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2017 Trump Presidency Thread

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alasdairm said:
so then tune in 4 minutes later? you act like you have no control and this stuff is being forced down your throat...

alasdair
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No, I just stopped watching NFL altogether. Apparently I'm not the only one:

http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/22/i...-the-stadium-was-for-thursday-night-football/

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well, a week 3, thursday night rams/49ers game is hardly a marquee matchup in the nfl so using that as a yardstick for nfl attendance generally seems a little skewed.

related reading: Trump's Mostly False claim that NFL ratings are 'way down'

Our ruling

Trump said "NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country."

Ratings were down 8 percent in 2016, but experts said the drop was modest and in line with general ratings for the sports industry. The NFL remains the most watched televised sports event in the United States.

Ratings in 2017 so far suggest a similar year-on-year drop, but experts say it’s too early to tell, and external factors like Hurricane Irma, which coincided with the season’s first week, may help explain the drop.

NFL game attendance dropped slightly from 2016 to 2017, and rose from 2015 to 2016.

As for political motivation, there’s little evidence to suggest people are boycotting the NFL. Most of the professional sports franchises are dealing with declines in popularity.

We rate this claim Mostly False.
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alasdair
 
Trump is always saying shit that is either deceptive or totally wrong and acting like its gospel. He acts like if he hears it somewhere, sometime, and it's what he wants to have happened then it must have happened. Something that continues to alarm me is it often feels like someone needs to go tell trump "hey, you do know you won right? We can stop campaigning now, you're president".
 
post hoc? maybe.

it's interesting that trump was handed a crystal-clear, golden opportunity to unequivocally condemn white supremacists and chose not to. now a bunch of (mostly black) football players protest respectfully and he's all over criticising them.

draw your own conclusions.

anybody care to answer:

alasdairm said:
so, if marching is bad. if assembling is bad. if quietly kneeling is bad. what is the 'good' way for a black man to protest? what use is a protest that is so antiseptic it gets no attention?
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alasdair
 
^thats a great point. The white man really needs to understand what is like for those non-whites for a minute. Look from their perspective and see how much inequality exists between how whites can act and how blacks can act.

Things have to be called as what they are.
Maybe it would have being better if man had being colour blind.
 
alasdairm said:
so, if marching is bad. if assembling is bad. if quietly kneeling is bad. what is the 'good' way for a black man to protest? what use is a protest that is so antiseptic it gets no attention?
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Nobody is saying they can't protest. But fans can also protest by not going to the games.

Celebrities infusing politics into their profession is one of the dumbest, most career-destroying thing they can do
 
Fresco said:
Nobody is saying they can't protest. But fans can also protest by not going to the games.
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of course.

i read this on facebook just now:

michael sand said:
I’ve seen a lot of posts over the last 24 hours regarding “respecting the flag” and what that means…and how athletes who use their public forum to voice dissent are somehow “unpatriotic”. I want to offer a different opinion.

My father is buried at the foot of the flagpole in Golden Gate National Cemetery. He landed at Normandy, fought at the Battle of the Bulge and liberated Nazi camps in Germany. His enemy was fascism. I served as a Green Beret in the early 1970s (pretty sure you all know what that entails). Our enemy at the time was communism. My son is currently a serving officer in the Army, who on his dress blues wears the Bronze Star he was awarded during a year-long tour in Afghanistan. His enemy is and was the Taliban and the threat of terrorism.

Three generations of my family, serving the USA, in harms’ way. Three vastly different enemies, but enemies who shared one common trait. ALL of them stifle free speech. All of them bully, degrade and terrorize those who hold opposing views and who peacefully express them. All of them are intolerant and demand “loyalty” to the leader.

I can tell you, speaking for three generations of my family, it is PRECISELY for men like Kaepernick, and his right to peacefully protest injustice, that we were willing to serve. There is NOTHING more respectful of our country than living up to its ideals. There is nothing more patriotic than to say “I’m concerned with injustice, and will use my position to try and address it.”

Want to know what’s unpatriotic? Using your white privilege to avoid serving, citing “bone spurs in the heel” while playing varsity tennis at college while others went. Want to know what is antithetical to American values? Using the most powerful pulpit in the land to incite violence – against ANYONE. Want to define disgraceful behavior? Denigrating a man like Senator John McCain’s service and heroism while you sat home.

Want to respect the American flag? Then respect the ideals for which it stands. Bullying language and calling peaceful protesters “sons of bitches” who should be fired aren’t among them.
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indeed.

alasdair
 
Susan Collins just announced a no vote on ACA repeal. It's officially dead unless they flip another vote. Big emberassing defeat for Trump. Biggly indeed
 
Fresco said:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-fan-burns-1000-merchandise-NFL-protests.html
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from that piece: "My great uncles bones are lying in the bottom of Pearl Harbour [sic] for this country, for the flag, for your freedom to play in the NFL and to say whatever you want to say."

exactly! he seems to understand in theory yet not be able to handle it in practice. i find a lot of right-leaners struggling this this. it's called paying lip service to an ideal.

also, i am not sure what signal burning $1000 worth of merch that you have already paid for sends but i fully support his right to do it :)

alasdair
 
alasdairm said:
from that piece: "My great uncles bones are lying in the bottom of Pearl Harbour [sic] for this country, for the flag, for your freedom to play in the NFL and to say whatever you want to say."

exactly! he seems to understand in theory yet not be able to handle it in practice
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You took what he said out of context, he then goes on to say: 'But you do not disrespect the flag'....etc.

So he draws the line at disrespecting the flag (and I assume the anthem as well)
 
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This whole NFL thing is such a distraction from real issues going on. Trump is trying to use it as a distraction from the scandals eating up his administration. This is turning into the most scandal ridden presidency of our time. And the first year isn't even over! Trump is in danger of becoming the most reviled president in history and that is amazing.
 
(See my post above on Trump failing as football franchise owner.)

President Trump who has proven a better politician than he was a football franchise owner has many, many, many ideas about the way the business of football should be run today.

Trump, who boasts friends and political allies among NFL ownership, wanted people to know how he would handle the thorny issue of black players kneeling in protest of police brutality during the playing of the national anthem before games.
.............

It was just last week when [Trump had a] remarkable resurgence in popular opinion since its low-water mark in August following the murder of a woman protesting a white supremacist rally.

Heading into one of the most consequential weeks of his presidency so far with only days to pass key parts of his beleaguered legislative agenda, Trump could boast a surge in popularity, an effective leadership team at his White House, bipartisan cooperation on key measures and further cemented status as a world leader.

It was so good, it was like he couldn’t stand it.

Through the course of one pointless controversy, Trump has managed to convince many black Americans that the things said about Trump in the wake of the white supremacist murder were actually true.

The president has also managed to make many millions of football fans miserable by turning what is supposed to be a pleasant Sunday distraction into political theater and did so with no power to actually address the problems of which he complained.

But most consequentially, Trump also reminded Republicans wondering whether to jump off the cliff with Trump on health insurance, taxes and other issues that he is not only mercurial but also willing to sacrifice progress on important issues over distractions.

When trolling jocks takes precedence over repealing health insurance, even briefly, it’s a sign to lawmakers that the boom and bust cycle of Trumpism is with them still.
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Suprisingly, Fox News
 
Fresco said:
You took what he said out of context, he then goes on to say: 'But you do not disrespect the flag'....etc.

So he draws the line at disrespecting the flag (and I assume the anthem as well)
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right. it's my point exactly.

he talks about the importance of rights and freedom yet the moment something a little hard to take comes along, that all goes out of the window.

i've said it before, there are people who seem to support the idea of these freedoms in principle but, when a hard case comes along, that all falls apart. i've said it before and i'll say it again, it's the difficult cases that make these ideas worth anything at all.

it's like free speech. it's the easiest thing in the world to believe in free speech when somebody's saying a bunch of stuff you believe in. the monologue at the end of the american president says it far better than i can:

"You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."

so it is with criminals. it's easy to talk about due process and innocence-until-proven-guilty when somebody's stolen a pack of smokes. it only becomes truly meaningful when you extend the same rights to the guy who assaults and brutally murders children. or carries out a terrorist act against the very country which extends him due process.

so it is with flag burning and other controversial - and, to you, disrespectful - forms of protest. some think it's lily-livered, pinko communism. another way of looking at it is that it's the very definition of freedom and patriotism.

talking about the importance of freedom then getting bent out of shape when somebody does it in a way that you don't like is called paying lip service...

alasdair
 
alasdairm said:
also, i am not sure what signal burning $1000 worth of merch that you have already paid for sends but i fully support his right to do it :)

alasdair
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Fresco said:
^^^^^ but isn't the guy who burned the NFL shirts also entitled to his own freedom of speech and freedom of expression??
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Apparently, According to Ali™©

---------------

Interesting that linking arms is okay, according to Trump, but not kneeling.

Mostly black players are taking a knee, and it's a mix of all colors linking arms.

This difference could be because either:

1) white players feel that they they are showing solidarity without trying to equate their own knowledge of the struggles of black athletes.

2) or the whole team couldn't form a line that long down the field due to a regulation or restrictions?

I'm also not sure what other people of color NFL players are doing.

Anyone?

AYxf14a_d.jpg


(Above and below) September 24, 2017; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Indianapolis Colts players kneel during the playing of the National Anthem before the game against the Cleveland Browns at Lucas Oil Stadium. Photo by Brian Spurlock/USA TODAY Sports/Reuters

NT2sx4L_d.jpg


Check out the guns! They aren't even flexing. Ahem.
 
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alasdairm said:
right. it's my point exactly.

he talks about the importance of rights and freedom yet the moment something a little hard to take comes along, that all goes out of the window.

i've said it before, there are people who seem to support the idea of these freedoms in principle but, when a hard case comes along, that all falls apart. i've said it before and i'll say it again, it's the difficult cases that make these ideas worth anything at all.

it's like free speech. it's the easiest thing in the world to believe in free speech when somebody's saying a bunch of stuff you believe in. the monologue at the end of the american president says it far better than i can:

"You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."

so it is with criminals. it's easy to talk about due process and innocence-until-proven-guilty when somebody's stolen a pack of smokes. it only becomes truly meaningful when you extend the same rights to the guy who assaults and brutally murders children. or carries out a terrorist act against the very country which extends him due process.

so it is with flag burning and other controversial - and, to you, disrespectful - forms of protest. some think it's lily-livered, pinko communism. another way of looking at it is that it's the very definition of freedom and patriotism.

talking about the importance of freedom then getting bent out of shape when somebody does it in a way that you don't like is called paying lip service...

alasdair
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Bravo! Well said.

That Fox news article is interesting as well. Frankly it's a good thing Trump is willing to squander his political capital so freely as it protects us from his most idiotic policies.
 
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