News catch-up, Part 1

Hello, dear reader. What can I say, I've had a very busy two weeks. A lot of subject matter has come up during that fortnight that I would have loved to discuss at the time. Nevertheless, while they're still fairly fresh, let's tackle them.

Deflategate:
This one is just idiotic.  It exposes how the media and low-information members of the electorate will leave no stone unturned when it comes to a scandal from the fantasy world of entertainment. But the same people will not question political or social issues.
Benghazi? Fast and Furious? Bob Bergdahl and the release of Guatanamo inmates? Illegal amnesty and illegal wars in Libya, Iraq and Syria? Obama's no-show in the largest mass demonstration in Paris's history when nearly every other world leader was present? What are you talkin' about, dude?
Football is a great game, as American as apple pie, and it is fun to watch. It is also fun to predict the outcome of a game. Analyzing football match-ups is a good way to sharpen the mind, because football is like chess in the complexity of moves and options open to both teams.
Football is also a diversion from life. You devote a little time before the game predicting what you think will happen and then you watch it. It's good and healthy to shut one's mind down for a sports event. But the problem is, for most Americans, the mind is always shut down and the only thing that filters through to the consciousness is football. And more football. And "Survivor". And after "Survivor," yet more football.
We could very easily have another terrorist attack on American soil and the one question most people would ask in its wake would be: "Why are you interrupting my game?"
What "Deflategate" also shows is the intense jealousy of those with success. It's an age-old envy, but is more prominent than ever in Obama's Disunited States of America. The Patriots have had consecutive winning records since 2001. They've appeared in six SuperBowls in thirteen years, and have already won three. New England is the New York Yankees of the NFL. Other football fans and, of course, the media can't help but wonder: When are these guys going to go away?
Futhermore, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has never been popular with the media, because he doesn't screw around. He doesn't pat reporters on the back and say, "How you doing?" and "I read your column". He answers questions with as few words as he can get away with and leaves. So, naturally, he is hated. Belichick sees his job as coaching a football team, not brown-nosing members of the media, so he must pay the price for that.
And so must Tom Brady, one of the best quarterbacks the game has ever produced. Wildly successful. Rich, handsome and athletic. Married to a supermodel. And white. Brady must also pay the price of success, which is derision.
Most quarterbacks doctor the balls to suit their style, to meet their particular comfort zones. Aaron Rodgers of Green Bay has confirmed it. He likes over-inflated balls; Brady prefers under-inflated ones. Rodgers also said that it's common practice for NFL referees to take some air out of the footballs. So how exactly do we know if the Patriots under-inflated their own balls before their game against the Colts?
If New England tampered with the balls during the time period between their lock-up and the start of the game, then there's an issue worth persuing. In the meantime, could we just enjoy the build-up to SuperBowl XLIX without the constant talk of pounds-per-square-inch and SpyGate? Let it go, people.

The I-93 demonstrators:
During the early morning commute hours of January 15, protesters blocked I-93 northbound in Milton, south of Boston, and I-93 southbound at Mystic Avenue in Medford, north of Boston. They were, according to reports, members of the Boston contingent of the "Black Lives Matter" protest group.
The protesters in Milton had chained themselves to concrete-filled barrels and then formed a human chain across the highway. Some demonstrators wore adult diapers, indicating their plans to stay on the highway for a long time. No black people were among the twenty-nine people arrested and arraigned. The protestors were predominently white, with a handful of Asians.
Due to the blockage of the highway, an ambulance carrying an 83-year-old man had to be diverted from its intended route to Boston Medical Center to a similar facility in the southeastern Massachusetts city of Brockton.
Eyewitnesses claim that when police cleared the highway, the demonstrators received a torrent of abuse from commuters who had sat immobile in their vehicles for nearly two hours. Important appointments had to be cancelled and a whole lot of time was wasted. One local wrote on Facebook: "Get a job! And a life of your own. Messing up other people's lives, who have nothing to do with your 'point,' is doing absolutely nothing to make your point, people. Just making you look like morons."


She wants you to know that she sacrificed her usual four-course breakfast in order to inconvenience those who work for a living.

I believe in the right to protest. There would be no United States of America if not for protest. It is the right of a free people, who are truly free, to express their concerns through protest, even if the concerns involve works of fiction that are based on events that did not even occur anywhere near the community that a demonstration is due to take place in.
Here's the point that these modern-day protestors and their defenders constantly miss: You need a permit to demonstrate. You need to alert the town or city you're in why you're upset and ask for permission to protest. The city needs to set up traffic diversions and mobilize law enforcement to monitor the event. Why is there never any talk about the lack of permits that define nearly all left-wing protest events? The Tea Party always requires them.
My message to the Boston chapter of Black Lives Matter and all similar, sycophantic Leftie umbrella organizations? Keep it up. You managed to thoroughly piss off loads of residents in one of the most liberal states in the country. Don't change a thing. Let us continue to see you for the privileged, spoiled, entitled, brainless wastes of space you verily are.
If the current law is too much of an ass to deal with you properly, then you will be dealt with through a sea-change in voter turnout and disposition. Believe me, you won't get away with this garbage with a Joe Arpaio type in the Oval Office.

American Sniper:
Could there be anyone more accomplished in Hollywood than Clint Eastwood? His crime, though, is having produced a film that celebrates the life of a man with an incredible talent, who used such talent in defence of America.
American Sniper tells the tale of Texan Chris Kyle, a cowboy who joined the Navy SEALs and did four tours of Iraq. He was so accurate with his sniping ability that he was nicknamed "The Devil of Ramadi". He killed an insurgent with a shot 2,100 yards away. That's the length of 21 football fields. I probably couldn't hit anyone one football field's length away from me.
Kyle died, age 38, from a shooting range accident in 2013. His was a remarkable life. He deserves the recognition that Eastwood gave him in this film.
But Lefties like Michael Moore and Seth Rogan have said in response that snipers are cowards and the movie is the equivalent of Nazi propaganda. No good deed goes unpunished, and so Kyle must suffer posthumous indignities by being besmirched by progressives. For them, the outrage is that Selma did not win Oscar awards for Best Director, Best Actor or Best Picture. ISIS is rampaging across the Middle East, but the thing that scares liberals the most is that we've had the "whitest" Oscars since 1998.
Perhaps if Selma had not completely trashed the legacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson, it would have stood a better chance. LBJ may have been a total creep, but one accusation you cannot throw at the man is opposition to civil rights. If not for President Johnson, black directors and black actors would not have equal freedom of expression—nor the opportunity to complain when their work does not make a clean sweep of the Oscars.
The story of Chris Kyle has reminded Americans of what matters, what is important and what is at stake. That is why it has been a box office phenomenon. That is why there are lines of those wishing to watch it a mile long around movie theaters across the country.
The Left can lecture and browbeat us about what counts in their ivory-tower universes. But normal people living normal lives will always choose true bravery over fake profiles in courage anytime. The success of American Sniper has proven this.