Trump's Iran gambit turned out to be a massive win for America and for him. This is what peace through strength looks like. Also, speaking of massive wins, CNN was forced to settle with Nick Sandmann after slandering him. And is the lack of black coaches in the NFL a symptom of racism? Of course not. But the media claims otherwise.
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Listen, you guys know that I'm not shy about criticizing Donald Trump.
You know that I'm also very far from a Trump groupie.
Very, very far, in fact.
So, hopefully it will have some meaning when I say that, from my point of view, Trump has just completed what I think is the masterstroke of his presidency.
What was supposed to be a historic blunder, a catastrophe, World War III has turned out to be his finest moment.
I think about it.
Let's just go back and review.
Iran attacked Americans, killed an American contractor, attacked our embassy.
This, on top of all the provocations through the years and through the decades, all the bloodshed and the mayhem that they've been responsible for, all the American troops that they've killed by proxy in the Middle East.
And finally, a U.S.
president has enough of it, decides to act like the most powerful country in the world, which we still are, by the way, by many magnitudes, and he orders a strike against Soleimani, global mass killer, leading terrorist in the world, and also the number two guy in the Iranian government.
The people, you know, the people who called, who originally, when this happened, all the people saying this is a really big deal and all of that, they were right.
It doesn't happen that often.
For us to go after someone so publicly like that, someone of the status of Soleimani in the Iranian government, it's basically unheard of.
But Trump said, no, we're not going to let this piece of garbage continue sauntering around the Middle East, killing our guys.
He's going to pay for it.
And we're going to send a message, and the message is going to be, if you do this, You better watch this guy, because we're coming for you.
So he orders the strike, turns Soleimani into beef stroganoff, and then we get a week of panic from the media.
It's, oh, it's World War III, oh no, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to the Earth, it's terrible, so on and so forth.
And then last night, the Iranians launched their missiles at American bases in Iraq, and the panic reaches fever pitch.
I don't know if you were online last night, but it was one for the record books as far as panic goes.
Media-driven panic.
We were told that it's officially the beginning of global conflict, World War III, World War III, over and over again.
And then it turns out, you know, as is so often the case, The people who believed initial reporting at face value, took it at face value, the people who jumped in right away with all the sensationalizing, looked ridiculous, as always.
Because it's like people never learn.
When you've got some big event in the early going, whether it's a conflict overseas or it's a mass shooting or whatever, The reports that you initially hear are almost always wrong.
So what's the best thing?
Just don't react to them.
Don't say anything.
You don't need to go online and say anything.
But people never learn.
So, it turns out, nobody was killed.
No Americans, no Iraqis, apparently.
Minimal damage.
It was a face-saving measure by Iran.
They were beat, and they knew it.
They knew that they couldn't afford to get into a direct conflict with the U.S.
Because, of course, all along, even before last night, and how that turned out, all the people talking about World War III, it was always incredibly silly.
As if Iran is going to march into battle directly with the United States.
We would wipe them off the face of the earth.
And they know that.
They know that we can do that to them.
And they don't want that to happen.
Because at least the Iranian government, the people in power, you know, they're not the same as suicide bombers, who don't care if, yeah, I'm going to be destroyed, but I'm going to take a few of you out with me.
That's not their attitude.
They want to stay, they like being in power, and they want to stay there.
And they know that if we wanted to, we could just kill all of them.
And they don't want that.
So, that's why the idea that there was ever going to be a World War III over this was completely ridiculous.
And especially now, because they wanted to avoid the conflict, so they launched the missiles and they...
Didn't kill anybody, and I guess I assume in Iran they're telling their people over in Iran, the media is probably saying.
In fact, the media, the Iranian media, which, and these were reports that were parroted by MSNBC in the early going, the Iranian media is claiming that they killed, you know, dozens of American soldiers.
But they didn't.
They just want to pretend they did.
Which, if they want to pretend, then fine.
You know, if they want to have their little symbolic attack to try to save face with their citizens, who cares?
It really doesn't matter.
So then Trump gets up there this morning, delivers what I think is his best speech of his entire presidency.
And I've always said that I think Donald Trump on the teleprompter is way better than Donald Trump riffing at a political rally or something.
Not as fun, maybe not as engaging, not as funny, but he...
He actually has a point and a message that he can get across when he's staying on the teleprompter.
And so, and it's not about, you know, maybe his delivery on the teleprompter isn't necessarily the best, but who cares?
It's about the message.
It's about what's being said.
And as far as that goes, the message and even the tone, I thought it was superb.
It was resolute, tough, not belligerent, not escalating.
Basically saying, okay Iran, you've seen what will happen.
You've seen what we're willing to do.
So back off now.
This is what peace through strength looks like.
We've talked about peace through strength.
We haven't seen an example of it in this country for many decades.
Here's an example.
This is what it is.
So, that's what it is.
Trump takes out Soleimani, sends a message, weakens Iran, both structurally, because they lost their number two guy, and in the eyes of the world, we face a symbolic reprisal that caused no casualties, and then Trump basically declares victory.
Brilliant.
I think it's brilliant.
I know that I, like most Americans, I don't want another war in the Middle East.
I prefer for us to be out of there entirely, focusing on issues here at home.
I think that's where most people are.
But at the same time, we are, as I said, the most powerful nation in the world.
And there's no reason why we shouldn't act like it, and there's no reason why we should let guys like Soleimani do what they do and get away with it.
This is what's been so frustrating for Americans for a long time.
Where we say, you know, you've got a guy like Soleimani, we can take him out, He's been taking our guys out for years.
We could take him out.
Why don't we do it?
What's Iran gonna do on Earth?
They can't do anything.
That's what people have been saying in this country for a long time.
Well, finally we get someone like Trump who has the same approach.
And he does it.
It's really a question of having leaders with the boldness to take action, but also the smarts to not let that action turn into some Middle Eastern quagmire.
Another Middle Eastern quagmire, because we've had a lot of those.
So that's what we need.
You take action, take care of the problem, But you don't, you know, acting like the most powerful nation in the world, I think part of that is taking action and then getting out and going back to worrying about problems at home again.
Not getting bogged down in some 15 year long war.
So by demonstrating Trump by demonstrating that he has both of those things where foreign policy is concerned, that is boldness and smarts.
I think Trump, well, it's a win for America first and foremost, most importantly, but politically, I mean, this is a huge win for Trump.
Huge win.
If Trump had responded to this symbolic attack from Iran by, you know, by sending more missiles in their direction or something like that, then yes, that would be him escalating and actually, now killing Soleimani, that was justified, that was not an escalation.
When you've got a guy that's been killing our people for years and then we kill him, how could that possibly be considered an escalation?
But responding in a direct and dramatic and militaristic way to something like this, that would be an escalation.
That would be like, okay, now you really are starting a war.
But that's not what Trump is doing.
I think that's what the left expected him to do.
I think that's even what they hope he would do.
Because for them, it's all about, of course, party over country.
But that's not what he did.
So, major, major.
I don't think you could... It'd be hard to overstate what a win this is.
Again, for America, first of all, because this is a message that Iran will, and not just Iran, but people are going to realize it.
Okay, you know, now there's someone in the White House right now, or we can't necessarily get away with the same things we used to get away with.
And then politically, I think.
I think if, you know, it's, since we're still a year away from the election, I'm not going to sit here and say he just won re-election based on that, because as I always say, people have very short memories these days, and by next week, I think no one's going to be talking about Iran anymore.
But, even so, I think to the extent that this remains in the conscious of Americans and in our memory, I think if Trump does win re-election, this will have something to do with it at least.
So, big thing.
Now, the question is, we took out Soleimani, who even, most Democrats would at least admit was a really bad guy.
Now, you have people like Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they wouldn't even admit that much.
For them, it was all about how terrible Trump is, and they wouldn't even just gesture towards the idea that Soleimani was at least a bad guy.
But most of them, you know, Sanders and Warren and Biden, would at least admit that he was a bad guy.
But they said, oh, you know, yes, he was a bad guy, but to do this, the consequences, it's just not worth it.
Well, now we see the consequences were they launched some missiles and purposely avoided hitting anybody with them.
That's the consequence.
A symbolic attack, a symbolic reprisal.
So now that World War III has been cancelled, although not really cancelled because it was never going to start to begin with, Soleimani is dead, how is the left going to argue that it was still wrong to kill Soleimani?
How are they still going to do the, yeah, he was a bad guy, but he deserved to die, but we shouldn't have killed him, because, because why?
Because of the minimal property damage done by the missiles that didn't kill anybody?
Now, they're gonna come up with an argument, of course.
Because they just could not possibly ever admit that, yeah, you know what?
Trump did the right thing.
He did the right thing, it worked out well, he handled it well.
They cannot admit it.
Ever.
No matter what it is.
I mean, Trump could come up with a cure for arthritis.
And Democrats would say, well, yeah, I mean, that's great and all, but think about all these unemployed rheumatologists now who don't have jobs.
Or Trump could rescue a kitten from a tree.
And they would say, yeah, great that you got him out of the tree, but now, I mean, his chances of getting run over by a cement truck have just increased.
Now he's going to end up in the streets.
Look at what you've done.
That's how it goes for the Democrats.
But, well done by Trump.
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Okay, I wanted to touch on this briefly.
Reading now from the Daily Wire report, says Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandman has reportedly received a settlement from CNN after suing the left-wing network for smearing him last year.
Fox 19 reported CNN agreed Tuesday to settle a lawsuit with Covington Catholic student Nick Sandman.
The amount of the settlement was not made public.
Sandman also filed lawsuits against the Washington Post and NBCUniversal, each for $250 million or more, is reportedly planning to sue Gannett, owners of the Enquirer.
Sandman's attorney, Todd McMurdy, and also Lin Wood, filed a $275 million lawsuit against CNN in March of last year.
Wood told Fox News saying basically that CNN was probably the most vicious in their attacks, so the lawsuit was for $275 million.
We don't know what the settlement is, probably not $275 million, but we could also probably guess it's for a substantial amount.
I wish we knew the amount.
Hopefully that leaks at some point.
But this is great.
There's not much to say about it other than this is a happy ending.
To a story, for once.
And it represents, finally, somebody fighting back against the media, which is, this is what needs to happen.
You need to actually, we need people punching back in this way.
Not just punching back by complaining on Twitter or whatever, but hitting them where it hurts, in their pockets.
Because, usually, the media does this and they get away with it.
They smear somebody with innuendo and false reporting.
And taking things out of context, and then they just move on.
You know, after a few days, the real story comes out, and maybe we get a little bit of an, oops, sorry about that from the media, but usually not even that.
They just move on to the next thing and pretend it never happened.
And there are so many examples of this.
Probably the most egregious that comes to mind is Kavanaugh.
But even think about, I mean, go back a few years to Ferguson and Officer Wilson, who was smeared across the media as a racist murderer.
Hands up, don't shoot and everything.
All of that was reported by the media as fact with no skepticism whatsoever.
Then the grand jury report comes out, basically clearing Officer Wilson's name.
We've got a forensic evidence, eyewitness testimony, all backs him up.
And then the federal government does their own investigation, the Justice Department, under Obama, and they also come to the same conclusion.
But of course, in that case, the media has yet, has never circled back around to say, oh, you know what?
We got that one wrong.
So they just ruined Officer Wilson's life, smeared him as a racist, and that's it.
And that's normally how it goes.
They're not called to account for it.
There are no consequences.
I'm hoping that this represents a new phase.
I'm hoping that this is not, this is just sort of a tip of the iceberg moment.
It's not a one-off thing.
Where people who are smeared by the media say, you know what?
No, we're not, I'm not gonna let you move on from that.
I'm gonna make you pay for that.
So congratulations to Nick and to his family and to everybody over at Covington Catholic for being vindicated in this way, and congratulations on the big payday.
Don't spend it all in one place.
Alright, now switching gears a little bit, I want to do some football news here.
There's been some head coach openings in the league recently, as there are around this time every year.
And most of those openings are now filled.
Dallas fired Jason Garrett, hired Mike McCarthy, Carolina fired Ron Rivera, hired Matt Ruhle.
The Browns fired Freddie Kitchens, and that job is still open.
And the Giants fired Pat Shermer, and then it was just announced yesterday that they were hiring a position coach from the Pats, Joe Judge, to be their new head coach.
Which is a little bit strange on a number of levels, because, number one, no one's ever heard of Joe Judge.
Also, when you talk about position coaches for the Pats, I mean, wide receiver was their weakest position.
And yet, that guy gets a job.
But these kinds of decisions are often made, especially in New York.
They often make these head-scratching decisions in their personnel department and with coaches.
But this is more than just sports news, we're told.
This is all evidence of institutional racism in the NFL.
Because, of course.
Because everything is racism.
This is a racial crisis.
Because, we're told, none of the openings were filled by a black head coach, which is racist.
And so the media has been making a big deal about this, publishing articles, doing segments on ESPN and so on, about how all the openings were filled by white people.
And that's very, very bad.
It's a very terrible thing.
It's a big problem.
Very racist.
Stephen A. Smith, a man who yells for a living, He's a professional yeller.
Well, he did some more yelling yesterday.
A lot of yelling.
Some very loud yelling.
Slightly louder than usual yelling about the fact that the NFL is persecuting black men.
Anyway, here's what he had to say.
There is a Rooney rule in place.
And still, this kind of stuff is happening.
I want to announce on national television that I personally am going to take it upon myself.
Whether it's to communicate with the NFL League office, whether it's to communicate with owners, whether it's to sit up here and raise holy hell, whether it's to recruit my contemporaries in this business to address it, we got a problem!
This is some BS!
Ain't no way around this!
We moving in a reverse direction!
We're moving in the reverse direction.
Black men are not being treated fairly in the National Football League.
Somebody gotta say it.
Somebody gotta say it.
You got to be kidding me.
When the stuff that has happened over the last year, for this stuff to go on and we just gonna sit up here and have a sports conversation.
No, I ain't having no damn sports conversation at this particular moment.
Something wrong.
Now, the National Football League or somebody else, we gotta change this Rudy Rule.
It's bogus, clearly, because it's being bypassed.
The original intent, what it was intended to produce, is being circumvented.
And black men in the National Football League are being ostracized from key positions in the National Football League.
Somebody needs to say, the NFL, league owners, the world of sports, sports talk television, sports radio, y'all are gonna be hearing from me.
It's not gotta be done!
It's not gotta be done!
Just so you know, if you don't follow sports media, which, if you don't, good for you.
That's probably the right decision.
But if you don't, that's how Stephen A. Smith, that's him all the time.
He's on TV for 19 hours a day somehow, and he's always yelling, no matter what he's talking about.
Which I know coming from me, it's kind of hypocritical because I yell a lot too.
But I yell probably 40% of the time.
For Stephen A. Smith, it's 98% of the time.
And the other thing is, he's talking about sports.
So at least in this case, he's pretending to be doing this socially conscious thing and he's standing up against racial injustice.
But usually, it's just talking about something sports related.
So they're talking about You know, the Titans punting on fourth and six rather than going for it, and he's losing his mind over something like that.
It's like, dude, it's just sports.
I like watching it too, but really, we're talking about people playing a game.
It really doesn't... We don't need that level of passion.
Just turn it down maybe five or six notches.
So...
I just wanted to touch on this issue because really it shows you how ridiculous the attempt to racialize everything really is.
This racial bean counting that goes on of NFL head coaches.
It's maybe as stupid as identity politics gets.
Well, probably not.
It gets stupider than this.
But it's still pretty damn stupid.
And you see how this works.
You see how they turn things into a racial issue.
How the media does it.
And the way they do it is they just need a few stats, a few tidbits that they can stitch together into a narrative about racial oppression, regardless of how baseless that narrative is.
It doesn't need to make sense.
They just need a few facts.
And so in this case, the fact is that there are 32 head coaches in the league.
Only three of them are black.
That's all they need.
And it's off to the races.
So let's talk about this.
First of all, It's not true that all four of the head coach openings were filled by white people.
Ron Rivera is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent.
He was hired, so if this is a racist conspiracy, then I don't know how he made the cut.
Second, the offensive coordinator for the Chiefs, Eric Bien-Aimé, is black and is also considered a prime candidate for these jobs.
So far, he hasn't been hired for any of them, and that's part of what guys like Stephen A. Smith and people in sports media are freaking out about.
They're saying, well, Eric Bienim, he's a black man, he's very qualified for the job, he's an offensive coordinator for the Chiefs, and look how good that offense has been.
Why hasn't he been hired?
Well, he hasn't been hired because the Chiefs are still in the playoffs.
That's why he's not hired.
They're still in the playoffs, and if a guy is currently, you know, on the sideline for a team calling the plays, you can't hire him to be your head coach.
So they need to wait until the season's over.
But a lot of these teams are impatient.
Also, keep something else in mind.
These teams that are constantly having head coach openings, like the Browns, The reason why they have head coach openings all the time is because they're bad organizations.
Not racist organizations.
They're just bad.
And so a lot of these teams are impatient.
The Redskins, another example.
They're impatient.
They don't want to wait for the season to be over.
And so, for the postseason to be over, rather.
And so they hire whoever's available.
They make these panicked choices.
And so that's why, you know, this, who I agree is a highly qualified candidate, probably would be a good head coach, but he's not available to be hired right now because it's the postseason and the Chiefs are still in the game.
Although they're going to get knocked out by the Ravens next week in the AFC Championship game.
So, and you know, I still think he'll probably get hired for the Browns job.
Although, you know, if you care about the fate of black men in the NFL, then you really shouldn't wish that job on any black man or any person of any race.
Because to be the head coach of the Browns is really one of the worst fates that can befall anybody.
Also, there are three black head coaches in the NFL.
Maybe soon to be four.
There are 32 teams.
Four out of 32 is about 13%.
Black people account for 13% of the U.S.
population.
That would make the NFL head coaching roster pretty much perfectly reflective of the racial makeup of the larger population, if that's important.
Which it isn't.
Because this is all insane and ridiculous, and it doesn't matter.
When you're looking for head coach, you're supposed to try to hire the person best suited for the job who cares what his skin color is.
Makes no difference.
Teams will hire the person who they think is best for the job.
Now, oftentimes they're wrong about that, but that's not because they're blinded by racism.
It's because a lot of these teams are owned by rich people who really don't know anything about football.
Dan Snyder with the Washington Redskins is exhibit A in that regard.
So the idea that they're refusing to hire black coaches for racial reasons is just completely absurd.
Stephen A. Smith says that black men are treated unfairly in the NFL.
Unfairly?
70% of the players are black.
Most of them are millionaires.
The NFL pays people millions of dollars to play a game.
70% of those people are black.
And you call that being treated unfairly?
If that's being treated unfairly, then I would love to be treated unfairly like that.
Now the response here is to say, well, but 70% of the players are black.
Then why aren't 70% of the coaches black?
Now that definitely seems like a good point if you don't actually watch the sport.
If you do, you would know that there's very little connection between playing the sport and coaching it.
At least not at this level.
Maybe at the PeeWee level, maybe at the Little League level or whatever, there's a connection.
But at the professional level, there's very little connection between being a great player and being a great coach.
Most of the great head coaches in the league right now were not great players.
Many of them played at some level, but they weren't great.
A few were.
Mike Vrabel from the Tennessee Titans, head coach.
Great player.
But...
Most of them weren't.
They say that those who can't do, teach.
Well, those who can't play, coach.
Andy Reid is a very successful coach in the league.
Has been for a long time, even though he's never won a Super Bowl.
He played offensive tackle in community college.
That's as high as he went.
That's the extent of his playing history.
Now here's the point.
He was an offensive tackle in community college.
Obviously wasn't very good.
If he was great, if he was a great offensive tackle, if he was like Jonathan Ogden, then he probably would have gone on to a legitimate school and then went to the pros.
So he probably never would have become a coach because he would have, or at least his coaching career would have been backed up by about 20 years because he would have played all that time.
Bill Belichick, greatest NFL coach of all time, as much as it pains me to say.
Played lacrosse in college.
Got out of college and then started coaching.
And, again, if rather than being the greatest coaching talent of all time, he had been one of the greatest players of all time, then he would have played.
And that's how we would remember him.
So you can conclude that there are these guys, you know, that these guys got jobs because they're whites, or you can approach the issue with a little more thought, a little more nuance, and you can come to the conclusion that they cultivated a talent for coaching because they didn't have a talent for playing.
And I think that's probably more, that's probably closer to the truth.
So let's turn this around and look at it the other way, because I've never understood this.
We say that it's racism because most coaches are white.
Well then why couldn't I argue that it's racism that most players are black?
If we're saying that black people are discriminated against in the coaching ranks, leading to white people taking most of the jobs, couldn't I argue that white people are discriminated among the players, leading to black people taking most of those jobs?
If you're going with the racial angle of the coaching question, then you have this pretty insurmountable logical problem that you have to deal with, which is that if the lack of black representation on the sideline is racism, then what about the lack of white representation on the field?
Is that not racism?
I mean, think about it.
There are entire positions in the NFL right now where there are zero white players.
Cornerback.
There are no white cornerbacks in the NFL right now.
None.
Not a single one.
And that's in a very important position.
In a high-paid position.
No white people.
None.
The last one that I can think of was Jason Sehorne, and he retired like 15 years ago.
And since then, there have been none playing that position.
Zero.
How do you explain that?
If three black coaches out of 32 is racism, what do you say about zero white cornerbacks out of like 100 or more that are in the league right now?
You know, if three out of 32 is racism, that isn't zero out of 100 racism?
This is the problem.
The racial grievance thing, the racial bean counting that goes on, it only ever goes one way.
And that's why it's ridiculous.
Because there has to be some principle here.
There must be some logical system you're using.
And whatever that system is, well, I should be able to apply it to the players as well.
Because the system seems to be, well, there aren't that many black head coaches and therefore racism.
That's as complex as the system is.
Are there a lot of black head coaches?
No, not really.
Well, that's racism.
Okay, well, are there a lot of white players, comparatively?
No, there's not.
So, well, I guess that's racism.
Also, by the way, Marvin Lewis was a black head coach in the league for 15 years.
He was the head coach of the Bengals for 15 years.
Never won a playoff game.
He kept his job for 15 years Never won a playoff game.
So I ask you, if the NFL is racist against black head coaches, how did a black head coach keep his job for 15 years despite never having any success?
That doesn't make any sense.
That doesn't really fit with the narrative, does it?
That's certainly not what you would expect.
Like, if you didn't know any better, and I told you, you knew nothing about the situation, and I told you that there's a racist conspiracy in the NFL against black coaches, the last thing you would ever expect to see is a black head coach keep his job for 15 years without winning a playoff game.
Yeah, that's what's happened.
And can you think of an example of a, I can't, can you think of an example, if you follow football, can you think of an example of a white head coach With a track record as unimpressive as that, and yet who kept his job for that long?
I can only think of a few white head coaches recently who've kept a job for anything close to that long, and all the ones that come to mind, Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, John Harbaugh, Bill Cowher before Mike Tomlin took over, black head coach, they all won Super Bowls.
So, It just, it doesn't work.
There's sort of a, this is part of what you do, where you have a theory, the theory in this case is that there's some sort of racial, racist conspiracy against black head coaches, and then you think to yourself, okay, if that's true, what would I expect to see?
Before I even look at the situation.
And before I even look at what's actually happening, what would I expect to see?
And you certainly would not expect to see a black man keep his job for 15 years despite not ever really doing anything.
So that doesn't work.
It doesn't work with the theory.
And you have to deal with that.
How do you deal with it?
Well, now you're left with doing these sort of ad hoc things where you're trying to, you know, special pleading and you're trying to work around it.
Well, no, no.
I mean, it's still racism, but that's different because XYZ and you have to... Or maybe just consider the possibility that this has nothing to do with race.
Consider the possibility that whether we're talking about the player or the coach or the medical staff or the chain gang or the refs, Consider the possibility that these people got the job because the people in charge of hiring them thought they were the best for the job.
And those people can be wrong.
I think with the refs, they're pretty much always wrong, it seems like.
But that's how it happens.
It's not because they're taking race into account.
Zero white cornerbacks in the NFL.
Do I think that if there was a white player at that position who was really, really good, Do I think that a team would refuse to put him on the roster because he's white?
Do I think that any coach or any GM is saying, yeah, you know, this guy is really good, you know, he's great in coverage, 6'1", runs a 4'3", great stats, playmaker, but no, we're not going to put him on as a corner because he's white.
No, his skin's a little bit too light for this position.
No, do I think any—no, of course not.
That's absurd.
And in a similar way, I very much doubt that there are any GMs or owners saying, you know, this man would be a great coach, great with X's and O's, great leader, so on and so forth, but he's black, so we can't hire him.
I don't think that's happening.
I don't think it's happening explicitly.
I certainly don't think that those sorts of conversations are explicitly happening.
I also don't think that it's even happening as a thought process.
And the other thing is, finally, if you are racist, I think probably the last line of work you would get into is, you know, professional sports, like in the NFL or the NBA.
It just doesn't, you know, if you're an NFL owner, and as I said, there are a lot of incompetent and terrible NFL owners, but if you're a racist, if you're a racist rich guy, I think the last thing you would do is buy an NFL team Where you're going to be paying millions of dollars to a lot of black athletes.
It just doesn't seem... If you're a racist person, it probably seems like the last thing you would do is give millions and millions of dollars to the race that you're racist against.
So that doesn't make a lot of sense either.
Alright, let's move on to emails.
mattwalshow at gmail.com mattwalshow at gmail.com This is from Don, says, Matt, what are your picks for the divisional round?
Great question, since we're on the topic of football.
Decided to put this one at the top.
So, first game on Saturday is Vikings at 49ers.
I'll take the dark horse there, actually.
I'll take the underdog.
I think I like the Vikings.
I don't really believe in the 49ers.
I think they've looked pretty mortal recently.
And I don't think their defense is as good as it is billed to be.
I think the Vikings' defense is really good.
So I think that it could handle the 49ers attack.
And I think Kirk Cousins is playing better than people expected.
So I'm going to take the Vikings there.
And then you've got, so the next game would be Titans at Ravens.
I'm biased, obviously, but I think the Ravens are going to win that by probably three touchdowns.
I don't think it's even going to be close.
The Titans' defense is mediocre.
And you've got to be a lot better than mediocre to shut down The best offense in the league.
Ravens are putting up 33 points a game.
Lamar Jackson is going to be the MVP.
And if you want to beat the Ravens, you got to find a way to keep that offense to, like, 20 points.
Titans aren't doing that.
If the Ravens get up their usual 33 points or 40 points or 45, you're not going to win.
Unless your offense is so dynamic that it can put up 40 points.
The Titans are not putting up 40 points.
Derek Henry, great running back.
He ran for 182 yards against the Patriots.
One of the best performances we've ever seen from a running back in the playoffs.
They got 14 points off of that.
So unless he runs for 700 yards in the game, I don't think they're gonna win.
Texans, Chiefs, I'll take the sort of obvious one there.
I'll take the Chiefs, Seahawks, Packers.
Neither of these teams impress me that much.
Both have glaring weaknesses, but in a duel between Wilson and Rogers, with Rogers at home, I guess I'll take Rogers.
This is from Colin, says, I was extremely disappointed by your segment on Jim Baker and forgiveness.
You basically said that Christ was full of it and forgiveness doesn't matter.
That was his major focus, forgiveness.
But you wave your hand at it and say forgiveness doesn't matter.
Very disappointed in you today, Matt.
Yeah, Colin is referencing our discussion yesterday about the televangelist Jim Baker, who is a convicted criminal, fraudster, accused rapist, and all-around charlatan and thief, went to prison, then came out, and got right back into the televangelist game, and is still on TV mangling the Bible and leading people astray.
Now, anticipating some of the responses to my criticism of Baker, I said yesterday that I don't want to hear anything about how it's okay to follow him now and listen to him and take him seriously because we have to have forgiveness.
Yeah, he's a convicted felon.
Yes, he's convicted for lying and stealing and he went to prison for it.
And originally was sentenced to, I think, 40-some years in prison.
But we should forgive him.
Forgive him for that.
My point was, and I stand by it, that forgiveness in this context Is a cop-out.
And I know that that's sort of a... Not what you would expect a Christian to say, but that's my point.
I think in the Christian church today, we have a massive misunderstanding about what forgiveness is, and when we're supposed to forgive, and who we're supposed to forgive.
So I just get tired of the concept of forgiveness being misused and abused by Christians who are just looking for an excuse to justify following or listening to a charlatan, or who are looking for an excuse to be apathetic about something, because I think that's when it most often comes up.
As I said yesterday, and I reiterate again, if you were not yourself personally affected by somebody's misdeeds, It doesn't mean anything for you to forgive them.
It's not your place to forgive.
That's the question I have.
That's what I want, I'd like for someone to answer.
What does it mean for you to forgive someone who did something to someone else who isn't you?
Okay, so if you see Bob punch Jim in the face, what does it mean for you to come up to Bob and say, I forgive you for that.
So, Jim is sitting there, nose bloody, you know, or maybe he's lying on the ground, knocked out.
You come up and say to Bob, I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I think Jim, when he comes to, has every right to say, what do you mean you forgive him?
You have nothing to do with this, butt out!
Your forgiveness is meaningless in this case.
You were not involved.
You're not the one with the bloody nose.
It's very easy when your nose isn't bleeding to forgive the person who caused the bloody nose.
That's my point.
And again, I ask, what does it mean, functionally speaking?
In that context, what does forgiveness mean?
As I said, a lot of times it's an excuse to be indifferent.
I was talking to somebody recently.
And this is certainly not the first time that forgiveness has come up in this context.
I was talking to someone recently about abortion.
And I was talking about abortionists and how evil it is, what they do and how they exploit women and obviously kill millions of babies.
And it was the same thing.
I was told, oh, we have to forgive them.
Forgive them.
Forgive them.
What do you mean, forgive them?
I'm not the one they're exploiting.
I'm not the one they're killing.
So, okay, sure, I can forgive them.
And?
And the other thing is, you say forgive them.
Well, we should be righteously angry at them, should we not?
Considering what they're doing.
So righteous anger is necessary, morally.
It's not only justified, but necessary.
So we should be righteously angry.
We should want to stop them from what they're doing.
We should condemn what they're doing.
And then also forgive them?
I'm not saying that we can't forgive them as well.
I'm just asking you, what does that mean exactly?
What would really be the difference between you, as an unaffected person, being righteously angry, condemning the act, trying to stop it, and forgiving, versus you being righteously angry, condemning the act, trying to stop it, and not forgiving?
It seems like it's kind of the same.
I don't know what My theory of forgiveness is that it is something, it is a one-on-one, intimate sort of thing.
Where we forgive people who have hurt us and done things to us.
That's where forgiveness matters.
That's where we should forgive.
It's just like, as I said yesterday, it's just like turning the other cheek.
Similar concept.
If you're turning the other cheek, When someone else is being assaulted, attacked, or insulted, that's not you really turning your cheek, that's you turning your back on the victim and being a coward.
Because when you're not the victim, you know, you shouldn't be turning the cheek.
It's not your cheek to turn.
In that case, you should be turning your cheek towards what's happening and focusing on it, and you should be defending the person, the victim.
It's up to the victim to turn the cheek and forgive.
Not you.
So that's my point with someone like Jim Baker.
You can say all you want, I forgive him, I forgive him.
He swindled a lot of people.
And if you were not the one swindled, if you were not the one whose faith was rocked by this person and what he did, if you were not the one allegedly abused and assaulted by him, I don't know what your forgiveness means.
I don't know what it does.
Finally, from David, says, Dear Matt, I can't believe what you did yesterday by ingesting crickets.
I have certain pets that I feed crickets to, and have done this for about a decade now.
The first thing I learned was to never inhale while opening a bag of live crickets.
Not the smell of excrement, exactly, but in the neighborhood.
Distilled evil, perhaps?
You joked about going outside to farm some yourself.
Don't look up YouTube vids of insect parasites.
I'm sure these were raised in sterile conditions, hence the $26 per pound.
Farewell, my friend, and please don't do that again.
I liked your show too much.
I thought about that yesterday after I ate the cricket, because I'm a hypochondriac and generally paranoid.
So after I ate the cricket, I said to myself, what should I be worried about right now?
And I do this a lot.
This is what an anxious person does.
You're constantly doing this survey in your mind of, I know there's some stuff I should be worried about right now.
What should it be?
And I thought, after I ate the cricket, I thought, there must be... And then I thought, yeah, parasites.
What if I get a tapeworm or something now?
But as you point out, my wife bought those crickets from an organic shop.
Very expensive crickets.
So I would hope, at the very least, that they are parasite-free.
But we'll find out.
I'll keep you updated on the state of my intestines, if you're concerned about it.
And I think we'll leave it there.
Thanks everybody for watching.
Thanks for listening.
Godspeed.
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