Nike Stock Drops as Furious Ex-Fans Burn Gear

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Nike has picked sides in the divisive NFL protest debate and the value of its shares stumbled in early trading Tuesday as a result.

The athletic-wear giant named former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick as its latest advertising spokesperson.

Kaepernick, who started the ongoing pregame protests against racial inequality and police violence in 2016, shared the news in a tweet that sparked praise, criticism and countless social-media arguments.

As Business Insider reported, the news also resulted in trepidation among traders, though some of the initial losses had been recovered shortly after markets opened. When the opening bell rang, the corporation’s stock was trading 3.7 percent lower than at its previous close.

The theme of an anticipated campaign for the 30th anniversary of Nike’s iconic slogan is reflected in the image shared online by Kaepernick, who is also 30 years old.

“Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything. #JustDoIt,” he wrote.

The revelation was immediately met by clashing narratives.

In comments directly to Kaepernick’s tweet and separate posts, supporters posted images of themselves in Nike apparel while detractors called for boycotts and even posted videos of themselves destroying the company’s merchandise.

Some former customers said they would shift their loyalty to a competing brand.

A handful of particularly upset Twitter users posted video footage of themselves setting fire to their own Nike sneakers.

One protester shared his destructive video and directed a message to Nike reading, “how you going to endorse @Kaepernick7 a person that advertises socks with cops portrayed as pigs, a person that hasn’t played NFL for 2 years, well it’s good I never really spent money on your brand but to the money I did, here they are”

“Due to your support of C.K. in your coming adds, I as an American can no longer support your company,” read the caption of a similar video uploaded by another Twitter user.

That tweet included the hashtags “#boycottNike” and “#IStandForOurFlag.”

Though not to this extent, Nike has previously expressed general support for the right of Kaepernick and others to protest in the way they feel is appropriate.

“Nike supports athletes and their right to freedom of expression on issues that are of great importance to our society,” read a company statement issued last year. (For more from the author of “Nike Stock Drops as Furious Ex-Fans Burn Gear” please click HERE)

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Pro-Lifer Accuses Shout Your Abortion of Stealing Her Photo for Piece Bragging About Abortions

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The pro-abortion “Shout Your Abortion” campaign is under fire for using a photo of a pro-life woman without her consent for a piece in which a different young woman takes pride in having had three abortions by age 23.

As covered last week by LifeSiteNews, the original essay was titled “I am 23 and I have had 3 abortions. YES I HAVE!” and appeared under the name “Heather.” The author details having two abortions after casual sexual encounters in which she used no birth control whatsoever, and a third after her birth control pill failed and she ultimately decided to abort because pregnancy would interfere with a summer job at a national park. . .

24-year-old Molly Schaap subsequently reached out to LifeSiteNews and other pro-life outlets to declare that she was actually the woman in the header image … but she was pro-life, had never had an abortion, and did not give Shout Your Abortion permission to use her photo.

“I was horrified to wake up yesterday and learn that a photo of me was stolen and used without my permission or knowledge,” Shaap wrote, noting that “Heather” says “she is proud of who she is and her actions, yet she used a picture of a random stranger instead of herself.”

“All of my life, I have been pro-life and believe that life begins at conception,” Schaap declared. “I have personally donated to pro-life causes and believe that every life is valuable. As a Christian, I believe that God is the author of life, and life is not ours to take away.” (Read more from “Pro-Lifer Accuses Shout Your Abortion of Stealing Her Photo for Piece Bragging About Abortions” HERE)

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After Leftists Smear Woman at Kavanaugh Hearing as White Supremacist, Her Attorney Husband Issues Fierce Response

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As reported by The Daily Wire on Tuesday, leftists went full-crazy at Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing and, among other insane things, smeared a woman siting behind Kavanaugh as a white supremacist. The internet erupted with conspiracy theories that Zina Bash, a former Kavanaugh clerk, flashed a “white power” sign, apparently giving a nod and wink to her white supremacist, Kavanaugh-supporting brethren. (In reality, she randomly rested her right hand on left arm, but TRUMP!)

Leftist activist and serial fake news-spreader Amy Siskind was unsurprisingly one of the many, many hysterical leftists to take part in the shameful smearing:

What fresh hell is this!!!???
Kavanaugh’s assistant Zina Bash giving the white power sign right behind him during the hearing? This alone should be disqualify!!! pic.twitter.com/ZzXVqgTXhC

— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) September 4, 2018

Hours later, Mrs. Bash’s husband, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas John Bash, unloaded on the despicable leftists spreading such falsehoods about his part-Mexican, part-Jewish wife. . .

Siskind later deleted the viral tweet, “which has become way too much of a distraction.” A screenshot can be viewed, below:

(Read more from “After Leftists Smear Woman at Kavanaugh Hearing as White Supremacist, Her Attorney Husband Issues Fierce Response” HERE)

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Don’t Tell Climate Change Fanatics This Piece of News

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By Daily Wire. . .According to a new study published in Nature, in the roughly quarter century between 1982 and 2016, global tree canopy cover increased by 865,000 square miles.

While the area of bare ground and short vegetation is diminishing, forest area is growing. As Ronald Bailey notes in Reason, “Forests in montane regions are expanding as climate warming enables trees to grow higher up on mountains.”

The greatest increase in tree canopy occurred in Europe, including European Russia, where it exploded by 35%. A close second was found in China, where tree canopy gained 34%. In the U.S., tree canopy increased by 15%. (Read more from “Don’t Tell Climate Change Fanatics This Piece of News” HERE)

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Climate Change Warnings Cut From Trump Power-Plant Proposal

By Bloomberg. Warnings about potentially severe consequences of climate change were deleted from a Trump administration plan to weaken curbs on power plant emissions during a White House review.

Drafts had devoted more than 500 words to highlighting the impacts — more heat waves, intense hurricanes, heavy rainfalls, floods and water pollution — as part of the proposal to replace Obama-era restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. That language was left out of the Trump administration’s final analysis of the Environmental Protection Agency proposal, when it was unveiled Aug. 21.

Among the abandoned assertions: an acknowledgment that “the climate has continued to change, with new records being set” for global average surface temperatures, Arctic sea ice retreat, carbon dioxide concentrations and sea level rise, all markers of the phenomenon.

The administration also scrapped a reference to numerous “major scientific assessments” that “strengthen the case that GHGs endanger public health and welfare both for current and future generations.” (Read more from “Climate Change Warnings Cut From Trump Power-Plant Proposal” HERE)

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As School Starts, Military Company Slammed With Orders for This Specific Item

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The latest accessory for heading back to school has more to do with survival than grades.

An Israeli company that developed a bulletproof backpack is seeing sales soar as American schools open for the new school year.

“In two months we have sold hundreds and are gearing up to increase production rates to 500 units per month,” said Masada Armour chief executive Snir Koren, according to Yahoo News.

Koren said the American market was the impetus for the product.

“We designed a bulletproof backpack at the request of our distributors in the United States after the huge trauma caused by the February shooting in Florida,” Snir Koren, CEO of Masada Armor, told AFP on Thursday, according to the Times of Israel.

Seventeen people were killed on Feb. 14 in a shooting at a Parkland, Florida, school.

Protection is not cheap.

The standard model backpack, weighing about six pounds, protects students against 9mm rounds. It sells for $500.

The company also makes an 11-pound version to protect against rounds from an AR-15 or an M-16. That one sells for more than $700.

Masada Armour is developing models for younger students as well.

“We are developing a lighter model for their type of morphology,” said Snir.

Not everyone is sold on the idea.

“We don’t believe in sending teachers to schools with guns and I don’t believe in sending students to school with armor,” said Stamford, Connecticut school board chair David Mannis, according to the Stamford Advocate.

Parent Shira Tarantino called bulletproof backpacks a “Band-Aid.”

“If parents want to buy their kids those items, that’s their prerogative,” said Tarantino, project director for the Stamford Pediatric Gun Safety Project. “I don’t think it changes the safety any way in the schools.”

Joe Curran feels differently. His Massachusetts-based company, Bullet Blocker, sells protective backpacks.

“We see an uptick in sales anytime there’s violence worldwide, and not just gun violence — any violence,” Curran said. “With Parkland and Newtown, we saw a very large upswing. We’ve consistently had growth over the years and we always get a growth at back-to-school, but this year is larger than the past.” (For more from the author of “As School Starts, Military Company Slammed With Orders for This Specific Item” please click HERE)

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Immigrants Jump off Government Assistance, After Trump Admin Threatens to Cut Green Card

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Significant numbers of immigrants, in the United States legally and illegally, are reportedly leaving federal assistance programs out of fear it could hurt their chances of obtaining permanent legal status.

Politico reports that 18 states have noticed a decline of up to 20 percent in the number of people applying for the WIC federal nutritional program for pregnant women and infants.

The decline has been attributed not just to an improving economy, but a rumored federal rule change by the Trump administration regarding eligibility to obtain a green card based on prior use of government assistance programs.

“Under a provision known as public charge, U.S. immigration law has for more than a century allowed officials to reject admission to the country on the grounds that potential immigrants or visitors might become overly reliant on the government,” according to Politico. “But until now, officials have looked narrowly at whether someone would need cash benefits such as welfare or long-term institutional care.”

The news outlet claimed there is a move within the Trump administration to include a larger array of services such as programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or commonly known as food stamps), Head Start, Medicaid and WIC.

WIC, first launched in 1974, has traditionally been for the most part immigration status-blind regarding eligibility.

When Trump took office, there were 7.4 million women and children enrolled in WIC. As of May, the most recent data available, the number had dropped to 6.8 million.

Similarly, there were 42.7 million enrolled in SNAP in Jan. 2017, which has declined to 39.3 million as of May, or a difference of 3.4 million.

The evidence the Politico piece offers that part of the decline is due to the possible Trump administration rule change is anecdotal. Any change to federal regulation regarding the programs would have to go through a public comment period before being adopted, and would likely be challenged in court before taking effect, meaning a final determination could take several months or years.

“It’s a stealth regulation,” said Kathleen Campbell Walker, an immigration attorney at Dickinson Wright in El Paso, Texas regarding the possible change to WIC. “It doesn’t really exist, but it’s being applied subliminally.”

Jennifer Mejias-Martinez, who works with the WIC program in Topeka, Kansas, recalled receiving a panicked call from an immigrant family wanting to unenroll after hearing a report on Univision that receiving government benefits could hurt their chances in immigration proceedings.

“They were very, very scared,” Mejias-Martinez said. She tried to assure them that the policy had not changed, but they dropped from WIC anyway.

It made me very sad, and quite frankly upset,” she said.

A WIC administering agency in Longview, Texas reported losing an estimated 75 to 90 participants per month to public charge fears, according to Politico.

The Trump administration has argued that it is not trying to alter immigration law, but clarify and enforce existing statutes.

“The goal is not to reduce immigration or in some diabolical fashion shut the door on people, family-based immigration, anything like that,” said Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, at the National Press Club earlier this month.

The Department of Agriculture, which oversees WIC, is conducting multiple studies looking into why eligible families are not participating in, or choosing to drop their enrollment from, the program.

“The USDA is committed to the health and well-being of all WIC eligible mothers, infants and children and supports families seeking assistance,” the agency said. (For more from the author of “Immigrants Jump off Government Assistance, After Trump Admin Threatens to Cut Green Card” HERE)

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California Legislators Prohibit Schools From Starting Before 8:30am. the Reason Will Have Parents Groan.

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By Townhall. Lawmakers in the Golden State on Friday voted to prohibit middle and high schools from starting before 8:30a.m., one of the final bills the legislature was able to pass during its last day in session, Fox News reported.

The bill, SB328, was extremely controversial. Proponents of the bill say teenagers are facing sleep deprivation when their natural sleep cycle keeps them up late but school forces them to get up early, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), roughly 80 percent of California’s middle and high schools start before 8:30a.m., something proponents believe needs to change.

“Research shows teens do better in school, have lower rates of depression and anxiety and fewer car accidents when school start times start later,” the Chronicle reported.

The bill goes into effect in 2021, should Gov. Jerry Brown (D) sign it. The exceptions to the start time would be made for rural schools or extra periods that begin before the normal school period. (Read more from “California Legislators Prohibit Schools From Starting Before 8:30am. the Reason Will Have Parents Groan.” HERE)

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California Votes to Bar Schools From Starting Before 8:30am to Help Give Students More Sleep

By AP. California lawmakers voted Friday to bar middle and high schools from starting before 8:30 a.m., one of dozens of proposals debated in the Legislature on the final day of its legislative session. . .

Lawmakers also announced they were shelving several high profile bills, including one that would have declared gay conversion therapy a fraudulent business practice.

Nearly 80 percent of California middle and high schools started earlier than 8:30 a.m. in 2012, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Read more from “California Votes to Bar Schools From Starting Before 8:30am to Help Give Students More Sleep” HERE)

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Actor Uses Disturbing Child Rape Case to Push for Border Wall Construction

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Conservative actor James Woods is generally a commenter on the news, but a Woods tweet over the weekend is making news of its own.

In the Twitter post, Woods drew his 1.68 million followers’ attention to a case out of New York City that features a suspected MS-13 member’s alleged rape of an 11-year-old girl.

And Woods’ readers responded with revulsion.

According to Fox News, the arrest involved Julio Ayala, 18, a native of El Salvador.

Fox reported that Ayala was arrested Saturday after a manhunt that started Wednesday night, when he allegedly “climbed into the girl’s bedroom in Brooklyn through the second-floor window about 11:30 p.m. and raped her.”

According to the New York Post, Ayala carried a federal Permanent Resident Card, known as a “green card,” which would mean he was in the country legally.

But given the suspect’s purported membership in the notorious MS-13 gang, which has well-known ties to illegal alien networks – and crime — it was a reminder of what is at stake in the illegal immigration debate.

And Woods made his support for one of President Donald Trump’s proposed solutions to the illegal alien problem quite clear: #BuildTheWall.

The rape of a child is horrific, but it’s a crime that would likely pass under the national radar if it weren’t picked up by a conservative with the kind of recognition and Twitter following that Woods has built.

Considering that, the Ayala case might get more recognition than it would have without Woods’ publicizing it — and the price the country pays as a whole for an immigration system that permits criminal gangs like MS-13 might become more apparent.

According to the New York Post, Ayala has been charged with “sexually motivated burglary and first-degree rape.”

As he was led away, according to the Post, neighbors cheered.

“That makes me feel unsafe in my own home,” one woman, a 42-year-old resident of the Brooklyn neighborhood, told the Post.

Woods, and many of his followers, could relate. As the midterms approach, more tweets like this might have an impact on what happens at the ballot box in November. (For more from the author of “Actor Uses Disturbing Child Rape Case to Push for Border Wall Construction” please click HERE)

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Texas Sheriff Heartbroken After Illegal Aliens Murder 2 Police Dogs

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Over the weekend, two canines, who were helping Aransas and Refugio County Duputies, were strangled to death by an illegal immigrant. The dogs were assisting in a police chase after more than a dozen individuals jumped out of a truck.

The chase started when a police officer pulled over a black Ford pickup north of Holiday Beach. The pickup pulled over, but then took off leading to a high speed chase.

The truck then hit a brush line where 14-16 people jumped out of the truck and fled on foot.

According to a Facebook post by the Aransas County Sheriff’s Office, Refugio County offered canines to assist in the chase that were “non agressive, non-bite trained.”

The Sheriff’s Office writes that, while they had dogs they could deploy that could defend themselves, they chose to use these dogs to protect individuals that were caught in a chase such as this.

Officers soon located three individuals and apprehended two of them. However, one individual evaded capture and yelled out in Spanish, “If you want me, come and get me.”

It was then that the officers found the two canines strangled to death. The sheriff’s office wrote, “The collars carrying trackers had been twisted tightly about their necks causing their deaths.”

Six individuals were eventually captured including the individual believed to have been responsible for the death of the dogs. The sheriff’s office writes that those who were captured are believed to be from Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.

“While most “Bail Outs” end with detentions after exhaustive searches they do not show this level of aggressive behavior,” the sheriff office writes, “Serving as a reminder to officers yesterday afternoon that while we are still dealing with individuals who may have questionable immigration status these encounters can turn just as violent as any domestic dispute we respond to.”

They continue by saying, “And while every effort is being taken to insure everyone’s safety, we are reminded that not everyone we encounter shows the same level of respect for the rule of law and or life even for highly trained animals.”

The office reminded its readers that these dogs aren’t originally intended to track dangerous suspects, but rather individuals who are missing due to dementia and Alzheimer’s.

They write, “It was an afternoon that left me wondering how many lives of Dementia and Alzheimer’s individuals in the future may have been put at risk with the deaths of these two Canines.” (For more from the author of “Texas Sheriff Heartbroken After Illegal Aliens Murder 2 Police Dogs” please click HERE)

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The DOJ Goes After Harvard for Discriminating Against Asian Applicants

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Imagine if a private college – even one that took no federal funds – openly skewed its admission standards in a way that would ensure qualified blacks would be rejected in favor of less qualified whites. Every tool of state and federal government, the media, the virtue-signaling industry, and of course the courts would force it to change course. Yet this is what Harvard has been doing openly for 45 years to Americans of Asian heritage, even though, as part of its agreement to take federal grants, the school commits to not discriminating based on race. Now, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is calling Harvard out on it.

Liberal elites, such as those who run the Harvard faculty, believe in equal outcomes for their specific protected classes, not equal opportunity and equal application of civil rights laws for everyone. Thus, through affirmative action, they will stop at nothing to distort reality and not only violate the principles of meritocracy but downright make up facts in order to discriminate against classes that are out of favor with them.

In the case of Harvard’s admission standards, the school has openly bragged for years about using race as a factor in admission in order to achieve its convoluted goals of diversity rather than treat all applicants as individuals. The fact that many Americans of Asian heritage tend to score very high academically created an inconvenient reality undermining the desire for an arbitrary racial balance. Thus, the administrators ditched the merit-based academic scores for racial targets that ensured a number of better-qualified Asian-Americans were displaced by less qualified individuals simply because of a target racial balance.

What scheme did they use? The DOJ charges that Harvard used a personal rating in addition to academic scores that included “subjective” factors, such as a “positive personality,” “likability,” and being a “good person” with “human qualities.” DOJ asserts that this progressive elite institution “admits that, on average, it scores Asian-American applicants lower on this ‘personal rating’ than applicants of other races.” The DOJ’s finding is really nothing new, because Harvard’s own internal investigative division found the same thing in a 2013 report. It found that racial balancing resulted in a 140 percent increase in the Hispanic proportion of the class and a 400 percent increase in the African-American proportion of the class. Also, merely being black was the second-strongest factor in admissions, just behind the factor of “strong personal rating,” which in itself was, on average, arbitrarily padded for black students and downgraded for Asians.

Harvard is essentially repeating the overt discrimination in admissions that it employed 100 years ago when administrators grew concerned that too many Jews were being admitted.

Plaintiffs in a recent lawsuit assert that Harvard uses ethnic balancing tools to achieve almost the exact same ethnic makeup every year, creating a floor for African-Americans and a ceiling for Asian-Americans. Every academic year, the racial breakdown is as follows: White – 50-53 percent, Asian-American – 18-20 percent, African-American – 10-12 percent, Hispanic – 10-12 percent, and Native American – 2 percent. According to research provided to the federal court in Massachusetts by plaintiffs, the racial balancing is so skewed that is serves as the dominant factor. “An Asian-American applicant with a 25% chance of admission, for example, would have a 35% chance if he were white, a 75% chance if he were Hispanic, and a 95% chance if he were African American,” wrote lawyers for the students in a June memorandum seeking summary judgement.

Talk about monkeying up the admission standards! This is hard-core racism. To ignore the reality of individuals’ higher scores and to arbitrarily concoct a system whereby they erroneously label Asians as less likable and personable in order to demonstrate they are less qualified is disgraceful. According to the DOJ, given that Harvard accepts millions in federal grant money, this practice violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

On Thursday, Attorney General Sessions announced that because Harvard accepts federal grants, the DOJ filed a statement of interest in the pending lawsuit of a group of Asian-Americans, Students for Fair Admissions, against the school. They assert that the school has shown no need for such racial balancing, has failed to divulge how administrators weigh the racial factors, has failed to explore any racially neutral criteria, has used race as the overarching factor instead of a contributing factor, and has not limited its manipulation to a specific time period, all criteria required by the Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003).

This is yet another welcoming sea change at the DOJ from Sessions. In the past, the department has been used as a tool to actually promote discrimination under the guise of fighting it, by mandating that government or private institutions purposely factor in race over meritocracy. Sessions is doing the opposite in order to follow the true intent of civil rights laws.

Harvard’s egregious slight of Asian-Americans is likely the tip of the iceberg of discriminatory affirmative action throughout higher education institutions. It is quite evident that Sessions desires to systemically reorient the mission of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, and it would not be surprising to see more action taken against other institutions. When asked if we should expect more investigations against other institutions, a spokeswoman for the department said, “As a matter of policy, DOJ does not confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of investigations.” (For more from the author of “The DOJ Goes After Harvard for Discriminating Against Asian Applicants” please click HERE)

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