aubiefifty

Breaking down Auburn Football's five biggest spring winners Taylor Jones ~3 minutes Spring practice has concluded, and the transfer portal is starting to heat up. There were many questions surrounding Auburn football heading into Hugh Freeze’s first spring practice. Some were good, and some… not so much. Buy Tigers Tickets In a program that needs to find players to fill roles, there were several players that stepped up and may have earned the right to take meaningful snaps in 2023. Richard Silva, the Auburn beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser, recently shared his picks for the five best players that ended the spring on a high note. The list was filled with true freshmen, transfers, and players who look to have a breakout season. Here’s a look at Silva’s top five players who proved themselves this spring: Austin Perryman/Auburn Athletics The lone top freshman on Silva’s list is Keldric Faulk. Faulk is one of several players that Freeze says will see plenty of field time in 2023, even if he does not land a starting job. Vanderbilt transfer Elijah McAllister says that Faulk “will be successful (at Auburn).” Jake Crandall/The Montgomery Advertiser Mosiah Nasili-Kite may not have been the headliner in Auburn’s stacked transfer haul, but that does not mean that he will not make an impact for the Tigers this season. He has already been named the SEC’s most underrated transfer by Mike Farrell Sports due to his versatility. Expect to see Nasili-Kite make an abundance of stops from the Auburn defensive line this season. Declan Greene/Auburn Athletics It appears as if Wesley Steiner and Austin Keys will be Auburn’s starting linebackers for 2023, but depth will be key as the Tigers look to keep the momentum going in times when neither of those players will be on the field. Robert woodyard will be a solid rotation player this season, which will allow Auburn fans to breathe a sigh of relief after the departure of Owen Pappoe. Austin Perryman/Auburn Athletics Auburn’s use of a tight end has grown exponentially over the last several years due to the rise of John Samuel Shenker. Shenker caught 55 passes for 621 yards over the last two seasons, and Rivaldo Fairweather has the potential to keep the tight end production alive. He says that Freeze’s success of coaching Evan Engram and Dawson Knox at Ole Miss played a large role in him choosing to come to Auburn, so expect Fairweather and tyler fromm to keep it going at tight end.

Auburn linebacker Powell Gordon has entered the transfer portal Lance Dawe ~2 minutes Auburn linebacker Powell Gordon has entered the transfer portal, sources have confirmed to Auburn Daily. Gordon, a three-star linebacker in the 2022 class, committed to Auburn back in 2021. he was a captain at Auburn High School. In his junior season at Auburn High, Gordon played inside linebacker and defensive end, racking up 88 tackles, 14 sacks, and 32 tackles for loss - elite numbers for one of the biggest contributors on the Tigers' state finalist team in 2021. The Tigers have now had five players depart from the program within the last couple of weeks, including three backup linebackers: Wide Receiver Tar'Varish Dawson Defensive lineman Jeffrey M'ba Linebacker Kameron Brown Linebacker Desmond Tisdol Linebacker Powell Gordon Auburn has pulled in an impressive haul thus far during Hugh Freeze's first season on the Plains, currently sitting at No. 3 nationally in 247Sports' transfer portal class rankings. You can check out our transfer portal tracker here. Stay up to date on all of the Tigers' commitments, departures, and prospects for key positions at auburndaily.com.

try not to bend over around me as you might get cold nosed you sexy devil!

if you in fact are not racist then i apologize. sometimes i get fired up. sometimes i just act like i am. i have never been to big to apologize tho many on here will not. they would die first. and yes auburn is one of the big loves of my life.

i had to sound tuff. ok i am going to make a point to be a lot nicer to you. but lets be real we do not agree on anything i can remember and that is ok.

YOU take a few days off. how many folks corrected you before i came in and laid it out? the only thing left was race. you saying you had nothing to do with trying to get me banned? i understand there were several. would you go on record saying you did not try to get me run off? in fact i had two mods tell me the same thing. so would you like to go on record one way or the other?

tj had his chances last year and a new start this year and did little. i agree the line was terrible. i like him until he popped off at other players and threw them under the bus. i wish him well but i am not sad.

yes he is talking about me and i just got on him pretty hard. he finally made me mad evading stuff and ignoring the truth. so i told him how i really feel. by the way if you go back and reread his comments he was trying put all the mass shooting and the high number count on blacks.

YOU said people of color. i hate to break it to you but ALL humans are some color. and all you do on here is bang stuff with the black community. i have yet to see you take up for anything involving blacks ever to be honest. and yes that was nasty and i was making a point. you keep fudging on racism and killing and all that. trying to say blacks do the most killing when we were talking hate crimes and massacres did not go over with me well. i believe it to be true but if not for many of you it is a bad look. hell even the mods admit we have white racists on this board. and they said some do not even realize it. so why are you so fired up to question numbers that do not say it is mostly blacks? you do similar stuff like this all the time. hell ask someone other than me. it gets old. you can accuse me of many things but i have never gone behind you or any righties on this board to try and get you banned. but you can bet the farm on it because several of you did. none of you will admit it tho i would respect you more. remember? i was acting like trump to show you guys how he is if he does not like you or what you might stand for? lord i made many of you mad but i just did the same damn thing trump did for years but that was ok at the time. maybe i am wrong and you just hate to lose an argument but my gut tells me otherwise.

hell why stop now? lol i kid so dunna get your skivies in a wad.........

my dream is to get in a boxing ring ONE time with trump so i can punch him right in his foul lying mouth. why? people think it is because i hate trump but my reasoning is all the people he has hurt and stolen and or assaulted over the years. i would take an ass whooping just to get one good punch in. so i have to work on my forgiveness a bit.

you look at things wrong. i can see right through you. those dirty colored folk getting away with murder with crooked lib DA's putting them back on the streets fudging the numbers. i bet you think blacks are lazy too? blacks been on welfare and hand me outs and are just killing this country. guess what. in most cases whites double blacks on any assistance. lets show some facts. Americans Are Mistaken About Who Gets Welfare Arthur Delaney, Ariel Edwards-Levy 7–8 minutes WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress may soon embark on a racially-fraught policy battle over “welfare.” “We can lift our citizens from welfare, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity,” Trump said in his State of the Union address last week, the latest signal that Republicans want “welfare reform” this year. Trump has often pandered to racists among his supporters. He said Mexico sends “rapists” to the United States and that there were some “fine people” among the neo-Nazis who staged a deadly protest last year in Charlottesville, Virginia. When the president said Mexican heritage made it impossible for a judge to be fair, House Speaker Paul Ryan called it the “textbook definition” of racist. The word “welfare” is different. It’s a standard political term that Democrats, Republicans and journalists alike use ― though Republicans use it the most often. There’s nothing overtly racialized about welfare. You can even find it in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. And yet, the word is often loaded with racial meaning. As a new HuffPost/YouGov survey shows, much of the public has a distorted view of which groups receive the bulk of assistance from government programs. Fifty-nine percent of Americans say either that most welfare recipients are black, or that welfare recipiency is about the same among black and white people. HuffPost The numbers reflect a significant overestimation of the number of black Americans benefiting from the largest programs. Medicaid had more than 70 million beneficiaries in 2016, of whom 43 percent were white, 18 percent black, and 30 percent Hispanic. Of 43 million food stamp recipients that year, 36.2 percent were white, 25.6 percent black, 17.2 percent Hispanic and 15.5 percent unknown. (Food stamps are formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.) In one sense, HuffPost’s survey asked an abstract question: The federal government doesn’t run a program that is actually called “welfare.” The word can describe any instance of the government helping people or businesses, though it’s most commonly used to describe programs that benefit the poor. These days, to Republican lawmakers, welfare means Medicaid, food stamps and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Paul Ryan and hardline conservatives in the House of Representatives have said they want to make changes to those three programs this year under the banner of welfare reform. Historically, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is probably the program that has most frequently been called welfare, as it was created in the famous “welfare reform” of 1996. As a result of that reform, the program today is much smaller than its predecessor, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and it only served 2.7 million people in 2016. Of those, 36.9 percent were Hispanic, 27.6 percent white, and 29.1 percent black ― meaning that if they had this particular program in mind, HuffPost’s survey respondents who said the number of white and black beneficiaries are “about the same” were basically right. Survey respondents’ estimation of who receives welfare tracked closely to their estimation of who gets food stamps. Nearly two-thirds of poll respondents said the program’s recipients are mostly black or that there are as many black Americans as white Americans receiving benefits. Only 21 percent correctly said there are more white than black food stamp recipients. “Across the programs people overestimate the share of recipients who are black,” said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a senior analyst with the Center for Law and Social Policy. “It’s not surprising because we all know people’s images of public benefits is driven by stereotype.” Trump himself harbors mistaken views of who receives welfare benefits, according to reporting by NBC News. During a meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus last March, one member of Congress told Trump that welfare cuts, which the president had proposed in his budget, would harm her constituents, specifying that not all of them were black. According to NBC News, Trump said, “Really? Then what are they?” Trump supporters are also more likely than Clinton voters to overestimate the share of welfare and public housing benefits that go to black recipients. HuffPost The perceptions of who benefits from programs may affect the favorability of the programs themselves. White Americans are more likely to support “assistance to the poor” than “welfare,” one 2014 study found. And other polling has shown that whites are 30 points likelier to agree that “average Americans have gotten less than they deserve” than they are to say the same about black Americans. Last year, House Republicans and Trump signaled they wanted reforms to food stamps, specifically increased “work requirements” that would deny benefits to the sliver of SNAP and Medicaid recipients who are able bodied but don’t have jobs. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested he didn’t have much interest in pursuing major changes to safety net programs. Even without McConnell’s support for a full-fledged reform of food stamps, Congress will definitely have to consider the $70 billion program later this year because it needs to be reauthorized. Last week, Trump and Ryan talked about “workforce development,” in what might be a new euphemism for Ryan’s longstanding goal of shrinking the federal safety net. Ryan reportedly told fellow Republicans at a GOP retreat in West Virginia last week that workforce development means “getting people the skills and opportunity to get into the workforce.”

if i am a muslim i do not want to be forced to sit through christian prayer. do you want to listen to muslim talking points? no you do not. now if you want to preach with a selective christian course i am all for it. see how easy that is?

we know i get wound up at times but since trump is slowly getting his due i have been much better. trump was more than just the economy and he has damn near wrecked this country.

aren't you precious.she deserves to be called out for sure. she lost the election and i bet we can imagine why. i top your almost senator with two bug shots on trumps personal staff who where white nationals bannon and miller. and since trump took office and attended read my article and lets see if you are fair and will actually call trump out. i bet you don't..................what say yee? Trump's history of support from white supremacist, far right groups John Haltiwanger 7–9 minutes President Donald Trump's refusal to explicitly condemn white supremacist groups during Tuesday night's debate follows a similar pattern. Extremism experts warn that Trump gave a boost to the far-right group known as the Proud Boys by mentioning them during the debate. Trump's racist, xenophobic rhetoric has frequently been viewed as a source of encouragement by white nationalist and far-right extremist groups. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. President Donald Trump refused to explicitly condemn white supremacist groups during the first 2020 presidential debate on Tuesday, instead opting to issue a rallying cry to a far-right extremist group with a history of engaging in street violence. "Are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down?" debate moderator Chris Wallace asked. "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left," Trump said, after additional prompting from former Vice President Joe Biden. The Proud Boys are a far-right group of self-described "western chauvinists." The group has rejected the notion that it promotes white supremacy, even as its leaders regularly share white nationalist memes and "maintain affiliations with known extremists," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC considers the Proud Boys to be a hate group. The Anti-Defamation League describes the Proud Boys ideology as: "Misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration. Some members espouse white supremacist and anti-Semitic ideologies and/or engage with white supremacist groups." The Proud Boys have frequently been involved in street violence, and a former Proud Boys member helped organize the "Unite the Right" rally that prompted deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. After Trump's comments during the Tuesday night debate, far right groups took to social media to celebrate, and experts on extremism warned that the president essentially just helped the Proud Boys recruit. Rita Katz, the executive director of SITE intelligence Group, which tracks far-right groups, told the Washington Post that Trump "legitimized" the Proud Boys in a way that "nobody in the community expected." "It's unbelievable. The celebration is incredible," Katz said. "In my 20 years of tracking terrorism and extremism, I never thought I'd see anything like this from a U.S. president." The president on Friday claimed he doesn't know who the Proud Boys are, but the damage was already done. The group got a massive boost on social media and was trending topic on Twitter for most of Friday. As remarkable as it was to see a sitting US president dodge an opportunity to decry white supremacists while elevating a far-right extremist group, what happened on Tuesday was not an isolated incident for Trump. For years, white supremacists have looked at Trump's racist, xenophobic rhetoric as a source of encouragement. And some of the most prominent far right groups have openly embraced and endorsed the president. Trump has not made a particularly strong effort to disavow their support, and his behavior has often aligned with their toxic worldviews. Earlier this month at a rally in Minnesota, for example, Trump told a crowd of nearly all white supporters that they have "good genes," echoing the views of neo-Nazis that white people are genetically superior. In 2016, the Ku Klux Klan's official newspaper endorsed Trump for president. The Trump campaign denounced the endorsement, even as Trump continued to spread disinformation on immigrants and refugees in an effort to dehumanize and villify them. Shortly after Trump won the election in 2016, white nationalists gathered for a conference in Washington to celebrate Trump's victory with Nazi salutes. Richard Spencer, a well-known neo-Nazi, in a speech opening up the conference said: "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" Trump quickly disavowed Spencer, but his behavior did not change. The president put barring people from Muslim countries from the US at the top of his agenda after being inaugurated, despite slim evidence it would benefit US national security in a palpable way. In one of the most infamous moments of his presidency, Trump in August 2017 blamed "many sides" for deadly neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville. The president said there were "very fine people" on "both sides." Trump and his allies have since claimed that Democrats and the media have embellished his remarks after the white nationalist rally, but what he said is on video and can also be found on the White House website (which transcribes his public remarks). White nationalist groups were also encouraged by Trump's response to Charlottesville and the false equivalence he presented between violent neo-Nazis and counterprotesters. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke at the time celebrated Trump's remarks via Twitter, thanking the president for condemning the "leftist terrorists." After the backlash to his initial remarks, Trump issued a more forceful condemnation of white nationalist groups. But it was too little too late. Amid ongoing protests over racism and police brutality following the death of George Floyd, Trump has relied heavily on white supremacist ploys in an effort to boost his reelection campaign. The president has lauded supporters who've headed into Portland to confront and antagonize anti-racism protesters, which has already had deadly consequences. Meanwhile, he's decried those protesting racism as "terrorists" and praised violent crackdowns by law enforcement. Trump's condemnation of white supremacist groups has almost always been prompted by widespread backlash over comments he's made in concert with their ideologies. This pattern has played out over and over throughout his tenure, with virtually no changes in his overall behavior. As the US draws closer to Election Day, Trump appears to have abandoned the facade altogether. Former Vice President Joe Biden called Trump a "racist" to his face on the debate stage on Tuesday, and the president didn't flinch.

He's back...or is he? lol

auburn.rivals.com AuburnSports - New staff 'looking pretty good' to Jakaleb Faulk Bryan Matthews AuburnSports Harris: ‘I’ve never met a coaching staff like this’ 2h ago ~2 minutes Out of all the players that showed up for the Rivals Camp in Atlanta Sunday, a few stood out more than the rest. One of them was , who won the Gold Ball for linebackers after his performance. "It means a lot," Faulk said. "It means that I tried my best, that I was one of the top competitors in this camp and just surrounded by great players and I’m lucky to be chosen out of all of them." Faulk, who's from Highland Home, Alabama, is regarded as one of the top prospects in the nation, ranking as No. 136 in the Rivals250 for the 2025 class. It's no wonder programs like Auburn, Clemson, South Carolina and others are going after the linebacker. Recently, he visited all three schools previously mentioned, including Auburn. "At Auburn, it just felt like home again because I’ve been there so many times," Faulk said. Faulk's older brother, Keldric, signed with the Tigers in the 2023 class. Although, that doesn't mean younger brother will automatically follow. "People think I’ll just go to Auburn because of my brother," Jakaleb said. "I’ll just go wherever I feel I’m comfortable with and wherever I feel like is home. I just follow my own path." Hugh Freeze and his staff are working to make sure that path ends up in Auburn, as they start a new chapter of Auburn football. "They’re really picking up real fast," Faulk said of the staff. "It’s looking pretty good so far. Whatever they’re doing it’s working." It can be expected for Faulk to visit in the summer, as well in the fall for several games. He's rated as the No. 7 outside linebacker in the nation and 11th-best player in the state of Alabama.

auburn.rivals.com AuburnSports - Harris: ‘I’ve never met a coaching staff like this’ Bryan Matthews AuburnSports Harris: ‘I’ve never met a coaching staff like this’ 2h ago ~3 minutes AUBURN | When a new staff comes in they need veteran leaders that buy-in and can lead their younger teammates with their actions and words. Marcus Harris has provided all that and more over the last four-plus months since Hugh Freeze was hired and brought in eight new on-field assistants. “Marcus has been great,” said defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett, who followed Freeze from Liberty. “What I enjoy about Marcus is the accountability that he takes in his play and for the room and his work ethic. I check on the strength coaches, how’s he doing in the weight room. I check on him academically how he’s doing. He’s a guy that’s putting it together for us in all three phases of what we want, being a great student-athlete and just doing his job on and off the field. “That’s important to me because you don’t have any distractions. When you’re academically screwing up and not doing what you’re supposed to be doing in other areas, you create distractions. Marcus is a guy that can be a leader for us because he’s not creating distractions, and he’s doing his job and working hard on the field.” Harris, who is on his third coaching staff since transferring from Kansas a couple of years ago, has been pleased with the transition. "They made it as easy as possible,” said Harris. “They try not to put all the stuff on us at one time. They try to spread it out throughout time. They're great people. Like, all the coaches are great people. I've never met a coaching staff like this before. Everybody is genuine, and you can tell they care about you, on and off the field. “This coaching staff's transition has been easy, because they embraced us, and they're letting us know that they care about us, even though they're new coaches and don't know a lot of players. They still care about us.” Harris has totaled 57 tackles, 12.5 tackles-for-loss and four sacks over the last two seasons mainly playing defensive tackle. He got a lot of work at defensive end this spring and that could be his main position for his senior season due to the current makeup of the roster. “I would describe him as a long-arm power rusher; stab and really you need one or two moves and a counter. Let's perfect that, and that's what I think he's doing. He has the ability to crush that pocket in a hurry,” said Garrett.

Analyst sends harrowing message on Auburn’s incumbent QB1 Andrew Hughes 3–4 minutes 247Sports’ Chris Hummer sent a harrowing message about the incumbent Auburn football starting quarterback during the 2023 season Mandatory Credit: The Montgomery Advertiser 247Sports’ Chris Hummer had a harrowing message about the incumbent starting quarterback for Auburn football, Robby Ashford: Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze may need more than what Ashford brings to the table in order to satisfy what could be an impatient Auburn football fanbase during the 2023 season, Freeze’s first on the Plains. “(The Tigers) need a quarterback, and they’re looking to upgrade the position,” Hummer wrote. “Robby Ashford is still there. If you’re Hugh Freeze and you’re in year one, and you’re at a program that is not patient, you’d like more certainty than what Robbie Ashford potentially brings you. Robbie Ashford might be a pretty decent fit for what Hugh Freeze has done before. Auburn could certainly use a quarterback; where that comes from will be interesting.” Hummer deemed Auburn football a “team to watch” during the April transfer portal cycle, pointing out the program’s need for upgrades “at almost every position.” “With the way the rules are set up, you can’t take another SEC transfer,” Hummer prefaced before saying, “You got to get a little more creative with that. Auburn also needs another offensive lineman. They’re trying to be pretty aggressive there. That’s a team to watch. Auburn will be willing to upgrade at almost every position. They are in desperate need of edge rushers as well. You will see Auburn be one of the most aggressive Power 5 teams in the second transfer portal window.” Auburn football head coach Hugh Freeze on what he’s looking for in a QB1 Freeze described for reporters following A-Day what he’s looking for in a transfer portal quarterback — and while he didn’t write off the Tigers’ current QBs being able to do so, he did call the room “unproven” in hinting that the transfer portal may be his best bet. “I think you’ve got to have somebody that can make the throws in tight coverage,” Freeze said. “And you’ve got to have receivers that can get open, too. We’re looking for some of that consistency in both spots. They’re going to be some games you just can’t (pass). They’re going to stop the run. and you’re going to have to make some throws to win the game. We’re not proven in the room that we have that any of those who have done that. I’m not saying they can’t, and I’m certainly not down on them. I think we can win games with these guys. But should a guy come available that is a dynamic guy that we think is already a proven commodity doing that, I think we would have to at least look at that.”

247sports.com Auburn QB commit Walker White set to compete in Atlanta Elite 11 regional Christian Clemente 4–5 minutes Auburn's Top247 quarterback commit Walker White will be in action close to the Plains in less than a month. The Little Rock Christian (Ark.) quarterback told Auburn Undercover that he's going to be competing in the Atlanta Elite 11 regional, which takes place on May 13. The regionals are an opportunity for quarterbacks across the country to earn a spot at the Elite 11 finals in the summer. As a junior, White got a chance last year to compete in the Nashville Elite 11 regional alongside Nico Iamaleava, Avery Johnson, and Brock Glenn. Still an underclassmen at the time, White impressed 247Sports' Cooper Petagna. "A few more rising junior signal callers turned some heads on Sunday as Arkansas native Walker White displayed the explosive arm that’s helped him earn a spot in the Top247 in 2024," Petagna wrote after the event. "White certainly has some of the best physical makeup of any quarterback in the class and showed it today." Now with a junior year under his belt and checking in at 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, White has a chance to punch his ticket to the finals. The event will be held at Carrollton high school, and is one of eight different regionals across the country. Through two years as the starting quarterback at Little Rock Christian, White has racked up 4,103 yards, 49 touchdowns, 1,381 rushing yards, 21 rushing touchdowns and 21 interceptions. White is the No. 77 player, No. 9 quarterback and No. 1 player in Arkansas for the 2024 class in the latest 247Sports rankings. The Elite 11 is a strong opportunity for White to continue to showcase his talents and potentially make a case for a bump in the rankings. 5COMMENTS Petagna's scouting report from the Auburn Undercover Podcast on White: "There's a small crop of players outside the top 32 that we feel are wildcards — Walker White fits into that conversation. From a physical trait standpoint, which I talked about is the most important part of the process for us right now, in May of last year 6-foot-3 and a half, 217. He's got a 6-foot-5 wing, 36-inch vert, a 4.22shuttle, 10 1/4 hands, this is the type of guy you walk into the NFL Combine right now in Indianapolis and he'd turn a lot of heads. In terms of the arm talent and the arm strength, it's there. I talk about this a lot with a lot of players that might be able to throw the ball a mile but it's the nuances of the game. It's timing, touch, anticipation. Being able to play within yourself. You talk about that high turnover rate, a lot of that might have to do with mechanics, too. Footwork, you see the conversations that surround a guy like Anthony Richardson right now. A lot of NFL teams are so fascinated by Anthony Richardson because they feel like when the feet are right, he's a different player. Can you coach that up? It's very much the same type of conversation that surrounded a guy like Josh Allen when he came out of Wyoming. You look at a guy like Walker White coming out of small-ball Arkansas, there's a lot of room and development for him. I think the floor of what you're looking at with a guy like Walker White is a top-100 prospect, which we could call a Day 2 NFL Draft choice, and the ceiling for him is — if he were lights out this year and what I mean by that is not only on the field but when we have in-person evaluations, which he was one of my favorite guys last year in Nashville at the Elite 11 regionals, he's going to impress in that type of setting. I do think this is a guy that can sneak into the conversation of being closer to 32 than to 50 because I think he has those kinds of traits. And listen, Walker White was a really coveted player when Auburn was able to get him in the boat. I like Walker White and regardless of where we have him ranked I feel fairly confident that he can be one of the best quarterbacks this cycle. ">247Sports

it is and has been my understanding it pretty much already has in most of the cities mentioned. you know alabama is no better? a kid in alabama has a 1 in 30 chance of being shot. they were just talking about it on the news. B'ham channel.....

Sarah Palin and the Republican Party’s Sharp Turn From Conservatism In this excerpt from Jon Ward's Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation, the journalist remembers how John McCain's choice of a running mate showed how he and his family diverged on politics Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin delivers her vice presidential acceptance speech for the Republican party at the XCel Center during the Republican National Convention. Shepard Sherbell/Corbis/Getty Images The day the Republican Party took one of its sharper turns away from conservatism I didn’t notice it at first. It was August 29, 2008. I was with my parents in Bethany Beach, Delaware. It was a hot, sunny day— another scorcher — and before we walked up to the ocean to spend the day swimming and reading and talking, we heard that John McCain was going to announce his running mate that morning. We crowded around the television to watch Sarah Palin make her national debut at a rally in Dayton, Ohio. I was intrigued and generally favorable about McCain’s choice. My dad was very excited, as my sister and I both remember. Five days later, I was 1,200 miles away inside XCel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, watching Palin give her speech at the convention. My bosses had assigned me to cover the four-day event, and it was the first national party convention I’d ever attended. I lapped up the spectacle for the first few days, and on the convention’s third and penultimate night, I watched from a great seat off to the side in the massive hall as Palin strutted to center stage and blew the roof off the place. It was hard not to be impressed with her raw charisma. The packed arena was electric. But I watched her with an eye that was in the process of being trained in objective critical thinking. The Washington Times [where I then worked] was conservative and severely biased on a few issues, but it took journalism seriously. I was still getting an education in how to view politics prophetically. And when I use the term prophetic, I don’t mean I was being taught how to tell the future. I was being taught how to tell the truth. Because of this tutelage, I had earned more discernment. I had a lot more to acquire, and still do. But I was a different person that night in 2008 than I had been just a few years before. Because of these experiences, when I crowded around the TV with my family in Bethany Beach, I was on a different path than my parents and siblings. Growing up, I had never been taught to think much about politics. Politics was a dirty word, beneath us Christians. I did not vote in 1996, the first presidential election in which I was eligible. I paid little attention to the 2000 election. In 2004, I cared a little and voted for George W. Bush. In 2008, I didn’t vote, but that was because I had come to believe that journalists shouldn’t vote in elections they covered. It’s likely I would have voted for McCain. Like others in our church culture, I didn’t think of myself as all that political. But because of my background, I was actually quite political, in that I was a knee-jerk Republican. I was still under the spell of my upbringing, which had taught me there was nothing to think about. Just vote GOP. This dismissal of thinking carefully was based on the notion that because Democrats support abortion, voting for any Democrat was unthinkable. By 2008, I had come to believe that American Christians who despised politics were making a grave mistake. But I still retained a fairly black-and-white view of Democrats, though that was becoming harder as I met more actual Democrats who were real people and who were doing good in the world. I had not yet come to believe, as I do now, that dismissing politics was in fact an un-Christian thing. The attitude that Christians shouldn’t put too much thought or time or passion into “worldly” things like politics ignored one of the core teachings of Christianity: to fight for the marginalized, the oppressed, the weak, and the subjugated. Ignoring politics is possible for those who are comfortable, have enough to eat, do not worry about where they will sleep or what they will wear, and are not victims of injustice. It is a luxury to check out. However, politics has high stakes for those who are on the margins or being abused, because often they need the government to step in, and they need advocates to help them get the assistance they need. We had taken Christ’s message — “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 25:40) — and limited the application to only one group of the weak and defenseless, the unborn. My church culture then made excuses for why the other groups—the poor, racial minorities, drug addicts, prisoners, refugees, and immigrants — were to blame for their own misfortune. We ignored the ways in which many people fell into suffering and hardship because they lacked the safety nets that others were given at birth, often related to family support in various forms. Palin’s emergence marked a more aggressive rejection of humility, nuance, and the prophetic edge that put Christian principles and self-sacrifice before power and political tribe. It was a doubling down on an us against them view. She appealed to the most populist, anti-intellectual, and nativist instincts on the right. She had little in the way of qualifications for the job of vice president, and even less for the presidency. But she could give a good speech. Republicans countered that Obama was no different. It was true that he was less experienced than most American presidents. But Obama and Palin thought about the world in very different ways. Palin’s approach was to oversimplify everything and to lean hard into scapegoating the other side. She insinuated that her opponents were foreign, dangerous, and immoral. In contrast, Obama saw the world as a complicated place. He seemed to be introspective and self-critical. I wasn’t that impressed with his speeches, and I thought he put too much faith in his own point of view and could be annoyingly self-righteous. But there was far more self-doubt in him than in Palin. He emphasized the common good. Palin preached tribalism. For someone like Palin, truth was something we already knew. It was settled and beyond questioning, and the job was to fight against the godless heathens who refused to acknowledge it. For someone like Obama, the fight was not so much against people as it was to strive toward a clarity that was elusive. He was sure of his proposals but less dogmatic about ultimate things, knowing our limitations, understanding that we each see through a glass dimly. He didn’t always live up to the standards for political combat that I held, especially in 2012, when his campaign cut Mitt Romney to pieces with a series of caricatures that I thought were unfair. But Palin’s rise took a party already imbalanced against the weak and made it more hostile to those on the margins. It also intensified an antiestablishment attitude. Palin’s lack of knowledge and experience prompted her, when called out by the press, to double down on her inexperience and to claim it was an asset. Many conservative Christians already thought that expertise was bad and that insiders were inherently corrupt simply because they were insiders. Palin encouraged that thinking. Both the ignorance and the combativeness came from the same Gnostic scorn that most Christians held for anything that was not explicitly Christian. White conservative Christians viewed most of the political world as tainted and beyond redemption, so why would anyone want to know anything about it anyway? And there was a sizable number of Christians who, while lamenting the decline of America into a growing godlessness, would also interpret decline and even catastrophe as good, because those things hastened the return of Christ, the rapture which would usher us out of this world and into the next. This was a confused and dark nihilism mixed with a Darwinian “survival of the fittest” individualism. C. J. MAHANEY’S CHURCH — THE ONE I’D GROWN UP IN — now comprised congregations all over the country and was beginning to spread into other nations and continents, with at least twenty-eight thousand members. He was speaking around the country and publishing books. C. J. and the other church leaders called themselves the apostolic team. The original apostles were the dozen chosen disciples who lived and traveled with Jesus. After his death, other apostles were chosen to continue the work of the faith. But it was always a select, small group. Becoming an apostle, or thinking of oneself as one, carried with it massive implications for the infallibility of one’s judgment. This imbued these self-proclaimed modern “apostles” with a sense of righteousness and bestowed on them incredible authority over others. C. J. had installed Josh Harris as senior pastor of Covenant Life Church in 2004. Harris was thirty by that time, having worked at the church for seven years. Harris was someone who wouldn’t push very hard against anything C. J. wanted. But the leadership around C. J. was fraying. C. J. and Sovereign Grace Ministries had retreated from political or public engagement years before, but he could not escape the politics within his own leadership structure. He was being caught in a trap of his own making. The culture of hypersensitivity to any possible sins—in oneself and others—was being turned against him. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Lou Engle and Ché Ahn — two other leaders who had helped start my childhood church — continued to move in a more political direction, even though they were much farther away from the nation’s capital than C. J. was. Engle’s antiabortion rhetoric became more violent and threatening. “The Bible says that no atonement can be made for . . . innocent blood that is shed except the blood of the one who shed it,” Engle wrote in his 2011 book, The Call of the Elijah Revolution. “Does the blood of Christ release us as a nation from the bloodguilt of 44 million unborn babies?” He wrote that America could not “turn back to God” unless it ended all abortions, and he sounded ominous notes: “Make no mistake: God will deal with [abortion], either with a mercy, compassion, and prayer movement, or with a justice and judgement movement.” He concluded, “The Lord is mounting his holy war horse, and He is releasing a call. Will you ride with him?” He did not call for violence. In fact, he called for a peaceful movement of prayer and fasting. But the implication of his statements was that a violent judgment was coming if America did not repent. Engle’s focus was also increasingly on fighting against gay rights. Engle threw himself into the debate over Proposition 8, the ballot question in California intended to ban same-sex marriage that passed in 2008 and was later overturned by a federal judge. Engle’s appeal, for some, was in his radicalism. He called on young people to give up everything to serve God single-mindedly, and he portrayed the fight to end abortion as a way to do that. He also offered his followers a chance to be part of something historic. He referred to his first gathering of young people on the National Mall as “a spiritual watershed in America’s history.” Those self-aggrandizing statements are easier to make for those who believe that God speaks directly and uniquely to them through their intuitions and dreams. Engle was building up a national network of relationships with other religious figures and politicians. In August 2008, he appeared at a press conference with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who had been a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a DC-based right-wing advocacy group. Engle sought to build a movement that was diverse — racially and denominationally. Engle was lukewarm about McCain at the press conference appearance, but his tone changed when McCain nominated Palin. Just before Palin debated Joe Biden in the vice-presidential debate on October 2, 2008, Engle sent an email to Palin. “Sarah, I could be wrong, but I’ve been praying for five years for an Esther, with dreams of being a Mordecai to that Esther. I believe you’re the one,” he said. Esther, whose story is told in the Old Testament book bearing her name, was a Jewish woman who rose to become queen of Persia when the king chose her as his wife, based in large part on her beauty. But then Esther foiled a plot to kill the Jewish people hatched by the king’s adviser and helped the Jewish people living in exile in Persia avoid genocide. She won them permission to fight back as well and to kill those who intended to attack them. Esther was helped through these challenges by her cousin Mordecai. Engle’s grafting of an American political figure into the biblical mythology was his way of convincing himself, his followers, and Palin herself that she was on a divine mission from God and had God’s blessing. But the particulars of the story reflect a violent struggle against other groups. And his comparison of himself to Mordecai was clear as well: he saw himself as an adviser to those with political power. This use of biblical stories as allegory for current events was a way to place certain political figures on a pedestal, where they could not be questioned or criticized. It was part of a trend, foreshadowing the way that other politicians would be deified using Old Testament stories several years later. Trending Related Reprinted with permission from Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generationby Jon Ward. Copyright © 2023 by Jon Ward. Published by Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Used by permission. Editor’s picks Order a copy of Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation here. wow that is some powerful and really close to the way i feel. criticize me all you want but this is huge people are finally calling this stuff out. and you cannot accuse him of hating the church like many have done me.he did state the case way better than i did.