs said. "My son died for $14,000 a year and he's given more than any football player, any athlete, has ever given."

More about Colin Kaepernick

https://grrrgraphics.com/

How Can Presidential Candidates Be So Silly?

George Will:

Many Democrats striving to replace Donald Trump are, while execrating him, paying him the sincerest form of flattery: imitation.

"If California senator Kamala Harris is elected president in 2020 and reelected in 2024, by the time she leaves office 114 months from now she might have a coherent answer to the question of whether Americans should be forbidden to have what 217 million of them currently have: private health insurance. Her 22 weeks of contradictory statements, and her Trumpian meretriciousness*  about her contradictions, reveal a frivolity about upending health care’s complex 18 percent of America’s economy. And her bumblings illustrate how many of the Democratic presidential aspirants, snug in their intellectual silos, have lost — if they ever had — an aptitude for talking like, and to, normal Americans.

"Seven days after announcing her candidacy in January, Harris, appearing on CNN, endorsed “Medicare for All” and was asked: So, people “who like their [private] insurance, they don’t get to keep it?” She answered: “The idea is that everyone gets access to medical care, and you don’t have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require. . . . Let’s eliminate all of that.” More government, less paperwork. Really.

"She subsequently, as the New York Times — not an unsympathetic auditor of her campaign — says, “waffled” regarding private insurance. But at the second Miami debate she raised her hand (“just as quickly as Mr. Sanders,” the Times reported) when a moderator asked: “Many people watching at home have health insurance through their employer. Who here would abolish their private insurance in favor of a government-run plan?” Harris also raised her hand just as quickly as Senator Elizabeth Warren had done the night before, who exclaimed, “I’m with Bernie.” Senator Bernie Sanders is the purest advocate of a government-only health care system." . . .

*In my eighty years of life, nobody but George Will has been seen to use this word. George is showing off again.

Democratic Candidates Aren’t on a Winning Track

Victor Davis Hanson

"Nearly all of them are running so hard to the left that the successful nominee will never be able to appear moderate."

"Presidential candidates from both parties usually sound hard-core in the primaries to appeal to their progressive or conservative bases. But for the general election, the nominees move to the center to pick off swing voters and centrist independents.
"Voters put up with the scripted tactic as long as a candidate had not gone too extreme in the primaries and endorsed positions too far out of the mainstream.
"A good example of this successful ploy was Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. In the primary against Hillary Clinton, Obama ran to her left. But he was still careful not to get caught on the record going too far left. That way, he was still able to tack to the center against John McCain in the general election.
"As a general election candidate, Obama rejected the idea of gay marriage. He blasted illegal immigration. He railed against deficit spending. And he went so far as to label then-President George W. Bush as “unpatriotic” for taking out “a credit card from the bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt.”
"The result was that Obama was elected. After taking office, in cynical fashion he endorsed gay marriage, ran up far more red ink than did Bush, offered blanket amnesties, and relaxed immigration enforcement." . . .

NRO contributor VICTOR DAVIS HANSON is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Case for Trump. @vdhanson