This is not an article about who is right and who is wrong. This is an article about who is winning and who is losing.

And as someone who is a) not a fan of Trump (to use mild understatement) and b) believes that there are real racial issues that need to be addressed in this country, it is nonetheless obvious that Trump has won this dumb NFL national anthem protest battle decisively in the hearts and minds of the middle-of-the-road voters who decide presidential elections.

Watching this bizarre spectacle unfold has been surreal, from a political perspective. The NFL’s image has been tarnished a tad of late, but it is still the undisputed king of sports in America. Its ratings have slipped, but it is still the envy of every other sport and television property in the country, especially since live sports are the only programs that can’t effectively be watched on DVR with commercials getting skipped, and advertisers know it. And even though people have complained about the league, by and large a huge portion of the country still loves their team and their players.

Trump, on the other hand, is widely unpopular. Thanks to a recent bump caused by favorable reaction to his handling of multiple hurricane disasters, Trump is back to hovering around the 40 percent approval range, which is disastrous for a president whose presidency is not yet nine months old. Trump started his presidency with a historically shallow public honeymoon and things almost immediately got worse.

It seems incredible that Trump could pick a fight with the NFL and come out ahead, but that’s exactly what he’s done. And he did it by rope-a-doping the NFL into engaging him on the one territory where the NFL was sure to get massacred: by poking at the festering sore opened by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick last year.

Trump knew that the country — even those who don’t watch football — was simmering with resentment over the relatively small number of NFL players who were unwisely choosing to air their grievances during the national anthem. He understood that even those who might otherwise be sympathetic with the players were disgusted with the way they were choosing to protest, perceiving it as a slight against the entire country, including especially veterans, the active military, and first responders.

Some people (apparently including most of the NFL and its owners) do not understand the concept of the sacred. They do not understand that, to many people, how you say something is as important or more important than what you say. As one example, many people are perfectly fine with criticism of the Catholic church, but if you do it by dipping a crucifix in a vat of urine, even many non-Catholics will react with disgust and rejection. Failing to respect the national anthem and the flag is perceived by many as equivalent sacrilege. For those people, who probably comprise the vast majority of this country, there can be no willingness to consider the players’ message as long as they are using the anthem and the flag as their method of protest.

He also knew that the NFL players who were not participating in the protest were still insanely protective of their teammates’ right (and their own) to participate in a dumb, counterproductive protest. The average NFL player has been coddled since youth due to their freakish athletic ability and constantly treated like a Special Person who is entitled to do or say basically what they want. There is no surer way to goad a professional athlete into doing something than to suggest that they ought to not be allowed to play their sport if they do it.

Trump also knew that huge portions of the country was sick of the so-called thoughtful analysis and protest-feting that all of the sports media and virtually all the political media have engaged in since Kaepernick began this slow-motion debacle. And he knew about the latent jealousy and resentment many people have toward professional athletes, who get paid millions of dollars to live a life that everyone wants (or thinks they want).

And so, Trump exercised his talent to tap perfectly into the zeitgeist of the moment and say what a lot of America has been dying to hear for months: These pampered athletes ought to shut up and stand respectfully for the national anthem, or their teams should fine or suspend them.

Whether it’s right or wrong for the president of the United States to be saying such things about private companies is completely beside the point. Trump’s comments tapped perfectly into the raw emotions of middle America and gave them voice. They were both crude and perfect, just like David Ortiz famously booming “THIS IS OUR F***ING CITY” on live television from Fenway Park after the Boston Marathon bombing. The people who tsk’ed Ortiz for dropping an F-bomb in prime time were so irrelevant that Ortiz didn’t even get fined by the FCC.

The same is true, from a political standpoint, for the critics of Trump’s remarks. Yes, they were probably not proper, strictly speaking, from the president of the United States. No, the average person does not care.

The players and owners of the NFL, however, are decidedly NOT the average person. Trump could not have more perfectly aimed jabs at their sense of entitlement if he tried. Overnight, he somehow convinced almost the entire NFL to make themselves wildly unpopular in the name of responding to some tweets.

Think, for a moment, about the stupidity of the message sent by players who protested for the first time yesterday: The actual issues that Kaepernick protested weren’t enough to make you join the protest, but some tweets by Trump were? Racial injustice is fine with you, but you simply can’t support your country while the president is tweeting mean things about football players? As my friend, Caleb Howe wrote this morning:

Then there’s the NFL players who are taking a knee, and their supporters on social media. They are angry about President Trump tweeting about them. Why? This is what you wanted, isn’t it? National attention, a huge clash of points of view? What do liberals always pine for? Oh right, a “national conversation.” Well … you’ve got one.

Now that you have it, wouldn’t it be logical to talk about your issue? The one that was the reason Colin Kaepernick gave for starting this protest in the first place? I would think that. I would think “well, I’ve got the mic now, so I can talk about this thing that is the reason why I even did this.” But of course, that’s not what people are talking about, is it? Instead it’s all about Trump.

How dare Trump tweet? How dare he hate protests? How dare he think people should be fired?

What a wasted moment…

Trump gave this protest, on a silver platter, the chance to be about the exact thing the original participants wanted to talk about, the very reason for the protest in the first place, and in response the left has made it about protesting the fact that Trump is president. Or the fact that he tweeted. That’s just … dumb. …

But we still aren’t actually talking about race. So the conversation you wanted that Trump gave you is being squandered on a conversation about Trump. In which case I guess it’s not about having trouble accepting it when you get what you want. It’s more like not knowing what to do with it. The proverbial dog catching the mail truck. Smooth.

This is exactly correct. And what’s worse (for the players) is that they are definitely going to lose this fight with Trump, and it won’t be close. Here in Nashville where I live, the Tennessee Titans suicidally decided as a team yesterday to not take the field for the anthem. Maybe that will play in Seattle (the Seahawks likewise refused to take the field) or to some lesser extent in Pittsburgh, but here the backlash has already begun. While driving my son to school on Interstate 65 this morning, I saw numerous Titans bumper stickers visibly defaced on cars. I also saw several new stickers I’d not seen before — the NFL logo with a red “no smoking” circle imposed over it.

It’s as if Trump dared the entire NFL — from the ownership on down — to intentionally piss off America and make really sure everyone knew they were doing it just because they hate Trump, and the NFL obliged.

Regardless of who is right or who is wrong, it’s not hard to predict how this particular scrum will end. Trump’s approval rating will probably go up another 5 points in spite of the fact that the wall still isn’t being built, the Obamacare repeal is circling the drain for the last time, and tax reform appears stalled. The NFL will probably suffer another ratings drop and more lagging ticket sales.

The NFL got rope-a-doped. And who knows if and when they’ll get up from this beating.

via TheBlaze.com – Stories

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She’s commenting on North Korea being added to the travel ban list. Um, do you suppose that there’s a reason that North Koreans aren’t coming to the United States? Like maybe their crazy leader wouldn’t let them leave? HT: Twitchy

via Weasel Zippers

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Real World

Childcare Workers Under Fire for Sick Thing They Did to Little Boy With Autism

By Davis
on September 25, 2017 at 9:37am

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Child abuse is one of the most horrific, disturbing and cruel evils in this world. Although wicked wherever it occurs, abuse from those entrusted to care and help children is even more disturbing.

A video from a daycare in Winter Haven, Florida, has gone viral as it shows two daycare workers taunting and abusing an 8-year-old child with autism, WNYW reported.

In the video, which was shot by one of the workers, an African-American woman, identified as Kaderrica Smith, can be seen throwing a backpack at the child who is hiding under a desk. She even laughs when he cries “ow!” after the backpack hit him.

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WTSP reported that the video was originally uploaded to the popular video-sharing app “Snapchat.”

You can watch the video by clicking here. WARNING: Content is disturbing.

The woman also causes the boy to fall down later in the video after performing a “leg sweep.” He lands on his back, and she and her partner, identified as Alexus Henderson, begin cackling again.

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“They have had the training for the de-escalation of an autistic child, and then they treat the child like that?” Winter Haven Police Department Chief Charlie Bird stated. “There is no excuse.”

Thankfully these two sadistic human beings have since been arrested. Smith and Henderson turned themselves over to the police Thursday night.

Both have been banned from contact with children, including Smith’s three children. While Henderson did not actually abuse the child (at least not in the video) she is being accused of not lifting a finger to stop Smith.

The Washington Post reported that police were informed of the video on Sept. 1, and in an initial interview neither Smith nor Henderson expressed any remorse over what they did. In fact, they insisted they had done nothing wrong.

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These people are truly disturbed. Hopefully they are sent to jail for a long time so they’ll never think about carrying out such cruel actions again.

It takes a special type of evil to pick on a child with autism, and the fact that these women showed no remorse for their actions shows just how twisted they really are.

Share this story on Facebook and Twitter with your thoughts on what punishment should be handed out to these workers.

via Conservative Tribune

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GOP Senator and outsourcing-advocate Sen. Thom Tillis will introduce legislation on Monday offering citizenship to more than 2. 5 million illegal immigrants who gain jobs, university places or military slots sought by young Americans, according to the McClatchy news service.

The legislation is being backed by Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, despite broad public opposition to cheap-labor amnesties, and would allow the 2.5 million Democratic-leaning illegals to become citizens in 10 years.

The bill reflects Tillis’ hard-nosed push for greater use of foreign workers, in both the blue-collar H-2B program and the white-collar H-1B program. Many North Carolina companies, such including universities, are importing foreigners for white-collar jobs sought by young American graduates. In 2016, for example, companies in Charlotte, N.C., asked for almost 2,200 H-1B visas to import white-collar outsourcing workers. Tillis has repeatedly said he wants to let companies hire more cheap-labor blue-collar and white-collar contract workers. He was quoted by an Indian newspaper saying that any foreigners who get an advanced degree in the United States should be allowed to become citizens and compete against Americans for jobs.

Before being elected in 2006, he worked as a manager at IBM and at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Both firms are heavily involved in the white-collar outsourcing business.

A July poll showed Tillis’ approval as low as 29 percent in his home state, according to McClatchy. Tillis is up for reelection in 2020. Lankford was elected in 2016, so he will not face the voters until 2022.

A rival amnesty proposal, which is dubbed the Dream Act, is being pushed by the Democratic leadership. It would offer fast-track citizenship to 3.3 million younger illegals in as little as five years, and allow the new citizens to win green cards for their at-home relatives. The 3.3 million number includes the roughly 690,000 current beneficiaries of the expiring “DACA” amnesty.

The Lankford-Tillis legislation does not require funds for a border wall, and it does not implement any of the wage-boosting immigration-cutbacks which are included in the popular, wage-boosting RAISE Act, which was drafted Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and Georgia Sen. David Perdue, and is backed by President Donald Trump.

According to McClatchy:

Sen. Thom Tillis will introduce his “conservative Dream Act” on Monday that would provide a pathway to citizenship for as many as 2.5 million young undocumented immigrants, but one that is long and involves “extreme vetting.”

The North Carolina Republican and cosponsor James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, will pitch the plan as “merit-based” relief that must be earned — and, critically, not “amnesty,” according to Republican talking points obtained by McClatchy. But unlike other merit-based immigration proposals that limit new immigrants from entering the country based on their job skills, this proposal would limit who can remain in the country based on their years of American education, work experience or military service.

The amnesty legislation included many apparent tests, steps, and requirements for the illegal immigrants to help counter the public’s election-tested opposition to amnesty. However, the McClatchy report does not say if these tests are different from normal immigration reviews, it does not provide details on which agency will oversee the tests, and it does not say if illegals who fail the tests will be sent home.

According to the report:

All applicants will have to pass a medical examination and be “extreme vetted.” The vetting will include three separate rounds of security and background checks to ensure they have no criminal history and pose no national security threat. The first check would happen when the immigrant enters the program followed by a second check after five years. The third check comes after 15 years, if and when the immigrant applies to become a citizen.

The McClatchy report did not offer any expected price tag for the Tillis bill. However, Breitbart has calculated that cost of the Dream Act cost $115 billion in the first ten years, just for Obamacare costs. Costs would rise further when the illegals say on Obamacare, and when they sponsor their foreign relations to become U.S. citizens.

The Tillis-Lankford bill is based on the Recognizing America’s Children (RAC) Act, introduced by Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo. According to McClatchy:

The proposal would grant high school graduates without a serious criminal record conditional immigration status for a five-year period. During that time, if they earn a higher-education degree, serve in the military or stay employed, they could apply for permanent residency and, eventually, citizenship.

The Curbelo bill is lauded by the industry-boosted Niskanen Center, which strongly supports companies’ easy use of foreign workers. The center claims Curbelo’s matching legislation would offer citizenship to 2.5 million illegals. The extra workers would expand the size of the economy by $79 billion after ten years, according to the center, which does not say if the extra labor will help employed and unemployed Americans win higher wages and salaries.

The McClatchy report also says the TIllias-Lankford legislation is backed by the New American Economy business group. Three members of the group’s six-member leadership were Democratic politicians, and the other three are the chairmen of  Marriott Hotels, Walt Disney, and News Corp.

Four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs. However, the government imports roughly 1 million legal immigrants to compete against Americans for jobs.

The government also hands out almost 3 million short-term work permits to foreign workers. These permits include roughly 330,000 one-year OPT permits for foreign graduates of U.S. colleges, roughly 200,000 three-year H-1B visas for foreign white-collar professionals, and 400,000 two-year permits to DACA illegals.

That Washington-imposed policy of mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.

Americans tell pollsters that they strongly oppose amnesties and cheap-labor immigration, even as most also want to favor legal immigrants, and many even sympathize with illegals.

Amid the huge inflow of new workers, wages for men have remained flat since 1973, and the percentage of working Americans has declined steadily for the last few decades.

 

 

 

 

via Breitbart News

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via Weasel Zippers

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Germany went all in accepting refugees from the Middle East and other war-torn regions of the world. The nation took in nearly 900,000 in 2015 alone, The Washington Post reported. In just two years, some 1.2 million poured in.

Now a new report shows very few of the newcomers bothered to get a job — or were hired by German businesses. Just 34,000 refugees — or 2.8% — who streamed into Germany in the last two years have managed to get a job, the U.K.’s Express reports.

The numbers apply to refugees mostly from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea.

“If we manage to get 50 percent of them into work which pays for their lives in five years, that’d certainly be a success,” said Joachim Möller, director of the government’s Institute for Labour Research told the Express.

“But it would be an illusion to believe that we will manage to find jobs for a decent proportion of refugees in well-paid industry jobs like car manufacturing.”

This means the burden of feeding, housing and caring for them will continue to soar into the billions and fall upon the German taxpayer.

One bright side is that the crisis has created an estimated 60,000 jobs for Germans in social work, teaching and in security for the numerous asylum centres around the country.

Meanwhile, the Gatestone Institute reported that “authorities in Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany, have begun confiscating private dwellings to ease a housing shortage — one that has been acutely exacerbated by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow more than two million migrants into the country in recent years.”

City officials have been seizing commercial properties and converting them into migrant shelters since late 2015, when Merkel opened German borders to hundreds of thousands of migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Now, however, the city is expropriating residential property units owned by private citizens.

In an unprecedented move, Hamburg authorities recently confiscated six residential units in the Hamm district near the city center. The units, which are owned by a private landlord, are in need of repair and have been vacant since 2012. A trustee appointed by the city is now renovating the properties and will rent them — against the will of the owner — to tenants chosen by the city. District spokeswoman Sorina Weiland said that all renovation costs will be billed to the owner of the properties.

Over the weekend, Merkel was re-elected as chancellor, which means Germans must be OK with the influx.

via Daily Wire

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via Conservative Tribune

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<p>In Sunday’s <em>New York Times</em>, the paper’s departing prophet of environmental doom, er reporter, Justin Gillis answered 17 questions under the heading “Your Questions About Climate Change, Answered.” Here’s a slice of Gillis’s confidently alarmist Q&A with himself, with leading questions answered with unjustified certitude — just like in his previous “climate change” articles. He got really apocalyptic with his dire prophecies: "If greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, scientists say, the global warming could ultimately exceed 8 degrees Fahrenheit, which would undermine the planet’s capacity to support a large human population."</p>

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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Yesterday’s New York magazine had the best summary of the state of the Trump-Russia collusion investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller yet written. It was contained in a single paragraph buried deep in an article with no other surprises so you have to look for it. Yet despite having to wade through material which basically tells us what we already know about that investigation, that one paragraph is so stunning in its revelation amid an otherwise routine summary of what Mueller is possibly up to, that it hits the reader like a hard slap across the face.

Before reaching that revelatory paragraph, New York magazine correspondent Cristian Farias reminds us that it is quite extraordinary that a private citizen, Paul Manafort, was secretly surveilled twice via FISA warrants. Uh, yeah, it was stunning and it also confirms that President Donald Trump was almost certainly right in his claim that Trump Tower was wiretapped. However, we have known this for over a week. 

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Farias also lets us know that it would probably be wise for other possible targets of the Mueller investigation to obtain lawyers even if they have nothing to hide. Yup, good advice but just as one is about to doze off from this story seeming to go nowhere, Farias suddenly stuns us with this shocking paragraph that gets right to the heart of the matter:

One individual who is familiar with an aspect of the Mueller inquiry but asked to not be named told New York that, unlike other federal probes that he’s seen in action, where prosecutors build their cases from clear allegations, this one feels different. “This is a backward investigation,” the individual said. “You don’t have a crime. You’re searching. And so you’re not really sure exactly what you’re searching for. So you start asking around and you see what comes up. And you start creating a paradigm and you see what else comes up and figure out at some point whether or not there’s a crime.”

Got that? This is a “backward investigation” where “you don’t have a crime” so “you’re searching.” Oh, and you aren’t “really sure what you’re searching for” so you just “start asking around and see what comes up.” In fact you have to figure out “whether or not there is a crime.”

Does this “backward investigation” not sound exactly like a perfect description of a fishing expedition? Every correspondent covering the Mueller investigation should print out that revelatory paragraph from New York magazine, laminate it, and carry it around at all times as a reminder as to what this Mueller investigation is all about…a fishing expedition.

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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<p>In the wake of the latest NFL protests, CBS journalist James Brown on Monday praised Colin Kaepernick as a “bridge builder” and someone who deserves some “credit.” Brown appeared on <em>CBS This Morning </em>to cheer, “He’s committed, he’s put his money where his mouth. Nearly a million through community efforts to be a bridge builder.” </p>

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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