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Posts tagged ‘Megan Rapinoe’

US Women’s Soccer Team Silences Politically Incorrect Player


By Katrina Trinko | August 09, 2024

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/08/09/korbin-albert-silenced-to-get-chance-to-play-womens-soccer/

(Alex Wong and Brad Smith/Getty Images)

On Saturday, the team will face off against Brazil in the gold medal match at the Olympics, after scoring wins over Zambia, Germany (twice), Australia, and Japan.

For years, the U.S. women’s soccer team has been seen as a bastion of wokeness, perhaps most famously when Megan Rapinoe feuded with then-President Donald Trump.

But one new player suggests the team finally might be getting some ideological diversity.

Korbin Albert, a 20-year-old picked to be a midfielder for the women’s team for the Paris Olympics, is no Rapinoe, who was infamous for publicizing her woke views.

She’s already proved herself in the Olympics, successfully scoring a goal during the Olympics match between the U.S. and Australian women’s soccer teams July 31. The final score was 2-1, the winning goal scored by Albert, who previously played for the University of Notre Dame and now plays for a Paris-based soccer team.

But Albert’s admission to the Olympics seemingly came at quite a high cost. To use the language of the woke, she wasn’t allowed to speak her truth.

When Albert scored her winning goal, NBC commentator Jon Champion highlighted the “controversy” surrounding her. “For the all the pre-tournament controversy that surrounded her, teammates rush to her to share a memorable moment,” Champion intoned. He’s not the only media figure to slap the “controversial” label on Albert.

The Associated Press reported in April about “a controversy over midfielder Korbin Albert’s social media posts,” while the New York Post headlined a June article, “Controversial USWNT star Korbin Albert named to Olympic team.” USA Today dutifully noted, “Albert became the center of controversy in March …”

So, what exactly did this young woman do? Well, the word “controversy” became glued to her when it emerged that Albert … held Christian beliefs. The athlete reportedly liked a politically incorrect social media post and shared another one.

Albert also posted a video during the 2023 Fourth of July weekend on TikTok “showing her family taking turns stating that ‘their pronouns are U.S.A.’” according to The Athletic, a sports news site owned by The New York Times. 

The soccer star reportedly also shared a video on social media of a person, seemingly in a church and wearing a “Jesus wins” shirt, discussing with regret how he had pursued same-sex attractions and a transgender life.

An X user claimed that Albert had liked a meme taking aim at Rapinoe, who had been injured early in her final game before retirement. “I’m not a religious person or anything, and if there was a God, like, this is proof that there isn’t,” a disappointed Rapinoe said about her injury at a press conference last year, according to Fox News. “This is f—ed up.”

The meme Albert allegedly liked said, “God taking time off performing miracles to make sure Megan Rapinoe sprains her ankle in her final ever game.” (If you’re keeping score, note it was Rapinoe who first decided to make her injury a chance to share her religious views.)

Albert’s social media activity drew notice, and a social media post from Rapinoe ranting about “the people who want to hide behind ‘my beliefs.’”  Subsequently, Albert deleted some content and posted an apology that read in part, “Liking and sharing posts that are offensive, insensitive, and hurtful was immature and disrespectful, which was never my intent.”

But the apology didn’t appear to satisfy her critics. Which says a lot about where we’re at in 2024.

For years, players in the U.S. women’s soccer team have been openly political. Just to recap: Rapinoe refused to stand for the playing of the national anthem, citing solidarity with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick; said she would never go to the White House and feuded with Trump; and argued for the inclusion of trans players in women’s sports—a curious stance, given that the U.S. women’s soccer team lost to high school boys in a 2017 scrimmage. She is gay and open about it, and when she was required to stand in later years for the national anthem, she refused to sing along or put her hand on her heart.

Nor was Rapinoe alone in her advocacy. In a 2022 game in Texas, about the time Republican Gov. Greg Abbott was taking action to protect kids from experimental medical treatment, “several USWNT players wore athletic tape around their wrists with the message ‘Protect Trans Kids,’” The Athletic reported.

Later in Florida, another state that has worked to protect kids, The Athletic reported that “[t]he players wore tape on their wrists again, this time with the words ‘Defend Trans Joy.’” In 2023, Becky Sauerbrunn, another player on the team, wrote a passionate opinion column for the Springfield News-Leader in Missouri advocating against a state bill that aimed to ensure only girls and women were playing in women’s sports. Yet it is Albert whose apology tour has never really ended.

Fresh off her winning goal, Albert dutifully praised coach Emma Hayes’ “tough love” in remarks. Hayes in turn told the media, “We all know that she’s been through a lot with her actions, and she’s someone who is truly sorry for what she’s done … She’s had to do a fair bit of growing up.”

The message is clear: There’s no room on the U.S. women’s national soccer team for anyone who espouses different views on LGBTQ+ matters.

So, just to be clear, aside from the alleged liking of a social media post making fun of Rapinoe (whose comments about God also had arguably been offensive), Albert has never been accused of targeting any teammate or saying something to any individual deemed offensive. There’s no suggestion she was ever less than professional and polite to her fellow soccer players.

But she dared to think for herself. And that can’t be allowed, apparently.

Korbin Albert warms up prior to the match between Australia and the United States during the Olympic Games Paris 2024 July 31, 2024, in Marseille, France. (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

More than half of Americans think it’s morally wrong to “change” your gender, according to a June Gallup poll. A third of Americans believe that gay and lesbian relationships are morally wrong, according to a May Gallup poll.

Albert’s views, if indeed the social media videos did reflect her views, might not be popular among female soccer players, but they’re well within the mainstream of American thought. Soccer is the third-most popular sport for female high school athletes, behind track and field and volleyball, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. In the 2022-2023 high school year, more than 375,000 high school girls played soccer. Do they all have to become leftists, or at least take a vow of silence on their politically incorrect beliefs, if they want to play in the Olympics some day?

That’s absurd.

How many Americans regularly work with colleagues, love family members, and cherish friends who don’t agree with us on every aspect of morality? Why should the U.S. women’s soccer team players not be asked to do the same?

I hope Albert scores the winning goal, again, on Saturday. And I hope that when she has proved herself to be invaluable to the team, she can finally be free to be honest about what she believes.

Category:

LGBTQ+ AND TRANSGENDER, Political, Spiritual, Sports

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Jason Whitlock Op-ed: ‘The Great Gay Hope’ – Megan Rapinoe – dragged US soccer down the slippery slope


OP-ED | JASON WHITLOCK | August 07, 2023

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/fearless/oped/whitlock-the-great-gay-hope-megan-rapinoe-dragged-us-soccer-down-the-slippery-slope/

Alex Grimm – FIFA / Contributor | Getty Images

The collapse of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team mirrors the descent of its most famous player, Megan Rapinoe.

Early Sunday morning, the USWNT exited the World Cup in the first round of the knockout stage, losing to an overmatched Sweden team on penalty kicks at the conclusion of a 0-0 tie. It marked the worst finish for the American women’s team in World Cup history.

Our national team has been ranked No. 1 in the world since June 2017 and for all but 10 months since March 2008. The squad has never been ranked lower than No. 2. In the Round of 16, Sweden conquered a dynasty.

Close observers were not surprised. The team has been in mental decay since Carli Lloyd retired (2020) and corporate media anointed the purple-haired Rapinoe as the unquestioned face of American women’s soccer.

For the last three years, the 38-year-old winger has used the team’s spotlight to grow the Rapinoe brand. The game, the competition, and representing national honor all took a back seat to self-promotion, virtue-signaling, so-called social activism centered around the BLM-LGBTQ-Alphabet Mafia, and expressing Trump derangement.

Rapinoe’s handlers and major corporations partnered with corporate media to cast her as “The Great Gay Hope,” the alternative-lifestyle Muhammad Ali.

Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Carli Lloyd, and Alex Morgan were all better players than Rapinoe. But none of them can match Rapinoe’s knack for drawing attention to herself for sleeping with women — her superpower, the behavior that makes her a legendary icon.

The same forces that have attempted to make Brittney Griner the Nelson Mandela of basketball insisted that “The Great Gay Hope” take a victory lap on the national team long past her expiration date.

To no surprise, the strategy backfired. Rapinoe acted as a locker-room cancer. She diminished the importance of competition. Throughout the World Cup, the U.S. women failed to play with passion and precision. In four games, they scored four goals and won just one match.

Fox Sports broadcaster Alexi Lalas repeatedly warned that the U.S. team would lose. Lloyd, working alongside Lalas, blasted the team after it laughed off and celebrated following a disappointing 0-0 tie with Portugal in its final group match.

The team had the wrong attitude. The team mirrored its star, Rapinoe, who was being crowned with commercials and feature stories promoting the legend of Megan Rapinoe. The World Cup was a coronation of Rapinoe … until it wasn’t.

On Sunday, with a chance to off Sweden with a penalty kick, Rapinoe missed the entire net wide right. She smirked and laughed in embarrassment. Two other U.S. women missed their kicks as well. But those women earned their spots on the roster. Rapinoe was on the team and on the field because of social pressure and a never-ending marketing campaign. She hadn’t earned the right to fail. The opportunity was bestowed on her.

When it was over, when the No. 1-ranked team in the world completed its epic collapse, supporters of “The Great Gay Hope” refused to pivot. ESPN aired a three-minute feature story on Rapinoe narrated by her “fiancee,” WNBA player Sue Bird.

The Worldwide Leader in Sports carried on as if Rapinoe had stuck a Kerri Strug-like landing, scored 61 points like Kobe, or ricocheted into the end zone like John Elway.

“The Great Gay Hope” crashed and burned. She took her teammates with her.

When asked for her greatest memory of her “legendary” career, she pointed to the lawsuit she and her teammates filed against the U.S. Soccer Federation over alleged pay inequality. Gender pay inequality is a myth and a lie, no different from other popular corporate media narratives like climate change and the alleged genocidal homicide of unarmed black men.

But the truth is irrelevant in the making of an Alphabet Mafia icon. Megan Rapinoe is the George Floyd of soccer. Racism and sexism are the only things that prevented them from being president and vice president of the United States.

Or maybe Rapinoe is just another narcissistic, greedy, entitled celebrity.

Could you imagine Joe Montana or Michael Jordan summarizing their careers by referencing a contract dispute?

Rapinoe is a fraud. She’s the Colin Kaepernick of soccer. Her attitude poisoned the women’s national soccer team. Let’s hope her side effects don’t linger.

Category:

LGBTQ+ AND TRANSGENDER, Opinion, Sports

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Jason Whitlock Op-ed: When it comes to abortion, Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird have misguided priorities


Commentary by JASON WHITLOCK | September 21, 2021

Read more at Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/whitlock-when-it-comes-to-abortion-megan-rapinoe-and-sue-bird-have-misguided-priorities/

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Alphabet Mafia and sports power couple Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird have loaned their names, reputations, and expertise to the abortion-rights debate. The soccer and basketball superstars joined 500 other female jocks in signing a friend-of-the-court brief presented to U.S. Supreme Court justices deliberating a Mississippi law that would ban the killing of fetuses who have lived more than 15 weeks inside a woman’s womb.

According to Reuters news agency, the athletes argued in their brief that ending the growth of babies inside the womb has helped the growth of women’s sports. Quoting directly from the brief, Reuters reported: “The physical tolls of forced pregnancy and childbirth would undermine athletes’ ability to actualize their full human potential.”

Do we really look that Stupid

The brief failed to mention that the physical toll of abortion undermines a baby’s ability to actualize his or her full human potential. Pregnancy, according to 500 female athletes, is now an issue about the growth of sports, not the growth of babies.

Rapinoe, a star on the U.S. women’s national soccer team, said in a statement: “As women athletes and people in sports, we must have the power to make important decisions about our bodies and exert control over our reproductive lives.”

Rapinoe is engaged to Bird, a guard in the WNBA. Rapinoe and Bird, two birthing people, cannot create a child through scissoring, strap-ons, digital penetration, or other forms of same-sex intimacy. Short of rape, they have complete control of their reproductive lives. Their need for an abortion is quite remote unless they changed their minds after intentionally inseminating themselves with male sperm.

Their passion for the abortion issue strikes me as odd. It’s the equivalent of me issuing a statement on skinny-jeans rights. The issue is of no importance to me given my fast-food lifestyle. But here we are in modern America. Professional athletes and other pampered celebrities are the smartest, most informed people on the planet. Their ability to kick, dribble, and throw a ball gives them remarkable insight into abortion rights, criminal justice reform, police-involved shootings, insurrections, and viral videos capturing alleged instances of oppression and systemic racism.

LeBron James struggles to write tweets and Instagram posts at a grade-school grammar level, but he is one of America’s foremost public intellectuals and authoritative voices on racial discrimination. LeBron, the new Muhammad Ali, once analogized his reaction to learning the N-word was scrawled on the back gate of his $20 million mansion in a predominantly white neighborhood to Emmett Till’s mother opening the casket of her murdered 14-year-old son.

Money and fame are the sworn enemies of self-awareness. Today’s athletes have zero self-awareness and even less humility. They don’t know what they don’t know. There’s no reason for them to seek answers. Their handlers, their corporate sponsors, and rigged social media apps provide them all the answers they need.

Let me know the next time Rapinoe, James, or Colin Kaepernick take a public position that isn’t supported by Twitter groupthink. They’re not rebels. They’re voices for the establishment — Big Tech, global corporations, corporate media, and the Democratic Party — pretending to be anti-establishment radicals. The establishment is pushing for radical change, a great reset. Rapinoe, James, and Kaepernick are useful idiots of the establishment.

Do you know how stupid you have to be to reduce the issue of abortion to the growth of women’s sports? Ignorance is the Devil’s best friend. Dishonesty is his spouse.

I keep saying that a lot of what the left supports is satanic. Rapinoe’s stated support of abortion rights is exhibit A, B, C, and D. What else would cause a person to prioritize the growth of sports ahead of the growth of a child?

Technology has given human beings more control over reproductive issues than at any time in the history of mankind. Condoms, contraceptives, and abortions before week 15 give us a lot of control over our reproductive lives. It’s mind-boggling to hear an accomplished athlete argue that abortions after 15 weeks are an infringement on reproductive control. You can’t reach Rapinoe’s level of athletic success without being disciplined and without making sacrifices. Abstinence, requiring men to wear a condom, birth control pills, and female condoms are all highly effective ways of preventing unwanted pregnancies. They’re not foolproof solutions. But they’re better than standing before the world and writing a letter that says protecting the growth of sports is far more important than protecting the growth of life.

That argument is insanity that borders on wickedness. It’s an argument a dumb jock would make at the behest of her handlers. Megan Rapinoe is a dumb jock. She thinks we’re all dumb, too. And worse, she thinks applying discipline, restraint, and sacrifice are behaviors we should use in pursuit of athletic greatness and avoid in our reproductive lives. For Rapinoe, sports are a higher priority than life.

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Opinion, Political

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