P.M. Carpenter

Trump wuz robbed - again

Emerald Robinson smells a rat. Donald J. Trump has been victimized again, only this time by Republican skulduggery. Yes, something is rotten in the state of Georgia.

Or, as the former OAN and now Newsmax correspondent puts it, "Something Stinks in Georgia: The GOP primary numbers are funny because the votes were rigged."

Emerald's logic is, as they say, impeccable. I quote:

President Trump had endorsed quite a few candidates in Georgia, including David Perdue in the gubernatorial race with Brian Kemp, and Jody Hice in the race for Secretary of State against Brad Raffensperger. His endorsements were decisive in almost every political race in America this year. 

That is to say, from here on out, no candidate endorsed by Trump can possibly lose an election. The closest I can come to a proper logical fallacy here is that of post hoc ergo propter hoc ("after this, therefore because of this"). But even that nitwittedness fails to capture the intriguing peculiarity of Emerald's thinking. Of which she proceeds to vomit more. 

So why was Georgia such an outlier?

Sure, Georgia is an open primary state — Democrats are allowed to vote in the GOP primaries there — but that’s not the real story. Look at the RCP polling average: Brian Kemp was getting 52% of the votes and his main challenger, David Perdue, was getting 38% of the votes just before the race.

On Primary Day in Georgia, Kemp gets 74% and Perdue gets 22%. Nobody in any election in America gets 74% of the votes. Ever. It doesn’t happen.

Obvious fraud.

Did it occur to Emerald that it's Trump who says polls are worthless? Indeed, sometimes polls are off — way off, especially in local and state polling. Nevertheless, in Emerald's mind, the results should have matched what one pollster estimated. Otherwise, "obvious fraud."

(Unless it was Emerald and Donald's candidate who won by an unexpected 52-point margin. That would have been a sign of Trump's magnificent influence.)

Nor did it occur to Mrs. Robinson that the "real story," as she tells it, is that her own party is full of fraudsters. And they're largely in the very county — Fulton (Atlanta) — that Trump says is oppressed not by Republicans but by the iron fist of election-stealing Democrats.

It's hard to keep up. There is, however, one handy rule of thumb: If Trump's guy loses, there was election fraud.    

Greg Abbott get to the real root of the gun issue

The Times has a piece on the rational steps being taken in Canada on gun control

Most owners of what Canada calls “military-style assault weapons” would be required to turn over their firearms to a government buyback program under legislation introduced on Monday, which would tighten the country’s already stringent control of firearms.

The Canadian government also announced new regulations that will ban the sale, purchase, importation or transfer of handguns.

No word yet on Canada's banning of doors. 

The scary, reckless rhetoric of Russian state television

Anne Applebaum is a journalist and scholar of Russian, Central and Eastern European affairs, educated at Yale, the London School of Economic and Oxford. She speaks Polish and Russian. Francis Scarr is with BBCMonitoring; he follows Russian state television.

You might not want a war with Russia, but Russia wants a war with you https://t.co/uhOm7yp0p6

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) May 30, 2022

Olga Skabeyeva is a journalist who has covered the "criminal" activities of Russian opposition groups; the poisoning of Kremlin critics (which she has "debunked"); and Putin's favorite shibboleth, "Nazis in Ukraine." Olga and her husband have only their state TV incomes, yet own $4 million worth of Moscow real estate. She has been described as part of Russian TV's "special operation forces."

And her opinion — broadcast to millions of already ill-informed Russians — of what President Putin must do next is: launch World War Three. 

Putin will do whatever Putin wishes to do, notwithstanding the illogic of it, or the external influences on it — something the West has yet to realize and appreciate. Instead, the West persists in coddling Vladimir's sensitivities. But in terms of militarily confronting NATO at some point, as Ms. Skabeyeva urges now, Putin will know he has a solid segment of the public behind him. Because state TV, its journalists and jingoists, are brainwashing the people of the Russian Federation for more war.   

File under "Ripley's": Dems blame Dems for Republicans' doings

Last week, the Cook Political Report took the Democrats' hospital chart in hand and reclassified their condition, from "serious" to "critical."

Notes the Times: "That result would give the Republican Party one of its largest majorities in decades."

Why are mostly reasonable Democrats ailing while crackpot Republicans are picking up steam? The reason is less because of Trumper enthusiasm than Democratic voters' disaffection. This borders on the bizarre, but the latter group is unhappy with their party because Republican pols have obstructed so much of the Democratic Party's agenda. Bizarre — and thoroughly nonsensical.

And now, should the Senate fail on gun control, which it will — again, because of Republicans — that failure, continues the Times, will "be lumped onto a growing pile of disappointments that have depressed Democratic voter enthusiasm since the party took control of Washington."

If Democratic voters were due for any change in sentiment, one would logically think the change would be toward outrage — not at Democratic pols, but at the Republican brood. As political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein objectively pointed out 10 years ago — which has been repeated by many others every day ever since — "Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem." But for some errant reason, the Democratic rank and file believes that their party should be punished for the sins of the other guys.

Given the unconscionable behavior of Republican politicians, 2022 should be among Democrats' more victorious cycles. Instead, they're about to turn control of Congress — the Senate is likely to fall, too — over to the scoundrels and scofflaws who have brought this republic to its knees. As noted, it makes no sense. None at all.

No long-range rockets from the U.S., after all. Ukraine, shafted again.

This is disgusting, unforgivable, and heartbreaking. It's "an attempt to ease tensions with Moscow," reports The Guardian. "We are not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia," said Biden to reporters Monday. Added a senior U.S. official: "Nothing is on the table with long-range strike capabilities." 

The senior White House official has provided me with the following clarification of President Biden's statement: "#MLRS systems remain under consideration, but nothing is on the table with long-range strike capabilities (beyond battlefield use)." https://t.co/1TbQbHITs8

— Misha Komadovsky (@komadovsky) May 30, 2022

Meanwhile, Russian forces are free to deploy whatever weapon systems they find advantageous. No problem. Easing tensions with the Kremlin is America's Job One.

Ukraine is about to lose Sievierodonetsk, a strategic city whose capture will enable Russia to "quickly complete the capture of the eastern industrial region of the Donbas," reports the Associated Press, "before more Western arms arrive to bolster Ukraine’s defense" (emphasis added).

Nick Reynolds, a land warfare specialist Nick Reynolds: "The disparity in artillery capability is a major factor allowing the Russian ground forces to continue pushing forwards."

Sure enough: "Other Nato members may follow the US lead."

"They’re just raining down metal on us" - because, almost unbelievably, Ukraine is still short of Western armaments

"I mainly hope the boys don’t get encircled in Severodonetsk," said a 36-year-old Ukrainian soldier. "They need more guns, they need more weapons."

In fact the Ukrainian army is desperate for them. Russia's insane, unprovoked war on Ukraine is now in its fourth month, and the West is still pondering, still meditating on when and what military armaments should be provided to the aggrieved, even though this is as much the West's war as it is Ukraine's. The Washington Post reports on the embattled country's dire situation:

Kyiv is already enraged that some Western voices are floating the idea of ceding territory to Moscow. And the Biden administration is taking weeks to decide whether to provide heavier weaponry that could aid Ukrainian troops at this critical juncture in the war....

Russian troops are making incremental but steady progress in their campaign in the east and are regularly employing heavy flamethrowers and long-range artillery that Ukrainian forces lack, leaving Kyiv on the back foot. Though Ukrainian resistance has made the fight a slog for Russian forces, Moscow is inching closer to encircling Ukraine’s biggest strongholds in the Donbas region, while fighting on territory contiguous to Russia with easier supply lines.

U.S. officials and congressional staffers told The Post on Friday that the administration is preparing to send the weaponry and could announce the move as early as this week, but the White House must still make a final decision on the transfer.

Some White House officials had expressed concern that providing MLRS weaponry with a range of more than 180 miles would allow Ukrainian forces to hit targets far into Russian territory, potentially prompting an escalatory response from Moscow, but the White House is now comfortable managing that risk by withholding the longest-range ammunition for the system, a senior U.S. official told The Post.

Whether the weaponry will get to Ukrainian forces in time to stave off a significant defeat in the east is now unclear.... In an Instagram post on Friday, Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, said Ukrainian forces needed the weaponry "yesterday," as well as other systems that have been requested, such as air defense systems and tanks.

The West's dithering and procrastination and, at times at times, damn-near apathy is breathtaking.

The seven potential outcomes of the Russia-Ukraine war

The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), a nonpartisan, prodemocracy think tank based in Washington, D.C., recently undertook the ranking of "potential scenarios and implications for medium-term European security" in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war. CEPA's conjectures are reproduced below, with only mild editing.

The think tank ranked the outcomes — seven of them — from the potentially worst to the optimistically best. Here, I have reordered them, leading with optimism and concluding with the absolute worst outcome. I would have reversed CEPA's numbers 1 and 2 for two reasons: retention of the Donbas (ranking #2) would be far more valuable to Ukraine, economically and spiritually, than the permanent loss of Crimea. In addition, Putin's ouster alone elevates the #2 ranking to the #1 spot, especially with Russia "giving way" to a renewed democratization.

Also, CEPA's #4 and #5 could easily, and logically, be combined (Russia's destabilization being their only real difference), though I have left them separate.

Finally, omitted from mention in #7 is Russia's military incapability for a considerable stretch of time — perhaps never; not, anyway, as long as Russia remains an international pariah subjected to withering sanctions on military technology, supplies, parts and the like. 

CEPA's rankings:

1. Ukraine wins. Russia is forced to withdraw its forces from Ukraine, except the [Donbas regions] which retain – for the time being – their ersatz 'independence.' Ukraine gravitates towards Europe and, in time, achieves EU membership or candidate status. NATO membership remains a theoretical, but distant possibility. EU and NATO influence expands not only in Ukraine, but also in other ex-Soviet republics – the Caucasus, Moldova, and even Belarus. Moscow loses influence in the Balkans in the wake of Putin’s defeat....

2. (Almost) everyone is a winner. In this scenario, Russia pulls back from most of Ukraine, including the [Donbas], but retains Crimea. There is a new international treaty enshrining Ukrainian sovereignty and formalizing agreement on major territorial, security, and political questions. In Russia, Putin leaves office, giving way to a (somewhat) more liberal leadership and a renewed if imperfect process of democratization. President Alexander Lukashenka is ousted in Belarus, and the beginnings of a nascent and fragile democracy emerge there. Despite these favorable trends, a 'single Europe' would remain unlikely. Although the prestige of EU and NATO would be enhanced, Europe would be a 'multi-speed' continent – politically, economically, socially, and culturally diverse. Crucially, though, these differences would be broadly manageable while the chances of conflict within Europe would diminish.

3. A Ukraine divided. Russia annexes the rest of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, building a land bridge to Crimea. It may even shut out Ukraine from the Black Sea by taking Odessa.... Ukraine would retain its sovereign independence and move closer to the West. The consequences for Europe would be similar to scenario two in that the continent would be divided, only the line would be further to the east. Under this scenario, the Baltic states would remain within Western security and economic structures, as would Bulgaria and Romania (and Turkey within NATO). This outcome, however, is scarcely sustainable. Moscow would not relax its efforts to subjugate – directly or indirectly – those parts of Ukraine outside its sphere of influence, while seeking to extend its remit to the Baltic states, Moldova, Georgia, and the Balkans.

4. Stalemate/low-level conflict. This scenario would essentially be a continuation of the status quo ante the 2022 Russian invasion. Putin claims 'victory'; he pulls the troops back from most of Ukraine but reinforces the Russian position in Crimea and the [Donetsk and Luhansk] regions. There is continued sporadic fighting, similar to that during 2015-2021. The main danger in this scenario is 'rinse and repeat' – a return to the complacency and indifference that have characterized European attitudes towards Ukraine in recent years. Basic failures of governance in Ukraine would remain unresolved. There would be a pause, not an end, to Russian attempts to dominate (or disrupt) much of Eastern Europe. And plenty of scope for renewed conflict down the line.

5. A long grind. In this scenario, the war in its current form would go on for years, with each side having wins and losses along the way, but no decisive victory for either side. The result would be a near perpetual state of conflict on the continent with the constant threat of further escalation hanging in the background. Casualties on both sides would continue to mount. The West would continue to provide support to Kyiv, yet the status of Ukraine and its ties to Western institutions would remain unresolved. Meanwhile, domestic pressure on the Kremlin would increase, similar to what the Soviet Union experienced during its long war with Afghanistan, risking destabilization inside Russia.

6. Russia wins. Under this scenario, the Ukrainian armed resistance is decisively defeated, and a Russian puppet government is instituted in Kyiv. A rump Ukraine retains nominal independence but submits to Moscow’s political and economic fiat while joining Russian-led structures, such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization.... Europe would again be divided into two armed camps as at the height of the Cold War. Russia’s de facto acquisition of Ukraine would have a chastening effect on other ex-Soviet republics. There would be direct security repercussions for front-line NATO member-states such as Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, and the three Baltic states would be especially vulnerable.

7. Wider European war. Putin’s willingness to escalate the conflict in Ukraine significantly increases the potential for conflict between Russia and NATO. This encompasses a range of possibilities: from relatively low-level skirmishes in and around NATO front-line members (the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Norway) to a major European and possibly even transcontinental war involving not only conventional armaments, but also chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. In the most drastic scenarios, the conflict between Russia and the West would be existential. There would be little point in speculating about the future of Europe until this is resolved in one form or another – either with a decisive defeat of Putin’s Russia, the collapse of the US-led West (and of the post-Cold War settlement), some sort of negotiated settlement along the lines of Yalta 1945 (or possibly the 1953 Korean armistice), or nuclear Armageddon.

Abbott booed, Biden cheered

Greg Abbott gets booed by crowd and shouted at that we need change in our gun policies.

Don’t stop. 👏🏻pic.twitter.com/M6OiTek0ac

— Dan 🇺🇸 (@HStarshot) May 29, 2022

On the other hand, President Biden and the First Lady were cheered when they arrived at the memorial. As one commentator noted, "Says it all, doesn't it?" Yes it does.

True, the assembled crowd is a self-selected one; a goddamnit-do-something crowd. But it's also true that the state of Texas is growing purpler by the day. In fact, it's a minority-white state, which also means it's a minority-redneck state. Someday — and that day will come sooner than its Greg Abbotts probably suspect — the real voice of Texas shall be heard.  

Memorial Day for Trumpers: mourning for Trump's 2020 annihilation

Mo Brooks' proof that election fraud took place in 2020 is that 150 cowering congressional Republicans said it did. All those court cases that Team Trump lost? That means nothing, says Mo. The courts are not the final arbiter "of who wins federal election contests," says Mo. Tell that to the U.S. Supreme Court of 2000. And when confronted by the assessment of a fraud-naysaying Republican official in Wisconsin, Mo mostly points to fraudulent evildoing in Pennsylvania, which is not Wisconsin, plus "evidence" revealed in the video "2000 Mules" by Dinesh D'Souza — who himself was convicted in 2014 of election-related fraud — which The Bulwark called "a tour de force exploring the limits of how many suckers there are willing to pay for fantasy."

Rep. Mo Brooks claims he & Trump had many conversations from last September to early this year that "revolved around his being reinstated, revolved around his wanting to rescind the [2020] election."

"And I can understand him wanting to do that, ok? He was robbed," Brooks adds. pic.twitter.com/M6oOsvT1qS

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 29, 2022

Mr. Brooks seems unable to make up his mind. Trump had endorsed him in his Alabama Senate race but then unendorsed him for having moved on from the whole election-fraud fraud. This caused Mo to nosedive in polling. So now that he's trailing Katie Britt in the Senate race, he's back at it, railing about the widespread fraud of 2020 — and citing a laughably feckless felon.

On Ukraine, an American letter

I just received this missive from a good friend to both me and my daughter, Ellie. It makes a good point and I'd like to share it.

***

Hi Phil —

I’ve been following your posts but I wanted to give you an insight you may not be aware of. I have a Ukrainian friend who lives not far from me. She was raised in an eastern border town and her family came here about 15 years ago. She still has many friends there fighting the war.

She works closely with a Ukrainian group in the U.S. and started fundraising here at the beginning of the war. At that time they were needing medical equipment…blood clotting powders, bandages, surgical equipment. Then it was heat sensors. (I had to laugh, you could actually get items through Amazon. Can you picture an Amazon van driving through Kiev?)

One night my friend sent me a message and asked me to get my son’s input [he's an officer in the Army National Guard] on some battle helmets she was looking to buy. Huh? I sent him the info. He told her what to look for in a battle helmet, the best grades, etc. So my friend did her homework and settled on three different kinds and would he make sure these would be the best for the Ukrainian soldiers?  Again, he was happy to help and she ordered several hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of helmets.

Do you see where this is going? This war is being fought by people all over the world. The money, other aid, the battle gear…without a strong Ukrainian network world-wide, things would be much much worse. 

I was at a dinner at the university about a month ago and there was a young doctoral student from Ukraine seated at our table. I asked him a few questions about his family’s situation  and he said his mother was able to get out in the first few days of the invasion but his father was still there. I told my friend about him and the first words out of her mouth were “Does he need help getting his father out?” 

I’m amazed. I’m impressed. Americans certainly wouldn’t have that kind of response to any US military action. Shit, we can’t even save our children at home, let alone our soldiers all over the world. 

Take care—

K.

***

I recall that the Pentagon complained a few years ago that the Army had too little ammunition. Like, for rifles. Seven-hundred-billion-dollars a year and soldiers are back to practicing warfare as they did under Major Eisenhower in the 1920s? — with wooden rifles? Which they may as well, since the doughboys haven't enough ammo, or at least then they didn't. Or, the Pentagon could simply shop at any neighbor gun store for supplies. Assault rifles and 100-round magazines? Hell, they're everywhere.  

Absolutely. Because working with base-10 math is so hard.

A tweet from chemical sciences professor Jeremiah Gassensmith: "Metric could never succeed in the US when we already use a system as intuitive as this":

Tales of Vladimir Putin's death, body doubles and prerecorded appearances

The Daily Star, a British tabloid, has a "WORLD EXCLUSIVE!" that was instantly picked up by virtually every other British tabloid. The Mirror, The Express, The Sun and The Chronicle are also running the Star's story, which is this:

Vladimir Putin may be dead with body double taking his place, MI6 bosses claim

If that shocking revelation fails to sell newspapers, then the Hearsts and Pulitzers of modern journalism should hang it up. Here is a story on a sensationalist par with the LBJ-CIA-Mafia's JFK assassination, Hitler chewing coca leaves in Argentina, George W. Bush blowing up the world's two tallest towers, or Donald J. Trump having been a real U.S. president. All for a few shillings.

But back to today's blockbuster news. "Senior MI6 bosses say the Russian president has been seriously ill and that if he had died, his cronies would hush it up to keep power for as long as possible," reports the Star. One "source" told the tabloid that Putin's "recent media appearances had very probably been pre-recorded."

It's that, or "body doubles" are being used. Or maybe not. The Daily Star and MI6 (or so we're to believe) are merely spitballing here. There is "the possibility that he is already dead. It’s impossible to know," said an intelligence source. Nevertheless, "it is believed" that Putin has used body doubles; "some observers" say he has blood cancer; and "it is widely believed" that he's taking steroids or receiving cancer treatment."

At least one segment of the Star's report is plenty plausible. "The real fear" in Moscow is that once Putin croaks, "there could be [would be] a Kremlin coup" and quite possibly the generals "will want to withdraw from Ukraine." They'll figure that beats getting whacked on the front lines, the fate of roughly a dozen generals so far.

As for the rest of the story, well, it's terrific stuff for selling newspapers.

Mental-health tests are needed for politicians

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who advocates the right of teenagers to buy weapons of war, says there are two ways to stop school shootings: better security and improved mental-health care. (The Uvalde school district had its own police plus elaborate security plans, and the shooter was never flagged for psychiatric care.) "Rep." Marjorie Taylor Greene proposes that groups of armed parents should patrol school grounds. Both pols, of course, are nuts. And there are plenty others.

I suggest we've been going about the mass-shootings problem all wrong. Rather than trying to pass gun laws for 330 million Americans in 50 separate states, we should try to pass only one law for a handful of people — a law designed to keep unhinged crackpots out of public office. It is from them that all other laws devastatingly descend on this already bullet-ridden republic.

The NY Times reports this morning that any responsible federal legislation on guns is D.O.A., although that's not really news. The only proposal that might have some life is one that "would offer incentives for states to pass 'red flag' laws aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of people who are mentally ill." As noted, what's actually needed is a red flag law aimed at keeping governance out of the hands of mentally ill politicians, such as those who believe that 18-year-olds should have AR-15 assault rifles and that armed, parental militias should patrol school zones.

The legislation would be socially beneficial in so many other ways, too. It would, for instance, prevent certifiable lunatics from passing laws that make recompensed vigilantes of anti-choice Americans or strangle the right to vote in a democracy. It would also have a ripple effect. Had a "psych test" been in effect in 2016, Donald Trump could not have been elected, thus he could not have appointed three other nutcases to the U.S. Supreme Court, which now upholds vigilante and antidemocratic laws.

How could a mental-health test for politicians ever be fairly, evenhandedly and scientifically applied, you ask? Simple. Anyone who files for any public office as an R would be automatically disqualified, since anyone who still wishes to identify with the Patricks, Greenes, Cruzes and Trumps is, by psychiatric definition, mad.

Would a Putin replacement make any difference?

Ukraine's foreign minister, Pavlo Klimkin, said yesterday to Radio NV (Ukraine) that whoever replaces Vladimir Putin will not "necessarily" be an improvement for Volodymyr Zelensky — even a leader who frees imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

According to Klimkin, "There’s a game around Navalny. I don't rule out that this is a game played between certain Kremlin's towers – to pull out Navalny at some point and say: 'You see, we're much better now. Let's quickly be friends with us, remove sanctions from us.'"

Russia would then proceed to behave as it always has. And so, reasoned Klimkin, "A change of government in Russia will not necessarily work in Ukraine's favor." What will work in Ukraine's favor is countering Putin — or whomever — "from a position of strength.... If he's not able to achieve this, it opens Pandora's box, which destabilizes at least Europe, and possibly much of the world."

Interesting is that Klimkin's remarks somewhat mirror those of the extraordinary Polish-born novelist Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), although the diplomat's words are more guarded. Conrad suffered under Russian rule as a boy, and in adult essays and novels he never let himself, or his readers, forget it. Sounding much like Klimkin in 1918, just after the Bolshevik Revolution, he wrote: "The great thing is to keep the Russian infection, its decomposing power, from the social organism of the rest of the world.”

In a 1905 essay, Conrad argued "that Russia was a barbaric Asiatic despotism,“ observes his biographer, Jeffrey Meyers. In Conrad's words: "This dreaded and strange apparition, bristling with bayonets, armed with chains, hung over with holy images; that something not of this world, partaking of a ravenous ghoul still faces us with its old stupidity, with its strange mystical arrogance already heaving in the blood-soaked ground with the first stirrings of a resurrection."

In a 1907 novel: "The scrupulous and just, the noble, humane and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement — but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims: the victims of disgust, of disenchantment — often of remorse."

A 1917 novel: “Once Tartar and Turkish, and now even worse, because arising no longer from the mere savagery of nomad races, but from an enormous seething mass of sheer moral corruption — generating violence of a more purposeful sort."

And late in life, Conrad wrote: "I spring from an oppressed race where oppression was not a matter of history but a crushing fact in the daily life of all individuals, made still more bitter by declared hatred and contempt. The Russian mentality and their emotionalism have always been repugnant to me."

Someday, a Ukrainian novelist, perhaps one as gifted as Joseph Conrad, will write tales of his or her upbringing during the Russia-Ukraine war and reflect on the invading regime's hatred and contempt, its oppression and decomposing power born of the same "old stupidity" of Conrad's century. And in the 22nd-century novelist's eyes, Russia still will not have changed from its "barbaric Asiatic despotism." 

Baseball manager is done with the national anthem

San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler told reporters yesterday that he won't be taking the field for the national anthem "until I feel better about the direction of our country." And he wrote this blog post:

"The day 19 children and 2 teachers were murdered, we held a moment of silence at sporting events around the country, then we played the national anthem, and we went on with our lives.

"Players, staff and fans stood for the moment of silence, grieving the lives lost, and then we (myself included) continued to stand, proudly proclaiming ourselves the land of the free and the home of the brave. We didn’t stop to reflect on whether we are actually free and brave after this horrific event, we just stood at attention....

"We aren’t free when politicians decide that the lobbyist and gun industries are more important than our children’s freedom to go to school without needing bulletproof backpacks and active shooter drills.

"I’m often struck before our games by the lack of delivery of the promise of what our national anthem represents. We stand in honor of a country where we elect representatives to serve us.... But instead, we thoughtlessly link our moment of silence and grief with the equally thoughtless display of celebration for a country that refuses to take up the concept of controlling the sale of weapons used nearly exclusively for the mass slaughter of human beings....

"Every time I place my hand over my heart and remove my hat, I’m participating in a self congratulatory glorification of the ONLY country where these mass shootings take place. On Wednesday, I walked out onto the field, I listened to the announcement as we honored the victims in Uvalde. I bowed my head. I stood for the national anthem. Metallica riffed on City Connect guitars.

"My brain said drop to a knee; my body didn’t listen. I wanted to walk back inside; instead I froze. I felt like a coward. I didn’t want to call attention to myself. I didn’t want to take away from the victims or their families.... I knew that thousands more wouldn’t understand the gesture and would take it as an offense to the military, to veterans, to themselves.

"But I am not okay with the state of this country. I wish I hadn’t let my discomfort compromise my integrity. I wish that I could have demonstrated what I learned from my dad, that when you’re dissatisfied with your country, you let it be known through protest. The home of the brave should encourage this."