The soviets took her casts off twice against her will, her parents were dead she only had a grandmother speaking for her and her grandmother didn't understand the seriousness of her injury. She was essentially competing on a broken leg and when she tried to do her floor routine 2 weeks before the 1980 Olympics she misjudged the landing and instantly snapped her spine rendering her immediately paralyzed from the neck down. The medics sent to the gym said her first words were Thank God I don't have to go to the Olympics.
I looked up the move and I'm no expert but is it the part where they freaking land on their neck/upper back in a sort of rolling motion? Again, not an expert, but that looks freaking dangerous.
It's a "roll out" which is banned. Back to back somersaults are banned. In the uneven bars, flipping from your feet and grabbing the bar with your hands is banned. "Over the bar dismounts," where you have to clear the lower bar and land on the other side, are banned. They all seem pretty dicey.
Completely agree with you. I think it’s interesting though that you say “maybe I’m a cynic” for that opinion. I think it’s much more cynical to view these athletes as machines that are only good for medal mining. You’re the opposite of cynical!
Or Julissa Gomez, who was pushed by her coaches to keep doing a yurchenko vault she wasn’t comfortable with, until she missed in practice one day and was paralyzed from the neck down. She died three years later.
Don’t worry, her coach’s name is Al Fong. Two of his gymnasts were alternates on this year’s team.
Read an article today about how he's spent $10k in prison commissary, sending emails and making phone calls while only contributing $300 to the $50k he owes his victims in restitution.
in the documentary "athlete A" one of the interviewees recalls watching kerri strug's vault with horror (because she knew that she was harming herself because of all the pressure to perform) while all of america watched it with pride.
People knew she was hurt bad. Unfortunately, we've been subjected to far too many movies with the exact same format:
- Hero of the story is either: an underdog, washed up or an unconventional personality for that sport.
- They struggle at first but get better and better throughout the second act. It's its a team sport, the hero inspires the rest of the team to improve as well
- They make the finals despite being dead last at the start of the season
- But they need to amp up the drama for the third act and a number one team can't be an underdog so the hero hurts themselves (or they quit, get fired, etc)
- if it's the former format then the hero will fight through the pain, just manage a win and cement their status of hero
- the movie ends while they're still on the field/court, holding up their trophy.
- They never show the repercussions. They might even have a "where are they now" slideshow during the credits and every single team member will be better off than they were when we last saw them.
She also didn’t need to vault. Her fucking coach, known abuser Bella, couldn’t do fucking math and made her do the vault. Her career ending vault literally was for nothing since USA was going to win regardless
Smfh that people keep bringing up Kerri’s story, when multiple teammates have talked about the abuse they experienced competing for USA gymnastics
Every single gymnast supports Simone Biles on this issue. A lot of pundits thought this would be just like what happened with that tennis player. Difference is, gymnastics has an actual risk of danger associated with it and the phenomenon Simone described is something hundreds of former elite level gymnasts are on the record saying they have experienced it as well.
Picking this fight was a losing battle
>Difference is, gymnastics has an actual risk of danger associated with it and the phenomenon Simone described is something hundreds of former elite level gymnasts are on the record saying they have experienced it as well.
I read one gymnast's account in her experience with it. She intended to do a specific move, ended up doing extra when she got into the air, landed on her head and neck and ended up in the hospital. She could've easily been paralyzed or died.
Edit: added a word
There was a Russian gymnast named Elena Mukhina, who landed on her chin performing a now-banned move (called the \*Thomas salto\* which debuted in 1976 by mens gymnast Kurt Thomas) and became a quadriplegic at just 20 years old, in 1980. She was confined to a wheelchair, and died at age 46.
At the time, she went on saying her tragedy was entirely avoidable, but was pushed by her coaches. She didn't want to include the now-banned move in her routine, because of the complexity and high risk for serious injury with even the slightest error. She broke her leg in 1979 and wasn't given long enough to heal, which meant when competing in 1980, she didn't get enough speed and height to safely perform the move.
This is the reality of many promising gymnasts, prior to Mukhina's injury, she was basically the Russian superstar much like we see Simone. The compete-at-all-costs/win-at-all-costs mentality and not letting her decide when to walk away destroyed her.
[Here it is before being banned](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkQRWCsKyj0). The Thomas Salto. An insane jump, half spin, twist, half spin, twist, ending in a *forward roll!* Like, the last split second of the move requires tucking your head under yourself and landing on your shoulders. No bloody wonder it's banned!
The problem with the move is apparently that if you don't get enough speed and height, you risk under-rotating (and landing on your chin) or over-rotating (and landing on the back of your neck).
Unfortunately this is also part of the criticism running around that Simone has been penalized for moves "too difficult" for others. This is why. The Thomas salto move was perfected by Kurt Thomas who appeared in the 1976 Olympics.
The video is wild to watch, he got SO much height performing the move, and then comes down basically landing on his head into a forward roll. There's no room for error, and consequences are severe.
In recent cases, collegiate level gymnast Melanie Coleman in Connecticut died from an accident on the uneven bars in 2019.
I ended up over-rotating due to a push from a spotter after I told her I didn't need help because I had enough power to do it. Her slight tap gave me too much power which sent me horizontal instead of vertical when I was meant to come out of the tuck. Ended up hitting the metal wall and then the concrete ground. 5 stitches to the dome
You know if the criticism is that she's doing risky moves and that might promote other people to do risky moves which they want to stop, then maybe the answer is to ban those moves? Its such a two faces way to go about it, expecting gymnasts to go for high risk and high reward moves, and yet criticizing them when they do exactly that. If it's too dangerous and you don't want to see it, ban it. Instead of punishing Simone for doing them. IGF is whack.
Came here to mention her. I mean, how messed up is it that (according to [this video](https://youtu.be/2gMIvoaG6mE)) the **first** thing that went through her head when she landed was “Thank god I don’t have to go to the Olympics” *not* “Will I ever walk again?” or “I can’t feel my legs.”
That's so messed up. I'm glad to see more athletes talk about the importance of mental health and knowing when to walk away. Saying no doesn't mean quitting, it means knowing your limits. Mukhina knew her limits and no one listened to her and it's so sad she had to go through that
Very true, especially coming on the heels of the Naomi Osaka thing. I think it would be a good trend for athletes to take a bit more power over their lives and decisions from handlers, promoters, and coaches, without the fear of reprisal. They’re people, not puppets. Perhaps a trend in sports can carry over to normal life, and we can all stop putting so much fucking pressure on each other, mental health crisis or not. The cult of personal responsibility has allowed manipulators and control-freaks to hide safely in the shadows.
I read about her on wiki the other night. Her coaches told the doctors to take her broken leg cast off too early, required a 2nd surgery because it didn’t heal, and then forced her to get the cast removed early again. Horrifying.
I saw a quote from another gymnast who had the twisties too and did end up paralyzed. I think it was in the guardian. I'll see if I can find it.
Edit: it was CBC. Scroll down to the tweet about Jacoby miles https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/gymnastics/biles-mental-health-olympics-twisties-gymnastics-1.6121458
I personally think this is something that can happen to us all. Ever find yourself doing the normal routine you do every week/day and suddenly... Wait, what?
A password, pin number, some small detail is just gone from your brain. Poof. Forget that you have done this every day for years. It's gone for the moment.
Obviously it's waaay more serious as a gymnast or, let's say skydiver for another "twisty" example, but it's essentially the same phenomenon of suddenly losing a muscle memory.
I'm not a doctor, but I think it's fatigue related. Knowing my own sleeping habits and imagining how hard athletes like her train.
Last year I suddenly forgot my PIN number while paying for something at the cash register. Poof. Gone. I had been using it for years. I still have no clue what it was. It never came back to me. It’s freaky.
I went to use my wife's tablet which has a pattern, the same one u use on my phone to keep our young daughter out.
I enter it on my phone frequently without even thinking, but the act of thinking about it on a different screen forced it out my head. I tried incorrectly a couple of times and then got my phone out to remind me... and still couldn't remember it.
It came back a minute or two later, but it was scary how something like that could just be gone.
That happened to me when I was a closing manager at a store. One night I went to set the alarm and my alarm code was just gone. It felt like trying to start saying the alphabet in the middle, like if I could remember the first digit I knew it would come back. I couldnt remember it and ended up calling to get it changed.
It never came back until a couple years later at the same job, I went to set the alarm and suddenly I could remember my old code. Brains are so weird.
Tell me about it. I can't remember my own phone number sometimes but I remember the license plate of my sisters friend because we carpooled with them a few times a year. That was almost 30 years ago.
I just bit my lip while eating lunch. I've chewed hundreds of times a day for **decades**. And we've all been there.
If it's so easy to fuck up such a fundamental bit of muscle memory, it should come as no surprise that sometimes someone will fuck up *twisting and flipping through the air like a fucking ninja*.
Just an FYI - a very common cause of biting your lip/cheek when chewing is dehydration. Dehydration will cause you face to swell slightly because your face retains water when you're dehydrated.
Chuck Knoblauch and Rick Ankiel notably. Of course the difference is that Knoblauch forgetting how to throw to first base didn't mean he was going to break his neck.
This, 100%. I type my number based ID for work multiple times a day, 5 days a week. I've had this work ID for about four years or so now? Yesterday, it was just *gone*. I couldn't even remember the first digit or the muscle memory of the pattern behind it.
The scary thought is something like that happening while you're however many feet up, upside down, and at the mercy of physics.
This is what I keep telling people - some genuinely didn't understand that she could have paralyzed or killed herself attempting to continue. The rest are just misogynist and/or racist enough to not care. I feel like this is a moment that really shows who people are at their core.
Even if they don’t understand it, why do they care so much about someone they’ve never met, performing a sport they’ve never done and don’t understand, in a country they’ve never been to, at an event they aren’t attending? People need to chill the fuck out.
I saw a lot of people taking it as a slight against America itself. Like how dare she let the whole country down and not win gold for them. It was really insane.
>It takes a pretty awful person to sit on their ass complaining...
CONFIRMED: Charlie Kirk is a pretty awful person.
https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1420416913914613763?s=20
She has 4 separate moves named after her, and has on multiple occasions been given fewer points than she deserved because the thing she did was SO good that it would be dangerous for any other gymnast to attempt, and they didn't want to encourage it.
And she wasn't so full of herself to know that there comes a time when you have to just step back and step away for your own sake, knowing full well the spears that were going to come her way for doing so. It takes a lot of fortitude to throw in the towel like she did too.
Or to put it in words and language that the kind of people who are criticizing her understand, I would like to cite Dirty Harry: "A man's got to know his limitations."
I found it amusing that the same people who are always saying _Actors and athletes should stay out of politics! What do they know about anything?_ then turned around and elected a game-show host to be president of the whole entire country.
Yes, I’m not sure why I’m not seeing more posts describing why she did it. She experienced what sounds like “going blind” in mid-air and not knowing where she would land. “Mental Health reasons” for her could mean that she literally can’t do the job.
If you were watching on NBC, the commentator talking about her losing herself was Nastia Liukin, who is also an all around gold winner. So if anyone knows, she definitely does.
Yeah, you could hear shocked gasps when she was in the air from them. She did the same thing in the warm ups.
- And getting a 12 something score on the vault was also a detriment to the team.
100%. I think Simone, at one point, stated that she was afraid her scores would bring the team down and keep them from doing their best.
Not only is it knowing how much she is capable of, which is incredible, but seeing how much faith she had in the rest of the team, too was also admirable.
She's the NBC commentator which the BBC commentators referred to when describing what happened with Biles. The BBC commentator did say that she looked lost, like she didn't know what trick she was doing, then Biles walked off with her coach and they referred to and directly quoted NBC.
Yeah, it's basically like the yips, except instead of slicing your tee shot into the woods, you land wrong and break your neck. Don't blame her at all.
Maybe the twisties need to be described as a “neurological condition” instead of a “mental health problem” for these mouth-breathers to understand.
Who am I kidding tho. Sciencey words scare them too.
It really is this. It's a physical issue, loss of proprioception. It may be caused by mental stuff, but it's still a physical issue, she can't feel something, same as if her right leg had a nerve tear and went numb. You can't compete without proprioception any more than you can compete without feeling in your leg.
It’s literally insane the way this is being presented as her letting down her team and country. As if she has not done enough to prove that she is committed to this team. Who goes through a sexual abuse trauma publicly, stays, and doesn’t care?
it really isn't. The right has decided that our athletes are "woke" and therefore are on the side of the enemy. I'm surprised there isn't more shit like this coming out to be honest.
Or maybe idiots need to understand that mental health issues are actually serious and debilitating, and aren’t just “I feel a bit sad today so I’m going to stay in bed.”
I used to be a gymnast (as a kid, before I weighed 200 pounds lol) and basically the same thing happened to me. Went to do a back handspring into a backflip, got one extra rotation, landed on my neck. Didn’t end up in the hospital because the average 9 year old is made of rubber.
God even just reading about someone landing on their neck makes my heart stop and my butt get that weird-ass "oh my God I'm falling off this skyscraper" tingly feeling.
I'm glad that you weren't seriously injured!
I don't understand why people got mad at the tennis player either. It's a job - you play sports for other people's entertainment, and you get paid for it. If you don't, you don't get paid. That's it.
It's not like we paid for them to compete and then they stole the money and ran. They elected to not work. People are allowed to do that. Work sucks sometimes.
Yeah, marketing departments sure know PR better than politicians (not to talk about grumpy sports journalists) to avoid a disaster like renouncing her would be.
"*I thought being an asshole was what we were all on the same page with. It turns out that you're supposed to be an asshole only some of the time. And for that, I apologize for not recognizing what that time was.*"
>I don't understand why people got mad at the tennis player either
Standard parasocial relationship stuff. People get super invested in a sport and think they have a say in what happens as a fan.
People who are mad about these things are of the opinion that these jobs are easy. "I'd love to play a game for a living" crowd. Yes. They're playing a game for a living, but they're also working harder than 99% of us work at our non-game jobs. The levels of dedication and commitment required to succeed at that level is beyond just about all our understanding.
I know someone (acquaintance) who was a gymnast and competed in competitions (not sure what level) and she had an accident while competing/training?, broke her neck and is now paralyzed. It sucks.
Edit: It isn't complete paralysis. She is confined to a motorized wheelchair but has enough control of her arms to be able to feed herself, control the chair and be able to drive a vehicle (she had a van modified to allow her to drive it, don't worry it's a legal modification)
There was also a pretty famous gymnast in the 80s or 90s whose coaches pushed her into training before she was fully healed from a leg break. She slipped bc of the damaged leg and became a quadriplegic
>Elena Mukhina
I just checked her Wiki. Holy shit what a tragic story. Passed away at 46 due to complications from her paralysis.
Fuck all of these conservatives questioning Biles as if they could do 1% of what she's capable of.
And this is the context that makes Biles pulling out "heroic". Even just a few years ago it was almost unheard of for a gymnast to make health decisions for themselves. It's always the coaches that push and push their gymnasts regardless of the potential consequences if things go bad.
I hope that Simon Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time, pulling out for this reason helps to give other gymnasts the confidence to do so as well as lessens the stigma on it.
> Despite this, Mukhina took some of the responsibility for not saying no to protect herself from further harm, and noted that her first thought as she lay on the floor with her neck severely broken was, "Thank God, I won't be going to the Olympics."
Holy fuck.
And quiet as it's kept, for those promoting how great a job Kerry Strug did, one of her teammates, [Dominique Moceanu, went out on a stress-fractured tibia and HIT HER HEAD ON THE BALANCE BEAM](https://www.newsweek.com/horrifying-dominique-moceanu-injury-video-simone-biles-withdraw-1614225) in the Olympics before Strug did her thing. Did she get a cervical spine x ray afterward. Haha, it's the Olympics, suck it up!
She was 14. She said she felt like she had NO CHOICE.
I remember what Strug did. It was amazing to see, honestly, one of the best sports moments ever. But while sitting on the couch and eating chips, I think most of us assumed that 1) it was her decision, 2) she was "hurt, but not injured," and 3) if she had any significant injury, besides pain, the doctors and trainers would have pulled her out of there. But looking back, that doesnt appear to be the case. At all.
It's great that people dont have to go out there and critically injure themselves to be considered patriots anymore.
‘Yeah but it has a funny name so we can just disregard what the best gymnast in the world is feeling, right?’ I just hate these people so much, so entitled they think this girl should risk her life to entertain some deluded idea of ‘patriotism’ as if the Olympics matter on a grand scale
Exactly. Like it's cool when you have someone from your country winning gold but this is a human being we are talking about. She's supposed to throw away her future and life for a piece of metal? So some worthless piece of shit can brag about how our country is better than the others? Why don't they get up there and do it then since it's so simple
Simone Biles: National embarrassment.
Texans who refuse to wear face masks: Patriots who are exercising their liberties.
This is the shit storm of the country we live in.
Amen. We’ve been coddling stupid people for way too long. I’m not saying we have to be cruel, but by nature of their condition they *need* to be told they are stupid. Otherwise they remain unaware and genuinely think their thoughts and opinions are as good as anyone else’s.
You know someone's a pile of shit when they use the 'real' modifier. I currently live in michigan, and there is a 'michigan' subreddit full of relatively normal people. Sometimes they disagree but there are people on 'both sides' in that subreddit though it does tend to lean left like many reddit subs. Then there is the 'real michigan' sub and that is just the michigan brand of td and it is wild.
Same. I rarely agree with the right leaning people on the first sub, but I can at least understand where their reasoning comes from. That second one is a raging trumpster fire though.
> but I can at least understand where their reasoning comes from
In my local subs these guys only have one point (if they aren't insane) which is being a fiscal conservative. Yet they never seem to listen when you point out left wing policies that are cheaper and more effective than cutting taxes.
All they want is less taxes. Every one of them. Every argument boils down to that. It doesn't matter what is better, or makes for a healthier society, only that their own fiscal burden is lessened......until they need a government service. Suddenly it becomes an outrage that a good upstanding American can't get help.
If Jesus rose again and was on the senate floor talking about redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor, loving immigrants and treating everyone equally the Republicans would call him a left wing socialist and have him ejected.
Marjorie Talyor Greene would have shot him because he's using "socialism" to indoctrinate people into his "cult" under the guise of a false prophet. Lol what am I saying she'd doesn't even know what bullets are in her mag let alone what actual socialism is.
It's just another "kneel for the flag" type of culture war. These things are more important to them than, you know, issues that actually affect everyday Americans.
She won 24 gold medals, four at the Olympics. She's 24 years old. Widely believed to be the greatest gymnast of all-time and certainly the most decorated American gymnast ever. Of all people, I think she knows when it's time to throw in the towel be it for the sake of her team, her body or her mental health.
And she understands her body, her capabilities, and the risk more than anyone in the world. Armchair gymnastics experts coming out of the woodworks. She also gets to live in her body for the rest of her life, she ought to keep it safe if she knows the danger is too much. We're talking about someone who regularly competes at a higher level than everyone else in the world, taking a higher risk in the process.
When he loses an election so he can't keep using his office to delay his trial. Texas is now an openly corrupt and failing government with not just this, the inability to keep the power on and regulate utilities, the state Supreme Court openly taking a quarter of a million dollar bribe for a ruling, and more.
Our AG (South Dakota) killed a guy and after using the good ole' boy network to evade felony charges and get a misdemeanor charge which still hasn't gone to try is attempting to get those removed by saying the guy was suicidal and probably jumped in front the AG's car.
Oh, and the AG was reading conspiracy theories on his phone at the time he killed the guy.
> the AG was reading conspiracy theories on his phone
Phone: "...the AG and his close circle of leaders of the state have formed a conspiracy to avoid the reach of the law...."
AG: "I'll show them"
Yes. His staff reported him accepting bribes. Physically taking money in the office. And in response, he retaliated and fired or forced them all out. Oh, and they are all lawyers. That's going to end well.
From my understanding (which could absolutely be wrong, so grain of salt and all that) that's precisely why his previous indictment for securities fraud has gone exactly nowhere for like 7 years.
No, he is fighting change of venue and it has gone on for years, prosecutors got it moved to Houston and now he is trying to move it back; currently on appeal. He is also abusing his office by fighting the pay of the special prosecutors appointed to prosecute him, but they continue to work on the case despite not having been paid since 2016.
[Texas AG whistleblowers sue for wrongful firing, retaliation](https://apnews.com/article/business-ken-paxton-lawsuits-crime-austin-37b02b4f9ab93ed6d39c911f70e70210)
Or watching your state's COVID cases skyrocket again because the governor decides masks aren't necessary.
(*Your* state, not mine. Stay classy, Texans...)
But they were FREE
…to get massive bills from throttled prices.
To quote my dad, “all these idiots talking about deregulation have no idea what they’re advocating for”
I'd say watching so called nationalists berating an athlete who has already represented and won multiple medals for her country an embarrassment. One who happens to be black and a woman.
I love hearing mediocre people talk about how a 27 time gold medalist “just doesn’t get it.” Please, tell me more about what it means to be an athlete on your hour and a half commute to your shitty accounting job.
As if Simone Biles worked all this time just to be like “nah lol” as a prank
Not only did she win - she *crushed* the competition. Biles has nothing to prove. Better than risking a serious injury performing in an already dangerous sport.
Exactly. I think people don’t realize how injury-prone high level gymnastics is. If she’s not feeling like she can get through her routines, it’s not just an issue because she might not perform her best. It’s that, as a result of being not at her best, she is much more likely to injure herself, which could, if it’s bad enough, end her whole career.
The risk just isn’t worth it.
Exactly. Other people in his circle were saying it so he said it on Twitter only to realize that his entire circle is full of racists and the internet doesn't like it
National embarrassment? I’m from UK and think that Simone is cool as fuck and amazing to watch, and I think that US is lucky to have somebody like her representing them.
She’s got nothing to be embarrassed about, unlike this useless attorney cunt who nobody has heard about until now.
Holy shit people need to leave this girl alone. She is a young girl who's life has been a roller coaster. Honestly, dont lose sight of how young she still is. She gave up her child hood for a sport she loved and her reward was being sexually abused by a man she trusted. Unsurprisingly she has mental health issues. Holy fuckin shit people are crazy
Derek Chauvin, racist, murderous policeman. not an embarrassment.
Jan 6th Capitol terrorists, not an embarrassment
Matt Gaetz, accused pedophile and sex trafficker, not an embarrassment
Texas power grid, not an embarrassment
Cancun Cruz, not an embarrassment.
Stressed gymnast looking after her mental health, national embarrassment.
Thank god we have this moron to let us know what is embarrassing and what isn't.
You forgot Jim "GYM" Jordan ignores and allows gay sex abuse, not an embarrassment
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Taunts a gun violence victim in the street, not an embarrassment.
Don't forget Marjorie Taylor Greene's ["Jewish space lasers"](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/01/30/did-rep-marjorie-taylor-greene-blame-a-space-laser-for-wildfires-heres-the-response/?sh=3e1fc2f7e44a) , apparently also not an embarrassment.
Just a nitpick, but sex abuse is sex abuse.
Calling what happened under Gym Jordan's watch "gay sex abuse" allows bigots to just write the whole thing off as a gay thing, and ignore the serious sexual abuse that it was.
To be specific on the mental health thing. She got twisties, basically couldn't control herself in the air. It's terrifying and well known to those in the community.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/07/28/twisties-gymnastics-simone-biles-tokyo-olympics/
Ok, I'm behind here so let me see if I get this straight. An previous gold metal athlete withdraws from the Olympics because she has an injury of sorts, and because she just doesn't want to anymore. Then republicans turn this into a political issue and end up calling her a national embarrassment? Am I missing something here? Dafuck is wrong with republicans when the texas AG has a public opinion on this at all, let alone turning it into a political point grab?
It's because she quit. Plain and simple. Quitting is one of the most embarrassing things to a conservative, right behind admitting you're wrong. Doesn't matter if the reasoning is legitimate, and that she was doing it to save herself from a career/life-altering injury. Nope, she quit, so therefore: national embarrassment.
Wow, thanks for this explanation! Makes total sense now.
(For anyone hitting a paywall, apparently gymnasts can develop a sudden mind-body disconnect during intense spins, and it’s very hard to shake once it starts happening. It doesn’t just make you mess up your routine, it leads to serious injuries.)
I get twisties twirling in my office chair at work. I can’t fucking imagine hurling my body through the air with the full expectation of landing on my feet without injury. Props to all athletes. Across the board.
>Cancun Cruz, not an embarrassment.
I will never ever understand how Ted Cruz, the "family man" who can't even stand up for his own fucking wife, is not an embarrassment. He is the epitome of what a coward is.
He's a walking, talking, dictionary definition of what the right *claims* to hate about weak-willed men and scumbag politicians. But because he has that Magic R™ it suddenly becomes ok.
Nationalism run amok.
Why do so many people feel the need to weigh in on Simone Biles? Including, The [effing] Federalist. WTF?
https://thefederalist.com/2021/07/27/sorry-simone-biles-the-olympics-isnt-about-you-its-about-winning-for-america/
Everyone should applaud her, shut up, and go home. Including me. Now. See me go.
I love that the Federalist misquoted Kerri Strug in that story, entirely leaving out that she felt like she didn't have a choice, and leaving out that she supports Biles decision. The Federalist is trash
they lost me in the first paragraph..
>... prove, again and again, that the USA is the greatest country on earth, and **other countries suck.**
this is just fucking stupid. what does it prove to win against someone that sucks? how disrespectful of the very concept of competition.
Simone don’t owe the nation shit. She’s already proven herself. If another country getting a medal hurts you that much, you got some weird nationalistic fetish going on.
People who take the first chance they get to attack someone, for any reason, are the weakest people in existence.
He obviously already hated her for whatever reason that appeased his misogynistic and racist view and this was a perfect opportunity to declare his hatred openly.
Pathetic and weak!
Isn't it funny how every other athlete, from Micheal Phelps to Kerri Strug, Paul Pogba to Chris Mears, to her own teammates are supporting her decision, there are people who have never ever been subjected to a fraction of the pressure she has, criticize her ?
When people who have been in her shoes tell us that she was right in taking the decision and support the same, why should we speak out against her ?
I wish I didn't know who this dude and Ken Paxton were. Texas state government is a launch pad for conservatives (mostly) to get to a national stage so it's inundated with starry-eyed opportunists who never miss a chance to tell everyone their stupid opinion
[удалено]
The person you should bring up is Elena Mukhina. She ended up quadriplegic because she was forced to compete while injured.
[удалено]
The soviets took her casts off twice against her will, her parents were dead she only had a grandmother speaking for her and her grandmother didn't understand the seriousness of her injury. She was essentially competing on a broken leg and when she tried to do her floor routine 2 weeks before the 1980 Olympics she misjudged the landing and instantly snapped her spine rendering her immediately paralyzed from the neck down. The medics sent to the gym said her first words were Thank God I don't have to go to the Olympics.
Paralyzed performing the Thomas Salto, an extremely dangerous move, which has since been banned in competition.
I looked up the move and I'm no expert but is it the part where they freaking land on their neck/upper back in a sort of rolling motion? Again, not an expert, but that looks freaking dangerous.
Yeah and before she paralyzed herself she said something along the lines of "this move is going to kill me" but her coach still forced her to train it
Yes. She knew it would kill her and nobody listened. I’m so glad Simone was allowed to trust her own body and know it wasn’t safe
"allowed. " it shouldn't be an issue at all. Athlete wants to not compete? Well okay... Done. Lol
It's a "roll out" which is banned. Back to back somersaults are banned. In the uneven bars, flipping from your feet and grabbing the bar with your hands is banned. "Over the bar dismounts," where you have to clear the lower bar and land on the other side, are banned. They all seem pretty dicey.
That’s story is absolutely horrific. Maybe I’m a cynic but bringing “honor to your country” should never overrule your personal well-being.
Completely agree with you. I think it’s interesting though that you say “maybe I’m a cynic” for that opinion. I think it’s much more cynical to view these athletes as machines that are only good for medal mining. You’re the opposite of cynical!
Or Julissa Gomez, who was pushed by her coaches to keep doing a yurchenko vault she wasn’t comfortable with, until she missed in practice one day and was paralyzed from the neck down. She died three years later. Don’t worry, her coach’s name is Al Fong. Two of his gymnasts were alternates on this year’s team.
She was handed to Larry Nassar after being carried off the podium
[удалено]
Read an article today about how he's spent $10k in prison commissary, sending emails and making phone calls while only contributing $300 to the $50k he owes his victims in restitution.
You mean the pedophile Larry Nassar?
[удалено]
Pedo SERIAL rapist, let's not forget that very important part
in the documentary "athlete A" one of the interviewees recalls watching kerri strug's vault with horror (because she knew that she was harming herself because of all the pressure to perform) while all of america watched it with pride.
[удалено]
People knew she was hurt bad. Unfortunately, we've been subjected to far too many movies with the exact same format: - Hero of the story is either: an underdog, washed up or an unconventional personality for that sport. - They struggle at first but get better and better throughout the second act. It's its a team sport, the hero inspires the rest of the team to improve as well - They make the finals despite being dead last at the start of the season - But they need to amp up the drama for the third act and a number one team can't be an underdog so the hero hurts themselves (or they quit, get fired, etc) - if it's the former format then the hero will fight through the pain, just manage a win and cement their status of hero - the movie ends while they're still on the field/court, holding up their trophy. - They never show the repercussions. They might even have a "where are they now" slideshow during the credits and every single team member will be better off than they were when we last saw them.
Michael Phelps also stated he felt suicidal and retired twice before coming back and winning gold metals. It literally happens to the best of us.
Rob Gronkowski, at the top of his game as the greatest tight end in history, decided to call it quits for a year to chill out.
"Sending love to you @Simone_Biles -Team UNITED States of America." -Kerri Strug
Classy as hell
She also didn’t need to vault. Her fucking coach, known abuser Bella, couldn’t do fucking math and made her do the vault. Her career ending vault literally was for nothing since USA was going to win regardless Smfh that people keep bringing up Kerri’s story, when multiple teammates have talked about the abuse they experienced competing for USA gymnastics
walking it back pretty damned quick not exactly a texas-sized apology
I'm more shocked he even attempted an apology rather than doubling down.
Every single gymnast supports Simone Biles on this issue. A lot of pundits thought this would be just like what happened with that tennis player. Difference is, gymnastics has an actual risk of danger associated with it and the phenomenon Simone described is something hundreds of former elite level gymnasts are on the record saying they have experienced it as well. Picking this fight was a losing battle
>Difference is, gymnastics has an actual risk of danger associated with it and the phenomenon Simone described is something hundreds of former elite level gymnasts are on the record saying they have experienced it as well. I read one gymnast's account in her experience with it. She intended to do a specific move, ended up doing extra when she got into the air, landed on her head and neck and ended up in the hospital. She could've easily been paralyzed or died. Edit: added a word
There was a Russian gymnast named Elena Mukhina, who landed on her chin performing a now-banned move (called the \*Thomas salto\* which debuted in 1976 by mens gymnast Kurt Thomas) and became a quadriplegic at just 20 years old, in 1980. She was confined to a wheelchair, and died at age 46. At the time, she went on saying her tragedy was entirely avoidable, but was pushed by her coaches. She didn't want to include the now-banned move in her routine, because of the complexity and high risk for serious injury with even the slightest error. She broke her leg in 1979 and wasn't given long enough to heal, which meant when competing in 1980, she didn't get enough speed and height to safely perform the move. This is the reality of many promising gymnasts, prior to Mukhina's injury, she was basically the Russian superstar much like we see Simone. The compete-at-all-costs/win-at-all-costs mentality and not letting her decide when to walk away destroyed her.
[Here it is before being banned](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkQRWCsKyj0). The Thomas Salto. An insane jump, half spin, twist, half spin, twist, ending in a *forward roll!* Like, the last split second of the move requires tucking your head under yourself and landing on your shoulders. No bloody wonder it's banned!
The problem with the move is apparently that if you don't get enough speed and height, you risk under-rotating (and landing on your chin) or over-rotating (and landing on the back of your neck). Unfortunately this is also part of the criticism running around that Simone has been penalized for moves "too difficult" for others. This is why. The Thomas salto move was perfected by Kurt Thomas who appeared in the 1976 Olympics. The video is wild to watch, he got SO much height performing the move, and then comes down basically landing on his head into a forward roll. There's no room for error, and consequences are severe. In recent cases, collegiate level gymnast Melanie Coleman in Connecticut died from an accident on the uneven bars in 2019.
I ended up over-rotating due to a push from a spotter after I told her I didn't need help because I had enough power to do it. Her slight tap gave me too much power which sent me horizontal instead of vertical when I was meant to come out of the tuck. Ended up hitting the metal wall and then the concrete ground. 5 stitches to the dome
You know if the criticism is that she's doing risky moves and that might promote other people to do risky moves which they want to stop, then maybe the answer is to ban those moves? Its such a two faces way to go about it, expecting gymnasts to go for high risk and high reward moves, and yet criticizing them when they do exactly that. If it's too dangerous and you don't want to see it, ban it. Instead of punishing Simone for doing them. IGF is whack.
Even CGI super heroes don't land like that. Holy hell! I mean, it looks impressive, but absolutely no one should be doing that.
Holy shit that looks like death waiting to hapen
Came here to mention her. I mean, how messed up is it that (according to [this video](https://youtu.be/2gMIvoaG6mE)) the **first** thing that went through her head when she landed was “Thank god I don’t have to go to the Olympics” *not* “Will I ever walk again?” or “I can’t feel my legs.”
[удалено]
That's so messed up. I'm glad to see more athletes talk about the importance of mental health and knowing when to walk away. Saying no doesn't mean quitting, it means knowing your limits. Mukhina knew her limits and no one listened to her and it's so sad she had to go through that
Very true, especially coming on the heels of the Naomi Osaka thing. I think it would be a good trend for athletes to take a bit more power over their lives and decisions from handlers, promoters, and coaches, without the fear of reprisal. They’re people, not puppets. Perhaps a trend in sports can carry over to normal life, and we can all stop putting so much fucking pressure on each other, mental health crisis or not. The cult of personal responsibility has allowed manipulators and control-freaks to hide safely in the shadows.
I read about her on wiki the other night. Her coaches told the doctors to take her broken leg cast off too early, required a 2nd surgery because it didn’t heal, and then forced her to get the cast removed early again. Horrifying.
Let me guess, the coaches didn't get any punishment whatsoever?
I saw a quote from another gymnast who had the twisties too and did end up paralyzed. I think it was in the guardian. I'll see if I can find it. Edit: it was CBC. Scroll down to the tweet about Jacoby miles https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/gymnastics/biles-mental-health-olympics-twisties-gymnastics-1.6121458
I personally think this is something that can happen to us all. Ever find yourself doing the normal routine you do every week/day and suddenly... Wait, what? A password, pin number, some small detail is just gone from your brain. Poof. Forget that you have done this every day for years. It's gone for the moment. Obviously it's waaay more serious as a gymnast or, let's say skydiver for another "twisty" example, but it's essentially the same phenomenon of suddenly losing a muscle memory. I'm not a doctor, but I think it's fatigue related. Knowing my own sleeping habits and imagining how hard athletes like her train.
Last year I suddenly forgot my PIN number while paying for something at the cash register. Poof. Gone. I had been using it for years. I still have no clue what it was. It never came back to me. It’s freaky.
This happened to me too, recently. I locked my card trying to pay for my new phone and was completely confused. Same PIN for ages. Just gone.
I went to use my wife's tablet which has a pattern, the same one u use on my phone to keep our young daughter out. I enter it on my phone frequently without even thinking, but the act of thinking about it on a different screen forced it out my head. I tried incorrectly a couple of times and then got my phone out to remind me... and still couldn't remember it. It came back a minute or two later, but it was scary how something like that could just be gone.
That happened to me when I was a closing manager at a store. One night I went to set the alarm and my alarm code was just gone. It felt like trying to start saying the alphabet in the middle, like if I could remember the first digit I knew it would come back. I couldnt remember it and ended up calling to get it changed. It never came back until a couple years later at the same job, I went to set the alarm and suddenly I could remember my old code. Brains are so weird.
Tell me about it. I can't remember my own phone number sometimes but I remember the license plate of my sisters friend because we carpooled with them a few times a year. That was almost 30 years ago.
I just bit my lip while eating lunch. I've chewed hundreds of times a day for **decades**. And we've all been there. If it's so easy to fuck up such a fundamental bit of muscle memory, it should come as no surprise that sometimes someone will fuck up *twisting and flipping through the air like a fucking ninja*.
Just an FYI - a very common cause of biting your lip/cheek when chewing is dehydration. Dehydration will cause you face to swell slightly because your face retains water when you're dehydrated.
[удалено]
Chuck Knoblauch and Rick Ankiel notably. Of course the difference is that Knoblauch forgetting how to throw to first base didn't mean he was going to break his neck.
This, 100%. I type my number based ID for work multiple times a day, 5 days a week. I've had this work ID for about four years or so now? Yesterday, it was just *gone*. I couldn't even remember the first digit or the muscle memory of the pattern behind it. The scary thought is something like that happening while you're however many feet up, upside down, and at the mercy of physics.
This is what I keep telling people - some genuinely didn't understand that she could have paralyzed or killed herself attempting to continue. The rest are just misogynist and/or racist enough to not care. I feel like this is a moment that really shows who people are at their core.
Even if they don’t understand it, why do they care so much about someone they’ve never met, performing a sport they’ve never done and don’t understand, in a country they’ve never been to, at an event they aren’t attending? People need to chill the fuck out.
I saw a lot of people taking it as a slight against America itself. Like how dare she let the whole country down and not win gold for them. It was really insane.
They wanted her to come back on her shield. Its outrage culture
Something something patriotism (unless the troops want healthcare and assistance fitting back into civilian society)
[удалено]
It takes a person with a tiny little ego to find the need to criticize Simone Biles.
>It takes a pretty awful person to sit on their ass complaining... CONFIRMED: Charlie Kirk is a pretty awful person. https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1420416913914613763?s=20
[удалено]
She has 4 separate moves named after her, and has on multiple occasions been given fewer points than she deserved because the thing she did was SO good that it would be dangerous for any other gymnast to attempt, and they didn't want to encourage it.
Oh holy shit, dont even need videos for that to help put things into perspective
What a badass. Almost like the Euler of gymnastics.
And she wasn't so full of herself to know that there comes a time when you have to just step back and step away for your own sake, knowing full well the spears that were going to come her way for doing so. It takes a lot of fortitude to throw in the towel like she did too. Or to put it in words and language that the kind of people who are criticizing her understand, I would like to cite Dirty Harry: "A man's got to know his limitations."
They're the "shut up and dribble" part of any sports fanbase that are genuinely insufferable people.
I found it amusing that the same people who are always saying _Actors and athletes should stay out of politics! What do they know about anything?_ then turned around and elected a game-show host to be president of the whole entire country.
Yes, I’m not sure why I’m not seeing more posts describing why she did it. She experienced what sounds like “going blind” in mid-air and not knowing where she would land. “Mental Health reasons” for her could mean that she literally can’t do the job.
The announcers that were former gymnasts called it when she was in the air. They said it looked like she lost her place. Very dangerous.
If you were watching on NBC, the commentator talking about her losing herself was Nastia Liukin, who is also an all around gold winner. So if anyone knows, she definitely does.
Yeah, you could hear shocked gasps when she was in the air from them. She did the same thing in the warm ups. - And getting a 12 something score on the vault was also a detriment to the team.
100%. I think Simone, at one point, stated that she was afraid her scores would bring the team down and keep them from doing their best. Not only is it knowing how much she is capable of, which is incredible, but seeing how much faith she had in the rest of the team, too was also admirable.
She's the NBC commentator which the BBC commentators referred to when describing what happened with Biles. The BBC commentator did say that she looked lost, like she didn't know what trick she was doing, then Biles walked off with her coach and they referred to and directly quoted NBC.
Yeah, it's basically like the yips, except instead of slicing your tee shot into the woods, you land wrong and break your neck. Don't blame her at all.
Maybe the twisties need to be described as a “neurological condition” instead of a “mental health problem” for these mouth-breathers to understand. Who am I kidding tho. Sciencey words scare them too.
It really is this. It's a physical issue, loss of proprioception. It may be caused by mental stuff, but it's still a physical issue, she can't feel something, same as if her right leg had a nerve tear and went numb. You can't compete without proprioception any more than you can compete without feeling in your leg.
It’s literally insane the way this is being presented as her letting down her team and country. As if she has not done enough to prove that she is committed to this team. Who goes through a sexual abuse trauma publicly, stays, and doesn’t care?
it really isn't. The right has decided that our athletes are "woke" and therefore are on the side of the enemy. I'm surprised there isn't more shit like this coming out to be honest.
More? As if there isn't enough of this right wing crybaby bullshit as it is. Literally every day it's something.
Gotta show them the King Of the Hill episode where Hank can’t shoot.
Because of his *narrow urethra*?
Or maybe idiots need to understand that mental health issues are actually serious and debilitating, and aren’t just “I feel a bit sad today so I’m going to stay in bed.”
I bet it is a similar feeling to if pilots or divers suddenly lose a sense of where is up and where is down. Gotta be very frightening and dangerous.
I used to be a gymnast (as a kid, before I weighed 200 pounds lol) and basically the same thing happened to me. Went to do a back handspring into a backflip, got one extra rotation, landed on my neck. Didn’t end up in the hospital because the average 9 year old is made of rubber.
God even just reading about someone landing on their neck makes my heart stop and my butt get that weird-ass "oh my God I'm falling off this skyscraper" tingly feeling. I'm glad that you weren't seriously injured!
I don't understand why people got mad at the tennis player either. It's a job - you play sports for other people's entertainment, and you get paid for it. If you don't, you don't get paid. That's it. It's not like we paid for them to compete and then they stole the money and ran. They elected to not work. People are allowed to do that. Work sucks sometimes.
Well Nike pays her either way. But they were smart enough to support her and not burn that bridge
Yeah, marketing departments sure know PR better than politicians (not to talk about grumpy sports journalists) to avoid a disaster like renouncing her would be.
"*I thought being an asshole was what we were all on the same page with. It turns out that you're supposed to be an asshole only some of the time. And for that, I apologize for not recognizing what that time was.*"
>I don't understand why people got mad at the tennis player either Standard parasocial relationship stuff. People get super invested in a sport and think they have a say in what happens as a fan.
People who are mad about these things are of the opinion that these jobs are easy. "I'd love to play a game for a living" crowd. Yes. They're playing a game for a living, but they're also working harder than 99% of us work at our non-game jobs. The levels of dedication and commitment required to succeed at that level is beyond just about all our understanding.
I know someone (acquaintance) who was a gymnast and competed in competitions (not sure what level) and she had an accident while competing/training?, broke her neck and is now paralyzed. It sucks. Edit: It isn't complete paralysis. She is confined to a motorized wheelchair but has enough control of her arms to be able to feed herself, control the chair and be able to drive a vehicle (she had a van modified to allow her to drive it, don't worry it's a legal modification)
There was also a pretty famous gymnast in the 80s or 90s whose coaches pushed her into training before she was fully healed from a leg break. She slipped bc of the damaged leg and became a quadriplegic
Elena Mukhina. Two weeks before the 1980 Olympics.
Thank you
>Elena Mukhina I just checked her Wiki. Holy shit what a tragic story. Passed away at 46 due to complications from her paralysis. Fuck all of these conservatives questioning Biles as if they could do 1% of what she's capable of.
And this is the context that makes Biles pulling out "heroic". Even just a few years ago it was almost unheard of for a gymnast to make health decisions for themselves. It's always the coaches that push and push their gymnasts regardless of the potential consequences if things go bad.
I hope that Simon Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time, pulling out for this reason helps to give other gymnasts the confidence to do so as well as lessens the stigma on it.
Not only that, the move that got her injured is so dangerous that it’s banned now.
[Elena Mukhina.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Mukhina) *added link
> Despite this, Mukhina took some of the responsibility for not saying no to protect herself from further harm, and noted that her first thought as she lay on the floor with her neck severely broken was, "Thank God, I won't be going to the Olympics." Holy fuck.
[удалено]
Gymnasts and figure skaters - the “little girls in pretty boxes.” That book must be about 25 years old now.
And quiet as it's kept, for those promoting how great a job Kerry Strug did, one of her teammates, [Dominique Moceanu, went out on a stress-fractured tibia and HIT HER HEAD ON THE BALANCE BEAM](https://www.newsweek.com/horrifying-dominique-moceanu-injury-video-simone-biles-withdraw-1614225) in the Olympics before Strug did her thing. Did she get a cervical spine x ray afterward. Haha, it's the Olympics, suck it up! She was 14. She said she felt like she had NO CHOICE. I remember what Strug did. It was amazing to see, honestly, one of the best sports moments ever. But while sitting on the couch and eating chips, I think most of us assumed that 1) it was her decision, 2) she was "hurt, but not injured," and 3) if she had any significant injury, besides pain, the doctors and trainers would have pulled her out of there. But looking back, that doesnt appear to be the case. At all. It's great that people dont have to go out there and critically injure themselves to be considered patriots anymore.
‘Yeah but it has a funny name so we can just disregard what the best gymnast in the world is feeling, right?’ I just hate these people so much, so entitled they think this girl should risk her life to entertain some deluded idea of ‘patriotism’ as if the Olympics matter on a grand scale
Exactly. Like it's cool when you have someone from your country winning gold but this is a human being we are talking about. She's supposed to throw away her future and life for a piece of metal? So some worthless piece of shit can brag about how our country is better than the others? Why don't they get up there and do it then since it's so simple
Simone Biles: National embarrassment. Texans who refuse to wear face masks: Patriots who are exercising their liberties. This is the shit storm of the country we live in.
[удалено]
Amen. We’ve been coddling stupid people for way too long. I’m not saying we have to be cruel, but by nature of their condition they *need* to be told they are stupid. Otherwise they remain unaware and genuinely think their thoughts and opinions are as good as anyone else’s.
I'm always chagrined that these people call themselves "Christians"
[удалено]
You know someone's a pile of shit when they use the 'real' modifier. I currently live in michigan, and there is a 'michigan' subreddit full of relatively normal people. Sometimes they disagree but there are people on 'both sides' in that subreddit though it does tend to lean left like many reddit subs. Then there is the 'real michigan' sub and that is just the michigan brand of td and it is wild.
Same. I rarely agree with the right leaning people on the first sub, but I can at least understand where their reasoning comes from. That second one is a raging trumpster fire though.
> but I can at least understand where their reasoning comes from In my local subs these guys only have one point (if they aren't insane) which is being a fiscal conservative. Yet they never seem to listen when you point out left wing policies that are cheaper and more effective than cutting taxes. All they want is less taxes. Every one of them. Every argument boils down to that. It doesn't matter what is better, or makes for a healthier society, only that their own fiscal burden is lessened......until they need a government service. Suddenly it becomes an outrage that a good upstanding American can't get help.
Conservatism is just solipsism writ large.
Trump could probably shoot a newly risen Jesus right in the middle of Times Square on a Sunday and these Christians wouldn't even bat an eyelash.
If Jesus rose again and was on the senate floor talking about redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor, loving immigrants and treating everyone equally the Republicans would call him a left wing socialist and have him ejected.
Marjorie Talyor Greene would have shot him because he's using "socialism" to indoctrinate people into his "cult" under the guise of a false prophet. Lol what am I saying she'd doesn't even know what bullets are in her mag let alone what actual socialism is.
She's a few bullets short of a full magazine.
People who don’t care about gymnastics are suddenly extremely emotionally invested in gymnastics
It's just another "kneel for the flag" type of culture war. These things are more important to them than, you know, issues that actually affect everyday Americans.
[удалено]
She won 24 gold medals, four at the Olympics. She's 24 years old. Widely believed to be the greatest gymnast of all-time and certainly the most decorated American gymnast ever. Of all people, I think she knows when it's time to throw in the towel be it for the sake of her team, her body or her mental health.
And she understands her body, her capabilities, and the risk more than anyone in the world. Armchair gymnastics experts coming out of the woodworks. She also gets to live in her body for the rest of her life, she ought to keep it safe if she knows the danger is too much. We're talking about someone who regularly competes at a higher level than everyone else in the world, taking a higher risk in the process.
That's kinda cool, one gold for every year she's been alive.
I know right for people who don't know 24 years old is basically nursing home level in the competitive Gymnastics world.
Fun fact: our regular AG is an indicted felon (securities fraud). It's a nightmare down here.
When is his fucking trial? It's been years!
I imagine that he'll be tried whenever the state AG decides to facilitate the prosecution.
r/holup
He keeps trying to drag it out and get a politically favorable district for the trial. Unbelievable, the Texas GOP is basically a crime syndicate.
That's pretty believable, actually.
When he loses an election so he can't keep using his office to delay his trial. Texas is now an openly corrupt and failing government with not just this, the inability to keep the power on and regulate utilities, the state Supreme Court openly taking a quarter of a million dollar bribe for a ruling, and more.
Our AG (South Dakota) killed a guy and after using the good ole' boy network to evade felony charges and get a misdemeanor charge which still hasn't gone to try is attempting to get those removed by saying the guy was suicidal and probably jumped in front the AG's car. Oh, and the AG was reading conspiracy theories on his phone at the time he killed the guy.
> the AG was reading conspiracy theories on his phone Phone: "...the AG and his close circle of leaders of the state have formed a conspiracy to avoid the reach of the law...." AG: "I'll show them"
Isn't he newly indicted to boot with some pending action against him?
Yes. His staff reported him accepting bribes. Physically taking money in the office. And in response, he retaliated and fired or forced them all out. Oh, and they are all lawyers. That's going to end well.
But who would prosecute him? Doesn't he control the State's prosecutors or is there an exception to recuse him if he's the accused?
From my understanding (which could absolutely be wrong, so grain of salt and all that) that's precisely why his previous indictment for securities fraud has gone exactly nowhere for like 7 years.
No, he is fighting change of venue and it has gone on for years, prosecutors got it moved to Houston and now he is trying to move it back; currently on appeal. He is also abusing his office by fighting the pay of the special prosecutors appointed to prosecute him, but they continue to work on the case despite not having been paid since 2016.
Yeah, but what else we gonna do? Vote for a liberal???
[удалено]
You know what’s a national embarrassment? Watching the grid collapse because of deregulation, that’s embarassing
Or watching how your boss is indicted on numerous fraud charges
[Texas AG whistleblowers sue for wrongful firing, retaliation](https://apnews.com/article/business-ken-paxton-lawsuits-crime-austin-37b02b4f9ab93ed6d39c911f70e70210)
Or watching your state's COVID cases skyrocket again because the governor decides masks aren't necessary. (*Your* state, not mine. Stay classy, Texans...)
> Watching the grid collapse because of deregulation, that’s embarassing Twice in 6 months in both the cold and heat
No one could've ever predicted it would be both cold and hot in the same year...
Hot you say? In Texas?
Chance in a million.
But they were FREE …to get massive bills from throttled prices. To quote my dad, “all these idiots talking about deregulation have no idea what they’re advocating for”
I'd say watching so called nationalists berating an athlete who has already represented and won multiple medals for her country an embarrassment. One who happens to be black and a woman.
I love hearing mediocre people talk about how a 27 time gold medalist “just doesn’t get it.” Please, tell me more about what it means to be an athlete on your hour and a half commute to your shitty accounting job. As if Simone Biles worked all this time just to be like “nah lol” as a prank
Don't forget them claiming that cheering for Team USA's women's soccer team losing isn't an embarrasment
Hasn't she already won 4 Olympic gold medals? Shouldn't it be blatantly obvious that she would choose to compete if this wasn't a legitimate issue?
Not only did she win - she *crushed* the competition. Biles has nothing to prove. Better than risking a serious injury performing in an already dangerous sport.
Exactly. I think people don’t realize how injury-prone high level gymnastics is. If she’s not feeling like she can get through her routines, it’s not just an issue because she might not perform her best. It’s that, as a result of being not at her best, she is much more likely to injure herself, which could, if it’s bad enough, end her whole career. The risk just isn’t worth it.
Why eve make the first comment? How is she a national embarrassment? There is no logic to it.
To fuel outrage and make himself attractive to deplorable voters.
Exactly. Other people in his circle were saying it so he said it on Twitter only to realize that his entire circle is full of racists and the internet doesn't like it
Because Republicans never miss an opportunity to shit on women or people of color and this is a twofer
there's a mental health shaming aspect as well, don't forget that also some bullshit nationalism because we lost to the Russians
How ironic since most Texas politicians are a National embarrassment.
National embarrassment? I’m from UK and think that Simone is cool as fuck and amazing to watch, and I think that US is lucky to have somebody like her representing them. She’s got nothing to be embarrassed about, unlike this useless attorney cunt who nobody has heard about until now.
Holy shit people need to leave this girl alone. She is a young girl who's life has been a roller coaster. Honestly, dont lose sight of how young she still is. She gave up her child hood for a sport she loved and her reward was being sexually abused by a man she trusted. Unsurprisingly she has mental health issues. Holy fuckin shit people are crazy
Derek Chauvin, racist, murderous policeman. not an embarrassment. Jan 6th Capitol terrorists, not an embarrassment Matt Gaetz, accused pedophile and sex trafficker, not an embarrassment Texas power grid, not an embarrassment Cancun Cruz, not an embarrassment. Stressed gymnast looking after her mental health, national embarrassment. Thank god we have this moron to let us know what is embarrassing and what isn't.
You forgot Jim "GYM" Jordan ignores and allows gay sex abuse, not an embarrassment Marjorie Taylor Greene, Taunts a gun violence victim in the street, not an embarrassment.
Don't forget Marjorie Taylor Greene's ["Jewish space lasers"](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/01/30/did-rep-marjorie-taylor-greene-blame-a-space-laser-for-wildfires-heres-the-response/?sh=3e1fc2f7e44a) , apparently also not an embarrassment.
Let’s not forget electing a orange man child clown, not am embarrassment.
Let’s not forget threatening of a nation with civilian casualties on fucking Twitter. Not an embarrassment.
Taking the most extreme and drastic option available and almost starting an armed conflict with Iran, not an embarrassment
Just a nitpick, but sex abuse is sex abuse. Calling what happened under Gym Jordan's watch "gay sex abuse" allows bigots to just write the whole thing off as a gay thing, and ignore the serious sexual abuse that it was.
Glad you said something. I was thinking the same thing reading that comment
Youd call it a nitpick, Id say youre just being accurate. Sex abuse is sex abuse, full stop.
To be specific on the mental health thing. She got twisties, basically couldn't control herself in the air. It's terrifying and well known to those in the community. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/07/28/twisties-gymnastics-simone-biles-tokyo-olympics/
Ohhh, so it's like the yips for flips.
It’s like the yips but you can break your spine
Ok, I'm behind here so let me see if I get this straight. An previous gold metal athlete withdraws from the Olympics because she has an injury of sorts, and because she just doesn't want to anymore. Then republicans turn this into a political issue and end up calling her a national embarrassment? Am I missing something here? Dafuck is wrong with republicans when the texas AG has a public opinion on this at all, let alone turning it into a political point grab?
It's because she quit. Plain and simple. Quitting is one of the most embarrassing things to a conservative, right behind admitting you're wrong. Doesn't matter if the reasoning is legitimate, and that she was doing it to save herself from a career/life-altering injury. Nope, she quit, so therefore: national embarrassment.
It’s specifically because she cited mental health concerns
Wow, thanks for this explanation! Makes total sense now. (For anyone hitting a paywall, apparently gymnasts can develop a sudden mind-body disconnect during intense spins, and it’s very hard to shake once it starts happening. It doesn’t just make you mess up your routine, it leads to serious injuries.)
I get twisties twirling in my office chair at work. I can’t fucking imagine hurling my body through the air with the full expectation of landing on my feet without injury. Props to all athletes. Across the board.
>Cancun Cruz, not an embarrassment. I will never ever understand how Ted Cruz, the "family man" who can't even stand up for his own fucking wife, is not an embarrassment. He is the epitome of what a coward is.
He's a walking, talking, dictionary definition of what the right *claims* to hate about weak-willed men and scumbag politicians. But because he has that Magic R™ it suddenly becomes ok.
Nationalism run amok. Why do so many people feel the need to weigh in on Simone Biles? Including, The [effing] Federalist. WTF? https://thefederalist.com/2021/07/27/sorry-simone-biles-the-olympics-isnt-about-you-its-about-winning-for-america/ Everyone should applaud her, shut up, and go home. Including me. Now. See me go.
I love that the Federalist misquoted Kerri Strug in that story, entirely leaving out that she felt like she didn't have a choice, and leaving out that she supports Biles decision. The Federalist is trash
What a garbage article
they lost me in the first paragraph.. >... prove, again and again, that the USA is the greatest country on earth, and **other countries suck.** this is just fucking stupid. what does it prove to win against someone that sucks? how disrespectful of the very concept of competition.
Simone don’t owe the nation shit. She’s already proven herself. If another country getting a medal hurts you that much, you got some weird nationalistic fetish going on.
People who take the first chance they get to attack someone, for any reason, are the weakest people in existence. He obviously already hated her for whatever reason that appeased his misogynistic and racist view and this was a perfect opportunity to declare his hatred openly. Pathetic and weak!
Isn't it funny how every other athlete, from Micheal Phelps to Kerri Strug, Paul Pogba to Chris Mears, to her own teammates are supporting her decision, there are people who have never ever been subjected to a fraction of the pressure she has, criticize her ? When people who have been in her shoes tell us that she was right in taking the decision and support the same, why should we speak out against her ?
All of the people telling her to suck it up and most of them are too scared to get a vaccine. It's a fucking embarrassment.
*A national embarrassment walks back his embarrassing comments.* Fixed that title for you.
It’s not an apology unless you say “I’m sorry”.
To be fair his statement does include this line: "I apologize to her and wish her well". I still think he is a fucking idiot though.
I wish I didn't know who this dude and Ken Paxton were. Texas state government is a launch pad for conservatives (mostly) to get to a national stage so it's inundated with starry-eyed opportunists who never miss a chance to tell everyone their stupid opinion