VIDEO: George Kittle Shook Every Service Member's Hand Before MNF Game
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| [ PHOTO: SATURDAY TRADITION ] |
Showing posts with label Armed Forces. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Armed Forces. Show all posts
06 November, 2018
03 November, 2017
As Long as NFL Players Take a Knee, This Retired Navy Officer Will Take a Stand
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| [ PHOTO: INDEPENDENT JOURNAL REVIEW ] |
Sean Payton A retired U.S. Navy officer said he declined an award from the New Orleans Saints because of NFL players protesting the national anthem by taking a knee, WDSU reported. Cmdr. John Wells was selected for a Peoples Health Champion Award, which would have been presented at Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Superdome.
27 September, 2017
Taya Kyle, Widow of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, Writes NFL, Says league 'Shattered' Unity with Fans
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| [ PHOTO: THE DAILY CALLER ] |
The widow of fallen Navy SEAL Chris Kyle says the National Football League's participation in national anthem protests has "shattered" unity it once enjoyed with millions of fans. Taya Kyle said goodbye to her husband in February 2013 at a Dallas memorial service held for thousands at Cowboys Stadium. She said in an open letter posted…
25 September, 2017
That Time a USMC Colonel Sent the NFL an Open Letter on the Anthem we’d Never Forget
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| [ HAT-TIP: RARE ] |
A viral open letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about players kneeling during the national anthem is real, according to Snopes. The fact-checkers say they contacted Retired Marine Col. Jeffery Powers, who wrote the letter. In the missive, Powers condemns football players who take a knee during the national anthem to call attention to police brutality…
24 September, 2017
Only One Member of the Pittsburgh Steelers Stood for the National Anthem on Sunday
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| [ PHOTO: FOX NEWS ] |
Initial reports were that the entire Pittsburgh Steelers football team would forego the pregame national anthem for their game in Chicago after comments from President Donald Trump set a firestorm across the NFL. Well, that turned out to not be entirely true, as one member of the Steelers did come out of the locker room for…
28 May, 2017
Memorial Day 2017 MLB Schedule
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| [ PHOTO: USA TODAY ] |
There usually isn’t a whole lot of baseball on Mondays, but that isn’t the case during a holiday weekend. All 30 MLB teams are on the schedule for Memorial Day 2017, including some marquee matchups on national TV. The day’s biggest game is the one that gets underway first. The New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles…
08 May, 2017
A College Sports Power is Grieving After a Former Athlete was Killed Serving his Country
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| [ PHOTO: USA TODAY ] |
A Navy Seal killed in Somalia last week has been identified as former University of Connecticut athlete Kyle Milliken, according to a Pentagon news release. Navy SEAL killed in Somalia identified as a 38-year-old Kyle Milliken from Maine https://t.co/vtaCVvrwim pic.twitter.com/lioLezdIHq — ABC News (@ABC) May 7, 2017 Milliken was killed during an operation targeting the terrorist…
29 April, 2017
Air Force WR Robinette May be Grounded Before Takeoff
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| [ PHOTO: SB NATION ] |
Air Force wide receiver Jalen Robinette's dream of playing in the NFL this season may be impacted by a change in the academy's policy requiring cadets to serve two years of active duty. The Air Force Academy said in a statement obtained by the Denver Post that it will no longer defer the two years of…
01 April, 2017
FAU Linebacker Nate Ozdemir Leaves Team to Pursue Military Career
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| [PHOTO: OWL ACCESS] |
BOCA RATON, Fla. — For Nate Ozdemir, the goal was never to make it to the National Football League. For the former Florida Atlantic linebacker, his post-graduate plans never included football — only the military. Ozdemir will now pursue a career in the United States military, and has stopped playing football for the Owls. The decision…
01 June, 2016
The Oppression of Cops Singing in our Ballparks
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| Photo: Town Hall |
Peter Solari Follow @4PeteSakeNY
It's time for your daily dose of stupidity...
Have you ever gone to a ballgame or other sporting event where the national anthem was sung beforehand by a law enforcement officer or member of the military? I've seen it happen countless times in New York, especially since 9/11, and never once felt offended. Boy was I wrong! Or so says one columnist at ESPN.
Howard Bryant has a column in the June 6th issue of ESPN the Magazine, with the headline, "The Unspoken Truth." In it, Bryant derides what he calls "the staged patriotism" at professional sporting events, and asserts that these "authoritarian" practices, are unjustly harsh on black athletes in the aftermath of Ferguson and other high profile police shootings.
The piece isn't available online, and the only place I've ever seen ESPN the Magazine was the waiting room at my doctor's office. Newsbusters' Clay Waters, however, has seen it, and wrote about it in his May 28th column. According to Waters, Bryant wrote the following in the magazine:
"Why don't more athletes speak out on behalf of their communities? Perhaps more of them would if there wasn't a chilling force looming over them...Policing is clearly one of the most divisive issues in the country - except in the sports arena, where the post-9/11 hero narrative has been so deeply embedded within its game-day fabric that policing is seen as clean, heroic, uncomplicated...Nobody seems to care much about this authoritarian shift at the ballpark, yet the media and the public are quick to demand accountability from players they consider insufficiently activist. They blame these black players for not speaking up on behalf of their communities, ignoring the smothering effect that staged patriotism and cops singing the national anthem in a time of Ferguson have on player expression. It's indirectly stifled, while the increasing police pageantry at games sends another clear message: The sentiments of the poor in Ferguson and Cleveland do not matter...While athletes are routinely criticized for 'not doing more,' it is conveniently ignored how deeply their employers have mobilized against the most powerless elements of their fan base."
You got that? Black players aren't free to express themselves because the white owners are honoring law enforcement and veterans at the games, and in doing so, are letting the black members of their communities know, they don't matter. Brilliant!
Bryant's whole argument lacks any semblance of logic. The NFL is one of the biggest offenders of this oppression, and they even got into some hot water over it. And, as Waters wrote for Newsbusters back in November, Bryant knows this. How then, is it possible, that the NFL is stifling the same athletes, in this case the St. Louis Rams, who are openly protesting the Ferguson police, on the field and in front of millions of fans watching on television?
Back in 2014, after Michael Brown was shot and killed by Ferguson police, the phrase "hands up, don't shoot" became a rallying cry for anti-police protesters. At the time, the media was promoting a false narrative that Brown had his hands up and was surrendering when police shot him. In their week 13 game on November 30th of that year, several Rams players, who were being stifled by their white owners, mind you, entered the field with their hands in the air, in solidarity with the anti-police hooligans who were burning Ferguson to the ground.
Video: TOMO News US
The entire "hands up, don't shoot narrative has been proven entirely false.
Bryant isn't a journalist, he's only a social justice warrior pretending to be one, he's part of a growing fad in America. He's also no stranger to ridiculing military and police. In his December 7th piece, "Are You Ready for Some Patriotism?", Bryant wrote,
"The influence of the military represents the most significant and uncomfortable change in sports in post-9/11 America. Significant because the game, on TV and at the stadium, has been awash in military overtones since the destruction of the World Trade Center, and uncomfortable because the root of the change has been an unstable, metastasizing of fear, nationalism, patriotism -- and especially commerce."
In his piece, Waters highlights a number of other instances where Bryant has been hostile to veterans, soldiers, and cops. In what is, perhaps, the most ironic thing Bryant has ever written, his June, 2013 column, "Sports and Patriotism," laments the following:
Can not the many of the same things be said about ESPN? Wasn't ESPN established to cover sports and sports stories? Didn't it used to be a place you could go to escape from things like politics? Why then, has it evolved into a forum for left wing radicals like Bryant and Tony Kornheiser, to spew their liberal, nonsensical talking points 24/7. And why is it that they're free to do so, along as they tow the liberal line? Isn't it funny how anybody who veers from the narrative, is immediately fired? You can ask Curt Schilling all about that. He was let go for having the audacity to suggest that men shouldn't be allowed in the women's room. "The ballpark, in the time of two murky wars and a constant threat of international and domestic terrorism, has been for the last dozen years a place for patriotism. The industry that once avoided the complex world now embraces it, serving as the chief staging ground for expressions of patriotism, and has codified it into game-day identity.
A dynamic that was supposed to be temporary has become permanent. The atmospheres of the games are no longer politically neutral but decidedly, often uncomfortably, nationalistic. The military flyovers, the pre-game inclusion of the armed forces, and the addition of 'God Bless America' to 'The Star Spangled Banner' are no longer spontaneous or reaction to a specific event, but fixtures."
