If you had your fill of Trey Gowdy during the Benghazi hearings, you can be excused for vomiting if you watched the FBIâs Peter Strzokâs hearing last week.
In the hearing, the Republicans wanted to make America believe there was an FBI conspiracy to prevent Trump from being elected president. How did the FBI go about it? First, by mounting an investigation of what nearly everyone now acknowledges was a comprehensive effort by Russia to help Trump get elected. But then, the FBI kept that investigation completely secret from the public, to prevent news of it from affecting the outcome of the election.
You also have to set aside the fact that the Director of the FBI may have thrown the election to Trump when he violated FBI protocols, and announced 11 days before the election, that the Bureau was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clintonâs emails.
There doesnât seem to be any evidence that the FBI engaged in a conspiracy, and the GOPâs claim is contradicted by everything the FBI actually did.
And so far, Republicans have not produced any evidence that Strzok, or anyone else, took any official action that was biased or inappropriate with respect to the Trump campaign.
Fake news, folks. But Gowdyâs committee managed to set a new low during their show trial of Strzok:
This is where we are: The American right have become Trumpers. The head Trumper is free to say and do whatever he likes, and so are his lackeys in Congress.
Today, there is no institutional check on Republicans, except another Republican, Bob Mueller. Ultimately all he can do is provide a report to Congress, which the Trumpers will ignore, regardless of the validity of any accusations it contains. The fate of the nation now hangs on the midterms. And since the electorate failed the country in 2016, we shouldnât be too hopeful about the odds.
On to cartoons. Strzok tells it like it is:
Trumpâs move to remake Supreme Court goes a little too far:
Trumpâs new guardian is Judge Kavanaugh:
Trump was poorly received in UK:
Trump took on Germany at the NATO meeting. It wasnât hard to know why:
Trumpâs moving on to his Monday meeting with Putin:
Piebald fawn at rescue center, Sherman CT â June, 2018 photo by JH Cleary
It was a week in which Wrongo rode the Cape Cod bike trails every day, got up at 4:15 am one day to get to Coast Guard Beach at high tide to surf cast for Striped Bass, and catch none. We ate very well, mostly seafood. We watched fireworks on the Cape Cod Bay side, which gave a great view of fireworks displays by at least 10 towns, from Boston around to Provincetown on the Cape.
We experienced all of this with kids and grandkids, it was a relaxing time.
One benefit was that we didnât see a newspaper or a newscast the entire week. But everyoneâs phones lit up with news about Scott Pruittâs walk off the stage in DC, the soccer kids in Thailand, and who would be Trumpâs pick for the Supreme Court.
But as we downshift into the weekend, Wrongo wants to talk about a big, bad idea that Democrats canât seem to stop talking about. It is âAbolish ICEâ, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, thatâs a part of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE has been a part of our lives since 2003, when it was created in the governmentâs reorganization after Sept. 11, 2001. But calls to abolish ICE take focus away from a winning issue for Democrats: Republicans separating asylum-seeking families at the border.
ICE doesnât do that; itâs being done by Customs and Border Protection, who run the Border Patrol. As the WaPo points out, yelling about abolishing ICE is a gift to Republicans in November. Karen Tumulty says even serious Democratic contenders for president in 2020 are saying it:
ICE has become a deportation force, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) told CNN. Get rid of it. Start over. Reimagine it.
Well, Wrongo thinks sheâs a serious candidate.
Itâs clear that ICE and the Border Patrol are staffed mostly with goons who would just as soon trample your Constitutional rights as they would separate a kid from an immigrant. But, we shouldnât be thinking of replacing them, so much as adopting our own âzero toleranceâ policy for their bad behavior and constant dickitude.
Since Democrats donât have a clear solution for reforming ICE, they should drop the issue and focus on the child separation question, where the law and public opinion is on their side. Otherwise, calls to eliminate ICE will be spun by Republicans as undermining the security of the nationâs borders.
Also, Democratsâ calls to abolish ICE distracts from the real villain in the immigration crisis and the separation of immigrant families â Donald Trump. ICE just executes orders received from the Trump administration. ICE can certainly be improved, but the function ICE performs is necessary to the security of this country. Besides, every nation has organizations that manage immigration and customs.
Trump is the person who initiated the program to separate immigrant families. Dems shouldn’t water down his culpability with a misplaced focus on ICE.
Ok, time to see if we can get soothed a little while we wait to see who the Trump Supreme Court nominee will be. Letâs start by brewing a big cup of Tanzanian Peaberry coffee ($15.75/lb.) from Coffee Bean Direct. They say that its flavor is punctuated by an intoxicating, chocolaty aroma with a rich, winey body that is surprisingly versatile and perfect for any time of day.
Sounds like marketing lingo to Wrongo, but, go for it!
Now, find a quiet air-conditioned spot with a comfortable chair and listen to âConcierto de Aranjuezâ written in 1939 by JoaquĂn Rodrigo. Here we see it from the 1996 movie âBrassed Offâ, which is set 10 Â years after a strike in 1984â85 by the National Union of Mineworkers in Britain. At the time of the movie, coal mines (called pits in Britain) are being closed. One of the mines scheduled to close has a brass band. The movie shows the circumstances of the coal miners who are losing their jobs through their bandâs performances.
This might possibly foreshadow what will happen to unions in America with last weekâs Supreme Court decision saying that government workers who choose not to join unions, do not have to pay for collective bargaining. This makes them free riders and dramatically cuts the money that these unions have to operate with.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Raul Ilargi of The Automatic Earth gets us thinking about truth in journalism:
The two most viral photographs of the âTrump Separation Scandalâ have now been debunked, or at the very least been proven to have been used âout of contextâ. This is a dangerous development, as are the reasons to use them the way they have been. Both pictures are of children who had not been separated from their mothers at all. But both were used to depict just that: a child being taken away from its mother.
Here are the two pictures. The first shows a Honduran toddler sobbing. The photo was taken on June 14th. It was used widely by the media, with the accompanying message that the child was about to be separated from its mother:
But the NYT reports the child was not separated from her mother. That was reported on June 23rd. Pro-Trump news outlets have had a fine time calling the photo fake news. And the same photo was photoshopped by Time Magazine for a cover that used the little girl juxtaposed with Donald Trump looming over her, with the caption, âWelcome to Americaâ:
Now, Time may not have known the true status of the child at the time when they made the choice to place her on the cover with Trump, but theyâre absolutely ok with using it. The NYT quotes them:
Our cover and our reporting capture the stakes of this moment.
But, there is a major difference between illustrating a moment, and reporting. A Facebook funds-raising page using the original photo above inspired hundreds of thousands of people to donate $19 million for a nonprofit legal defense fund for immigrants and refugees.
Is that a good outcome from bad reporting? If people are interested in donating, why trick them into doing it? Back to Ilargi:
Thatâs what is dangerous: seeing a photo of a child in distress makes people halt their critical thinking. Thatâs also why such photos are used. They help build a narrative that doesnât have to be factual to shock people. But at that point TIME becomes a fiction magazine; itâs where it leaves journalism behind.
There also was a picture of a caged little boy crying, âDetained by ICE at a border facilityâ said the caption:
But the image of the crying, caged young boy, which went viral, was actually taken at a demonstration. RT reports that this photo was shared by activist journalist Jose Antonio Vargas as a comment on the Trump administrationâs immigration crackdown on families. More from RT:
It has since emerged that the picture was in fact not from a detention facility at all, and instead was taken at a protest against Trumpâs immigration policies held on June 10 outside Dallas City Hall.
Some activists argue that the origin of the photo is irrelevant, that it portrays a true problem, even if this particular image is not a true representation of the facts on the ground.
But weâre on a slippery slope with that reasoning. We shouldnât be using any available means to message against even a wrong policy.
Whatâs dangerous about this approach is that if journalists are allowed to spread a narrative that isnât confirmed as true, they may be âreportingâ unsourced stories simply to make a point. Then, no one will ever know fact from fiction.
This is the downside of instant, global communications. The narrative can outrun the truth, the myth can become fact. Since social media compensation is often tied to âclicksâ on an article, publishers and editors have a conflict of interest: sell the truth, or sell the narrative?
Children are being taken from parents at US borders, and Trumpâs policy needs a healthy debate. But playing loose with the facts cannot be permitted by the media.
Time for the media to wake up! It helps no one if the charge âFake Newsâ is true. To help them wake up, here is Billy Bragg doing âIt Says Hereâ from his 1984 album âBrewing Up with Billy Braggâ:
Sample Lyrics:
It says here that the Unions will never learn
It says here that the economy is on the upturn
And it says here we should be proud
That we are free
And our free press reflects our democracy
If this does not reflect your view you should understand
That those who own the papers also own this land
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Rua Nova do Carvalho, Lisbon Portugal – 2016 photo by Brotherside. Formerly a part of the red light district, but when the street was painted pink in 2011, it quickly became the epicenter of a vibrant party scene.
In a week with a Hawaiian volcanoâs eruption, Bibiâs nuclear song-and-dance, and Rudyâs confessions on Fox that Trump had indirectly paid hush money to Stormy, you may have missed the report that the fired House Chaplain is back at work. The WaPoreported:
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-WI) reversed course Thursday and agreed to keep the Rev. Patrick J. Conroy on as House chaplain after an extraordinary showdown that included the priest alleging anti-Catholic bias among Ryanâs staff.
Ryan defended his original decision and continued to question whether Conroy was delivering sufficient âpastoral servicesâ to the entire House. âI intend to sit down with Father Conroy early next week so that we can move forward for the good of the whole House,â Ryan said.
That is how it ended. His return started when Rev. Pat Conroy rescinded his resignation in a letter to Ryan. Conroy wrote:
While you never spoke with me in person, nor did you send me any correspondence, on Friday, April 13, 2018 your Chief of Staff, Jonathon Burks, came to me and informed me that you were asking for my letter of resignation. I inquired as to whether or not it was ‘for cause,’ and Mr. Burks mentioned dismissively something like, ‘maybe it’s time that we had a Chaplain that wasn’t a Catholic.’
Great job, Mr. Burks! Did you know that there have been exactly two Catholics as House Chaplain?
Fr. Conroy continued:
At that point, I thought that I had little choice but to resign, as my assumption was that you had the absolute prerogative and authority to end my term as House chaplain.
This was mostly about the tin ear that some Republicans have when it comes to social issues. One House member, Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), who is also a Baptist pastor, apparently said that the next House chaplain needed to have a family.
That would rule out anyone who, like Fr. Conroy, had taken a vow of celibacy. Why do some people continually use their religion to bludgeon others?
Democrats and a few Republicans have said they believed that Speaker Ryan was facing pressure from evangelicals within the GOP conference to find a chaplain whose politics more closely aligned with theirs, but for now, this little âholy warâ in the House is over. Maybe the next House Chaplain should be a Zen warrior priest who roams the halls, hitting Congress critters with his sword, you know, in a pastoral manner.
Spring has sprung with a vengeance in the Northeast. Today, Wrongo has battled a love sick bird that is trying to build a nest above the kitchen door at the Mansion of Wrong. The determined bird tried three times before finally bowing to Wrongoâs will.
Itâs Saturday, and we need to downshift, to turn our focus from all that is wrong with the world, to all thatâs right. To help you make the change, start by brewing a cup of Taiwan roaster Kakalove CafĂŠâs Mandheling Onan Ganjang sourced from the northern part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra ($18.50/16 oz.). The roaster says it is deeply sweet with vibrant acidity, and a syrupy mouthfeel.
Now, sit outside, take in the nature surrounding you, and listen to Sierra Boggess singing âThe Lusty Month of Mayâ from Camelot. It is performed live in 2012 at the BBC Proms:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
The Wrong family is at its annual temporary winter headquarters in Florida, enjoying this view. Blogging will be intermittent until March 12th, when we will be back in residence at the Mansion of Wrong. 2015 photo by Wrongo.
A few cartoons. When will the GOP start complaining, saying âArmed union thugs are patrolling our schoolsâ:
Trump refines his role:
US Cyber Command chief Adm. Mike Rogers said Trump hasnât granted him the authority to disrupt increased cyber threats. Trump, no longer jumping to the rescue. Heâs just the security monitor:
A primary reason that we have more guns is how the meaning of the term âWell Regulated Militiaâ was mis-appropriated by Second Amendment (SA) absolutists. The Propaganda Professor is writing a series on the SA. His work is always worth a read. Previously, he wrote about the Right to Bear Arms. His second column is about the Well Regulated Militia. The Professor asks:
The purpose of the Second Amendment was actually to guarantee a “well-regulated militia”. But what exactly does that mean? Just what is/was a militia, anyway?
SA absolutists say that “militia” means all citizens, because they think that’s what was meant when the SA was written. There are flaws in this claim. They quote George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention:
I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.
Sadly for them, that wording isnât included in the actual Amendment. And at the time, it’s unlikely that Mason meant all of the people. The Professor:
Consider that the Second Militia Act of 1792 (passed only a few months after the Second Amendment was written) designated the composition of the militia as being: every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years…
So, if you are an original intent person, todayâs “militia” would consist only of white males between 18 and 45. The Act says they should be outfitted with:
…a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball…
The definition of militia has changed over the years. In 1862, a new Militia Act finally eliminated the race restriction; but it still pertained only to men of a certain age.
In 1903, the Dick Act established the National Guard as the official “organized militia” of the US. It said those who were not Guard members were to be called the “unorganized militia“.
The SA absolutists have twisted this, saying that “unorganized militia” means anyone who wants to carry a gun for any purpose. Thus, all civilians are a part of the “unorganized” militia and therefore covered by the SA. That is debatable, but the most important thing about the militia was not who qualified as a member, but its purpose for existing. The Professor points out that the Acts of 1792 make that clear:
That whenever the United States shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of invasion from any foreign nation or Indian tribe, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, to call forth such number of the militia of the state or states most convenient to the place of danger or scene of action, as he may judge necessary to repel such invasion…
The Acts of 1792 make it clear that the militia was designed to be an organized armed force supplied by the states to execute the laws of the nation. Nothing in the Militia Acts say citizens can be armed for “defending” themselves against the government.
The purpose of the militia is further defined by the term, “well-regulated”. The gun rights people say it derives from a 1698 treatise, âA Discourse of Government with Relation to Militiasâ by Andrew Fletcher, in which the term âwell regulatedâ was equated with âdisciplinedâ.
But âwell-regulatedâ in the dictionary has other meanings, and they all apply to a military unit, such as a militia.
Since militia members in Revolutionary days were conscripted for service, it implies that the militia membership was a civic obligation. It isnât a few guys running around in camo gear on Saturday.
Finally, the Professor points out that militia, like military, is derived from the Latin word for soldier.
The soldier is part of an organized body, and is well-regulated in virtually every possible sense of the term.
A few words about the Nunes memo: We had already heard all that it contains, so there’s nothing new to chew on except todayâs Super Bowl nachos. Its main argument is that somehow, super-crafty Democrats, in league with the FBI, tricked four separate FISA judges into extending surveillance on suspected foreign agent, and Trump campaign staffer Carter Page. How? By omitting that the “primary source” of the information on Page was the “paid-for-by-Democrats” Steele dossier, which is “compromised by partisanship“.
Except that the Nunes Memo doesn’t prove any of this. The initial FISA warrant against Carter Page was based on the fact that the guy was a known counterintelligence risk who was in the habit of traveling to Moscow and Budapest and mixing with Kremlin officials and spies. The Steele Dossier took independent note of this, (which speaks to Steeleâs ability to uncover at least some real information), but Pageâs activities were already suspect, regardless of who paid Steele.
So, no matter what the Nunes memo claims, Steele’s information wasn’t crucial to their interest in Page, who had been under FISA surveillance since 2013 for his contacts with Russian spies in NYC.
The idea that the FBI only pursued Page because certain members of its management had Democratic sympathies is ridiculous. Would Trump have traded how he was treated by the FBI in October 2016 for the way Clinton was treated?
The FBI actually told the NYT that they gave Trump a clean bill of health. They incorrectly assured the public that Trump’s campaign was not being investigated for its ties to the Russians when that was exactly what they were doing. Were they in cahoots with Democrats when they did that?
Democrats must learn to pick their battles. Why scream about releasing a memo that most people (excluding Trumpsters) can now see is a nothingburger? Â What exactly were they trying to keep secret? Â Ordinary people don’t appreciate Chicken Little behavior. And most of the time they will give equal weight to Chicken Little A and Chicken Little B, because that’s how they have learned to deal with squabbling children.
Americans SO want politics to be honorable. Â It’s not. It’s just war by other means, on other battlefields.
Shots were fired from the Peanut Gallery:
Nunes actually said what he meant:
State of the Union speech was damaging to Democrats:
Wrongo isnât sure how many of you are Spotify users, and it isnât clear whether Spotify is a true barometer of Americaâs opinions. But, if you look at Spotifyâs âChartsâ page for Christmas Day, 2017, this is what you see: Nine of the top ten songs streamed were Christmas songs, with the exception being #10, Post Maloneâs ârockstarâ.
And the next ten were all Christmas songs. And from #21-30, nine were Christmas songs. From #31-40, six were Christmas songs.
Mariah Carey dominated with her “All I Want For Christmas Is You” at number one, with daily plays of 2,075,827 and cumulative plays of 311,319,704. Brenda Lee was #2. Even Burl Ives makes the top ten at #7 with “A Holly Jolly Christmasâ, among Wrongoâs least favorite Christmas tunes.
But Trump says that we have a War on Christmas; that it has been stolen by godless, PC elites. The fear that Christmas is âunder attackâ has been a recurring phenomenon in the US for the better part of the last century.
But we should see that the real war is elsewhere. Trump should take a minute and understand that legally, Christmas isnât a Christian holiday in America. Congress passed a bill in 1870 making Christmas a national holiday. The NYT wrote about this in 2013: (emphasis by Wrongo)
If you read the language of the bill, it’s clear that Congress chose dates commonly celebrated as holidays by the American people, not for religious reasons but because of a history of recognition and celebration on those dates…they did not deny religious association with two of the dates, Dec. 25 and Thanksgiving. But the religious association with these days was not the reason behind proposing them as holidays.
Congress got it right in 1870. We get a holiday on Dec 25, and it’s “commonly called Christmas“. You could call it anything you want, or nothing. That’s simply the name commonly used. The government doesnât presume or direct the manner in which you will spend the day, you can choose to worship the baby Jesus, or you can go bowling, or head out to the gun range to practice your precious Second Amendment rights. The government doesnât care.
Why, almost 150 years later, Trump and his henchmen in the media are bringing up yet again what individual Americans call the day or the season, or what they do not call it, or whether they celebrate, or do not celebrate it, is not worth anyoneâs time.
We live in a time of cultural transition, but one thing is sure: December seems to be about Christmas music.
The WSJâs Weekend Edition had an article about the cultural and economic split between small towns and big towns in America. In âOne Nation, Divisibleâ, Michael Phillips follows a young woman, Caity Cronkhite, who left rural Indiana for San Francisco. Caity recalls:
All growing up, if we were too smart or too successful or too anything, there was always someone ready to say, âDonât be so proud of yourselfâ…
Caity was smart. She bucked the system to graduate from high school a year early, but the school would not let her be named valedictorian, because she had skipped a grade. She left town, got a scholarship to Carnegie-Mellon, graduated and became a technical writer for SalesForce.com.
Still, she remained attached to her home town. She wrote an online 5000+ word essay about Kingman IN. It brought thousands of hateful responses from Kingman, including:
So keep your elitistsâ rear ends in your little office cubicles while we handle the tough, physical things that keep you and your perfect friends alive…
That anger about town vs. city brought to mind Merle Haggardâs 1969 tune, âOkie from Muskogeeâ. Haggard and the band were on a bus outside of Muskogee when a band member joked that the citizens in Muskogee probably didn’t smoke marijuana. In about 20 minutes, Haggard had the song. The band played it the next night at the Fort Bragg, NC officers club. And after the verse:
We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street,
We like living right and being free.
The officers stood and gave huge applause. They had to play the song four times to get offstage. The song later went to number one on the Billboard country music charts. At the time, Reuters reported: (emphasis by Wrongo)
Haggard has tapped, perhaps for the first time in popular music, into a vast reservoir of resentment against the long-haired young and their underground society.
So in 2017, a young woman worries about being accepted in her small home town after finding success while living in San Francisco. While 48 years earlier, âOkieâ was telling small town America to have pride, and that it was ok to be for the Vietnam War, and against student protesters.
These two events made Wrongo think about the roots of todayâs fractious sociopolitical divide in America.
People in small towns have to fit in, the place is too small to look different, or subscribe to ideas that are outside the main stream in their townâs culture. If they do, the local hierarchy has ways of enforcing conformance with the dominant ethos. People insist that you should fit in. They think that everybody should fit in, and they donât understand why there are places in America that donât operate that way.
Haggardâs hit brought small-town America self-identification and pride. And it galvanized the âusâ vs. âthemâ attitudes in small-town USA that were opposed to the growing counter-culture of the 1960âs, and the student opposition to the Vietnam War.
Americans always gather into relatively small groups. People in cities have misconceptions about small town life, just like rural Americans have them about cities.
The nature of todayâs politics, and the nature of group identity in America pushes us into sparring camps. You can call it your âtribeâ, your âpeopleâ, or your âteamâ, but groups in small-town America have a well-defined sense of identity. It is different from the identity politics in big-city America, where there are hundreds of examples of people of many different groups. Large metropolitan areas are much more diverse, but they are also knitted together by a transcendent identity with place.
Ms. Cronkhiteâs parents planned on selling the farm and retiring, but Caity wasnât ready to let it all go:
If I ever have kids, theyâre never going to understand this huge part of me…I want there to be a reminder of where I come from and who I am.
Her parents sold her about 10 acres for the per-acre price her father had paid in 1972. Caity plans to build a small house. She said:
Iâm still a rural American.
But she doesnât plan on moving back just now. Fewer and fewer of us are rural Americans, and while those societies shrink, no dominant identity is replacing it.
But the sometimes-toxic sociology of small groups, or Merle Haggardâs sentiments, canât be allowed to destroy what America has in common. In fact, appropriation of culture and patriotism by one tribe is a threat to our common good. Thus when Haggard says:
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
Heâs misappropriating, since every town has always flown Old Glory at the courthouse, and wouldnât dream of taking it down.
Time to wake up America! Fight the appropriation of our symbols and ideals. To help you wake up, here is Merle Haggard with âOkie from Muskogeeâ:
Wrongo isnât sure how many of you know who Greg Schiano is. Heâs currently the defensive coordinator for the Ohio State football team. He was head coach at Rutgers, and a head coach in the NFL at Tampa Bay. Early in his career, Schiano was an assistant coach at Penn State.
We are talking about Schiano because he applied for the head coach position at the University of Tennessee. The two parties decided they liked each other, and reached a written memorandum of understanding, followed by a contract which apparently, Schiano signed.
Shortly after the intended hiring became public, anyone with a stake in Tennessee football was slinging poo at Schiano. Why? A group raised the issue that Schianoâs time at Penn State overlapped with a Penn State coach, the convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky. The sum of the Schiano character assassination was this: Greg Schiano worked at Penn State. Someone told someone else that Schiano may, or did know what was going on with Sandusky.
Itâs true that Schiano coached at Penn State. He has not been named in any lawsuit. No charges have been filed against him. No witnesses have come forward with any evidence direct or circumstantial, that he knew anything about Sanduskyâs acts. The âevidenceâ of Schianoâs wrongdoing is a third-hand, ten-year old hearsay (one sentence) in a deposition. Thatâs what triggered the outrage by Tennessee fans.
There were protests on campus. There were statements criticizing Schianoâs hiring from a boatload of Tennessee politicians, including four of the five candidates for governor. It appears that the University and its Athletic Director, John Currie, capitulated to public demand by implying his new hire enabled child rape.
Guess who’s the new head football coach at the University of Tennessee. Yup. The guy who covered for Jerry Sandusky. #GregSchiano
The Trump administration takes a position on a football coaching job based on unsubstantiated hearsay, while it openly supports Roy Moore for the US Senate despite reams of potentially credible allegations. Roy Moore says he didn’t do it, and that’s plenty for Trump. But Schiano is guilty as charged based on uninvestigated third hand hallway comments.
Letâs remember that Greg Schiano is not guilty of anything. Rumors are not facts unless proven. If somebody has something that proves that Schiano knew about Sandusky, let’s see it, and then letâs run him out of town.
Wrongo doesnât believe that the people of Tennessee are outraged about what Schiano might have witnessed a quarter-century ago as a young assistant coach. They were furious because they didnât think he was âworthyâ of a Tennessee football job that used to be prestigious a decade ago. With Schianoâs middling 68-67 record as a head coach at Rutgers, and his failed two-year tenure as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they wanted someone better. And they found a way to torpedo Schianoâs deal.
If Schiano had been a hot-shot coach headed into the upcoming college football playoffs, would the Tennessee fans be up in arms? Highly doubtful.
The real story here is the power of the internet. Baseless charges make their way around the world, the White House has a hot take, fans protest, and outraged state pols demand answers. And then the guy falls like a sack of rocks.
What school is going to hire Schiano after seeing the reaction in Knoxville?
Whoever Tennessee hires next wonât be significantly more or less talented at coaching than Schiano. Itâs important that the country sees how loud and ugly it can be when the fan base runs with a false narrative.
This is a teachable moment for our politics as well as for our universities. We need to do a much better job teaching critical thinking, or the mob will always find an audience for guilt by association.
Letâs hope this is something the next school, the next coach, and the next fan base (or voter base) remembers.
