It’s been an interesting week to say the least. It started out with clashes on the gridiron, controversial halftime shows and upsets on the political stage. It ended with pundits refusing to acknowledge obvious political winners. It was surprising to see football and politics mixed together like I have never seen before.

Let’s start with football and some of the winners. The 2016 Super Bowl commemorated and celebrated the obvious – the 50th championship game of this iconic American sport. Recognizing the MVPs from previous Super Bowls at this historic event was a winner for me. It was awesome to see football greats, including Kansas City’s own Len Dawson, and many others all on the football field together.

Another big winner for me was the performances by the Joint Forces Chorus who sang “America the Beautiful.” I also have to give credit to Lady Gaga, who did a great job of singing the national anthem. I was pleasantly surprised.

As for the losers in the big game, the Carolina Panthers’ offense was decidedly trampled by Denver’s defense. But the real loser of the game was Panther quarterback Cam Newton. He got his butt kicked like he was playing high school ball back in Georgia. His grade school failure to even attempt to recover his fumble late in the fourth quarter was nothing compared to the juvenile sulking routine he displayed during the post-game interview with the media. That performance was actually disgusting to watch and for a grown man who is supposedly a professional athlete and paid $20 million per year, I would expect a lot more.

Peyton Manning obviously won on Sunday, as well as Denver pass rusher Von Miller, whose performance was exceptional.

Other losers of the Super Bowl were the NFL executives who approved the halftime show. Supposedly, the NFL doesn’t pay artists for these shows but I would think that it would have control over the production and limit it to musical entertainment and not allow artists to push their own social agendas.

Beyonce was a big loser as she exploited the huge NFL Super Bowl platform to push the Black Lives Matter movement and pay tribute to the highly controversial 1960s Black Panther Party. In more ways than one, her performance was direct support of the anti-police social agenda through her visual tribute of incorporating black berets and raised clenched fists symbolic of the socialist Black Panther Party movement.

She didn’t leave her black social messaging there, though. The 50 female dancers who performed with her all wore black leather and gold metal bandoleers that formed a distinctive “X” across their chests and the choreography intentionally placed all the dancers into a gigantic “X” formation on the stage. All of this was designed to pay obvious homage to Malcolm X, the former leader of the controversial Nation of Islam.
Besides Beyonce’s obvious agenda, it seemed as though her performance was totally out of sync with Coldplay – who gave away the stage – and even Bruno Mars. Her angry, anti-police and racist messages were in total contradiction to the message displayed by thousands of colorful cards held up by fans in the stands which read “Believe in Love.”

On the political front, Hillary Clinton won in Iowa by a coin toss against Bernie Sanders. Ted Cruz won against Trump who made a mistake of not showing up for the GOP debate. But Cruz lost when he reportedly used dirty tricks on Ben Carson by leaking that he suspended his campaign and left for Florida.

In New Hampshire, the tables turned as Bernie walked away with a decided victory over Clinton. Evidently, Granite State Democrats prefer the socialist agenda of Sanders over the deceitful and untrustworthy Hillary Clinton. Time will tell how the rest of the Democrats across the country feel about Bernie and if Clinton will still even be in the race given her insane legal problems.

For the Republicans, Donald Trump was the winner and did so by a commanding 2:1 margin over Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who placed second. Cruz, Bush, Rubio and Christie were all left scrambling for the remaining positions.

The losers of New Hampshire primary were the pundits, establishment figures and some media commentators, to include Fox News, who would not give Trump the credit and recognition due him for the win. On one hand, these old guard figures and commentators spoke about the significance of how the winner of this first primary is often the party candidate but on the other hand they minimized and even discounted Trump’s win and proclaimed he would not be the eventual GOP candidate.

It appears as almost anything goes in 2016, socialism is embraced, candidates who grossly, negligently and criminally don’t follow national security laws are permitted to run for president, establishment figures refuse to listen to the citizens and musical artists get away with fueling the flames of the anti-police movement under the guise of entertainment.

Viper One Six – Out.

Originally published in Gate House Media | Leavenworth Times