After last weekend’s fiasco on professional football fields across the country, Middle America recovered the NFL’s fumble Thursday night in Green Bay, Wisconsin. All Packers and Bears players stood Thursday night for the national anthem.

Prior to the game, Packers quarterback Aaron Rogers said his team would stand and link arms as a statement in favor of “equality, unity and love.”

The team issued its own statement about “justice for those who have been unjustly treated, discriminated against or otherwise treated unfairly.” It urged all fans in the stadium to link arms too.

Rogers is a revered figure in Wisconsin. But as revered as Rogers is, I doubt if many fans have any idea what this “social justice” thing is that many players have been taking a knee for. Very few fans linked arms Thursday night.

Tens of thousands of people were belting out the national anthem, standing with their hands over their hearts or saluting. When the anthem was over, chants of “USA! USA!” echoed throughout the stadium.

Once again, through an ad-lib remark made one week ago, Donald Trump showed just how in touch he is with the American people and just how hopelessly out of touch America’s chattering class is. That might have something to do with why Trump was the first GOP presidential candidate to win Wisconsin in 32 years.

That doesn’t mean that everyone celebrating America Thursday night in Green Bay voted for him. What it does mean is that millions of Americans are sick and tired of seeing everything they hold dear being trashed by the Left and our so-called “elites.”

That sentiment crosses racial lines. Fox did many interviews with tailgaters at Thursday night’s game. A black veteran said, “I took three shots for this country. I still stand for the flag.” A black woman said, “I kneel for the Lord, and I stand for the flag.”

This battle is not over. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell met Thursday with team owners and selected players to figure out how to get themselves out of this mess that they willingly jumped into. Ratings are down and ticket sales are plummeting. They know if this continues the NFL will come to stand for “No Fans Left.”

My hope and prayer is that more owners will find their courage. This is not a “free speech” issue.

I also hope that fans will try to out-compete each other, just as the teams do, on who most loves this country and most respects our veterans and police officers. That would be a great sight to see!

I Want Justice Too

When Aaron Rogers and others start spouting off about “social justice,” I often wonder if they could explain exactly what that means.

Remember, this protest movement started over the idea that there was an epidemic of white police officers gunning down innocent black men. That narrative is completely false.

As columnist Jason Riley explained, federal data shows that “the rate at which police kill blacks has fallen by 70% since the late 1960s.” Nearly 80% of police shootings involved criminals armed with a weapon — either a knife, a gun or a car — threatening the officer or someone else.

What is going up, particularly since Ferguson, is the shooting of black civilians by other black civilians. Violent crime is going up. According to one scholar, nearly 7,900 blacks were killed last year. Of that number, 233 were killed by police.

I want social justice for inner city communities too. But I want to get the thugs off the streets.

I think it is a social injustice that minority children in our big cities are often afraid to go to school because of drug gangs that infest their neighborhoods and schools. The solution is more law enforcement, not less.

This week, the Trump administration arrested nearly 500 illegal immigrants in a number of so-called “sanctuary cities.” Nearly two-thirds had criminal convictions. This will make our cities safer. But the Left opposes what Trump is doing.

I think it is a deep social injustice that minority children are often stuck in failing schools. The conservative solution is vouchers, which would allow families to send their children to any school they would prefer. But when it comes to social justice for these children, the Left sides with big teachers unions and oppose almost any form of school choice.

I think it is a social tragedy that more than 70% of black children are being raised in homes without fathers. We are the first society in recorded human history to experiment with raising children without fathers. It’s not going very well.

Feminists have told women that men are not necessary. The sexual revolution told men that they could have whatever they wanted without marriage. The abortion movement said you can get pregnant with no consequences.

In New York City, more black pregnancies end in abortion than birth. Black Lives Matter should be protesting Planned Parenthood. Here’s an idea: Let’s all link arms in the NFL to stop the killing of black babies!

Of course, there are single-parent families that beat the odds. There are two-parent families that fail. But the research is clear: Children of all races, raised without a father, are more at risk of every social dysfunction. Families matter!

The passage of the civil rights laws in the 1960s and 1970s ended legal discrimination in housing, employment, etc. These are great accomplishments. Many colleges adopted affirmative action programs to accelerate minority achievement in higher education and career development.

But there are fewer black boys and girls with fathers today than there were in the 1960s and 1970s. And that fact may be negating any gains made by our civil rights laws. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be weeping if he could see what has happened to the black family today.

By the way, one of the contributors to this breakdown of the family has been the loss of manufacturing jobs in big cities, caused by terrible trade deals. Massive illegal immigration has also taken its toll on the black community. If a man can’t make a living wage to provide for his family, he often won’t marry. President Trump is trying to reverse this, but progressives fight him every step of the way.

Other News

• Big media are working overtime to turn the devastation in Puerto Rico into “Trump’s Katrina.” But the Richmond Times Dispatch blasts the Left’s smear effort as “ridiculous.” Hurricane Maria essentially “carpet bombed” Puerto Rico. It would take any nation more than a few days to recover and rebuild from that kind of devastation. You can learn more here.

• The latest twist in the Left’s “Russia collusion” narrative involves Black Lives Matter.

• Here’s an example of the Left’s extreme pettiness: A Massachusetts school librarian rejected Dr. Seuss book donations from First Lady Melania Trump. The librarian denounced the books as “steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes.” Apparently Michelle Obama missed that memo.

• Media maven Chuck Todd tries to attack Roy Moore but ends up demonstrating his ignorance of our nation’s founding.

• President Trump delayed his flight from Indianapolis back to Washington, DC, in order to personally check on a police officer injured while serving as part of the president’s motorcade.​

Day of Attonement

Jews throughout the world began observing Yom Kippur at sunset Friday. This is the holiest day of the Jewish year and it is a solemn day. It is known as the Day of Atonement because it marks God’s forgiveness of His chosen people for the sin of the golden calf.

Many Israelis remember the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Arab armies took advantage of the holiday to launch a surprise attack against Israel. After intense fighting throughout the month of October, Israel ultimately prevailed.

On this solemn day, please join Carol and me in praying for the peace of Jerusalem and for a peaceful Yom Kippur for our Jewish friends.