Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

This essay should be of interest not just to lawyers but to anyone who argues (which is everyone). Lawyers will find it particularly amusing.

While the conversation and debate around the NFL players centers on what is "respectful" protest or "disrespectful" to our flag, I find a greater undercurrent of concern. For the second time in as many weeks, this administration has called on private businesses or privately held corporations to fire employees based on what it sees as disrespectful or inappropriate behavior by their employees toward the administration or the country.

In the first instance, Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that ESPN's Jemele Hill should be fired for voicing an opinion regarding Trump. In the second, you have Trump saying NFL players should be fired for kneeling during the playing of the national anthem. This, to me, is a scary and slippery slope. Yes, Harris is black, as are the majority of NFL players taking a knee. But the race issue aside, we have an administration saying a private citizen should be dismissed from employment for "disrespectful" statements about the president or "disrespecting" the flag. That is one step closer to totalitarianism.

When our government calls for dismantling the livelihoods of private citizens because the government disagrees with them, our Constitution has lost all meaning.

ERIKA CHRISTENSEN, Lake Elmo

This afternoon, at a Shell station in Fort Worth, Texas, I paid $2.399 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline. With my Kroger card, it came to $2.299. What're y'all payin' in your neck o' the woods?

A few of the many clips of John McCain talking about Repealing & Replacing O'Care. My oh my has he changed-complete turn from years of talk! pic.twitter.com/t9cXG2Io86

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017

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Get Your Wings (1974). I feel sorry for today's young people. There is no music that even begins to compare to the music of the 1970s. This album came out when I was 17 years old and it still gives me chills.

Here.

Here.

Here is Kurt Schlichter's latest column.

Please, dear God. Stop him! Enough saber-rattling, pontificating and boasting. Don't try to do it all, POTUS. We have plenty of good military, diplomatic and economic minds available. Isn't there quite enough troubling stuff going on, both at home and abroad just now, without raising the Iran agreement when good heads both here and among our strong allies feel our safeguards there are adequate for the present. You've chewed out the United Nations. You've waffled on promises and agreements. You've threatened to deport people who've lived almost all of their lives here—most of whom, now and in the future, will contribute significantly to our prosperity. Why don't you just choose our priorities, tone down the rhetoric, and act like an adult?

Jack Stowell, Wilsonville

The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race. It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 25, 2017

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