Steve Palermo, Requiescat in pace.

Heroes do indeed walk among us. Many wear uniforms.

Steve Palermo's uniform happened to be that of a Major League Baseball umpire.



Umpire Steve Palermo's love of baseball | MLB.com


By Joe Posnanski / MLB.com | @JPosnanski | May 14th, 2017

Sometimes, when there was a quiet moment, I would ask Stevie to tell the Bucky Dent story again. There weren't too many quiet moments between us. There was always family to talk about, life to talk about, mostly baseball to talk about. But now and again, I'd ask, and Steve Palermo would smile, and say, "Come on, how many times you want me to tell that same thing?"

And then Stevie would smile again and begin.

He was still a kid when the Bucky Dent thing happened, a week shy of his 29th birthday. And he was a big league umpire. Stevie had been a big league umpire for two full seasons, but even then he was not sure how a kid from Worcester, Mass., could end up standing on the field at Fenway Park. That was a crazy story, too. Palermo was 20, and he was umpiring a local game when, fatefully, a family friend who did some umpire scouting saw him in action.

"Hey Stevie," the friend said, "you ever thought about becoming a big league umpire?"

"Every minute of every day," Stevie said.

Lord, Stevie loved baseball. He didn't love it like you or I do, like fans do. He loved it from the inside. He loved the order of baseball, the rules, the balance. For the better part of 15 seasons, from 1977-91, Steve Palermo was as good as umpiring gets. His particular skill was calling balls and strikes; nobody did that better. Stevie studied the strike zone the way Rod Carew studied hitting, the way Jim Palmer studied pitching, the way his nemesis Earl Weaver studied the game.

Nemesis? Oh yeah. Steve called Weaver "That little …" with various choice words following. Stevie tossed Weaver twice in a week in 1979, once over a balk call he made, and two days later for a balk he didn't make. Tossed him again a year later. Stevie used to say, "That little … called me names that would get a man killed in other places. And that was on days I didn't throw him out."

Stevie so loved it all, loved the life, loved the relationships, loved the travel, even loved the arguments.

"Someday, you'll get a real job, right?" his mother Angela used to say to him.

"Sure 'Ma," he would say. But he didn't mean it.

Heck, he even met his wife Debbie on the road -- at a Checkers restaurant in Kansas City.

"Who you going out with?" Debbie Aaron's brother Steve asked.

"An umpire," she said.

"I hope it wasn't the second-base umpire who blew two calls last night," he said.

It was. They were married before the 1991 baseball season. That horrible baseball season.

Everything changed on July 6, 1991. Everything went dark. It was a Saturday. Stevie was in Texas; he had worked third base for the game between the Angels and the Rangers. It had been an easy game, no close plays at third, and Stevie was with the gang at Campisi's Egyptian, a famous local Italian joint where Jack Ruby used to hang out. It seemed like another night in a charmed life. And then the bartender, a guy named Jimmy Upton, yelled out, "Two waitresses are getting mugged across the street!"

Of course, they all ran out to help, Stevie among them. The scene was a blur. Stevie chased after one of the muggers, who was running away. He and a friend caught the mugger and held him down, when a car pulled around corner. Then there were gunshots. Stevie didn't feel the bullet hit his back. He felt his legs go numb.

The doctors told him he would never walk again, but they were wrong. They had to be wrong. The journey to that first step was agonizing, all but unbearable.

"Inch by inch, life is a cinch," Debbie would say to him when the pain came in.

They clung to that funny little rhyme, clung to it like it was a raft in a vast ocean. Sometimes after a bad day, Stevie would cry at night, not so much in pain, but in frustration and rage because the doctors couldn't be right.

"Inch by inch, life is a cinch," they would repeat to each other.

Inch by inch, he came back. Inch by inch, he began walking with crutches. Then with a cane. He threw out the first pitch at the World Series. He was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He was featured on television. He received countless letters of love. He was an American hero.

He would have traded in all of it, every single bit of it, to umpire just one more game.

Stevie sometimes dreamed of it, umpiring just one more game. But that was just beyond his reach. He stayed in baseball, served as an umpire supervisor, worked behind the scenes on numerous initiatives. And he raised money, millions of dollars, for the National Paralysis Foundation. More than that, he somehow made everyone around him laugh, feel better about themselves. I saw it countless times.

And when I would ask Stevie how he was doing, really doing, he did not want to talk about that.

"How's your family?" he would immediately say.

"What do you think of Mike Trout?" he would immediately say.

We did talk once about it, one raw day, he talked about how everyone kept asking him if, knowing what he came to know, he would still go out into that Texas night on July 6, 1991.

"I would do it again," he said. And he paused.

"Two reasons," he said, breaking it down with an umpire's precision. "One, if my wife was in that situation, I would hope four or five guys would come to her defense. I have to believe that."

Pause.

"Two," he said, "if I say no, I wouldn't do it again, then what does that mean?"

Pause

"It means I made a mistake. I just can't admit it was a mistake."

A final pause.

"I went to help people in trouble," he said. "How can that be a mistake?"

Steve Palermo died Sunday. He was 67 years old. I saw him not too long ago, and I asked him to tell the Bucky Dent story again. And so, of course, he smiled and told the story. Stevie was working third base during the 1978 American League East tiebreaker game between the Red Sox and the Yankees. Palermo, as mentioned, had grown up in nearby Worcester. He grew up in a Red Sox family; heck his Sawx lineage went back more or less to the days the Sawx traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees.

Well, you know the story of that game. The Sox led 2-0 going into the seventh, and the Yankees' Bucky Dent -- no power Bucky Dent, choking-up-5-inches-on-the-bat Bucky Dent -- popped a three-run homer over the Green Monster in left. Steve Palermo was the umpire who called it a fair ball and made the home run sign.

Not long after, Stevie saw his father Vincent. Stevie noticed his Dad acting cold toward him.
"What's the matter, Pops?" he asked.

"What," Vincent blurted out, "you couldn't have called that ball foul?"

"It was like 20 feet fair," Stevie said.

At which point Vincent Palermo said the one word that made Stevie and I crack up every day. He said: "So?"

Joe Posnanski is an executive columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

The psychotic motherfucker in charge can't keep from tripping over the overcompensatingly long, syphiliticly red phallic symbol around its neck. (Part 7,804)

If this arch-pervert hadn't strangled its conscience decades ago, it might put us out of our misery and blow its pea-sized brain all over the Oval Office during a live news conference with a .44.

Arnold would NEVER be able to touch those ratings.

From The Old Gray Whore:

Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation

WASHINGTON — President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

The documentation of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia. Late Tuesday, Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, demanded that the F.B.I. turn over all “memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings” of discussions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Comey.

Such documents, Mr. Chaffetz wrote, would “raise questions as to whether the president attempted to influence or impede” the F.B.I.

Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. It was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

What a maroon!

Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey that Mr. Flynn had done nothing wrong, according to the memo.

Mr. Comey did not say anything to Mr. Trump about curtailing the investigation, replying only: “I agree he is a good guy.”

In a statement, the White House denied the version of events in the memo.

“While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn,” the statement said. “The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.”

They cannot know that. Nobody knows if the boss is lying a little bit or a whole lot from minute to minute.

Mr. Chaffetz’s letter, sent to the acting F.B.I. director, Andrew G. McCabe, set a May 24 deadline for the internal documents to be delivered to the House committee. The congressman, a Republican, was criticized in recent months for showing little of the appetite he demonstrated in pursuing Hillary Clinton to pursue investigations into Mr. Trump’s associates.

But since announcing in April that he will not seek re-election in 2018, Mr. Chaffetz has shown more interest in the Russia investigation, and held out the potential for a subpoena on Tuesday, a notably aggressive move as most Republicans have tried to stay out of the fray.

In testimony to the Senate last week, Mr. McCabe said, “There has been no effort to impede our investigation to date.” Mr. McCabe was referring to the broad investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The investigation into Mr. Flynn is separate.

A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment.

Mr. Comey created similar memos — including some that are classified — about every phone call and meeting he had with the president, the two people said. It is unclear whether Mr. Comey told the Justice Department about the conversation or his memos.

Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey last week. Trump administration officials have provided multiple, conflicting accounts of the reasoning behind Mr. Comey’s dismissal. Mr. Trump said in a television interview that one of the reasons was because he believed “this Russia thing” was a “made-up story.”

The Feb. 14 meeting took place just a day after Mr. Flynn was forced out of his job after it was revealed he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of phone conversations he had had with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Despite the conversation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Comey, the investigation of Mr. Flynn has proceeded. In Virginia, a federal grand jury has issued subpoenas in recent weeks for records related to Mr. Flynn. Part of the Flynn investigation is centered on his financial links to Russia and Turkey.

Mr. Comey had been in the Oval Office that day with other senior national security officials for a terrorism threat briefing. When the meeting ended, Mr. Trump told those present — including Mr. Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions — to leave the room except for Mr. Comey.

Alone in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump began the discussion by condemning leaks to the news media, saying that Mr. Comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information, according to one of Mr. Comey’s associates.

Mr. Trump then turned the discussion to Mr. Flynn.

After writing up a memo that outlined the meeting, Mr. Comey shared it with senior F.B.I. officials. Mr. Comey and his aides perceived Mr. Trump’s comments as an effort to influence the investigation, but they decided that they would try to keep the conversation secret — even from the F.B.I. agents working on the Russia investigation — so the details of the conversation would not affect the investigation.

Mr. Comey was known among his closest advisers to document conversations that he believed would later be called into question, according to two former confidants, who said Mr. Comey was uncomfortable at times with his relationship with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Comey’s recollection has been bolstered in the past by F.B.I. notes. In 2007, he told Congress about a now-famous showdown with senior White House officials over the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. The White House disputed Mr. Comey’s account, but the F.B.I. director at the time, Robert S. Mueller III, kept notes that backed up Mr. Comey’s story.

The White House has repeatedly crossed lines that other administrations have been reluctant to cross when discussing politically charged criminal investigations. Mr. Trump has disparaged the continuing F.B.I. investigation as a hoax and called for an inquiry into his political rivals. His representatives have taken the unusual step of declaring no need for a special prosecutor to investigate the president’s associates.

The Oval Office meeting occurred a little over two weeks after Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Comey to the White House for a lengthy, one-on-one dinner at the residence. At that dinner, on Jan. 27, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Comey at least two times for a pledge of loyalty — which Mr. Comey declined, according to one of Mr. Comey’s associates.

In a Twitter post on Friday, Mr. Trump said that “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations

After the meeting, Mr. Comey’s associates did not believe there was any way to corroborate Mr. Trump’s statements. But Mr. Trump’s suggestion last week that he was keeping tapes has made them wonder whether there are tapes that back up Mr. Comey’s account.

The Jan. 27 dinner came a day after White House officials learned that Mr. Flynn had been interviewed by F.B.I. agents about his phone calls with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak. On Jan. 26, the acting attorney general, Sally Q. Yates, told the White House counsel about the interview, and said Mr. Flynn could be subject to blackmail by the Russians because they knew he had lied about the content of the calls.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

The psychotic motherfucker in charge can't keep from tripping over the overcompensatingly long, syphiliticly red phallic symbol around its neck. (Part 7,803)

Of course it may not be a symbol. It may actually have the clap. That would explain a whole hell of a lot.


From Washington's other newspaper:

Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister...


President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.

“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”

The revelation comes as the president faces rising legal and political pressure on multiple Russia-related fronts. Last week, he fired FBI Director James B. Comey in the midst of a bureau investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Trump’s subsequent admission that his decision was driven by “this Russia thing” was seen by critics as attempted obstruction of justice.

One day after dismissing Comey, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak — a key figure in earlier Russia controversies — into the Oval Office. It was during that meeting, officials said, that Trump went off script and began describing details of an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

For almost anyone in government, discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that his disclosures broke the law.

White House officials involved in the meeting said Trump discussed only shared concerns about terrorism.

“The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation,” said H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, who participated in the meeting. “At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.”

McMaster reiterated his statement in a subsequent appearance at the White House on Monday and described the Washington Post story as “false,” but did not take any questions.

In their statements, White House officials emphasized that Trump had not discussed specific intelligence sources and methods, rather than addressing whether he had disclosed information drawn from sensitive sources.

The CIA declined to comment, and the NSA did not respond to requests for comment.

But officials expressed concern about Trump’s handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences. Exposure of an intelligence stream that has provided critical insight into the Islamic State, they said, could hinder the United States’ and its allies’ ability to detect future threats.

[On Russia, Trump and his top national security aides seem to be at odds]

“It is all kind of shocking,” said a former senior U.S. official who is close to current administration officials. “Trump seems to be very reckless and doesn’t grasp the gravity of the things he’s dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And it’s all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia.”

In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,” the president said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.

The Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.

“Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive, and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling,” said a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official who also worked closely with members of the Trump national security team. He and others spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

The identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the U.S. ally or intelligence capability involved. Officials said the capability could be useful for other purposes, possibly providing intelligence on Russia’s presence in Syria. Moscow would be keenly interested in identifying that source and perhaps disrupting it.

[Political chaos in Washington is a return on investment in Moscow]

Russia and the United States both regard the Islamic State as an enemy and share limited information about terrorist threats. But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support President Bashar al-Assad.

“Russia could identify our sources or techniques,” the senior U.S. official said.

A former intelligence official who handled high-level intelligence on Russia said that given the clues Trump provided, “I don’t think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out.”

At a more fundamental level, the information wasn’t the United States’ to provide to others. Under the rules of espionage, governments — and even individual agencies — are given significant control over whether and how the information they gather is disseminated, even after it has been shared. Violating that practice undercuts trust considered essential to sharing secrets.

The officials declined to identify the ally but said it has previously voiced frustration with Washington’s inability to safeguard sensitive information related to Iraq and Syria.

“If that partner learned we’d given this to Russia without their knowledge or asking first, that is a blow to that relationship,” the U.S. official said.

Trump also described measures the United States has taken or is contemplating to counter the threat, including military operations in Iraq and Syria, as well as other steps to tighten security, officials said.

The officials would not discuss details of those measures, but the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed that it is considering banning laptops and other large electronic devices from carry-on bags on flights between Europe and the United States. The United States and Britain imposed a similar ban in March affecting travelers passing through airports in 10 Muslim-majority countries.

Trump cast the countermeasures in wistful terms. “Can you believe the world we live in today?” he said, according to one official. “Isn’t it crazy?”

Lavrov and Kislyak were also accompanied by aides.

A Russian photographer took photos of part of the session that were released by the Russian state-owned Tass news agency. No U.S. news organization was allowed to attend any part of the meeting.

Senior White House officials appeared to recognize quickly that Trump had overstepped and moved to contain the potential fallout. Thomas P. Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, placed calls to the directors of the CIA and the NSA, the services most directly involved in the intelligence-sharing arrangement with the partner.

One of Bossert’s subordinates also called for the problematic portion of Trump’s discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients, efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked

White House officials defended Trump. “This story is false,” said Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy. “The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced.”

But officials could not explain why staff members nevertheless felt it necessary to alert the CIA and the NSA.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said he would rather comment on the revelations in the Post story after “I know a little bit more about it,” but added: “Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that’s happening. And the shame of it is, there’s a really good national security team in place.”

Corker also said, “The chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think makes — it creates a worrisome environment.”

Trump has repeatedly gone off-script in his dealings with high-ranking foreign officials, most notably in his contentious introductory conversation with the Australian prime minister earlier this year. He has also faced criticism for seemingly lax attention to security at his Florida retreat, Mar-a-Lago, where he appeared to field preliminary reports of a North Korea missile launch in full view of casual diners.

U.S. officials said that the National Security Council continues to prepare multi-page briefings for Trump to guide him through conversations with foreign leaders, but that he has insisted that the guidance be distilled to a single page of bullet points — and often ignores those.

“He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it, and that has big downsides,” the second former official said. “Does he understand what’s classified and what’s not? That’s what worries me.”

Lavrov’s reaction to the Trump disclosures was muted, officials said, calling for the United States to work more closely with Moscow on fighting terrorism.

Kislyak has figured prominently in damaging stories about the Trump administration’s ties to Russia. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign just 24 days into the job over his contacts with Kislyak and his misleading statements about them. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from matters related to the FBI’s Russia investigation after it was revealed that he had met and spoke with Kislyak, despite denying any contact with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing.

“I’m sure Kislyak was able to fire off a good cable back to the Kremlin with all the details” he gleaned from Trump, said the former U.S. official who handled intelligence on Russia.

The White House readout of the meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak made no mention of the discussion of a terrorist threat.

“Trump emphasized the need to work together to end the conflict in Syria,” the summary said. The president also “raised Ukraine” and “emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia.”

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

From the "No shit, Sherlock!" Department:

When the World Is Led by a Child - The Old Gray Whore-

by David Brooks

At certain times Donald Trump has seemed like a budding authoritarian, a corrupt Nixon, a rabble-rousing populist or a big business corporatist.

But as Trump has settled into his White House role, he has given a series of long interviews, and when you study the transcripts it becomes clear that fundamentally he is none of these things.

At base, Trump is an infantalist...

No shit, Sherlock.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

THE HORROR! THE HORROR!

The madness no longer creeps, kiddies. It is galloping.


From Bizpacreview.com:

School declares offering to pray for a colleague is unacceptable ... 


A school district in Maine is facing a lawsuit from an employee who was told her language in communicating with a colleague was unacceptable.

Toni Richardson found herself in hot water when the Augusta School Department launched an investigation into her private conversation with a coworker, according to Fox News Channel’s Todd Starnes.

Richardson’s offense?

She told her colleague she would be praying for him after he confided, in a private conversation last year, that he was having a difficult time adjusting to his new job. The coworker even attended the same church as Richardson.

Surely, a Christian promising to pray for another Christian who happens to work at the same place and attend the same church, could not be cause for disciplinary action.

But, in an official memorandum, the school district alleged Richardson “imposed some strong religious/spiritual belief system” towards the other employee, who reportedly had a falling out with Richardson months after the conversation.

This isn't about religion. This is about one person using the fascist power of government as a weapon in a personal dispute.

Starnes cited a copy of the “coaching memorandum” that school officials sent to Richardson, warning her that language like, “I will pray for you” and “You were in my prayers” is not acceptable, “even if that other person attends the same church as you.”

“In the context of the ‘separation of church and state,’ this case prohibits public school-sponsored religious expression,” the memo stated. “Therefore, in the future, it is imperative that you do not use phrases that integrate public and private belief systems (WTF? - F.G.) when in the public schools.”

Richardson was also warned not to make any “reference to your spiritual or religious beliefs,” or even use the word “blessing,” threatening her with disciplinary action or dismissal, according to Starnes.

“I was shocked that my employer punished me for privately telling a coworker, ‘I will pray for you,’” Richardson said. “I’m afraid I will lose my job if someone hears me privately discussing my faith with a coworker.”

She turned to First Liberty Institute which filed a formal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming religious discrimination and retaliation by the school district.

“What Augusta Public Schools did by punishing Toni for discussing her faith in a private conversation with a coworker is unconscionable,” attorney Timothy Woodcock said. “The law is clear: employers cannot discriminate against employees who privately discuss their faith while at work.”

Starnes noted that it is now the school district that will be in need of prayer.

“We’ll just say a little prayer for you,” he said, “because First Liberty Institute is about to be on you like a pit bull on a pork chop.”

That had beter not be a Jewish or mohammedan pit bull, buddy, or you're looking at a lawsuit of your own. 


TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

The cruel and unusual punishment of Private Bradley Manning.

Holy shit! Who knew Hussein "Who's Sane?" Insaner was such a freakin' badass gangster? This stinking little traitor wasn't shot after being court-martialed. Insaner had the guy's dick cut off and then threw him out into the real world!

DAMN! Even the North Koreans wouldn't do that.


"Chelsea" Manning, Once Sentenced To 35 Years, Walks Free After 7 - NPR (No Penis Radio?)...

OH MY GOD! LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO THAT POOR BASTARD! THE CONSTITUTION IS OFFICIALLY DEAD!

               

Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning has left a military prison in Kansas and returned to civilian life Wednesday, seven years after being taken into custody for what is seen as the largest leak of classified data in U.S. history.

"After another anxious four months of waiting, the day has finally arrived," Manning said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union. "I am looking forward to so much! Whatever is ahead of me is far more important than the past. I'm figuring things out right now — which is exciting, awkward, fun, and all new for me."

Manning tweeted a photo of her sneaker-clad feet, taking her "first steps of freedom" Wednesday morning.

The 35-year prison term Manning received as punishment for leaking thousands of military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks in 2010 was described as unprecedented when it was handed down. Before he left office, President Barack Obama shortened the sentence to about seven years...


TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Where did all the noisy and angry patriots go?

If you are an insomniac, American polling places on an "off year" (I do so hate that.) election day is a sure cure.

Today is Primary Election Day in the Commonpoverty of Penn's Woods. I voted around mid-morning and I was the thirty-eighth voter of the day.

Neither the Orange nor the Distaff Clumpsomanics showed up. Nobody did.

Our Republic is dying, kiddies, killed by ignorance, indifference, and stupidity. "Partisanship" is not the culprit because it has always existed everywhere. (As usual, I urge you to read a few books on the subject, preferably ones written before the beginning of The Century of Horror.)

And you wonder why we can't have nice things anymore...


TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

What a country! You can actually get paid for writing stuff like this.

David Browne, I salute you, you magnificent bastard!


Should a Man Roll Up His Sleeves? -The Old Gray Whore  


By DAVID BROWNE


In spring, a young — or older — man’s fancy turns to rolling up his sleeves.

Fashion etiquette makes it acceptable to roll them just below the elbow for added ventilation or above the elbow when faced with manual labor. For some of us, skin sensitivity issues play a role. I’m still recovering from the day my mother accidentally tossed one of my favorite long-sleeve shirts into a washing machine with some drapes. Neither of us realized it, but my shirt became flecked with fiberglass, making me itch all day in school, and part of me was scarred for life, if not literally.

Rolled-up sleeves are also an antidote to the dreaded short-sleeve business shirt, which can make you look like Michael Douglas in “Falling Down,” albeit without the semiautomatic.

But even those sleeve-rollers among us have to admit it’s a tricky look to pull off, as Speaker Paul D. Ryan reminded us in March when he rolled out his case for a new health care plan. Dispensing with a jacket, he stood before members of the news media with his sleeves almost to his elbows.

Mr. Ryan didn’t look as awkward as he did in the famous cringe-worthy photo that shows him in his gym-rat attire, complete with a backward baseball cap, which made him look like the world’s last Limp Bizkit fan. But the combination of his PowerPoint presentation and his down-to-business sleeves statement unleashed a slew of internet barbs and memes. Weeks later, in a counter news conference to criticize the proposed health care act, Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, tweeted, “I might even roll up my sleeves,” and then he did just that.

Mastering the roll-up can be more challenging than properly knotting a necktie. Some of us opt for the most basic but least comfortable approach: turning the cuff over and over until you hit elbow. Less constricting and easiest to undo, according to the website Real Men Real Style, is the “master roll”: pull the sleeve end to the elbow, keep it in place with a finger under the fabric and cup it around the cuff.

President Trump favors roomy suits and long red ties — his personal armor. John F. Kennedy, arguably our most stylish president, looked good in a suit and also showed mastery of the furled-sleeves look during his down time at Hyannis Port, Mass. But as Mr. Ryan demonstrated, seemingly every politician who has appropriated the look since has only served to soil its image (if not the shirt itself).

When Howard Dean blurted out his infamous “scream” during the 2004 campaign, guess how he wore his sleeves? While running for president, John Kerry and Mitt Romney favored the same look, which only gave them the appearance of stodgy bosses trying hard to bond with their employees.

“Rolled-up sleeves are fine if you’re sitting down with a bunch of folks and working something out late in the day,” said Joe Navarro, author of “What Every Body Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People.” “But if you’re making a formal statement, that requires formality.”

Regarding Mr. Ryan’s recent moment, Mr. Navarro added: “A leader is supposed to look like one. Instead it looks like he’s working hard at perception management.”

Outside the spheres of business and politics, men are rolling up their sleeves for style or comfort. In “La La Land,” Ryan Gosling went with the look while tap-dancing in the Hollywood Hills, and last summer, after receiving feedback from soldiers, the United States Army announced that its troops could roll up their sleeves in “temperate environments.” (The Marines instituted a similar reversal of fashion policy in 2014.) As Dan Dailey, sergeant major of the Army, told The Army Times: “It came up, we discussed it, and the Chief said, ‘Hey, it doesn’t hurt anybody, it doesn’t cost anything.’”

Even Uncle Sam wants you … to roll.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Personally, I have appropriated a larger than average primary male sexual organ. Does that make me a racist?

Quote by Oscar Wilde: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”


George Will knows what art is...


The left's misguided obsession with 'cultural appropriation' - Washington's other newspaper 


By George F. Will


In July 1954, a 19-year-old Memphis truck driver recorded at Sun Studio the song “That’s All Right.” When a local disc jockey promised to play it, the truck driver tuned his parents’ radio to the station and went to a movie. His mother pulled him from the theater because the DJ was playing the record repeatedly and wanted to interview the singer immediately. The DJ asked where the singer had gone to high school. He answered, “Humes,” an all-white school. The DJ asked because many callers “who like your record think you must be colored, singing the way you do.” Elvis Presley from Tupelo, Miss., had committed “cultural appropriation.”

According to Ray Connolly in “Being Elvis,” Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, a black Mississippian, had popularized “That’s All Right.” When Presley first entered the recording studio, he was asked, “Who do you sound like?” He replied, “I don’t sound like nobody.” Actually, he sounded like someone melding the sounds of gospel, country and what was then called “race music” — music by Southern blacks — to make something new.

The hysteria du jour, on campuses and elsewhere, against “appropriation” illustrates progressivism’s descent into authoritarianism leavened by philistinism. This “preening silliness” — the phrase is from the Federalist’s David Marcus — is by people oblivious to the fact that, as Marcus says, “culture blending is central to the development of, well, everything.”

Indignation about appropriation is a new frontier in the ever-expanding empire of cultivated victimhood: “Marginalized” persons from a particular culture supposedly are somehow wounded when “privileged” people — those who are unvictimized or less victimized — express or even just enjoy the culture of more pure victims without their permission.

The wearing of sombreros at tequila-themed parties triggered — to speak the language of the exquisitely sensitive — the anti-appropriation constabulary at Bowdoin College. Oberlin College’s palate police denounced as “appropriative” an allegedly inauthentic preparation of General Tso’s chicken. Such nonsense is harmless — until it morphs into attempts to regulate something serious, like writing fiction: Do not write about cultures other than your own.

With characteristic tartness, novelist Lionel Shriver responded to this “climate of scrutiny” when, at a writers’ conference, she clapped a sombrero on her head and said: We’re not supposed to try on other people’s hats? That’s what we’re paid to do. Instead, “any tradition, any experience, any costume, any way of doing and saying things, that is associated with a minority or disadvantaged group is ring-fenced: look-but-don’t-touch.”

Eugene Volokh, law professor and maestro of the Volokh Conspiracy blog, drolly says: If only there were a word for “telling people that they mustn’t do something because of their race or ethnic origin.” Asks Franklin Einspruch, writing in the Federalist, “Where does new culture come from? It is copied, with alterations, from existing culture. The process is reproductive. Sexy, even. So of course, the outrage-as-a-lifestyle wing of the progressive Left wants to dictate rules for its proper enjoyment.”
The Federalist’s Robert Tracinski says appropriation is actually learning through admiration, adding: “The left loudly promotes its flattering self-image as . . . more culturally open and advanced — more intellectual, artistic, and cosmopolitan,” but its “appropriation” tantrums reveal how its fixation with “racial identity and resentments ends up imposing the narrowest kinds of parochialism.”

The University of Pennsylvania’s Jonathan Zimmerman, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, says “the mostly left-wing quest for cultural purity bears an eerie echo to the right-wing fantasy of national purity, which peaked during the so-called 100-percent-American campaigns of the early 20th century.” Of Chuck Berry, Zimmerman writes: “His first big hit, ‘Maybellene,’ adapted an old melody that had been recorded by country-music performers like Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. Berry combined the ‘hillbilly’ sound of white country with the African-American rhythm and blues that he imbibed in his native St. Louis.” For this, he was heckled in Harlem.

John Lennon said, “Before Elvis, there was nothing.” Not really: There was Crudup, and before him there was a long, creatively tangled line of precursors. Elvis, said Mick Jagger, was “an original in an area of imitators.” Actually, no cultural figure is entirely original.

Listening to Radio Luxembourg late one night, teenaged Keith Richards heard “Heartbreak Hotel,” and “when I woke up the next day I was a different guy.” Bob Dylan, a freewheeling cultural appropriator himself, said, “Hearing Elvis for the first time was like busting out of jail.” Those who would wall off cultures from “outsiders” are would-be wardens.

Why, the next time I see a Negro wearing a sweater around his neck like a cape, I am going to be so peeved!


TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Presenting Fyodor's latest ARE YOU A DUMBASS? TEST:

Steve Harvey Reportedly Sends Harsh Memo to Talk Show Staff | Variety


If you clicked on the above link, you're a dumbass.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Elaine Jesus Dionne, Jr. ("Jerk Righter"?) is one of those people.

You know the type, kiddies. In fact, you may be one yourself. The kind of gal who doesn't mind a hell of a lot of rape & pillage as long as it is done in the name of "social justice". But when a pillaging rapist who speaks another dialect of fascism appears, she hops on her high horse and barks at the moon.

Then she calls the new thingee in power "conservative". It must be mighty convenient to have a worldview that precludes rational (or any other) thought.



The amateurish autocrat -Washington's other newspaper 
.
By E.J. Dionne Jr. Opinion writer

President Trump’s opponents have spent his administration’s first months engaged in an unusual but important debate: Is Trump a problem because he is incompetent or because he harbors autocratic designs that threaten American democracy itself?

At the end of his first 100 days, the debate was tilting toward ineptitude. Trump didn’t know or care much about policy, shifted from one issue position to another, shunned eloquence in favor of often-deranged tweeting and didn’t even bother filling hundreds of government jobs.

The wealthy, especially Wall Street types, rejoiced when Trump backed away from many of his populist-sounding economic promises, particularly on trade, and moved toward a conventional, if rather radical, conservatism: steep tax cuts for the rich, deregulation on a grand scale. For the privileged, happy days were here again.

Ignore the moronic "conventional, if rather radical" phrase. It is simply MS Word masturbation. Note how everything bad and dangerous and smelly and scary MUST be "conservative". Goat-raping mohammedans are "conservative muslims". The Klan is a bunch of "conservative Christians". If you search Toolgle hard enough, I'll bet you'll discover that La Dionne once wrote that Jeffrey Dahmer was a "conservative epicurean".


Those who fear Trump’s authoritarian side acknowledged that his potential for excess had been at least partly contained by our system of rights. The freedom to organize and express opposition, the power that free elections confer on every citizen, the independence of the courts and the liberty of the media — all are very much alive.

Nonetheless, members of this anti-Trump wing insisted on vigilance against Trump’s alarming indifference to the basic norms of self-government, his affection for thuggish leaders and his vicious attitude toward opponents.

Last week, the argument took a sharp, decisive and chilling turn. Trump proved that we can never be lulled into losing focus on the ways he could undermine the rules and principles of our democratic republic.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) appeared Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and spoke the essential truth: “I think we ought to get to the bottom line here. President Trump is dangerous.”

Yes, he is.

The firing of James B. Comey as FBI director and the administration’s fog of lies aimed at clouding the real reason for Trump’s decision are the most important signs that we have a leader who will do whatever it takes to resist accountability.

He will fire anyone who gets in his way. Trump’s dismissal of Sally Yates, the acting attorney general, and Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in New York, can now be seen in a more sinister light. Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general on whom the Trump apparat initially tried to pin responsibility for Comey’s firing, may be next — if he is the person of integrity his friends describe.
Of course, Trump can be fairly regarded as both incompetent and authoritarian. We may be saved by the fact that the feckless Trump is often the authoritarian Trump’s worst enemy. If we’re lucky, Trump’s astonishing indiscipline will be his undoing.

At first, his pathetically deceitful spokespeople tried to pretend that the president’s firing decision arose from a deep if newfound concern for how Comey had treated Hillary Clinton. Then Trump blew up his own spin. He told NBC’s Lester Holt that he had long planned to get rid of Comey, and that it had something to do with “this Russia thing.” Here’s betting that spin will have changed again by the time you read this, because hinting that you’re hindering an investigation of yourself is not a good idea.

Not one word out of Trump’s White House is believable on its face, and sowing convenient untruth is another mark of autocracy. So is Trump’s effort to rig future elections, which is what his commission on “election integrity” is really all about. It will seek to justify making it as hard as possible for Trump’s opponents, particularly in the minority community, to vote.

And like authoritarians everywhere, he aims not simply to defeat his enemies but to humiliate them. Thus his assault on Comey in the Holt interview as a “showboat” and “a grandstander” — talk about a lack of self-awareness — and his Twitter threat Friday: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Presidential obsessions with “tapes” are perilous.

Trump clearly realized that reports of his demanding Comey’s loyalty made him sound like a mafia don or a two-bit despot.

Hey, dumbass, don't tar the mafia's good name by comparing it to Orange Clump.

It was fitting that Trump’s jolliness with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister was photographically captured last week by Tass, Vladimir Putin’s government news agency. The pesky American media were excluded from this happy meeting of minds. It can no longer be seen as outlandish to suspect that Trump’s role model is Putin, a man he has praised for having “very strong control over a country.” This should scare us all to death.

Read more from E.J. Dionne’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.