Goodell, NFL owners, not kneelers disrespect flag.

Kneeling during public playing of the National Anthem to call attention to social injustice is patriotic. Banning such kneeling under threat of fine is not. Demanding an NFL player can protest by remaining in the locker room during the Anthem is degrading and insulting to the player and to America's democratic ideals. "It's OK to protest", the NFL is saying, "Just don't let me see you." That's sorta like Birmingham Police Chief Bull O'Conner telling Martin Luther King he must protest in his house before entering Birmingham streets.

This August every player on both teams in the first exhibition game should come out proudly for the Anthem and kneel. It might take a game or two but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and his cowardly owners will quickly huddle and call a new play: "No harm...no foul."

McCain still doesn't get it...never will

Nearing his end, Senator John McCain, admits that the Iraq war was a 'mistake', telling Politico "“I came out of the Vietnam War convinced that frankly we could have won, and we had it won... just as I believed we had the Iraq conflict won after the surge — and for which I sacrificed everything, including my presidential ambitions, that it would succeed.”

All those bombs he dropped on innocents fifty years ago and all those Iraqis killed 15 years ago still hasn't made a dent in McCain's conscience. He still champions the murderous and criminal Vietnam and Iraq wars as honorable wars only lost because of stupid leaders who lost their nerve to triumph over avoidable defeat. McCain's incessant warmongering against Russia, Iran, North Korea and others since our failure in Iraq and Afghanistan is a pox on America's soul and an extreme threat to world peace.

We must neither honor nor revere leaders who have spent their entire career fighting in and promoting senseless war. We must call them out for their warmongering, vote them out of Congress, and hold them up to the derision and ridicule they deserve.

Not Pearl Harbor, but a day of infamy nonetheless

CIA career employee Gina Haspel was confirmed as CIA Director May 17 by a Senate vote of 54-45. Haspel's nomination was big news up till her confirmation because she participated in the US torture program of suspected bad guys in the hysteria known as the War On Terror following 911. She compounded her despicable conduct by drafting the memo ordering destruction of the tapes documenting US torture. Haspel didn't get prosecuted for her crimes. She didn't get fired. She didn't get shunned by a country claiming moral superiority in matters of humane conduct. Instead she was promoted to head the agency that conducted the torture in which she was personally involved.

Haspel's confirmation vote was bi-partisan; 6 Democrats joined 48 Republicans to celebrate rather than censure her. Within 24 hours Gina Haspel and her torturous path to CIA Director disappeared from the 24/7 news cycle. Next May 17 her name and her foul deeds likely will not be mentioned by a mainstream media which enables both perpetual war and its illegitimate child torture.

But to me, May 17 will remain ...a day of infamy.

Bars should not bar right to vote

If one of the purposes of prison is rehabilitation, then it's important to let every soul behind bars vote. Just two states, albeit among the smallest, Maine and Vermont, follow that humane principle. No one has yet to point out one iota of harm from such inclusion. The remaining 48 practice some form of disenfranchising backwardness, from a tad less progressive to abominable:

15 states plus DC, including IL, only bar people in prison from voting

3 states return right to vote after prison and parole

20 add completing probation before restoring vote

10 states never restore right to vote, permanently disenfranchising over 5,000,000 citizens and making a mockery about 'paying your debt to society'.

The other millions on parole or probation must also be given the franchise if we want to truly begin the rehabilitation process and reduce recidivism. We'll never know how may failed lives can be reclaimed and how many billions can be saved till we do the right thing on the felon franchise.