A Townhall Campaign Event

This one in Navasota, Texas.  Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for Senator from Texas Beto O’Rourke is running against first-term incumbent Republican Ted Cruz, and O’Rourke had his townhall event at the VFW hall in Navasota.

This is what drew my eye to what would otherwise have been a rather ordinary campaign event.  VFW Post #4006 Commander Carl Dry:

[T]hey wanted to take the flags down, I didn’t only say no, I said hell no, you don’t take the flags off the wall. I can’t believe any American would ask us to do that and I don’t know why he wanted them down or what he was going to put up instead.

Yeah.  Why on earth would anyone claiming to want to represent Texans want to take American and Texas flags down from the VFW hall’s walls?

O’Rourke is making a habit of being contemptuous of our nation’s flag; now he objects to our State’s flag and those of the other States, too?  Just who does O’Rourke really represent?

Another Miss

This time by The Wall Street Journal.  In an op-ed about the coward’s piece in The New York Times (if that individual actually exists, otherwise it’s the cowardice of the NYT editorial staff), the WSJ closed with this remark.

The tragedy of this Presidency is that his rants and insults—even toward people who work for him—threaten to overwhelm his policy achievements.

This is true only because the persons of the press choose to enable that. It’s their conscious editorial choice to give emphasis to President Donald Trump’s rants and insults over his policy efforts and achievements. It’s their carefully deliberated editorial choice to give primacy to form over substance.

Mind Your Place

Ken Harrelson, a broadcaster for Chicago’s White Sox baseball team and himself a some-time baseball player, thinks basketball player LeBron James should just shut up and play.

Well I used to watch LeBron [James] but no more. I wish these guys would keep their nose out of politics and just play because people didn’t come to hear their opinions on politicians[.]

Because everyone should just mind his place.

This stinks.  It’s of a piece with the Left’s identity politics: blacks are required to vote a particular way, women are only allowed specific opinions, whites have privilege, and on and on.  It’s the return of segregation, only it’s political segregation rather than physical, and political segregation doesn’t even pretend to be equal while separate.

There’s much with which I disagree in James’ commentary, but his status as a professional basketball player no more disqualifies him from commenting on political matters, or any other subject, than does my status as a writer qualify me to comment.

Oh, and on the subject of political commentary by sports figures, maybe Harrelson should heed his own advice and stick to calling baseball games.  He’s is, after all, “just” a sports figure like James.

Or not.  Because sports figures really do get to comment on politics.

An Interview Ducked

The New Yorker invited Steve Bannon to a panel debate, its New Yorker Festival.  Then, after “public criticism,” the mag disinvited him.  Other scheduled participants also…objected.

Shortly after Mr Bannon was announced as a guest, several film stars, producers and comedians declared on Twitter that they didn’t want to be on a schedule with the former White House senior adviser. Actor Jim Carrey, comedy producer Judd Apatow, and comedian John Mulaney all backed out, citing Mr Bannon’s participation as the primary reason.

New Yorker editor David Remnick made the laughable claim that

This…[is] a question of putting pressure on a set of arguments and prejudices that have influenced our politics and a President still in office[.]

From that, Remnick claimed, the Festival was not an appropriate venue for engaging Bannon.

What abject cowards are Remnick, Carrey, Apatow, and Mulaney. What better way to show up Bannon, to put[] pressure on a set of arguments and prejudices that have influenced our politics and a President still in office, than to debate him and expose the foolishness of his positions and those arguments and prejudices?

They’ve exposed their own prejudices, and they’ve shown they have no arguments to make to counter Bannon.

Nike

Nike makes shoes, among other things.  It also has chosen to use Colin Kaepernick in its new Just Do It campaign.  You recall Kaepernick: ex-49er quarterback who’s the instigator and leader of the NFL players’ campaign of contempt for our national anthem and our flag and of insult for the generations of our veterans who’ve fought, been maimed, and died for our freedom, including these players’ right to be stupid and to engage in contemptible and insulting behavior.

But wait—aren’t the players protesting police brutality, discrimination, and other social injustices?  That’s certainly their claim.  However, if their claim were accurate, they’d protest police brutality, discrimination, and other social injustices instead of attacking our anthem, flag, and veterans.  They’d also go into the neighborhoods where these things are occurring and actively help the locals, as many of the players who aren’t behaving so contemptibly and insultingly are doing.

Further, even if that had been their message at the outset, it’s clear that their message has been not understood that way by much, if not most, of their audience.  They would, then, clarify by changing their message delivery in order to have their message better understood.  Instead, the players have continued their delivery unchanged in the slightest.  From that, it’s clear that either their message never was what they claimed it to be, and they’ve been attacking these symbols and defenders all along, or they’ve walked away from their message and now are simply engaged in a toddler’s ego trip of out-stubborning those who disagree with them.

The players know all of this; in particular, Kaepernick knows all of this; and Nike knows all of this.  Yet,

Nike has said it “opposes discrimination of any type and has a longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

Too bad that doesn’t apply to our anthem, our flag, or our veterans.

I’ve bought my last Nike product.  I’m Just Doing It.