Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Wish Old Abe Were Here

Rich Galen

Monday November 20, 2017

Twitter

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There is so much wrong with what's going on in America as we enter Thanksgiving week, I was tempted to jump the gun (if not the shark) and run the annual "Rainbow Shiny" column today and pass on Thursday.
I was on CNN over the weekend and said on the air (as I have to you) that if I had just one more vote in my life and the only person on the ballot was Roy Moore, I still wouldn't vote for him.
I also made the point that I didn't understand why the Alabama election has become a religious war. But, I'm not from Alabama so that probably explains it.
I did say that if I were giving advice to the Moore team I would have them print, and distribute about a million bumper stickers that simply said:
John 8:7
As little as I know about Constitutional Law I know far, far less about the bible, especially the New Testament. John 8:7 reads (KJV):
"So, when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'"
This is why, when I was doing campaigns, I was pretty good at it.
On the Donald Trump Twitter front, he is now in a Twitter war with a guy named LaVar Ball. LaVar Ball was a pretty good college basketball and football player; made it to the practice squad of a couple of NFL teams but, in any other universe, would be selling Chevys in La Jolla.
However, just as Donald Trump, Ball uses Twitter as a weapon and has made a name for himself and his kids by promoting himself and them in that medium.
This is only of interest because one of LaVar's kids, LiAngelo Ball who is a freshman on the UCLA basketball team, along with two other teammates, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill were thrown in jail having been accused of shoplifting sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store in … China.
Let's put aside the sense of entitlement that would lead three teenagers to think they could get away with stealing sunglasses in a foreign country.
Through whatever means, although they were facing maximum 10-year terms in the can, while Trump was in China they were released and sent home.
Trump, because he has been known his whole life for doing things quietly, behind the scenes, and with no thought to being in the limelight, Tweeted:
"Do you think the three UCLA Basketball Players will say thank you President Trump? They were headed for 10 years in jail!"
Well, he was right, even though crying into his morning oatmeal about it probably wasn't necessary. UCLA made the three players, who have been suspended indefinitely, sit in front of microphones and thanked Trump.
LaVar, who was in China when the deal went down, told ESPN that Trump's involvement was minimal:
"Who?" LaVar Ball had told ESPN's Arash Markazi on Friday when asked about Trump's involvement in the matter. "What was he over there for? Don't tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out."
To which Trump responded:
"Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!"
[sigh]
The best thing about this week is this: Yesterday was the 154th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
The entire speech is only 272 words long. The final 65 are these:
"From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Where's Abe when we need him?
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Subscription Drive page for those who might have missed the opportunity, plus links to the entirety of John Chapter 8, to the UCLA players having been arrested, to LaVar Ball's reaction to Trump and to the Wikipedia entry to the Gettysburg Address.
The Mullfoto is of a Jeep missing something important.

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