President Donald Trump’s attempt to revive the long-defunct Presidential Fitness Test veered into political scandal and absurdity Thursday after he launched the children’s health initiative alongside a convicted sex offender, boasting that there’s “nobody like him.”
It was meant to be a nostalgic salute to American fitness. Instead, it became a microcosm of the Trump presidency: chaotic, controversial, and colliding with decades of unresolved questions about power, accountability, and abuse.
In front of cameras, Trump signed an executive order reinstating the Presidential Fitness Test in public schools. Framed as a national push for “discipline, strength, and American excellence,” the initiative was rolled out at a Roosevelt Room event meant to evoke Cold War-era unity. What it evoked instead was outrage.
That anger was not about the test itself, though it has its critics, but about who Trump chose to stand beside him.
Former New York Giants linebacker …
Honestly this guy is a wild card and could go in any direction on this issue. We’re in the wilderness politically. Beyond the wilderness. It’s never been more radioactive. I had hope for the “abolitionist” leftists who seemed to gain steam in the past few years. Thought leaders and academics in that movement were clear that registrants are subject to the same forces and injustices as all other subjects of the criminal justice system. But on the ground, the leftist activists I encountered just couldn’t stomach that. The activist right may in practice regularly accommodate registrants … but for all of the wrong reasons. I may have spent a few years as a oppositional libertine but that was an error. We can’t have a society that doesn’t value stability and reasonable social norms. That doesn’t mean witch-hunts do any good. I hope for a move to centrist, rules-based incrementalism. I have no power over this and don’t expect it, but pray for it.
I’d like someone complaining about Lawrence Taylor’s appointment explain in explicit detail exactly what the danger is in him assuming that (largely symbolic) post. Do they seriously think his position will somehow facilitate sex crimes against children, by him or anyone else? Exactly how would that occur?
So if it’s an image thing, how about this? Lawrence Taylor is one of the top five greatest linebackers of all time. Being a registrant doesn’t change that. His sex crime conviction is nearly 15 years old with no other sex related charges since.
Where’s that pen I know it’s here somewhere. that bridge it looks closer.
A lot of good comments here so far, but for me, this shows one thing: When it comes to many sex crimes, the emperor has no clothes. Nobody. Bloody. Cares. It’s all fake, from the bottom to the top. Epstein? Fake. Trump’s approval ratings have actually improved since the “crisis” of his administration admitting there is no list. It turns out that nobody really cares deeply about sex between teens and older adults. They just pretend to care—for political reasons. The Right pretends to care to hate LGBT, the Left pretends to care to hate wealthy white men. Certain lawyers pretend to care to extort billionaires. Europeans pretend to care to kick migrants out. No one actually loses any sleep over teens having sex with adults, just as they haven’t cared for thousands of years of human history. The only teenagers people actually care about are their own children, which is exactly how it’s supposed to be.
Cocaine trafficker Alice Johnson visited the White House multiple times without a fuss. And former Gangster Disciple & multiple killer Larry Hoover will likely do the same when he goes and thanks Trump for his pardon. I despise much of Trump and his party politics, but people need to give him a break on this one. It’s not like he’s invited Jeffrey Epstein 🫣 to the White House
Meanwhile, the lawmakers in Alabama are trying to reinstate the death penalty for us. That is it, republikkkans have absolutely lost their minds. I have no words.
We stomp our feet and shout for forgiveness and to be treated like citizens, humans and then when one of us DOES catch a break, we demonize him because of the person who gave him that break?
How many of us on this forum would be even remotely qualified and popular enough, yes in the real world, popularity and wealth matter, welcome to the United States, is it your first day?
Don’t like it, get wealthy and/or popular.
I despise LT and it has nothing to do with his crime, I despise him because as a life long Cheesehead, which was hard enough to be in the 80s, but even harder when the blue wall labeled 56 crushed our QBs like they were ants.
Ghislaine Maxwell got moved to a camp. BOP policy for a person convicted of a sex offense is no camps, yet after meeting with the DOJ she gets moved out of FL to a cushy joint in Texas. Now this person gets front row but when it comes to the average person, not a chance. Select enforcement as always. If I had the money, just for fun I would sue the BOP on behalf of all those sitting in prison right now denied a camp.
We all make mistakes and with a chance we will try to right a wrong and make the world a better place given the opportunity. Unfortunately being a Registered Citizen narrows the volunteering choices. I am happy to see this man is able to give back and be noticed.