Who needs the NFL?

After watching Drew Brees verbally blasted by players across the League (and from other sports) for polite disagreement with kneeling and DeSean Jackson greeted with crickets by the same players for posting quotes attributed to Hitler...goodbye to the entire thing.

The kneeling issue was overblown by all sides, and social activism is every American’s right to pursue (within the law, of course). Criticism can be met with criticism, and that’s also part of the great value within free speech. The criticism isn’t the problem, or at least it’s not the real problem — it’s the reeking condescension and hypocrisy of these elite athletes and their leagues.

On one hand, they plan to roll out a season of lectures for its fans on racism and hate, and cast those who might have different points of view as quasi-racists or enemies. On the other hand, when another player engages in outright declarations of anti-Semitism — especially in regurgitating idiotic hoaxes and cheering on pseudo-Hitler — these same players are not only silent, they occasionally cheer it on. And the league itself, which has spent the last several years negotiating on just how much money they want to pour into the players’ social-justice causes, doesn’t even issue a peep about it. And let’s not forget about the NBA’s cowardly surrender to China on speaking truth to power, too.

“Anybody else feeling a loss of interest in the NFL as an institution? I know I am,” Smith concludes. So am I. When the league and its players want to address all forms of hate and intolerance, they can call me. As long as they’re giving a pass or actively cheering anti-Semitism, though, I have better uses of my time and money. See you in 2021 … maybe.

The "what if someone else said it" card can be overplayed, but let's be honest. If a white player on the Eagles had posted a quote associated with Hitler and offered praise for David Duke, his ass would be unemployed and unemployable.

And it's interesting that all of the white sports columnists who "bravely" joined the Brees pile-on are utterly mute towards Jackson's foray into Hitler-Meets-The-Black-Israelites.

Lest we forget, two people devoted to the Black Israelite thesis murdered Jews last year, making Jackson's citation of such sources much less than benign "oopsie" material.

And with the NFL's announcement of the two national anthems this year...Jason Whitlock points out the obvious problems with that.

If the NFL starts out its season with everyone standing for "Lift Every Voice" and sing the black national anthem, and then virtually everyone on the field taking a knee when the Star Spangled Banner plays, I think it's going to be -- if you remember the show "Happy Days," the jump the shark moment when it's like, okay, happy days is over. The NFL will run off a nice fat chunk of its audience, and will never be seen the same again, because of the failure of leadership throughout the NFL.

There will undoubtedly be a lot of people who will be so starved for team sports that they will muscle their way past their misgivings on all of that. But there will be quite a few who won't. And the odds of them coming back will be small.

Hey, I live in Metro Detroit. Our pro team is the butt of jokes...when it rises to mention at all. It has managed all of one playoff win in my 51 years on this planet.

I will have nothing to miss.

Uighur life in exile.

I am not the slightest fan of the Turkish strongman who is trying desperately to subvert what is left of the Republic of Turkey, but at least he is doing the right thing by taking in Uighur refugees from China. 

This essay offers a snapshot of a refugee neighborhood in Istanbul and the efforts to preserve the memories and folkways of a battered people. Preservation of culture is an act of resistance, as the experience of Iron Curtain Eastern Europe demonstrates. 

And said preservation can lead to a national resurrection, as that same experience also demonstrates.

 

The time has come: Woke whites must return to Europe.

Because their continued presence on this continent is not only hypocritical, too often their actions are a blight on innocent people's lives.

Too harsh? Not at all: a mostly white left-wing neighborhood in Minneapolis took a pledge to no longer summon the police as an act of "solidarity."

The result? A haven for rapists has sprung up at the local park.

And notably, at least one of the local whites felt guilty for summoning the police when would-be carjackers pointed a gun at him.

Really:

One man expressed regret for calling 911 after two armed teenagers had pointed a gun at him and demanded his car keys. After first justifying it, Mitchell Erickson told the NYT that it was he who had endangered their lives:

Two days after an initial conversation, his position had evolved. “Been thinking more about it,” he wrote in a text message. “I regret calling the police. It was my instinct but I wish it hadn’t been. I put those boys in danger of death by calling the cops.”

What about the fact that the boys had put his life in danger?

“Yeah I know and yeah it was scary but the cops didn’t really have much to add after I called them,” he replied. “I haven’t been forced to think like this before. So I would have lost my car. So what? At least no one would have been killed.”

Frankly, your white guilt isn't sufficient, Mr. Erickson.

You need to start making some real sacrifices. You still reap the benefits of your privilege by holding property on land stolen from the natives and benefiting from an economic system built on structural racial injustice.

Exhibit A: you hold a job that other people could do.

The time has come: quit your job, sign over the title to your car and deed your property to the victims of the collective racism of your people. Then immediately leave this land despoiled by your rapacious forebears, depart for your ancestral European homeland, and never return.

In other words, match your deeds to your words and truly atone. Otherwise, you're just another loud hypocrite looking to benefit from the system even as you claim to decry it.

Now, am I being satirical here in the sections between the italics and this sentence?

Well, yeah. But just barely. Once you consider all of the fiery indictments of America as inherently evil routinely chanted by woke white folks, rhetorically punching them in the face with the logical conclusions of their premises is essential.

But now it is more than gassy virtue signalling. If this ideology compels them to ignore rape happening right under their noses (sound familiar, fellow Catholics?) and decide against reporting armed violence, they are endangering everyone.

And frankly, there's more than a little racism inherent in this crap. Sometimes it's right out in the open.

Tyler Perry would be a good man in any point in American history.

But he's especially welcome in ours.

May God rest Secoriea Turner's soul and comfort her loved ones.

He's right--it would be far better if he could pay for Secoriea's college education.

Still, bearing a grim financial burden for a horrific death is no small thing.

A good, short vacation.

If a bad end. 

The good: the children were spoiled by their grandparents over the Fourth.

A heatwave stretches over the State, but the lake helped, as did good air conditioning.

A nice view of the lake.

My brother and I chipped in to get my Mom this lighthouse. A solar charger powers an LED light which offers a soft glow seen from indoors and out.

Mom feeds the local squirrels so that the birds get something to eat. Even the ones born this year have become quite "meh" about humans nearby.

Insolent, even.

The fishing off the dock is impressively easy. All catch-and-release for the kids, though Louis is itching to tangle with a pike.

I prepped for other options should the weather turn bad. The weather was reliably good--but the sunburns prompted a move indoors. Above is the Floating M2 Bradley In Space! called the Repulsor.

And here's a front view of the Wall of Guns, as it is sometimes known.

Now for the bad: it appears the transmission went out on the Ford Expedition on the way home yesterday. We were mostly home, close enough for a good friend to come up with her family van to transport everyone else and their luggage home while I waited for the wrecker. So everyone was and is safe.

The towing bill from I-75 between Detroit and Flint was $257. The almost-certain transmission replacement will be staggeringly higher. I might be wrong, and it might be something else other than the transmission. But it's a 2005 vehicle, and I have probably run out of luck.

Anthony Robinson.

The violence in American cities has exploded over the past three weekends, but this one struck me with grim force.

Remember his name in your prayers, along with his poor daughter Khloe.

In fact, keep all such victims of violence and their grieving families and friends in your prayers. The numbers are tragically growing.

Xi-tler's Pope.

Not that it took much prompting, but the pontiff continued his pattern of not speaking truth to leftist power.

In the latest Angelus address given by Pope Francis on July 5, he intentionally dropped a pre-written paragraph in reference to Hong Kong’s new national security law, which has drawn much international criticism.

According to Italian journalist Marco Tosatti, who reported the incident on his blog, shortly before the papal audience, journalists were advised that the Pope would not deliver remarks in reference to the situation in Hong Kong. No explanation was given by the Vatican for the last-minute change.

The text distributed to the journalists beforehand stated the Pope’s concern about recent developments in Hong Kong, saying,

“I hope therefore that all the people involved will know how to face the various problems with a spirit of far-sighted wisdom and authentic dialogue. This requires courage, humility, non-violence, and respect for the dignity and rights of all. I thus express the desire that societal freedom, and especially religious freedom, be expressed in full and true liberty, as indeed various international documents provide for it.”

The Vatican has become a most reliable lapdog for Sinofascism.

With each new example of mincing deference to Beijing, this unverified accusation gains more credibility.

I laughed out loud in realspace.

A friend of mine sent me this today.

The biggest problem with our Governor (apart from her endless mashing of the rule-by-decree button) is that her reopening "phases" are not grounded in actual metrics.

Not that any of her exercise of power bothers our comatose State Supreme Court, but that's a story for another day.

The Principate succeeded because it was popular. And it was popular in large measure because it relieved a lot of people from responsibility while leaving their elevated statuses largely intact.

Enjoy the sunset.

"Recontextualization."

Get used to that nasty little euphemism.

Boston is removing the city's Emancipation Memorial.

And if you thought it would end with Confederates.... it won't end.

The Cluster B histrionics being indulged here will just move to the next disordered grievance. And then the next. Then the next, ad infinitum.

And why not? There is no resistance and for a moment they get the buzz of minor celebrity and pretend heroism.

Here you go for the story, and the template for the future:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/07/01/us/boston-statue-removed-trnd/index.html

Memes!

Today, it's all about communists.

Sold out by "free" trade.

When the final chapter is written on the coronavirus era, there will be plenty of blame to go around.

First, and foremost will be the reigning communist tyrants in Beijing.

A close second will be the madhouse offshoring of vital American manufacturing to said communist tyrants.

The free trade idolators said that trading with China would make it a responsible member of the world community. It certainly made the communists and American corporations and outsourcing consultants richer than Croesus. But none of them are responsible for anything save untold misery, either through lost jobs or lost lives.

China’s move toward manufacturing dominance began more than 30 years ago when the country adopted a series of economic reforms. Congress granted China permanent normal trade relations status in 2000, and in 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization. As additional trade restrictions were lifted, China attracted new investors and companies looking to lower manufacturing costs. 

U.S. companies were among those setting up shop in China, including mask makers 3M and Honeywell.

By 2011, China’s exports had grown by more than 500% while manufacturing employment in the U.S dropped by almost 20%, at least two million jobs. China became the biggest supplier of imports to the U.S., about $452 billion worth in 2019. 

“America’s mask makers left America in an uncoordinated mass exodus,” said Mike Bowen, CEO of Texas-based Prestige Ameritech, one of the nation’s few domestic mask manufacturers. 

Today, fewer than 10% of the masks used in the U.S. are made here. And China makes almost half the world’s masks, gowns and gloves and other PPE. 

So, when China nationalized its factories in February and directed all mask production to domestic use, that left the U.S. and much of the world in a quandary.

"Quandry" is one way to describe having your clockweights in a vice, I suppose.

And no, the Chinese are not behaving any more responsibly. To the contrary.

Furthermore, a so-called great nation that cannot make basic painkillers to treat patients is not great.

But I'm sure that Joe Biden has a plan to make us more independent and bring jobs home.

Unlike what happened during the Administration he was Veep for.