There are a number of religious sects that do not ‘honor the flag’ because they consider it a graven image. They don’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance or participate in the National Anthem.

The flag serves a real purpose that has nothing to do with politics. The first flag was adopted by the Continental Congress in 1777 to help the American forces identify friend from foe. There is a military ceremony, trooping the colors, that amounts to show-and-tell, where the troops are formed up and shown the flags of their side so they know who not to kill. Flags are military signals.

The rest of Trump’s latest faux outrage is 20th century psuedo-patriotism.Having nothing better to do after they decided that nothing could be done about the Great Depression, Congress passed a law making the Star-Spangled Banner the national anthem in 1931. John Charles Linthicum, Congresscritter from Maryland, entered 6 bills to accomplish that beginning in 1918, but it took a petition by the Veterans of Foreign Wars to finally move Congress to adopt a poem by a Maryland slave owner set to the music of a British bar song.

Trump has absolutely no claim to honoring the military based on the disrespect shown to Senator John McCain and a Gold Star family. If he had any respect for the military he should have said something about the four Green Berets killed in Africa. I doubt he knows about them, or that as Commander-in-Chief, he is supposed to know about them.

The demonstration by sports figures is covered by a Supreme Court decision:

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.
— Robert H. Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette

All public officials take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, not flags or songs. The Constitution says the NFL players can kneel.

Position: 30.0N 35.7W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: Northeast [040°] near 3 mph [ 6 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 85 mph [140 kph].
Wind Gusts: 110 mph [175 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 70 miles [110 km].
Hurricane Wind Radius: 25 miles [ 35 km].
Minimum central pressure: 986 mb ↓.

Currently about 745 miles [1195 km] Southwest of the Azores.

The tenth hurricane of the season at 4PM CDT.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]