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Culture Tag

Earlier today we blogged, based on a report by CBS News, that rocker Tom Petty had passed away. As we and the rest of country later learned, thanks to Hollywood gossip rag TMZ, CBS News was wrong and while he remains in critical condition, Petty is still alive.

When it comes to unhinged behavior from rabid leftists, I'm rarely surprised.  Poop on a police car?  Ick, but it figures.  Set up "rape tents" at the kumbaya Occupy camps?  Sad, but it figures.  Aging has-been pop singer claiming she dreams of blowing up the White House?  Disgraceful, but it figures.  Antifa thugs attack random people accusing them of being Nazis?  Horrifying, but it figures.  You get the picture.  Leftist outrages are many and varied; hardly anything they say or do surprises, much less shocks, me. But I was surprised to see the video of a California college student taking the MAGA hat off of a fellow student's head, marching over to Student Life to "report" him, and then launching into one of the most irrational rants I've ever heard.  Frankly, it  shocked me.  But mostly, it saddened me.

Earlier this month, Mary blogged about Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett claiming that he was racially profiled and victimized by Las Vegas police.  Bennett, an early supporter of former 49er Colin Kaepernick's anti-American protests, further claimed that one of the officers threatened to "blow [his] head off." Police responded to reports of gunfire in a casino, appropriately entered the casino with guns drawn, ordered those present to get down, and saw Bennett fleeing the scene. Additional police body cam footage, along with various security camera footage, has been released and shows that Bennett defied police orders and ran from the casino.  We do not hear whether or not Bennett was threatened with having his head "blown off," however, because that officer's body cam was not on.  This officer may be disciplined for the lapse.

Last year, when then-49er Colin Kaepernick explained why he knelt instead of showing respect for our nation, its flag, or its anthem, he was very clear about the nature of his pointedly anti-America protest.
"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."
This was, of course, in the wake of the Ferguson riots and during the rise of Black Lives Matter.  The context was very pointed and very deliberately anti-America, and it mattered not that it was based on misinformation at best and outright lies at worst.

Professor Jacobson is not the only one who is "tuning out" sports and entertainment venues because of social justice warrior activism. It turns out millions of American are joining him. Sunday Night Football ratings plummeted the night of the #TakeAKnee protests.
In metered market numbers, the primetime matchup that saw the Washington Redskins beat the Oakland Raiders 27-10 snared an 11.6/20, the worst SNF has performed this season so far. It’s an 8% dip from the early numbers of last week’s game, Atlanta’s 34-23 win over Green Bay. Amid cheers and boos from fans at FedEx Field in Maryland last night, the third week of the SNF season declined 10% from early numbers of the comparable game of last year on September 25, 2016.

Eyes turned to the NFL on Sunday to see which players would take a knee during the anthem after President Donald Trump called those who kneel a son of bitch and asked the audience if they wouldn't like to see the NFL fire them. He reiterated this thoughts on Twitter with his catchphrase YOU'RE FIRED. Well, some NFL players chose to kneel while others locked arms together. A few teams chose to stay in the locker room, like the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, one player on the Steelers decided to stand for the anthem...a veteran who served three tours in Afghanistan.

I recently noted that San Diego has officially declared a Hepatitis A emergency. Hepatitis A is an illness that is spread by contact with an infected person’s feces. Since that initial report, a 16th person has succumbed to the disease and it has been revealed that the city had been warned repeatedly that a disease outbreak was likely to occur unless shortages in sanitation accommodations were addressed.

Twitter has been afire today with the controversy about Stephen Curry going to the White House and reactions to President Trump's speech in Alabama. During President Trump's speech at a rally for Luther Strange (R-AL), he addressed the growing trend among NFL players to kneel disrespectfully during the national anthem.  Trump asked, "“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say ‘get that son of a b***h off the field right now – he’s fired’?”. Most people hearing or reading this comment recognize that the president is referring to the disrespectful kneeling "protest" that involves football (and other sports) players deliberately taking a knee during the national anthem.

Perhaps nothing less than losing the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump could have motivated the left to brainstorm ways to tackle their popular vote problem.  The left tends to gravitate to the coasts and until relatively recently have left "flyover" country to the deplorable unwashed masses. Some on the left seem to be, in increasing numbers, coming to the conclusion that they need a Plan B in case their lunge to the progressive left doesn't pan out. To that end, leftists are positing a variety of ways to infiltrate red states and turn them blue.  From moving numerous government offices to flyover country to congregating in and taking over the political and socio-cultural center of major cities in red states, the left seems to be alert to the fact that the massive influx of blue staters to red states can make a difference to the political fortunes of their party and, ultimately, of its agenda.

Cotton. Cotton is now, apparently, a racist symbol that triggers people perusing craft stores. Or it did Daniell Rider. Rider was shopping at the local Hobby Lobby in Killeen, Texas when she passed a cotton decoration. But Rider did not continue on her merry hot gluing way, no, no. Rider decided to take a stand against this vile symbol of oppression. She snapped a picture of the Racist™ faux cotton stem, tapped on her Facebook app, and demanded the retailer remove the decorative stems from their store.

Former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez killed himself in his prison cell last April as he served a life sentence for a 2013 murder charge at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, MA. His lawyers revealed today that tests on Hernandez's brain "showed severe signs of the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)." They also said that his daughter plans to sue the NFL and the Patriots "for leading Hernandez to believe the sport was safe."

I used to be puzzled by patently- and provably-untrue statements made by prominent Democrats.  For example, former Democrat governor, presidential hopeful, and DNC chairman and current "Democrat consultant" Howard Dean stirred controversy earlier this year with his insistence that "hate speech" is not protected by the First Amendment. I wrote about this a few months ago, noting that restricting Americans' First Amendment rights is a key goal of the left.
One of the fondest dreams of the radical (and not-so radical) left is to undermine the First Amendment and ultimately to control speech.  Democrats have advocated the DOJ’s investigation and even prosecution of climate “skeptics,” condemned “hate” speech formally in the House, supported the criminalization and ban of “hate” speech, and as we see play out on college campuses across the nation, resorted to violence as a response to speech with which they disagree.