Trump wants suspensions for NFL players who kneel during anthem

Reuters ^

[Sub-Driver]

Trump wants suspensions for NFL players who kneel during anthem

Reuters Staff

2 Min Read

(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that National Football League (NFL) players who do not stand for the national anthem should be suspended for the season without pay.

The comments come a day after the NFL and the union representing its players said they were working on a resolution to the league’s national anthem policy.

The policy, which was announced in May, followed Trump’s denunciation of pregame protests which were intended to call attention to what critics say is often brutal treatment of minorities by U.S. law enforcement.

Trump and others have blasted the gesture as a sign of disrespect to the U.S. flag and the military.

“The NFL National Anthem Debate is alive and well again - can’t believe it!,” Trump said on Twitter.

“First time kneeling, out for game. Second time kneeling, out for season/no pay.

“The $40,000,000 Commissioner must now make a stand,” he said in reference to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

[logi_cal869]

I think I understand his tactic, but no...i think not.

Tanking their revenues is just fine with me, presuming all Conservatives who like sports aren’t hypocrites.

[xone]

There are bigger issues that need tweet action. How about using the tweet platform to call out Congress for not repealing O’care? How about a strong push to investigate the Awan brothers and the compromising of Congressional computers? How about a 24/7 push on the wall given the Senate is about to water down the House funding bill? Use the tweet to put some fire under the wishy washy GOP senators.

Yeah, cause you can't do both? Perfect troll for the idiot players.

[wastedyears]

I have to say, this is something he shouldn’t get involved with.

[Boomer]

And just like that the enemedia stopped talking about the Helsinki meeting and started talking about suspending NFL players for kneeling.

Pwned.

No one changes the subject like someone good at misdirection.

[logician2u]

Five questions:

1. What is so patriotic about professional football that would require our National Anthem to be played--and often badly sung--ahead of the coin-toss? These are not military men on the field, most of the time.
2. Does hearing "The Star-Spangled Banner" played and sung before a game make players run faster, throw further, catch better, block harder, tackle faster and kick more accurately than they do in scrimmages which start without music of any kind?
3. Are professional football players dissuaded from committing personal fouls as a result of standing and hearing the National Anthem played and sung before the game?
4. Are fans in the stands less likely to spill beer on themselves and others when, on hearing those first notes, they feel the urge to stand up, switch their beer cup to the left hand and place their right hand (or cap) over their heart to honor the flag and the nation before each game gets underway?
5. [Bonus question] In sports and entertainment, promotion is everything. Does playing the National Anthem at a football game promote the football team, the TV sponsors or the nation? Or someone else?

These are series questions. So much time and effort has been wasted arguing, protesting, complaining and criticizing this pimple on the face of professional sports, we need to step back a few feet, grab a railing for support and look at the larger picture.

Football as we once knew and loved it is endangered. Fans are not buying season tickets like they once did; sports bars are showing hockey reruns rather than wall-to-wall NFL games; law-breaking players seldom make front-page news for committing anything less than murder one.

Like many other "investments" the government makes with other people's money, half-billion-dollar football stadiums--awarded to billionaire team owners as a bribe to not move somewhere else--go unused forty weeks a year. They are not an economic stimulus but a net drag on every city's population that has agreed to pay for them.

Competition in the way of professional soccer, rugby, golf, racing as well as amateur sports draw fans away from football and toward cable channels featuring those other sports.

Players not standing for the national anthem are a side-show to the more important issue: is professional football as we know it "sustainable?"

[VideoDoctor]

Trump wants suspensions for NFL players who kneel during anthem

A GOOD IDEA!

[catbertz]

The President erred! It’s $50 mil AND a private jet!

That's another thing Trump does. He makes these little errors, that he expects the media will scramble to correct the record, thereby maximizing publicity for the point he was making. Genius!

[BunnySlippers]

My place of business would terminate me if I did something like they are doing. Fire them!

[vette6387]

Trump is really a one in a million human being. He is at least outwardly, unflappable. A lesser man might well have thrown in the towel having to take all the fire he has had to absorb, but I really think he relishes it. He’s always in a way, saying give me your best shot, I can take it, and a lot more!
I just hope he has a plan to deal with the worthless f*ckers in his DOJ and FBI. He needs not only to win, but to really get even with Sessions, Rosenschmeckel, Mueller and Wray, and all their “helpmates” like Strzok, Page and McCabe. If I were him, I’d even “rocket” that worthless a$$hole Horowitz.

[Old Yeller]

Yea, suspend them from the underside of the Golden Gate Bridge.

[Vlad The Inhaler]

Let these overpaid drama queens kill the bloated NFL.

Kneel, dis-respect the national anthem, wave muslim terrorist flags, wear Che T-Shirts and do everything possible to drive fans away.

When the cash flow drops so will their multi-million dollar contracts.

[catbertz]

I hope he’s activately working some amazing plan for them too, as we speak. We can both be sure that he sees that as one of three most important goals of his admin. Why it hasn’t happened yet, has to be for a good reason. Either he can’t yet strategically, or he is using their chaos as a tool, or they really have him boxed in (which I doubt). God speed President Trump!