SEEMS WE MADE AN UNFAIR AND UGLY REFERENCE TO THE PHILADELPHIA EAGLES’ “SONG OF INSPIRATION”.
We have now consulted the oracle of all news for really smart people, and the translator for dumb rubes like us who are too unsophisticated to rely solely on them… that is National Public Radio (NPR).
Look folks, we’ve noted it before. If you have wondered why liberals are so poorly informed yet so firm in their ignorance, look no further than “news outlets” like NPR. In reality, NPR is not a great deal different from the mainstream media in terms of the liberal propaganda they so generously spew, and the legitimate news they suppress. Perhaps the one big difference between them and the so-called “mainstream media” is that you get to pay for it, as a taxpayer.
This was the title of our original report just prior to the Super Bowl:
Soaring with the Eagles; Meek Mill sends regrets
But this is the full extent of what your liberal “friends” will know on this subject, via NPR. Possibly you will now clearly understand why it is well-nigh impossible to have a debate with them about where the “progressive movement” is taking this country and its values, culture, and government. Note the subtext of NPR story, it is whitey’s fault that crime happens because criminals are incarcerated and such must be protested . DLH
How The Eagles Sneaked A LITTLE PROTEST INTO THE SUPER BOWL
February 8,
The Eagles picked “Dreams and Nightmares” as their hype song for functional reasons — it’s a song about overcoming long odds and constructed to make you feel like you can run through a brick wall — but there was something political about the choice as well. Meek had been on probation for nearly a decade stemming from a gun conviction in 2008, when he was 21. Then last year, he was sentenced to two to four years in prison for violating those probation terms. He had a long and spotty probation history, with a grip of failed drug tests and missed court appearances, some of which extended his probation. After his sentencing, several Eagles players attended a rally protesting the decision.
None of which is especially remarkable for people on probation, which is exactly why he has become a poster boy for critics of the criminal justice system. They point out that failing a drug test, or driving outside of the county, or failure to hold down a job are not jailable offenses for anyone but probationers. (For Meek, the violations that finally got him sent to prison were an airport fight and a reckless driving charge for popping a wheelie on a motorcycle in a video he posted to Instagram, even though charges in both instances were dropped.)
There are many, many people of far less means than Meek Mill in similar binds — ostensibly free, but constrained by their probation terms. (Imagine trying to find a job or public housing with a felony conviction and restrictions on where you can travel.) There are currently more Americans on probation than on parole, in prison or in jail combined — and the racial disparities in probation are as stark as they are in every other part of our criminal justice system. A 2014 study by the Urban Institute found that across four different counties in the U.S., black probationers were 55 percent more likely to have their probation revoked than white people were.
Meek’s story comes just as Philadelphia rethinks its approach to crime and punishment. For decades, Philly’s district attorneys have been notoriously tough on crime, which is one reason the city currently has the highest incarceration rate of the 10 largest U.S. cities. But the current mayor, Jim Kenney, ran on a platform of police reform and getting rid of stop-and-frisk. And the new DA, Larry Krasner, is a former defense lawyer who made his name suing the police department, wants to abolish cash bail and was championed by activists from Occupy Philly and Black Lives Matter. (As you might imagine, that has not always engendered them to the city’s police and prosecutorial brass.)
It’s fitting, then, that the Eagles managed to smuggle a little of this messy context, however briefly and however elliptically, into the Super Bowl. The NFL tried its best to hermetically seal the game off from the tensions roiling the wider world. Any notion that the NFL existed outside the sphere of politics was always a tortured fiction, and it was demolished for good this season, when the biggest storyline was the on-field protests around race and the criminal justice system. In a move that seemed especially aimed at reassuring fans who might have been turned off by that kneeling, and felt it unpatriotic, there was an especially showy celebration of several World War II veterans during the coin toss. There was no visible protest on display that day, not even from Malcolm Jenkins, the Eagles outspoken safety. But there was Meek, at least, if only in sound and spirit.
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Again, this was the story we ran, aimed primarily at the “message” sent to black youth and oblivious progressives:
“black probationers were 55 percent more likely to have their probation revoked than white people were.”
I probably would have phrased that statistic differently.
Maybe, “Black probationers are 55% more likely to violate the terms of their probation than white probationers.”
Potato – tomato. Kind of the same, but totally different.