By The Daily Wire. Democrats are relying on young voters to turn out in record numbers to preserve the so-called “blue wave” in November. But if college students in Virginia are any indication, getting kids to vote may be harder than it seems.
According to local news station WTOP, Fairfax County college students aren’t likely to return their absentee ballots because “a U.S. Postal Service stamp seems to be a foreign concept to them.” . . .
Apparently, members of a focus group convened in Fairfax County agreed. The college students who turned up to explain to Fairfax County officials why so few of their friends vote had a “spirited conversation” on the subject of finding, obtaining, and using stamps to send “snail mail.”
This is bad news for Democrats, who need the largely liberal college student demographic to vote in areas that aren’t “safe” blue zones. Either that, or they’ll have to start including self-addressed stamped envelopes in absentee voter packages. (Read more from “These College Students Aren’t Voting. You Won’t Believe Why.” HERE)
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Why College Students Don’t Vote Absentee? They Don’t Know Where to Buy a Postage Stamp
By WTOP. “Vote or die.” Unless, it’s too hard to find a stamp.
A Fairfax County focus group this summer found many college students who have gotten an absentee ballot simply fail to send it back because a U.S. Postal Service stamp seems to be a foreign concept to them.
“One thing that came up, which I had heard from my own kids but I thought they were just nerdy, was that the students will go through the process of applying for a mail-in absentee ballot, they will fill out the ballot, and then, they don’t know where to get stamps,” Lisa Connors with the Fairfax County Office of Public Affairs said.
“That seems to be like a hump that they can’t get across.”
The focus group included college interns from across numerous county departments. (Read more from “Why College Students Don’t Vote Absentee? They Don’t Know Where to Buy a Postage Stamp” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/3002776434_14ae6614e1_o.jpg12001600Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2018-09-18 20:02:172018-09-22 18:37:40These College Students Aren’t Voting. You Won’t Believe Why.
By Townhall. Well, it’s happened. The woman who alleges that Judge Bret Kavanaugh, along with another individual, attempted to sexually assault her while in high school has come forward. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) reportedly had a letter about this encounter since at least the summer, but sat on it. One could say that alone speaks to the credibility of the accusation. It was referred to the FBI later this week, and now the whole nomination process could be thrown into chaos. It’s messy. The whole situation could get ugly very soon and very fast, folks. Backward reels the mind to the Clarence Thomas hearings. The pressure is already building. If the person remained anonymous, that’s one thing, but she’s now come forward to The Washington Post. Her name is Christine Blasey Ford. She’s a research psychologist in northern California and a professor at Palo Alto University. Ford was a student at the all-girls Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland. The encounter occurred when Kavanaugh was 17-years-old. It was not revealed until 2012 during couple’s therapy, the Post obtained some of the notes from her therapist; Kavanaugh is not mentioned by name (via WaPo):
Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” Ford alleges — corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County.
While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth. . .
Ford said she told no one of the incident in any detail until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. The therapist’s notes, portions of which were provided by Ford and reviewed by The Washington Post, do not mention Kavanaugh’s name but say she reported that she was attacked by students “from an elitist boys’ school” who went on to become “highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington.” The notes say four boys were involved, a discrepancy Ford says was an error on the therapist’s part. Ford said there were four boys at the party but only two in the room.
NEWS: Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) tells me in an intv he that doesn’t think the Judiciary Cmte should move ahead with its Thursday vote on Kavanaugh until they hear more from Christine Blasey Ford. “For me, we can’t vote until we hear more.”
Judge Jeanine: Feinstein’s Handling of Kavanaugh Letter Shows Complete Disregard for Truth and Justice
By Fox News. As a prosecutor, a superior court judge as well as elected district attorney. The way it works is you are innocent until you are proven guilty. Clear, unambiguous words etched in stone. Why would anyone ignore this truth, especially the ranking Democrat on Senate Judiciary, Senator Dianne Feinstein, is stunning. But you shouldn’t be surprised. The left is committed to the removal of a duly elected president, the destruction of our system of capitalism, and now an all-out assault on our system of justice.
To them you are guilty – guilty until proven innocent. But no one in all the years I’ve spent in courtrooms has ever been able to prove a negative. So forget the time-honored notions like due process, probable cause, beyond a reasonable doubt or a jury of your peers. Today, unsupported, uncorroborated, untested words, not facts are sufficient to convict not just in the court of public opinion, but in the esteemed hallowed halls of the United States Senate.
Forget the right to counsel, the ability to defend yourself, the right
confront your accuser or even cross-examine your accuser. Truth in this scheme is nothing more than collateral damage if a Republican is on the receiving end of an anonymous allegation.
So Dianne, let me see if I get this. Another Democrat, a congresswoman from California, no less, forwards a July letter to you containing a completely unsubstantiated claim that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh while in high school tried to force himself on another high school student almost 40, I said 40 years ago.
Kavanaugh for anyone who even cares has categorically and unequivocally denied the allegation. So why are we just hearing being this now? Dianne, when you get the letter, what do you do to make sure it’s real? That the person is even real? Given the left’s penchant to buy fake dossiers, make up facts and collude with the media to sabotage even the President of the United States, forgive me if I think it’s all hogwash. Okay, you say quote, “The individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further. And I honored have that decision.” (Read more from “Judge Jeanine: Feinstein’s Handling of Kavanaugh Letter Shows Complete Disregard for Truth and Justice” HERE)
By Townhall. Yesterday Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Dianne Feinstein announced she had received a letter from an unnamed woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of wrongdoing. She didn’t reveal what was in the letter, didn’t share it with Republican colleagues on the Committee for review and referred Kavanaugh to the FBI for investigation.
“I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities,” Feinstein released in a public statement.
She held this “information” since the summer. Now that she’s being challenged from the left in her re-election bid she does this. What a weak and horrible person she is. https://t.co/mPMwpqT1e2
New — FBI does not now plan to launch a criminal investigation of the Kavanaugh matter; instead the bureau passed the material to the White House as an update to Kavanaugh's background check, via @mattzaphttps://t.co/Q1EJQiJLkT
Let’s start off with the obvious: Attempted rape, no matter from how long ago, is immediately disqualifying behavior for any candidate for the highest court in the land. Even if presidents from both parties have failed to clear this extremely low bar, we should continue to demand moral decency from the literal arbiters of justice in society.
This is what Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s establishment superstar nominee to the Supreme Court, stands accused of in a secret letter sent to Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and then forwarded to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
For at least two months, Feinstein kept the letter to herself. As she had multiple opportunities to question Kavanaugh under oath, both in public and private, she remained mum on the issue. One of the most senior female Democrats in Congress knew of a sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh and did not consider the allegation serious enough to question him about while he was under oath. This alone calls the allegation’s intentions and credibility into question. . .
The accuser refused to speak to the press, the Senate, and the FBI. Both Kavanaugh and his male colleague in the room with him at the time categorically denied the assault. So we have two straightforward denials and one anonymous accuser refusing to let anybody independently vet her claims, let alone explain them. . . .
Between the evidence (nonexistent) and the timing, the letter screams partisan animus. At worst, the letter is a shameless smear against a man with an unimpeachable record, clearly timed as a Hail Mary attempt to keep a conservative stalwart from the Supreme Court. And with the woman unwilling to provide an iota of corroboration to her account, the worst-case scenario seems like the likeliest. (Read more from “Believe Brett Kavanaugh” HERE)
There was a girl in my high school who was excellence personified. She was tall, beautiful, modest, honest and a very nice person. She was a straight-A student and would help anyone in need. But she sat alone in the cafeteria, walked the halls alone, had no friends, was never invited to parties and never had a date.
When time came to vote for “Senior Queen,” a teacher who recognized the girl’s excellence nominated her as a candidate. She was everything a Senior Queen should be — but she only received five votes out of 900 students.
Her problem was she was too excellent, in every way, and the other girls hated her for it. She was better than any one of them in every way. This angered the other girls and they wanted to punish her for it. Not only did they shun her but warned every boy in the school that if any of them “cozied up” to her, they could forget about ever “getting lucky” with any girl in the school and it worked as intended.
President Donald Trump is very much like this girl. In a short period of time, he has shown the country he is better at getting things done and making the United States safer, more prosperous, more respected, happier, and more hopeful than it has been in a long time. He is much better at being president than any president in modern history, and maybe even before.
Trump is not afraid to undertake the difficult tasks that other presidents promised to do but never did. And he successfully solved them. He has succeeded in areas where other presidents failed. Most Americans love him, are happy for him, and pray for his continued success.
With all his accomplishments in making the United a far better place than he had found it, everyone should be happy. Why wouldn’t they be?
In what is clearly counterintuitive, almost half the country hates him.
If someone came to America right now, knowing nothing about it, he would look around and see that nearly everyone had a job, people are becoming more affluent, they feel safe from hostile foreign powers, they are proud of their country, and they are happy and hopeful.
If he were to ask, “Has it always been like this in America?” he would be told, “No, it has not always been this way.”
It would be explained to him that for quite a while things were actually very bad in the country.
People couldn’t find jobs or had to work several part-time jobs just to pay the bills. The country was viewed as weak in the world and other countries felt free to do as they pleased, regardless of the U.S. position. The past president would talk tough to other countries and warn them not to cross his line, then do nothing when they did. It had become embarrassing to be an American.
The stranger would likely respond that everyone must love the new president.
And the answer would be, “You would think so, but half the people — those known as “the left” — hate him.”
The stranger would be baffled and would likely say, “That makes no sense.”
And the people would simply shrug and shake their heads.
This stranger would eventually come to learn that the people who hate the current president have personally benefitted from his presidency in many ways, from increased 401Ks to better and cheaper health care.
Regardless, they still hate him because they were a member of the party that controlled the government before the new president. The new president took away their power and they hate him for it.
They want their party back in power — even if it meant all the good done for the country by the new president would vanish and the country would return to the terrible conditions of the previous presidency.
Just like, “all the other girls” in my high school, the left has warned other members of their party — that if they dare “cozy-up” to the new president, they will be made to regret it.
Just ask Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor who came to the new president’s defense when the left overreacted to Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, claiming he and the president both violated a minor and murky campaign election law.
The left claimed this was “high crimes and misdemeanors” and clearly an impeachable offense while Dershowitz called their reaction “nonsense.”
Dershowitz had always been one of the left’s darlings and during his traditional summers at Martha’s Vineyard, he would be greeted with open arms, welcomed in every left-wing home, invited to all the left’s parties, and asked to be an honored speaker at their academic seminars.
As punishment for “cozying up” to Trump, instead of treating him as one of their darlings, the left shunned Dershowitz and he quickly went from a darling to a pariah.
All the members of the left took notice of this public shunning and even more than before carefully minded their political “P’s and Q’s” to avoid this same terrible fate.
My grandmother would have described this strange and ironic behavior of the left this way: “They’re cutting off their nose to spite their face.”
But such is the depth of the American political divide. The left would rather starve than take food from the hand of Donald Trump. It is eerily similar to those who set themselves on fire to protest what they hate.
Thus, as a nation, we have arrived at a place where almost half the country feels presidential success and excellence is worthy of nothing but scorn and punishment.
Not only is this bizarre, it is also sad and disheartening. (For more from the author of “The Trump Presidency – When Excellence Is Punished” please click HERE)
President Trump’s allies in Congress and the media have long wondered why he doesn’t declassify documents withheld by the Department of Justice that could vindicate him in the Russia probe. What’s stopping him from exercising his constitutional authority, they ask? Doesn’t he recognize the growing danger of inaction with the midterm elections at hand, which could spell his impeachment if he loses his Republican congressional majority?
RealClearInvestigations sought insight into the president’s thinking from current and past senior U.S. officials, most of whom spoke only on condition of anonymity. The picture of Trump that emerges plays against type.
On declassification, the president is not the impulsive hothead major media portray, as epitomized by his “witch hunt” bluster on Twitter. Rather, the sources characterized him as a deliberative, strategic executive inclined to keep his powder dry now for possible detonation later. (Because his supporters—some of whom have seen the documents—are pushing for declassification and his opponents are not, the assumption is that the documents would help the president.)
Trump told Fox News last week that while he didn’t want to interfere with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, he may have no choice but to declassify. “At the right time, I think I’m going to have to do the documents,” the president said.
House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, for one, would be pleased with that step. Nunes told Fox recently that false “media narratives” are burying the real story of anti-Trump machinations within the government. “That’s why the sooner the president declassifies the better,” he said, with an eye toward the November midterm elections that—if Democrats win—would likely place Trump nemesis Rep. Adam Schiff as chairman of the committee. (Read more from “Why President Trump Is Keeping Those Classified DOJ Docs in His Back Pocket” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Donald_Trump_2016-1.jpg14771498Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2018-09-13 21:33:332018-09-15 17:52:48Why President Trump Is Keeping Those Classified DOJ Docs in His Back Pocket
By Conservative Tribune. Upholding Kaepernick as someone who is willing to sacrifice “everything” for his beliefs is alarming, especially to actor James Woods, who is not at all happy about Nike’s endorsement of Kaepernick.
Especially when those words on the ad can be literally applied to the very police officers Kaepernick is so staunchly against, or those serving under the flag Kaepernick won’t stand for. . .
What’s most powerful in this video is the images of police officers having a face-to-face gun battle with the kill-crazy gunman. These are the men and women @Nike chooses to degrade, disparage, and humiliate. #StandForLawEnforcementhttps://t.co/xyz8giKtD5
The Cincinnati Police Department released security footage and body camera video from the Thursday incident, in which a man opened fire on the lobby of the Fifth Third Bancorp headquarters in downtown Cincinnati.
The man, who has been identified as 29-year-old Omar Enrique Santa Perez, walked into the lobby with a gun and a briefcase containing hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Talking to The State, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters repeated the words of one of the investigators, who believed it could have been “a bloodbath beyond imagination. (Read more from “James Woods Digs up Harrowing Security Footage to Bury Nike” HERE)
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Cincinnati Police Release Footage of Gunman ‘Firing Shots at Anyone He Sees’
By Fox News. Police have released security footage of the gunman who killed three people in a Cincinnati office on Thursday, “firing shots at anyone he sees.”
The Cincinnati Police Department released security footage from inside the lobby of the Fifth Third Bancorp headquarters in downtown Cincinnati from Thursday. Authorities also released body camera footage from the incident.
The footage showed Omar Enrique Santa Perez, 29, walking in the lobby with his gun held up. Police said Santa Perez was carrying a briefcase containing hundreds of rounds of ammunition over his shoulder. A security officer was seen helping people get to a safe location as the gunman was “firing shots at anyone he sees,” Police Chief Eliot Isaac said on Friday.
Body camera footage from the officers showed them approaching the gunman. The footage showed the officers shooting through the glass of the lobby. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported the officers fired 11 shots, taking out the gunman.
“You could see in the video … the guy is shooting at the cops,” Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley said. “[You can see] them not being afraid and engaging and ending it.” (Read more from “Cincinnati Police Release Footage of Gunman ‘Firing Shots at Anyone He Sees'” HERE)
. . .Kaepernick’s deal with Nike appeared to be rather lucrative — multi-millions of dollars for multiple years — with a Yahoo NFL reporter detailing the terms of the deal to include a branded line of shoes, shirts, jerseys and other apparel bearing Kaepernick’s name and/or likeness. Plus there are royalties on the sales of such items.
One would assume that such a lucrative deal would also be an exclusive one as well, given the incredible amount of publicity brought to both Nike and Kaepernick by the arrangement, but a report from BizPac Review has revealed that such assumptions would be flat out wrong.
The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback — who launched the anti-American protests of the national anthem prior to NFL games in 2016 after losing his starting quarterback role — has also now launched his own line of branded apparel, separate from the Nike merchandise that will bear his brand.
According to ESPN sports business reporter Darren Rovell, the non-Nike Kaepernick jerseys — which feature his former number and name on the back, as well as #IMWITHKAP on the front — sell for $175, with a reported 20 percent of the profits being forwarded toward Kaepernick’s “Know Your Rights Camp,” a sort of boot camp for aspiring social justice warriors.
As a comparison, Nike store NFL player jerseys range in price from as low as $80 to as much as $325, and jersey-like T-shirts sell for about $40. Kaepernick’s non-Nike jerseys are thus greatly marked up and placed on par with Nike’s “elite” and “limited” line jerseys, which sell for $325 and $150, respectively. (Read more from “Kaepernick Got What He Wanted From Nike, Now He’s Stabbing Them in the Back” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Colin_Kaepernick_in_Super_Bowl_XLVII_cropped.jpg721634Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2018-09-12 19:04:342018-09-15 18:02:48Kaepernick Got What He Wanted From Nike, Now He’s Stabbing Them in the Back
When I was a college boxer, before the last two rounds my trainer would say to me, “Let’s go! Championship rounds — give me everything you got.”
My opponent and I would come out of our corners and give everything we had, throwing our hardest punches, desperately trying to take the other guy out.
We are now into the championship rounds of the fight between President Donald Trump and the Mueller coup. They will be throwing everything they have at the president for the next two months before the final bell sounds on Election Day.
For over a year the Mueller thugs have been pounding Trump’s body, trying to wear him out before the last two rounds. The coup has sent in a motley team of cowards, liars and traitors to deliver the low blows.
Traitor, liar and coward Robert Mueller: using illegal, false evidence to become special counsel, refusing to do the task for which he was appointed, launching an all-out attack on anyone connected to Trump who could be used to overthrow him, framing Trump associates with deceit and outright lies, conducting illegal searches of the president’s lawyers and using impermissible, seized evidence, grinding those he could use against the president by threats of additional charges and prison, bankruptcy, destruction of personal reputation, using the threats to force them into making false statement about Trump, coercing guilty pleas from innocent people and then forcing them to cooperate with the coup, illegally releasing grand jury testimony.
Traitor, liar and coward Rod Rosenstein: orchestrating the Russian investigation by using false documents, paid for by the Clinton machine, to deceive FISA judges into issuing illegal warrants against Trump associates, signing illegal FISA warrants for Trump associates, lying to Congress and to the president.
Traitor, liar and coward James Comey: lying to the president and Congress, creating elaborate schemes of lies and deceit to entrap Trump associates, using threats and plea bargains to coerce Trump associates into working against him, using ill-gotten evidence to create a secret FBI operation, using the secret operation to help the DOJ build a case for a special prosecutor, leaking the Russian dossier to the media to make sure a special prosecutor would be appointed.
Traitor, liar and coward Jeff Sessions: lying to the president to become attorney general, turning over the Russian investigation to a Trump-hating special counsel, announcing he will do the same with the Clinton felonies, hindering congressional investigations into the coup, refusing to resign, refusing to fire Rosenstein and Mueller, protecting all of the coup operatives, arresting two key Republican congressmen just before the midterm elections to put their seats in doubt.
There are other traitors, liars, and cowards who also slithered into the ring from time to time to deliver their venomous blows. Among these other malcontents: Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan.
Now come the potentially devastating head shots of the championship rounds. The coup is going for a knockout while Trump will try to effectively counter-punch to stay on his feet until the final bell on Election Day.
First into the ring for the coup is the liar and coward Bob Woodward.
The coup sent Woodard into the ring to throw the first big headshot at Trump — his book of blatant lies, “Fear: Trump in the White House.”
Among the lies contained in Woodward’s book are:
1. Former chief economic advisor, Gary Cohn, stole a draft letter from Trump’s desk that would have withdrawn the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea. Woodward quotes Cohn, “I stole it off his desk. I wouldn’t let him see it. He’s never going to see that document. Got to protect the country.”
2. Trump’s former defense attorney, John Dowd, put Trump through a mock interview with Robert Mueller. Dowd did this because he didn’t think Trump could tell the truth. Dowds said, after the mock interview, “Don’t testify. It’s either that or an orange jump suit.”
3. Trump’s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, said about Trump, “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in crazytown.”
4. Trump said about Jeff Sessions, “This guy is mentally retarded,” and, “a dumb Southerner,” then mocked the way he talks.
5. Trump became enraged when Fox News questioned his “course correction” to tamp down his original comments about the Charlottesville white nationalist rally. He later said to an aide, “This is the biggest f—ing mistake I’ve ever made. You never make these concessions. You never apologize. I didn’t do anything wrong in the first place. Why look weak?”
All these statements have been denied by those alleged to have said, or witnessed, them.
The next liar and coward sent in the ring has no name. The New York Times ran their first anonymous Op-Ed, written, they say, by a senior official in the Trump administration whose name would be readily recognized and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure.
They also say that doing this is was the only way they could deliver this important perspective to the public.
The title of the Op-Ed is, “I am a Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”
It claims many senior officials in the Trump administration are diligently working to frustrate parts of the president’s agenda and his worst inclinations.
The writer says the members of Resistance are Trump appointees (and apparently not career government employees, which narrows down the list as to the writer’s identity.)
Speculation on who the writer is has reached a level of lunacy, even including Ivanka Trump and Kellyanne Conway.
The Op-Ed tears into Trump in a myriad of ways, clearly designed to do severe damage to him and his presidency. These members of the Resistance were, without a doubt, recruited by the coup.
According to the anonymous writer, the Resistance’s goal is to preserve the country’s democratic institutions and thwart Trump’s misguided impulses which are anti-trade and anti-democratic.
This is a hard and painful headshot landed on the president but, being the fighter he is, he immediately counterpunched this sniveling coward without a name.
These are the coup’s opening head shots in the championship rounds. There are many more coming, each with increasing intensity.
Look for the final, and hardest, shot to be thrown, moments before the final bell, to deny the president the opportunity to counterpunch before the decision is rendered.
After the final bell, the voters will announce the decision and raise the winner’s hand — possibly sealing the fate of the country for years to come. (For more from the author of “President Trump vs Traitors, Liars and Cowards: Who Will Win the Championship Rounds?” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/171011-Z-OL842-076-1-1.jpg521780Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2018-09-10 23:56:522018-09-15 17:59:44President Trump vs Traitors, Liars and Cowards: Who Will Win the Championship Rounds?
A video of a California high school cheerleader beating up a much larger female bully after being sucker-punched has gone viral.
The teen, the younger sister of YouTube personality Sierra Sprague, tells a girl in a yellow t-shirt multiple times that she does not want their confrontation to turn physical. “Nobody wants to fight, no one wants to fight with you guys,” says the cheerleader, uniform on and bows in her hair. . .
[Warning: video contains explicit language.]
so my little sister got in a fight tonight and i don’t think i’ve ever been more proud 😂😂 with her phone in her hand & everything lmao THATS MY MF SISTER LETS GOOOOOOO pic.twitter.com/8Bpxc30d0Z
The cheerleader immediately attacks the girl, throwing punches and slamming her much larger attacker to the ground, all with her phone in-hand.
The cheerleader’s older sister shared the video, which has now been viewed well-over 8 million times, on her Twitter account. “So my little sister got in a fight tonight and i don’t think i’ve ever been more proud, with her phone in her hand & everything,” Sprague captioned the post. “THATS MY MF SISTER LETS GOOOOOOO.” (Read more from “Watch: High School Cheerleader Beats up Bully After Being Sucker-Punched — With Phone In-Hand” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/cheer-610691_960_720.jpg640960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2018-09-10 22:44:342018-09-15 17:54:07Watch: High School Cheerleader Beats up Bully After Being Sucker-Punched — With Phone In-Hand
My father recalls watching the North Tower burning from the 100th floor up and thinking to himself, “How would they put this out?”
I grew up in Rockland County, New York, and Dad used to work in the city, styling himself as an “architectural carpenter.” What that means is that he worked with his hands — and on his knees — installing cabinetry, wood flooring, and the heavy, polished oak doors that decorate the high-end offices of Manhattan with his union brothers in NYC District Council of Carpenters Union Local 157. It was hard work, and it took its toll on my father, who is now retired and living comfortably in Pennsylvania.
Fifteen years ago today, on September 11, 2001, at 8:46 a.m, American Airlines Flight 11 flew south over Manhattan and crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
On that particular day, my dad, Peter Pandolfo, was working on the 20th floor of the Ritz-Carlton, staring in shock at the World Trade Center three blocks away.
“We had a clear view of the debris and smoke coming out the North Tower. Then a terrifying vibration with a loud screaming engine noise was directly over our building and startled us.”
It was the second plane. United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.
“Terrorism was my immediate thought.” As my father tells the story, he immediately went into “survival mode” and began to rifle through his tool belt, emptying some tools to lighten his load and keeping others on his person in case he needed them. He and his coworkers then evacuated the building.
“The whole crew ran 20 floors down the stairs to the street. It was mayhem. All the people who had evacuated the towers — the tourists and their babies, the workers, and everybody else — were on the street in shock, crying and afraid.”
Dad remembers that they couldn’t call for help or tell their loved ones what was happening.
“All cell phone activity seemed to be dead. We couldn’t call home, and I thought, at least we were out of the building.”
On that day, I was sitting at my desk in Mrs. Brown’s third-grade classroom at George W. Miller Elementary School in Nanuet, N.Y. I remember our teacher calling us over to gather on the rug where we would have story time. Crestfallen, with tears in her eyes and a voice on the verge of breaking, Mrs. Brown told our class that “something terrible has happened.”
We children were sent home early that day. My father didn’t come home that night.
On the street in Manhattan, people were talking in hushed and anxious voices. Why did two planes just crash into the World Trade Center buildings? Did the air traffic controllers make a mistake? Were the planes hijacked? Were more planes going to descend on New York City? Were more people — my father and those bystanders — in danger?
As my dad and the other bystanders watched the towers burn, to their horror, they began to notice “large objects” falling from the buildings. There were people leaping from the towers, falling to their deaths, to escape the incinerating heat of the flames. You can find videos on YouTube, if you have the stomach for it.
“I saw two people hold hands and jump together. That made me sick,” my dad remembered.
As the crowd watched in horror, my father remembers, they moaned each time another person jumped. Each time, someone screamed. USA Today estimated that at least 200 people jumped that day.
Powerless. That is how my father describes feeling back then. Unable to do anything to help those people. The crowd unsure of what they should do, standing there, on the street.
Stunned disbelief turned to desperate panic.
“The South Tower began to fall straight down on itself, pancaking and exploding from the compression of each floor slamming on the next. A cloud of concrete ash, and who knows what else, billowed around the buildings and was headed straight for us. There was no way of escaping it. This cloud surrounded us and blocked out the sun.”
Providentially, perhaps, my father’s carpenter crew had dust masks with them, necessary for breathing through sawdust and chemical fumes on the job. They gave those masks to the people with babies and young children.
To have a chance at breathing, my dad ripped off his T-shirt and dipped it in a building’s outdoor koi pond he found on that street, wrapping it around his face. New Yorkers made an attempt to flee as the debris, smoke, and ash descended, enveloping them in darkness and fire.
“I felt the hot, smoky dust through my wet shirt, and it began to burn my lungs.” There was a moment when Dad thought he could duck into some bushes; maybe they would help filter some of the dust. He had other thoughts, too.
“I thought at that moment, I was going to die. I began to pray.”
It was two coworkers — union brothers — who came to my dad’s rescue. They grabbed hold of my father, pulling him away. One of them lived on Long Island, and they had decided to make for the Brooklyn Bridge, hoping to get out of the city and rest there. They zig-zagged northerly through the streets of Manhattan, smoke and dust clouds obstructing their view such that they could only see about 50 feet in front of them. Eventually, the sun broke through and they could see again.
Thousands of people made for the Brooklyn Bridge that day, carrying the same hope that they could cross on foot and leave the dust, and death and destruction, behind them. Noise filled the air as much as smoke. Noise of people running, of sirens wailing. Shouts. Mourning. There were those who were eerily silent, too.
First responders ran in the opposite direction of the crowds, toward the death and destruction. Four hundred eleven emergency workers in New York City died responding to the terrorist attacks on September 11: 343 New York firefighters, 37 Port Authority police officers, 23 NYPD officers, and eight emergency medical technicians. They died heroes, saving many lives through their sacrifice.
My father and his coworkers could not get to the bridge without heading to the ramp, which was behind them, toward the towers. They kept going on foot, passing more bridges and eventually the United Nations building. They hurried past, thinking “a plane was definitely going to crash into it.”
Tired and scared, the carpenters decided to cross over at the next bridge, unsure if that too would become a target for the terrorists. They climbed a construction scaffold on the side of the Williamsburg Bridge. As it turned out, my dad’s tool belt came in handy after all.
“It was abandoned, and workers left everything, dropped it where they were to get out of there, thinking the bridge would be a target. We thought that as well and hurried across. At the end of the bridge, there were hoses spraying water over wet concrete to cure it, and [they] blocked us. So I had my tool belt still on with tools I thought would be useful, like my utility knife. I used the knife to cut through the netting that kept the occupied side separate from the construction side, and we got off the bridge onto Metropolitan Ave. in Brooklyn.”
Hours and miles later, Dad spent an anxious night at his coworker’s house in Long Island. The Twin Towers were gone. And 2,996 people died and more than 6,000 people were injured in the attacks that knocked them down.
I share this story with you because my father made it home to my mother and their three boys (and, later, a girl) the next day. Other kids weren’t so fortunate as I. Too many fathers’ and mothers’ lives were claimed by evil men doing evil deeds in service of an evil ideology. An ideology that, as President George W. Bush rightly said on that day, targeted America and her people “because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.”
Today, September 11, “is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.”
None of us have forgotten the terrible things that happened on that terrible day 15 years ago. But at times, in the midst of this heated and divisive election season, I wonder if some of us Americans have forgotten the things that came under attack from evil that day.
I shared my father’s story with you because regardless of who wins the presidency, who controls the Senate or the House or the judiciary — whatever political party or individual is put in control of the government — it is imperative, it is essential, it is good, and it is right that we as Americans never cease to fight for and defend freedom and justice for all.
There is a specter of fear, of distrust and outrage, that is dividing us today. Discourse over ideas has devolved into bickering, name-calling, trolling, and contests of insult and ego. Each side of every argument seems less interested in showing how their ideas defend freedom and justice and more invested in forcing those who disagree into submission.
I am guilty of this as much as anyone. And when I engage in that behavior, I am wrong.
What is good and decent in America is under assault today from forces that hate us and seek to destroy us every bit as much as the people who hijacked those planes did. We do a disservice to the people who died on September 11, 2001, whether as victims or as heroes, and to our living countrymen and ourselves when we forget that defending the freedom of every American and ensuring that justice prevails for every American — even those who disagree with us — make this country good and decent.
The purpose of American conservatism is to conserve freedom and justice for the good and happiness of all of us. Its purpose is to defend liberty from hatred and evil that seek to destroy. That is what we must remember on September 11, and on every day. We must never forget that.
My father won’t. (For more from the author of “200 People Jumped From the Twin Towers on 9/11. This Is What It Felt Like to Watch From the Street Below.” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/UA_Flight_175_hits_WTC_south_tower_9-11-1.jpeg9481515Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2018-09-10 20:53:102018-09-15 17:49:54200 People Jumped From the Twin Towers on 9/11. This Is What It Felt Like to Watch From the Street Below.
