Some of the new Superbowl winners have no intention of visiting the White House to see Donald Trump.

Philadelphia Eagles star Malcolm Jenkins says he intends to skip the team's upcoming visit to the White House to commemorate their Super Bowl victory https://t.co/l0GhR7jev7 pic.twitter.com/mIDgaCuPtt

— CNN (@CNN) February 5, 2018

Courtesy of CNN: 

Fresh off his Super Bowl win, Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins told CNN Monday that he intends to skip the Philadelphia Eagles upcoming visit to the White House to commemorate his team's victory. 

"Nah, I personally do not anticipate attending," Jenkins told CNN's "New Day." 

Asked if he has a message for Trump, Jenkins said, "My message has been clear all year ... I want to see changes in our criminal justice system. I want to see us push for economical and educational advancement in communities of color and low-income communities. And I want to see our relationship between our communities and our law enforcement be advanced."

.....

Jenkins has been one of the most outspoken NFL players amid President Donald Trump's feud with the league over players taking a knee during the National Anthem to protest racism. 

Jenkins, who has raised his fist during the National Anthem to protest racism, leads the Player's Coalition — a group of NFL players negotiating with the league to address the concerns of those who protest. 

His teammates Torrey Smith and Chris Long also indicated that they would not attend, citing their opposition to Trump. 

I would not be surprised if there are many more players who will also be giving this a miss.

I don't see how Donald Trump could possibly suggest that he could bring the country together, or solve the Middle East crisis, if he cannot even get a team of football players to come to the White House.

We will have to wait and see if Trump goes on the attack against these players like he did when some of the Golden State Warriors basketball team members refused to show up last September.

Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017

I think we know he will have to say something.

Today is Superbowl with an L and a couple of I's. I have no idea what that spells.

So today is indeed the Superbowl game of 2018.

Everybody is very, very excited.

Except of course me and probably a lot of the women.

If you are a wife this means of course that you have an increased chance of being the victim of domestic abuse, or at the very least will have to listen to your man yell at his TV like a freaking psychopath.

If you are a female who likes football then more power to you, I think you must have accidentally received my football lovers gene by mistake. Cause mine is missing.

If you have been a visitor here in the past then you likely know that I ONLY watch one football game a year, and this is it.

(This is no joke I only learned which teams were playing yesterday afternoon.)

I know very little about the teams, except that I fucking hate the Patriots and damn it this year they need to lose, and lose big!

I really mostly like the cool commercials and previews to upcoming movies which always premiere on Superbowl day.

And of course the best part may be that we do not have to listen to any Trump lies today.

A reminder about what's missing from the Super Bowl pre-game show: President Trump. He's snubbing NBC (https://t.co/w7lcvtF3eR) https://t.co/QjzEq8F8Xc

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 4, 2018

Pansy ass!

I will update this post with tweets and perhaps a few of those cool commercials as the day progresses.

However be warned that today is also the only day that I drink beer and the effect that beer has on me is that it lowers my IQ and allows me to enjoy watching a bunch of grown ass men playing a children's game for obscene amounts of money.

That also means that my updates can be a little nonsensical and even odd.

Anyhow here is your open thread, do with it as you will.

Update: Maybe for their next Superbowl Tom Brady will not walk into the stadium like the biggest douchebag on the planet.

 I mean, seriously?

The ratings for Donald Trump's pre-Superbowl interview are much lower than President Obama's.

Courtesy of Variety:  

President Donald Trump sat down on Sunday afternoon with Fox News for the president’s now-customary pre-Super Bowl interview. The segment with “O’Reilly Factor” host Bill O’Reilly, which aired during Fox Broadcasting’s pre-game coverage around 4 p.m., drew an average audience of 12.2 million viewers.

President Obama’s first pre-Super Bowl interview, with NBC’s Matt Lauer in 2009, brought in an average audience of 21.9 million viewers in Nielsen’s final accounting. The half-hour of 2011’s Super Bowl pre-game coverage — which included O’Reilly’s highly anticipated interview with Obama — attracted an average audience of 17.3 million. In 2016, Obama’s interview drew 14.9 million; in 2015, 16.4 million; in 2014, 18 million. 

The Trump-O’Reilly interview drew a 7.8 household rating in Nielsen’s metered market overnight ratings. President Obama’s last three sit-downs before the Super Bowl drew overnight household ratings of 9.2, 10.2, and 11.5; his first, a 9.6.

Yeah I know, who cares about rating? After all those are not necessarily a good indication of a president's power or popularity.

Maybe, but I know somebody who would disagree with that.

This guy.

In his world ratings are EVERYTHING.

And you know that repeatedly losing out to President Obama is driving him even further out of his mind.

The unaired Superbowl commercial that everybody is talking about.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

The ad featured a Spanish-speaking mother and daughter apparently traveling from Mexico to the United States. The end, which shows the pair discovering a door in a giant wall, was reportedly banned from TV since it commented on President Donald Trump’s promised border wall.

A part of the ad was shown which then directed you to Journey84.com which then promptly crashed. (Back up now.)

However attempts to stifle the message of inclusion ultimately failed miserably: 

One after another, on the NRG Stadium field, on the streets of Houston and perhaps most important of all, in ad after ad from the giants of corporate America such as Coke and Anheuser-Busch, a message of inclusion and equality in defiance of Trump emanated from an event that always is much more than a football game. 

The tone was set inside the massive football stadium even before kickoff when three stars of the hit musical Hamilton made a simple but significant addition to the words of America the Beautiful. 

When the original Hamilton cast’s Schuyler Sisters trio of Phillipa Soo, Renee Elise Goldsberry and Jasmine Cephas Jones reached the line, “And crown thy good with brotherhood,” they smiled and added, “and sisterhood,” to a roar from the crowd.

At halftime the irrepressible Lady Gaga also let her feelings be known with an amazing performance that not only entertained but also could be its own advertisement for inclusion and acceptance: 

Before plunging toward the field, tethered by wires, she added, “One nation. Under God. Indivisible. With liberty. And justice. For all.” 

A few minutes later, singing Born This Way she added the word “transgender” to the Super Bowl conversation likely for the first time ever: “No matter gay, straight, or bi, Lesbian, transgender life…”

Ultimately Donald Trump's favorite quarter back may have won the game, but the message of the day was anything but Trump approved. 

Superbowl Open Thread.

It is almost impossible to put politics aside these days, but I am going to try for at least the length of this one game.

As those of you who have been visiting here for awhile know, I really don't watch football.

Ever.

Except for this one game, which is a tradition I started way back in my early twenties. (I don't remember why.)

Typically I would be spending the game eating greasy fattening foods, drinking beer (Another thing I only do during the Superbowl.) and arguing with my brother about who was going to win and why Mom loves me most. But he recently moved out to Palmer and apparently it is too far to schlep his candy ass into town to watch it in the comfort of my luxurious office.

His loss.

Anyhow like I said before I have not been paying much attention to the game, but I have decided to root for the Atlanta Falcons because....you know.....fuck Tom Brady.

Anyhow I am mostly watching for the commercials anyhow.

Utah man shoots and kills girlfriend in fight after Superbowl.

Jenna Spinya

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

A Utah man shot and killed his girlfriend during an argument Sunday night after the Super Bowl. 

The 41-year-old man called police shortly before 11 p.m. to report that he had shot his 30-year-old girlfriend after she pulled a knife on him, reported KSL-TV. 

Police found the woman dead from multiple gunshot wounds when they arrived at the couple’s Riverdale apartment. 

The woman has been identified in news reports as Jenna Manuel or Jenna Spinya, the mother of an 8-year-old daughter and longtime employee at an Ogden bar. 

Investigators said the couple began arguing shortly after one of them returned from watching the Super Bowl with friends.

Okay first off "multiple gunshot wounds" does NOT sound like self defense to me. 

Second this is yet another illustration as to why guns are the very LAST thing that should be purchased for self defense purposes.

There is such a thing as an "appropriate use of force." We teach this in self defense classes to educate students as to when they should use physical force and how much force should be applied to any given situation.

But with guns there is only one setting on the weapon, and that is death.

Contrary to what you might have learned from television Westerns guns are designed to kill, and if somebody gets wounded in the arm or the leg that usually means the shooter missed their initial target which is the torso. You know, where all of the vital organs are located.

 Not only that but the death which rushes from the barrel of a gun is indiscriminate in that it can kill, not only its intended target, but anybody within a certain radius depending on its caliber and the environment in which it is fired.

That means that a person, even a child, minding their own business in another part of a house, or in the neighborhood, or even driving by on the street could be the victim of a billet fired in anger or out of fear.

Now I'm not saying that this man was not in imminent danger of being injured or even killed, but grabbing a gun to fend off a knife attack by somebody you are supposed to care about is a complete overreaction in my opinion.

And before you jump on me for not understanding the danger you should know that I have actually faced off against knife wielding combatants more than a few times, and in fact have a small scar right below my bellybutton and another on my hand.

In none of my situations, as scary as they might have been, did I pull out a gun to defend myself, and every one of the people who threatened or attacked me are still walking the earth to this day.

They did not have to die, they only had to be stopped, and I was able to manage that without taking a life, or really even doing a great deal of injury to my assailants. 

That is what is meant by an appropriate use of force.

President Obama with Stephen Colbert last night.

I actually missed this last night, but now that I have seen it I am just all that more depressed that we will lose this wonderful President after this next year.

By the way was that not one of the lamest Superbowl games ever?

I literally turned it off with 3 minutes left of game play because I was bored and figured I had already seen all of the good commercials, which were also kind of lame.

Yep, this is what I'm wasting my time on this afternoon.

So it is a Gryphen family tradition to put all politics on hold for awhile once a year, load up the table with artery clogging fatty foods, and sit down to enjoy the great American pastime.

Watching the newest and coolest commercials premiere during some sports game.

As anybody who has visited here for any length of time already knows, I am not much of a televised sports enthusiast.

But I DO take the occasional vacation from the ole intellect, down a few brewskies, and allow myself to enjoy what is essentially the modern day equivalent of the Roman Gladiator games. (Only with perhaps a little more violence.)

I must confess I did not watch a single football game before today and had to ask around to find out who is playing.

But now that I know it's the kittens versus the ponies I am all hopped up and ready to watch the kind of aggressive game play which guarantees that many of these players will suffer the kind of head trauma that will ensure that they have forgotten not just this game, but where they live and their own names by the time they reach their mid sixties.

If there broken down bodies allow them to live that long of course. 

Yep, can hardly wait.

Apparently this Carnival Cruise Superbowl commercial is irritating the crap out of the Fundamentalists.

Gee I..I wonder why.

Here was Creationist Ken Ham's take on the commercial:  

So the Carnival Cruise Corporation decided to use the voice of John F. Kennedy from his speech to be the voiceover for stunning images to entice people to take one of their cruises. 

The advertisement is being called the “Come Back to the Sea” spot, as the Carnival Corporation wants to supposedly “create a personal connection with consumers.” 

Don’t you just feel this “personal connection?” After all, your ancestor came out of the sea and evolved by natural processes to produce you. Don’t you feel the connection? Don’t you just want to go on one of their cruises so you can stand on the deck of a big cruise ship, look at the sea, and contemplate your accidental beginnings—and perhaps worship the sea, because it gave birth to you! 

Oh—and really, you can spend a lot of money on such a cruise, but because you evolved from the sea and are just an evolved animal, and when you die you won’t even know you existed—so you won’t even remember the cruise—so what’s the point anyway? You just evolved to have an ultimately meaningless existence! 

So we have Neil deGrasse Tyson in his cosmos series telling us we are all stardust—we are children of the stars. 

And the Carnival Cruise Corporation telling us we all came from the sea. 

So—worship the stars and worship the sea! That’s the increasing state of our culture as it abandons the truth of God’s Word.

Sounds reasonable to me. 

You know I have always wondered why Christians believe that subjugating themselves to a god who may or may not exist, in the hopes of gaining access to an afterlife that may or may not exist,  gives their life any particular meaning.

I mean if you live this life trembling in the shadow of a brutal, omniscient, dictator who is sizing you up to see if you deserve to earn an eternal life after this one, or suffer eternal torture, what is the meaning that this provides?

Is it not better to find your own meaning in life, and to live your life in such a way as to make your parents happy they raised you, your friends happy to know you, and your children happy you love them?

Is not one life more than enough for anybody?

And if it isn't, doesn't THAT sort of indicate who is living a life without meaning?

Sarah Palin celebrates that Patriots coach Bill Belichick is a fellow Teabagger.

Here is Belichick's "Don't Tread on Me" T-shirt, courtesy of Herald photog Nancy Lane pic.twitter.com/mCITuLBVSj
— Jeff Howe (@jeffphowe) February 1, 2015

Courtesy of Facebook:

That is ALL good.

Palin then links to a Breitbart article where the commenters are doing their own white people version of an end zone dance. 

You know I can deal with how the Seahawks lost last night (No I can't, I'm lying through my gritted teeth. Who throws the ball at their own half yard line? Who?) but the fact that they lost to a Tea Party supporter is a pill much too bitter to swallow.

By the way I would like to remind folks that LAST year Palin was celebrating the Seahawk victory and claiming that she and Todd were lifetime fans. (That Facebook picture has mysteriously disappeared however. )

Seriously who throws the ball on their own half yard line?

No let it go Gryphen just walk away.

I feel your pain Sherman. I feel your pain.

Let's play (Actually let's sit on our fat asses and watch) some FOOTBALL!

So today is the day where I do a bunch of things I NEVER do.

I'm going to watch a football game. (I have watched absolutely NO football games this year.)

I am going to watch commercials. (I usually turn the sound off when they come on.)

I am going to eat potato chips. (I very rarely eat chips.)

I am going to drink beer. (I bought a six pack for the last Superbowl and I did not drink the last beer until right before Christmas.)

And I am going to listen to Katy Perry sing. (I have heard her sing exactly two songs, "I Kissed a Girl" and "Roar." And I don't even remember why I listened to those.)

But today like millions of my fellow Americans I am going to participate in the ritual known as Superbowl Sunday.

I actually tend to enjoy it. In fact the games in the last few years have been pretty exciting.

However I am, for the most part, morally opposed to football since it causes lifelong suffering for those who play professionally and even men who played as kids can suffer debilitating brain injuries that can effect them for the rest of their lives.  

I sort of approach the Superbowl like I do Christmas. I'm not really a believer, and I think being drawn into the faith that promotes it can be injurious, but I enjoy the pageantry.

If all goes well I will see a good game, gain four pounds, and who knows maybe Katy Perry will pull a Janet Jackson and the halftime show will actually be memorable.

Okay now who's playing again?

Best explanation of the Superbowl ever!

Well hell that makes all kinds of sense.

My favorite Superbowl commercial so far.

Okay now THAT'S pretty funny.

I need one of these.

If I get one I'm going to wear it when my brother comes over on Superbowl day.

He is always pissed that I not only have not picked which team to support, but I often don't even know who is playing.

If he cops and attitude I just remind him that I am the only one of us to actually play on a football team. That usually shuts him up.

Did you notice the Antichrist pretending to be a puppy during that Superbowl commercial? No? Well that's only because YOU are sane.

Did you see that cute commercial? Doesn't it fill you with fuzzy feelings and happiness?

Well that's clearly because you are a sin filled pagan destined to end up in the fiery pits of hell.

Don't believe me? See for yourself:  

William Tapley, the evangelist who gained fame when he said public works of art in the Denver airport included hidden phallic symbols, now sees evil in a puppy that appeared in a Super Bowl commercial. 

In a video posted to YouTube on Friday Tapley says the Budweiser commercial in which a Labrador retriever puppy is born among Clydesdale horses and keeps running away from adoptive human parents to rejoin them is evidence of the nearing of the end times. 

“It is talking about the arrival of the Antichrist,” Tapley said in his video. 

In the commercial called "Puppy Love," which won USA Today’s Super Bowl ad contest, the puppy is born at a ranch identified as “Warm Springs.” “That is code for 'lake of fire,'” Tapley said. “(That’s) where our puppy dog comes from. … But this puppy dog is more than a cute, warm, fuzzy animal. He is a symbol of the Antichrist.” 

Tapley sees symbolism throughout the commercial, saying that four of the Budweiser Clydesdale horses represent the “beasts of the apocalypse” and a fifth is a false prophet. 

“Will the end times signs and wonders in this commercial never cease?” he asks.

Dammit! And here I thought I was watching an innocent beer commercial about a giant Clydesdale's unnatural and inappropriate relationship with a clearly underage puppy. 

Nice try Budweiser, but this Tapley guy is not so easy to fool!

President Obama accuses Fox News of being unfair. You know, because Fox News is unfair.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:  

President Barack Obama called Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly ‘absolutely’ unfair to him during a contentious interview aired Monday night. 

The response came during the second part of an interview that originally aired during Fox's Super Bowl pregame show after O’Reilly asked if the president felt the controversial network was unfair to him and his administration. 

‘Absolutely, of course you are, Bill. But I like you anyway,’ Obama said before combatively adding ‘we just went through an interview in which you asked about health care not working, IRS, were we wholly corrupt, Benghazi.’ 

The president rattled the items off while extending a different finger for each one and cracking a sarcastic grin. 

'But these are unanswered questions,' O'Reilly insisted. 

Of course the ONLY place those questions are considered "unanswered" is among the audience of Fox News, because they don't deliver news, they simply fan the embers of faux conspiracy theories.

You know I admire that the President is always so diplomatic, but just once I would like him to lose it and tell Fox News that they are a national joke, and the worst thing to happen to journalism in this country in the last two hundred and thirty seven years.

Sarah Palin ruins everything.

Courtesy of the Party Pooper in Chief's Facebook page: 

Congratulations 'Hawks and 12th man! And thank you, Fox Sports, for outstanding coverage and the most refreshing halftime show! Honoring our troops was spectacular. America needs more of ALL that! Hooah!

I guess it was important to let everybody know that Palin rooted for the winner for a change.

To be fair many Alaskans consider the Seattle Seahawks to sort of be their team, since we don't have an NFL team of our own.

Personally I chose to root for them because they were the underdog, and I almost always root for the underdog. But having said that I WAS pretty happy when they won.

So here I was enjoying the victory and rubbing it in the noses of people who laughed at me for choosing the team "that didn't stand a chance," and  suddenly I run across that Facebook post of Palin's and now the whole thing just feels wrong.

And dirty.

And wrong.

I mean sure this is a free country, and Palin is allowed to root for whomever she please, but couldn't she have rooted for the team that MOST of the Right Wing seems to have been rooting for? I mean would that have killed her?

Besides now that Palin has demonstrated that she is a fan that means the Seahawks are doomed, because, as everybody knows, the Palin Curse is unstoppable.

Oh well it was fun while it lasted.

There were lots of good Superbowl commercials yesterday, but only one freaked out half of the country.

I know, sweet right?

Wrong Commie!

Hey @CocaCola This is America. English, please. #SB48
— Saved By The Blood (@vonzion) February 3, 2014

You can't sing an American song in another language! #boycottcoke
— spencinator (@taylorspencer3) February 3, 2014

@foryzeal22 @pepsi @CocaColaCo I agree...Coke with the worst ad in history. #boycottcoke
— Peter J Santore (@PeterJSantore) February 3, 2014

@CocaCola WTF. America the Beautiful was meant to be sung in our accepted language. #boycottcoke Drink @pepsi
— Jas (@NHTdad) February 3, 2014

Even Sarah Palin's favorite fake news guy got in on the act.

Couldn't make out that song they were singing. I only speak English.
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) February 3, 2014

So was Coca-Cola saying America is beautiful because new immigrants don't learn to speak English?
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) February 3, 2014

But hey, remember, the Right Wing is NOT racist.

You know if I was a betting man I would have expected THIS commercial to upset more people.  But what do I know?

Hillary takes a Twitter dig at Fox News.

It’s so much more fun to watch FOX when it’s someone else being blitzed & sacked! #SuperBowl
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 3, 2014

Now the only question is, was Hillary talking about the Superbowl, or this bullshit "interview" before the Superbowl?

If she is talking about the latter, than the only "blitz" that happened was when the President pointed out that the IRS and Benghazi conspiracy theories were coming from Fox and made O'Reilly look like a chump, and he is also the one that should be "sacked" for being an arrogant, unprofessional asshole.

I mean this man was given the opportunity to interview the President of the United States, and all he could do was pepper him with the kind of ridiculous questions a late night host of Right Wing radio might ask, and demonstrate to the world that his cable news channel is actually a parody of American journalism.

The two losers yesterday were the Denver Broncos and Fox News. But at least the Denver Broncos are an actual football team that has the tools to do a better job next time.

Fox News on the other hand is a fake news outlet and they will never improve, or become more respected in the filed of journalism, as long as they put ratings and political influence over reporting the news and keeping the American people informed of the facts.

You know, REAL facts. 

The ad that the NFL would never allow to air during the Superbowl.

Courtesy of Films For Action:  

The National Congress of American Indians did not have the funds to run this ad during the Super Bowl. You should watch it and share it anyway.

Yeah let's face it, even if this group had the money to place a Superbowl ad this would never see the light of day. 

But it should, and that's why I am putting it here.

By the way the next time that you hear somebody pining for the America that our Founding Father's intended, while at the same time comparing our President to Adolph Hitler, you might want to educate them as to exactly what inspired Hitler's attempt to wipe out the Jews:

Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity. 

He was very interested in the way the Indian population had rapidly declined due to epidemics and starvation when the United States government forced them to live on the reservations. He thought the American government's forced migrations of the Indians over great distances to barren reservation land was a deliberate policy of extermination. Just how much Hitler took from the American example of the destruction of the Indian nations is hard to say; however, frightening parallels can be drawn. For some time Hitler considered deporting the Jews to a large 'reservation' in the Lubin area where their numbers would be reduced through starvation and disease.

Yeah America sure was a great place in the old days, if you were a white male Christian who did not have the misfortune of being born poor that is.