The theatrics of Donald Trump's attacks on athletes and the hypocrisy of NFL owners

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      Just last week, the United States appeared to be on the brink of nuclear war with North Korea.

      The countries' heads of state, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, were trading schoolyard insults and declaring that they were going to incinerate each other's nation.

      It was a pathetic display made all the more worrisome because of Trump's unstable nature.

      Then bam! The president suddenly changed the channel, getting nuclear war off the newscasts.

      He accomplished this by going after pro athletes (without mentioning Colin Kaepernick by name) for protesting police racism.

      Trump purported that they were dishonouring the flag by kneeling during the U.S. national anthem.

      He also slammed NBA star Stephen Curry over Twitter, knowing this would generate a blizzard of media coverage.

      Kaepernick is a 29-year-old former star quarterback. At first, he was benched by the 49ers for creating "distractions". Then after he became a free agent, none of the owners would sign him.

      Yet yesterday, some of those same NFL owners stood alongside their players in a show of solidarity as the NFL collectively rebuffed Trump.

      This ensured that Trump's war with athletes—and not his war of words with Kim Jong-un—would dominate newscasts. The threat of nuclear war faded from the public mind.

      An added benefit? It resulted in less coverage of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, using a private email account to conduct government business.

      Trump knows that his mindless and racist base will love him for scapegoating a bunch of multimillionaire athletes of African ancestry. And sooner or later, he'll move on to a new target when it suits him politically.

      The billionaire team owners played along by ensuring this story received maximum coverage—those same team owners who helped fund Trump's candidacy and put him in the White House.

      And those same right wing NFL owners continue blacklisting Kaepernick for expressing his constitutional right to free speech and opposing racism. It's sickening.

      Watch Bob Marley perform "Hyopcrites" at Reggae Sunsplash in 1979.

      Trump has become a master of distracting the media when things get too hot for him. He relied on the same playbook after firing FBI director James Comey.

      The buffoon-in-chief manufactured some fake news by falsely claiming that he had tapes of their conversations.

      Then on the Monday after Comey delivered damning testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Trump was tweeting a tribute to LGBT victims of a nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida.

      This came from the same president who wants to expel trans people from the U.S. armed forces.

      Keep in mind that this trans ban was designed to appease his base immediately after he fired chief strategist Steve Bannon.

      Whenever Trump devises one of his weekend distractions, like trashing NFL players, his billionaire minions go on Sunday talk shows to spin for the boss.

      In the past, it's been Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who's performed this task. But yesterday, it was Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's turn.

      This is the way things work when a reality TV star moves into the White House. 

      One day, he's hanging out with top Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to try to repair the Trump Organization brand.

      Then he's playing the race card to get nuclear war and his son-in-law off the newscasts.

      What a sad excuse for a president.

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