Trump a Free Trader, Not a Protectionist

Last week President Donald Trump, at a joint press conference with the European Union’s senior trade representative, Jean-Claude Juncker, announced a trade deal with the EU.


“This was a very big day for free and fair trade, Trump said. “We agreed today ... to work together toward zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods. We will also work to reduce barriers and increase trade in services, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical products, as well as soy beans. ... The EU will begin almost immediately to buy a lot of soy beans from our farmers .... The EU also wants to import more liquefied natural gas from the U.S. .... They will be a massive buyer.”


What the president said was confirmed by Juncker: “I had an intention to make a deal today, and we made a deal today.”


So, is the president a free-trader or a protectionist?


Trump has taken on two issues, the U.S. trade deficit, and tariffs. The issues are related, but distinct.


Here’s a simple illustration of a trade deficit:


A sells Chevy automobiles. B sells snowblowers. B buys a Chevy from A and pays $30,000. A buys a snowblower from B at a price of $500. B has a trade deficit of $29,500. A has a trade surplus of $29,500.


Kimberly Amadeo of balance.com writes, “The United States ... [total] deficit in goods and services was $566 billion in 2017. Imports were $2.895 trillion and exports were only $2.329 trillion. The U.S. trade deficit in goods [excluding services] was $810 billion. The United States exported $1.551 trillion in goods. The biggest categories were commercial aircraft, automobiles, and food. It imported $2.361 trillion. The largest categories were automobiles, petroleum, and cell phones.”


The U.S. has its largest trade deficit with China. We import about $505 billion worth of goods from China. China imports about $130 billion worth of goods from us. The U.S. deficit is therefore about $375 billion. China’s trade surplus is $375 billion.


There is some good, and some bad in that relationship. The relationship is good for American consumers. They might be able to buy an American-made TV for $500. They, however, may be able to buy a comparable Chinese-made TV for $400.


But the relationship is bad for U.S. workers. If American consumers are buying enough Chinese-made TVs, American TV manufactures may go out of business for lack of sales, or relocate their businesses to China, or Mexico where labor is cheaper and where they can build TVs for the American market to compete with Chinese imports.


Furthermore, buying all our manufactured goods from foreign countries may be very bad in the case of a national emergency.


We won WWII largely because our auto manufactures adjusted their assembly lines to build planes, ships and tanks. If there are no American manufacturers, that won’t be possible in the case of the next national emergency.


That situation is exacerbated when the foreign country imposes a tariff on U.S. goods entering their country. If a Canadian consumer can buy a gallon of U.S. milk imported into Canada at $2 per gallon, he may not be able to afford buying that same gallon of milk if a 200 percent Canadian tariff raises the price of that milk to $6 a gallon.


The U.S. dairy farmer gets no benefit from the $4 added to the price of his milk by the tariff. And worse, if the price of milk is $6 rather than $2, the U.S. dairy farmer will sell less milk to Canada. It’s the Canadian dairy farmer who benefits. He can sell his milk at $5.90 per gallon, and beat the $6 price of U.S. milk.


The agreement with the EU demonstrates that when the president says, “I want free trade, not tariffs,” he means it.


For the president, U.S. tariffs are a tool to force the reduction of foreign tariffs. He wants free trade; reciprocal trade.


If a trade war develops, China, by raising tariffs, can keep $130 billion of U.S. exports out of China. We can keep $505 billion of Chinese exports out of the U.S.


If that happens, U.S. consumers will pay a little more for U.S. goods. U.S. manufacturers will find it easier to compete.


U.S. exporters will be hurt, unless our government protects them during the war. (U.S. farmers export about $12.4 billion of soybeans to China.)


China’s economy will face depression.

Posted: QCOline.com Aug. 2, 2018

Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea

Original Intent vs. Everything Else

President Donald Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court because the president believes Kavanaugh will construe our Constitution consistently with the “original intent” of the men who wrote it.


I came to Rock Island County in September 1966 to work as an assistant state’s attorney. Shortly after I came, one of my fellow assistants told me of his uncle, a former justice of the peace, who had proclaimed, “I don’t care who makes the laws, so long as I can say what they mean.”


I was appalled. His uncle was saying that under the guise of interpreting the law, he would rewrite the law to say what he wanted it to say, rather than what the people’s representatives who wrote it, meant it to say.


The United States is a democratic republic.


We are a democracy because we elect the people we want to represent us and make our laws.


We are a republic because the people we have chosen make our laws on our behalf. That is the first principle of our U.S. Constitution. Article I provides, “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.”


Note, it says “all.” It does not say “some” or “most.” If all legislative power is vested in Congress, then none is vested in the president or in any judge.


Article II provides, “The executive power shall be vested in [the] president.” He takes an oath to “faithfully execute” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”


Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are judges; not members of Congress. They are not elected to make our laws. Under our Constitution, no power has been vested in judges to make or rewrite our laws.


Under Article III of the Constitution, they are vested with judicial power.


Article V provides two alternative methods to amend our Constitution. Neither the president nor any judge has any role in the amendment process.


This tripartite process — Congress making our laws, the president executing those laws, and the Supreme Court judging what our Constitution and those laws mean — is known as the “separation of powers.”


Our Constitution is a product of experience, not logic.


The experience of the American people living in the 13 English colonies was the force behind Article I. The colonists had grown used to electing their own colonial representative assemblies. Those assemblies made their laws, and taxed them.


When the English King and Parliament asserted a parliamentary right to impose taxes on the colonies in an end run around their colonial assemblies, we fought and won a Revolutionary War, largely over the principle of “no taxation without representation.”


During the constitutional cConvention, it quickly became obvious that the American people would accept no king. The men who drafted our Constitution were well aware of the kingly claims of royal prerogative.


To insure that the American president could have no basis to claim a divine right to make laws or rule by decree, the founders vested ALL legislative power in the House of Representatives elected by the people, and a Senate by state legislatures.


The executive, the president, was vested only with power to execute those laws, not make, amend or repeal them.


The notion that judges can make laws or amend the Constitution by their decrees is even more undemocratic and unconstitutional than a president ruling by decree.


The president, at least, is elected by the people through their electors. We did not boot out a king who wanted to rule by decree to replace him with nine guys in black robes who would do the same.


The canard that a judge, who construes the Constitution consistently with the intent of the men that wrote it, is somehow a far right-winger or out of the mainstream is either a lie, stupidity, or the ranting of a lunatic with a superiority complex who wants our Constitution replaced with one that embodies his more enlightened notions of what a better constitution should say.


Once Supreme Court judges abandon construction of our Constitution in accordance with the founder’s original intent, then every judge's notion of what the Constitution should mean is equally valid. There is no anchor.


Every judge's new rule of construction becomes, “I don’t care who makes the laws, so long as I can say what the laws mean.”


My liberty is secure under James Madison’s construction of our Constitution. I don’t want to risk it with the more enlightened 21st century constructions.

Posted: QCOline.com July 26, 2018

Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea

Is it Evil to Disagree with the Pope?

Two disparate groups of people who are convinced that man-made climate change is a scientific fact have a new champion: the pope!


The first group has a genuine respect for the pope. When he indicates he is speaking infallibly on a matter of faith or morals, they take what he teaches to be religious truth.


Where he does not indicate that he is speaking infallibly, as is the case when he is speaking of man-made climate change, they generally regard his teaching as, at least, highly persuasive.



For a second group, the pope will remain their hero only as long as his pronouncements can be used to demonize the president and other “climate-change deniers.”


Saul Alinsky taught, “Marginalize and demonize your opponent, so that others will disregard his opinions.” The marginalizing process proceeds like this:


The president is deaf to the pope’s teachings on climate change. He cannot be persuaded and is therefore invincibly ignorant. He’s self-centered. He’s an evil billionaire. He has spent his entire life in pursuit of worldly success. By way of contrast, the pope has spent his life caring for the poor. The pope is good. The president is evil.


For the second group, as long as the pope’s religious teachings on climate change coincide with their beliefs, they will treat his climate-change pronouncements as infallible.


They use the papal pronouncements to demonstrate the moral bankruptcy of the president and anyone else who dares to doubt, or deny that climate change is man-made.


Their syllogism is straightforward. The pope and his position on man-made climate change is good. The opposite of good is evil. Therefore, President Donald Trump, who holds the opposite view, is necessarily evil. But even if the president is wrong, does it necessarily follow that he is evil?


When the pope speaks on man-made climate change is he speaking infallibly? Obviously, no.


Canon 749 spells out when the pope speaks infallibly: “By virtue of his office, the Supreme Pontiff possesses infallibility in teaching when as the supreme pastor and teacher of all the Christian faithful ... he proclaims by definitive act that a doctrine of faith or morals is to be held.”


So, assume, for argument’s sake, that when the pope speaks of man-made climate change he indeed is speaking on a matter of faith or morals. Does that mean that he is speaking infallibly?


No. In fact, almost everything the pope says or writes touches upon faith or morals. But that does not mean he is speaking infallibly.


Before a pope speaks infallibly, he must indicate that he intends to do so, by proclaiming unequivocally that he is speaking infallibly and that the doctrine of faith or morals which he is teaching must be held to be true.


What is disingenuous about all this is that many in the second group who treat the pope’s pronouncements on climate change as if they were infallible, utterly reject other papal teachings they find objectionable.


How many of those who approve the pope’s teachings on global warming, utterly reject the pope’s views and his church’s official position on abortion?


The pope believes his church is the”one true church.” To suggest the pope speaks infallibly on climate change while denying that the pope speaks infallibly when he says the Catholic Church is the “one true church,” seems somewhat inconsistent.


Doesn’t that touch on faith? Morals? If the pope is infallible on any issue, shouldn’t his expertise be greatest here? The selective adulation suggests that many of those who are lauding the pope for his position on climate change are covering themselves with the papal robes to demonstrate the moral superiority of their position and the moral bankruptcy and depravity of any one who disagrees.


So is the pope your moral beacon? Or is he merely your tool of choice when you need a cudgel to silence those with whom you politically disagree?


Today the pope teaches that man is causing climate change.


Not very long ago, the church was certain the earth was the center of the universe. So, was Galileo evil?

Posted: QCOline.com July 19, 2018

Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea

Stop Demonizing - Pass Rational Immigration Policy

It is currently fashionable for those on the left to compare President Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler.

I can understand young people with little knowledge of WWII and German history from 1930 through 1944 engaging in that hyperbole on the immigration issue.

I cannot understand any adult who lived through those years equating our president to Hitler.


On June 30, 1934, Hitler ordered the summary execution of the leaders of his own SA (Sturmabteilung, translated literally, Storm Detachment).

He personally arrested Ernst Roehm, the head of the SA, conveyed him to prison in Munich, and executed Roehm in his cell without trial. Roehm had been Hitler’s best friend.

Gregor Strasser, the No. 2 man in the Nazi Party who had crossed Hitler, was arrested in Berlin and murdered in his cell. Former Chancellor Von Schliecher and his wife were shot dead in their home by Hitler’s men. Von Schliecher was Chancellor Hitler’s predecessor. Hitler crushed his own storm troopers to win the support of the German army.

Then there was the “final solution.” Over six million Jews were murdered by Hitler’s Nazis. Jews died of starvation, disease, and poor living conditions. They were shot down in the streets, and sent to gas chambers in extermination camps. Children were reunited with their parents only in death.

Hitler raped Austria, devoured democratic Czechoslovakia in two bites, made war on small peaceful Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and Greece.

He savagely unleashed his military on Poland, France, England and the USSR. Some 26 million Russians, and 5.8 million Poles died. German military casualties are estimated at 5.3 million, including Austrian conscripts.


Anybody opposing Trump’s immigration policies who compares Trump with Hitler is nuts. Mr. Trump has not arrested and murdered without trial a single political opponent, or his critics in the media.

Hitler invaded his neighbors. Our president hasn’t invaded anybody. And to compare placing children who cross our border illegally into detention facilities for 20 days with children sent to Auschwitz or Treblinka for extermination is absurd.


On Feb. 24, 2017, before the present furor, the Chicago Tribune wrote that “Nearly 60,000 children came across the border without their parents during the fiscal year ending in September.”

Were they to be allowed to roam free? Unless detained, how would they ever be placed? Reunited? Calling the president’s immigration policies racist or him Hitler is, at best, a puerile diversion from the real immigration issues that Republicans and Democrats should be discussing.


Isn’t it about time these issues, and others, are calmly, conscientiously and publicly discussed?

1. How many immigrant laborers does our country’s workforce need each year?

2. What level of skills should the immigrants have?

3. How many immigrants should we accept for humanitarian reasons?

4. What is the true cost of providing immigrant children with an elementary and secondary education (including salaries and pensions of teachers, administrators, etc., as well as school supplies and busing)?

5. What is the true cost of providing housing assistance for illegal immigrants? Foster care? Medical care? Meals?

6. What do illegal immigrants pay in federal and state income taxes? FICA?

7. How many illegal immigrants commit felonies? Serious misdemeanors? What is the cost of incarcerating these individuals? Probationary services? Parole services?

8. How many illegal aliens are driving without financial responsibility? What are the costs to others from accidents caused by uninsured illegals?

9. How many total dollars will we spend providing services for illegal immigrants? Would these dollars be better spent on the elderly, veterans, the disabled, inner-city schools, our infrastructure, etc.?

10. Out of every 1,000 illegal aliens who enter our country, how many have felony records in their own country? How many are drug dealers, mules, cartel enforcers, gang members, Islamist terrorists, medical doctors, engineers, teachers, scientists?


How do we keep bad people out? Calling Trump names will solve nothing.

It is, however, a lot easier, and perhaps more politically expedient, for Democrats and anti-Trumpists to engage in name-calling than it is to fix the mess.

There are many good reasons to admit aliens into our country, but admitting them to gain votes is not one of them.

Posted: QCOline.com July 5, 2018

Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea

Is Campaign Spying Another Watergate?

On May 17, President Donald Trump tweeted, “Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI ‘SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT.’

“Andrew McCarthy says, ‘There’s probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign.’ If so, this is bigger than Watergate!”

Watergate, if you weren’t around in those days, was a major political scandal during President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign. It was the Congressional investigation of the June 17, 1972 burglary by five Republican operatives at DNC headquarters at the Watergate Office Complex in Washington, D.C.

Facing impeachment for covering it up, Nixon resigned. Based on an interview with Jeb Magruder (then deputy at the Committee to Re-Elect the President), the New York Times wrote that the purpose of the break-in, was to have the White House operatives wiretap Democratic Headquarters.

Nicknamed “the plumbers,” their intent was to plug a potential leak. They feared that Democratic campaign chairman Lawrence O’Brien possessed information concerning an illegal gift from Howard Hughes to Nixon, the disclosure of which might complicate the president’s re-election.

The wiretap was designed to dredge up political dirt useful in sealing potential Democratic leaks.

So is history repeating itself? Is Trump’s Watergate analogy reasonable? Not according to President Barack Obama’s CIA director, John O. Brennan.

Brennan, not unexpectedly, immediately accused Trump of lying and “mischaracterization” for saying his campaign was spied upon by the FBI. Brennan argues that the operative the president labels a spy was in reality a “confidential human source.”

Brennan then narrowly defines his terms to support his charge:

“A spy is someone who is recruited. Usually it’s a foreign national who is going to work on behalf of U.S. intelligence agencies to provide information about issues related to our national security. A confidential human source is what the FBI uses in order to have some insight into what may be going on that could involve criminal activity.”

But is Brennan’s definition consistent with the commonly understood dictionary definition of a spy?

The Apple Dictionary defines one as “a person who secretly collects and reports information on the activities, movements, and plans of an enemy or competitor.” 

Merriam Webster Dictionary says it’s “one who keeps secret watch on a person or thing to obtain information.” 

The Oxford Dictionary defines spy as “a person employed by a government or other organization to secretly obtain information on an enemy or competitor.”

Trump’s May 17 tweet was entirely consistent with its common dictionary meaning. More importantly, to call the president a liar, Brennan had to intentionally engage in his own mischaracterization.

The president did not simply tweet that the FBI spied on the campaign. He added the FBI used an “embedded information” or a “confidential informant” to spy on his campaign.

To have any rational basis for calling the president a liar, Brennan had to pretend that the president didn’t say the spy used by the FBI was an embedded informant or a confidential informant.


Indeed, Brennan seems to be saying that the FBI didn’t spy, it merely used a “confidential human source.”

So who is mischaracterizing? Trump or Brennan? Or is Brennan merely obfuscating? Is a spy usually a foreign national? Does a spy usually work on behalf of U.S. intelligence? Does a spy usually deal with national security?

What is a confidential human resource working on behalf of Corporation X who goes to work for a company for the purpose of stealing trade secrets but a spy?

"Spy" equals “confidential informant,” equals “embedded informant,” equals “confidential human source.”

If the real purpose of inserting the confidential human source was to protect the integrity of the election process, why wasn’t one inserted into the Hillary Clinton campaign?

Did FBI leadership insert a confidential human source into the Trump campaign? Why? The president believes it did, and that it was for partisan political purposes. If he’s right, how does this differ from Watergate?

The Mueller investigation goes on without end in sight. Congressional Democrats call for full disclosure. The president should oblige them. It is time for the president to order the FBI to provide Congress with every document Congress has requested — in unredacted form.

If FBI leaders defy the president, they should be fired.

Posted: QCOline.com June 21, 2018
Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea

What's the Fairest Tax for Illinois? You Decide

You have just been appointed “supreme dictator” of the state of Illinois, and authorized to rule by decree. So, what’s your tax policy?


Sadly the state’s last governor and the members of the Legislature have left you with a god-awful mess.


Illinois has five major pension funds. As of June 2017, Illinois’ unfunded pension liability reached $137 billion. Each Illinois resident owes about $10,500.


In 2017, unpaid Illinois bills reached just under $17 billion. The law requires the state to pay 12 percent interest on bills unpaid after 90 days. A $6.5 billion bond issue was used to pay a portion of those bills. In April of 2017, Illinois still had $7.4 billion worth of bills to pay. Of course, principle and interest also will have to be paid on the bonds.

So Mr. Dictator, where do you start? You have two good friends — principle advisors. One’s a raving Clinton/Sanders progressive (CS). The other, a trumpeting Trumpist (TT).


CS: “The whole reason for this fiscal mess is that Illinois does not have, unlike the U.S. and many of our neighboring states, a progressive income tax.”


TT: “Hogwash!”


CS: “If only we had a graduated income tax, we could solve all Illinois funding problems. Illinois presently has a flat-rate income tax which was increased from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent on individuals, effective July 1, 2017. Even so, the flat-rate income tax simply does not generate enough revenue to meet the state’s financial problems.”


TT: “Illinois has plenty of revenue. The problem is that the political hacks in the Legislature choose to spend more than they collect in taxes. You can’t blame Republicans for that. They’re virtually extinct in Illinois!”


CS: “It is also a fact that a progressive income tax (aka, graduated income tax) is fairer. Under a flat-rate tax, if a rich guy has net income of $100,000, he’d pay $4,950 in Illinois personal income tax. The poor guy with a net income of $10,000 would pay $495. That simply isn’t fair.”


TT: “Rich guy has 10 times the income; he pays 10 times the tax. What’s unfair about that? Does rich guy consume 10 times the public services? Is rich guy’s vote weighted so as to count 10 times as much as poor guys? What would be fair for you? Should rich guy pay 10 percent while poor guy pays 4.95 percent? Or 20 percent while poor guy pays nothing? Or is that too fair?”


CS: Illinois’ lack of a progressive income tax has contributed to Illinois budget deficits!


TT: “You just told us that the U.S. has a progressive income tax, and you claim a progressive tax would allow Illinois to avoid deficits. Are you unaware that during President Barack Obama’s eight years, the average federal deficit was $816 billion?


CS: “Illinois has woefully funded its public education! This has forced school districts to continually raise property taxes to make up for deficits!



TT: “Forced? We could give the schools a blank check, and they’d still want more money! Have your forgotten the recent 1 percent school tax increase you touted last fall?” Then assuming the offensive, TT queries, “Once we get your progressive tax, what stops the poor from exploiting their political power so as to increase taxes on the rich while lowering or abolishing their own taxes?”


CS: “That will never happen! You’re fear-mongering!”


TT: “Really? The United States government has had a progressive tax system since 1913. Are you aware that the top 1 percent of federal income taxpayers pay 39.5 percent of all individual income taxes, and that the top 5 percent pay 50 percent of all individual federal income taxes? Are you aware that the bottom 50 percent pay 2.8 percent? That over 76 million U.S. households — 45.3 percent of all households — pay no federal income tax? What’s fair about that? And even worse, to get votes, pandering politicians exempt the poor from paying any federal income taxes. How is that fair?


“We had a war over ‘taxation without representation.’ Representation without taxation is even worse! It encourages class warfare. The poor don’t want to pay any income tax, so they tell their friends in the Legislature, ‘tax the rich! The top 5 percent paying 50 percent of all income taxes aren’t paying enough! It isn’t fair’!”


So, Supreme One, what’s your tax policy?

Posted: QCOline.com June 13, 2018
Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea

‘

NFL: Invited Guest or Captive Audience?

My love of professional football goes back to my childhood.

When I was a small boy, living in Chicago, tears came to my eyes every time the old Chicago Cardinals beat my beloved Bears.

My dad, in those days, was a silent partner in a restaurant where members of the Bear’s team would gather to have dinner and relax after a Sunday game.

As a little boy, I was introduced to many of my Bear heroes as they came to dine. Dad’s main business had season tickets to the Bear games when they played at Wrigley Field.

I can still recall watching from the temporary stands as George Balanda, in the arms of a defensive lineman, completed a pass, seemingly from a “horizontal position.” I can recall Ed Sprinkle jarring the ball loose from an opposing back to set up a game-winning touchdown for the Bears.

I can recall watching Willie Galimore take a punt and sprint through a non-existent hole between two tacklers on his way to a touchdown. And I can recall sitting through the 1963 championship 14-10 win over the Giants with my brother and uncle in 10-below-zero weather at Wrigley Field.

And then one day, a number of National Football League players decided they weren’t going to stand for our national anthem. They were going to kneel in protest. When they did, I turned my back on the NFL, and quit watching its games.

Don’t get me wrong. As Americans, NFL players have constitutional rights to free speech and peaceable assembly. But I also have constitutional rights. I have a right to disagree with their protests, and a right to tune them out.

To me, it isn’t a question of constitutional rights. It’s a matter of civility and manners. I resent being a captive audience. If I go to a football game, or turn the TV on to watch a football game, I want to watch a football game.

From the time I was a child, I went to football games to see two teams play a football game. From 1948 on, if I wanted to watch “protests” or “political debate,” I could turn on TV and watch “Meet the Press” or some similar show.

The NFL teams, players and management alike, “invite” fans to watch their football games. When the fans come to see their games, the owners and players alike get rich.

Imagine being invited to your best friend’s home for dinner. He’s a Republican. You’re a Clinton Democrat. Then as dinner is about to be served, he brings out a huge portrait of Hillary Clinton, and rips it to shreds almost under your nose, saying, “I am protesting your worthless erstwhile candidate!”

Imagine going to the Quad City Music Guild to see a musical, or to Playcrafters to see a light comedy, and having one-third of the actors refuse to proceed with the show until they can educate you on the evils of abortion. Or the virtues of a woman’s right to choose?

Imagine going to church to participate in your church’s Sunday service, and having your priest or minister ask you to stand in silent protest against the president’s plan to build a wall. Or Bob Muller’s partisan investigation of the president?

When we are invited for dinner, attend the theater to see a play, or go to church to worship, we don’t come to be captive audiences to political protests. In each of these examples, the “hosts” have constitutional rights to speak and assemble. But the guests, in each case have, a right to expect that their hosts will act consistently with the purport of their invitations, and not use the invitations for a purpose foreign to the stated purpose of the invitations.

It is selfish, rude and ill-mannered to turn guests into a captive audience, and to force them to sit through something the host has to know may be offensive, as a condition receiving the contemplated benefit of the invitation.

The NFL owners and players invite their patrons to see a football games, and to pay a lot of money for that right. If rather than playing football, the players want to protest the country, the flag, or anything else, why not do it somewhere else?

Or why not be gracious and make an announcement? “The players plan to kneel down in protest against (whatever). That protest be in this stadium and will commence 20 minutes after the game. You are all invited stay and to participate.”

Posted: QCOline.com June 7, 2018
Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea