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I’m very, very saddened by what’s been happening in the NBA and NFL. A few disloyal players -- Colin Kaepernick and Steph Curry are the worst -- have been disrespecting my Great American Flag (and Country). They refuse to stand for my national anthem. I'll tell you, if a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect our heritage that way. That’s a total disrespect of our heritage. That’s a total disrespect of everything that we stand for. Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects my flag, to say, "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s FIRED! Find something else to do!" You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s going to say, "That guy that disrespects the flag, he’s fired." And that owner, they don’t know it, but I'll tell you, they’ll be the second most popular person in this country. When people like yourselves turn on television and you see those people taking the knee when they are playing my great national anthem -- the only thing you could do better is, if you see it, even it's one player, leave the stadium. I guarantee things will stop. NFL should change policy! Roger Goodell of NFL put out a statement trying to justify the total disrespect certain players show to our country. Tell them to stand! Believe me, drugs are a very, very big factor in what you're watching on television at night. In the sports and the reality TV. Senator Strange (from Alabama) and I are unified by the same great American values. We're proud of our country. I consulted with my generals and military experts. General John Kelly (COS) totally agrees with my stance on the NFL and its players disrespecting FLAG, ANTHEM, COUNTRY. #FakeNews .@CNN said he opposes. Total lie!

There's been a tremendous backlash against the NFL. Many people booed the players who kneeled yesterday (which was a small percentage of total). These are fans who demand respect for my Flag! If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting my Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend! NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back U.S. The NFL ratings are down massively. Now the number 1 reason happens to be they like watching what’s happening with yours truly. They like what’s happening. You used to see these tackles and it was incredible to watch. Now tackle -- head-on-head tackle -- 15-yard penalty. Because you know today if you hit too hard: 15 yards! Throw him out of the game! They’re ruining the game! That’s what they want to do. They want to hit. They want to hit! These new, and very much softer, NFL rules are hurting the game. "Uh oh, got a little ding on the head? No, no, you can’t play for the rest of the season." We're going soft, just like the NFL, we're going soft. The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race. It is about respect for my Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this! The people who will suffer the most as a result of this softness and disloyalty are inner city players and fans. There is no compassion in tolerating this conduct. It's an attack on the poor and will never be accepted in a Trump administration, ever, ever.

Time to bring back the United States Football League and my New Jersey Generals, probably the best team in football, ever. With @DougFlutie and @HerschelWalker.

So proud of NASCAR and its supporters and fans. They won't put up with disrespecting our Country or my Flag - they said it loud and clear! #StandForMyAnthem

Every Soylentil should, on occasion, pull back the curtain and see how sausage is made. Being the site this is, all the discussions by the editors are logged on IRC, and often it is very interesting what is said there:

[12:16:20] cmn32480: Could you please take a look at this story? TMB has some strong views we should not run it (see scroolback): https://soylentnews.org
[12:16:21] ^ �03Error�
[12:16:24] afk
[12:19:02] came from aris5tarcfhus..; wee probably shouldn't run it
[12:19:26] Bytram, that a couple white supremacists exist in the US is not news. running a story about it is not dissimenating news, it is furthering the nazi boogeyman myth and painting tens of millions on the alt-right as literal nazis when there are less than a hundred thousand white supremacists of any variety in the US.
[12:20:20] it serves no purpose but that of propaganda
[12:20:42] am puitting in my standing desk... will tak e apeek at it when I get a moment
[12:23:20] and it's not a speech issue. dingleberry is free to post it verbatim in his journal. it does not meet any criteria as a news story though.
[12:43:35] -!- TheMightyBuzzard has quit [Ping timeout: 276 seconds]
[12:46:01] Beware.... There are CLI programs (if somewhat arcane, can maintain many hundreds of systems) and also in GUI (easy to use, somewhat harder to leverage against hundreds of systems). Some of these have malware. Here's an example of one area where we found some.
[12:46:09] replace CLI/GUI with right/left
[12:46:25] I stand by my decisoion.
[12:46:39] NCommander: ^^ would you please take a look at this and weigh in if you would.
[12:46:46] -!- TheMightyBuzzard [TheMightyBuzzard!~TheMighty@Soylent/Staff/Developer/TMB] has joined #editorial
[12:46:51] I would love to stay and chat but I need to be AT work in about 10 minutes.
[12:46:59] blerg. my local nameserver took a shit.
[12:50:26] fuckin hell. it's my damned internet connection not my nameserver.
[12:53:15] Bytram, that MIGHT be valid if framed that way. leaving dingleberry's commentary makes certain it is framed otherwise.
[12:56:15] Looking
[12:56:55] Ugh
[12:56:59] * NCommander is on the fence
[12:59:11] TheMightyBuzzard, I get where you're coming on the boogeyman argument. The summary as it stands kinda sucks but the actual NYT article has a couple of interesting insights on it about the size and measure of the alt-right and relationship to hate groups.
[12:59:48] Possibly scrap the current summary, make it clear it's an op-ed piece, and that it's by definition opinion with a look inside these groups, and stick a disclaimer on it for good measure.
[13:00:52] the summary as it sits is complete crap and propaganda
[13:02:00] NCommander, have you ever hung with alt-right folks? the only relationship happening there is the extremely small hate groups agree on some issues while the vast majority are happy to denounce them if given half a chance.
[13:03:02] the biggest issue I see is the use of Alt-Right being easily transposed with Nazi
[13:03:10] that is in the NYT piece as well.
[13:03:19] ya, that's by design.
[13:03:53] i think the piece both the NYT Opinion piece and the story sub are hard left leaning propaganda and should get dumped.
[13:04:41] it isn't worth trying to make it an even reasonably even handed rewrite as the source is so far one way that theere is no center
[13:06:56] it's not even really the story that bugs me. the site could and has survive a bad story.
[13:07:51] it's that some of the folks in charge of picking what's worth reading genuinely thought this was. that disturbs me greatly.
[13:08:57] I've set the story for no display pending continued arguement
[13:12:26] emphasizing what cmn32480 said, in the first two paragraphs "extreme right" "alt-right" and "neo-Nazis" are used interchangeably. that is pretty solidly propagandizing.
[13:15:52] Hrm
[13:18:27] FYI: the internal definition of alt-right is something along the lines of "conservative, likely but not necessarily nationalist who sees the Republican party as not representing him/her anymore"

As I said, interesting. I have learned that TMB probably has actually hung out with alt-right types, and the we probably should not be running submissions by aristarchus. Moar Free Speech, Y'all!

I think I may have figured out at last what is making the Human Race so unhappy, and it's not just to do with chasing after little green pieces of paper. It occurred to me recently, but I'm getting rather forgetful these days. Let me see if I can remember.

A BIG hand to China for finally getting tough with #NoKo! Very bold, and smart, move! Complete denuclearization very soon!

https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=21666&page=1&cid=571013#commentwrap

Judge for yourselves. Spam mod worthy? If it is, there is no SoylentNews any longer. What began as a revolt again the corporate control of the Green Site has turned into something far more sinister. Prove me wrong, Soylentils! Force the admins to make spam mods public. We need to know who is doing this. If they are not wrong, they have nothing to hide. OH, shit, did Soylent just make me actually say that? Well, in this case, it is true. One of the basic human rights listed in the Virginia Bill of Rights (precursor to the US Constitution's Bill) is the right to face your spam modder. It's right there! Go look it up! (But if you are ammosexual, you should stay away from the 13th right, kinda blows your interpretation of the Second Amendment.)

I was saddened to see how bad the ratings were on the Emmys -- the worst ever. The smallest audience ever. Because they had .@SeanSpicer and .@Stephen_Colbert. LOSERS!

Had a fabulous talk with my good friend, Prime Minister @Netanyahu in NYC yesterday. Just so you understand: I never mentioned the word or the name Israel, never mentioned, in that conversation. Believe me, I never mentioned the word Israel. pic.twitter.com/jwU4e8Yk8A

Happy 70th Birthday @CIA! pic.twitter.com/CU3gOZMf7J

We, me maties, Argh, otta due something for the Occasion! What with the current increase in "blow me downs" in the Carribean, we need to do our part to stem global warming! Avast there, me hearties! Who's with me!

"They're more like guidelines, you see." And so, on the 26th of September, once my moderation ban is over, I say we give the TMB the Black Spot! We spam mod him into oblivion, and take over the ship of SoylentNews! Argh! My parrot agrees with me. Who else wants to live as free persons on the high seas of the internets, instead of slaves to a crazed captain hunting for the DN? It is all there in Melville's novel, and the chapter on the "Whiteness of the Whale". Pirates, privateers, cannot afford to be racist.

The BBC has a story about a German schoolboy jailed for writing to the BBC.

Karl-Heinz Borchardt was 18 years old when he was arrested by the Stasi in East Germany for writing to the BBC. In communist East Germany, listening to a foreign broadcaster was a crime, and Borchardt had been listening to the BBC's Letters without Signatures on its German service.

Much to the ire of the East German regime, the BBC programme gave an extraordinary insight into the physical and emotional lives of a cross-section of GDR society for more than 25 years.

"It was like coming up for air," says Borchardt - a form of release for a young, curious mind locked in the suffocating atmosphere of the communist state.

The methods employed by the Stasi to track down "criminals" who wrote to the BBC were quite clever.

They took saliva samples from the licked envelopes to identify blood groups which they cross-checked with doctor's records. They traced fingerprints on the paper, sourced the ink and collated an extensive archive of handwriting samples.

They caught Borchardt by cross-referencing the handwriting on one of his letters with that on a piece of school homework that he'd handed in.

He spent eight months in prison before being sentenced to two years for "attempted subversive activities" in conjunction with an enemy broadcaster.