TGIF 8/18/17

I've been tinkering with a post all day long, without getting past my own objections to my writing, so I'm throwing in the towel for now on that, and instead will just noodle about some random things tonight.

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump's main accomplishment,will be speaking to a conservative group at the end of September.

At Trump's Washington DC hotel.

Now, I've always been squeamish with SCOTUS justices giving speeches to ideological organizations - regardless of the ideology in question; something about that just doesn't smell right. Gorsuch's address to the Fund for American Studies at Trump's hotel comes just days before the first Monday in October, when the Court's term kicks off; their docket includes Trump's travel ban. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth, to go along with the smell.

In contrast, some organizations are coming to the decision that holding big charity functions at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Winter White House and home of the 'Have Your Photo Taken with the Football' event. David Farenthold, a reporter for the Washington Post who has been focusing on Trump businesses and charitable acts (or the lack thereof), is reporting that seven organizations have moved from the 'yes we'll be back' column to the 'no, we won't' column. Groups include the Susan G Komen Foundation, the Cleveland Clinic, the American Cancer Society, the Salvation Army, and the Red Cross, which has cancelled its event all together.

So here's a question for you: how long before the president starts attacking these organizations on Twitter? We all know how he hates when people do mean things to him, and taking high profile events away from his beloved Mar-a Lago sure counts as mean.  This has to be way up there on his list of acts requiring retribution. And not only that, but will his base stop donating to these organizations?

On another topic, it seems historians and others have noticed a striking resemblance between monuments to Union soldiers and to Confederate soldiers.  The Washington Post has a story today that includes these two pictures. I know people have long said that the Civil War had brother fighting brother - can you tell who's Blue and who's Grey?

from the Washington Post

That's Union on the left as you look at the pic, and Confederate on the right. The difference? The belt buckles - US for the North, CS for the South. As the article notes,

To the Monumental Bronze Co. in Bridgeport, Conn., it was all just business. Union or Confederate, a customer was a customer, another $450 for a zinc statue that could mean whatever you needed it to mean. It was a business model that could appeal to president Trump - a highly profitable product that could dress up a drab little town and make many Americans feel great again.

One American who's not feeling great again is Susan Bro. The mom of Charlottesville terrorism victim Heather Heyer, Bro has said in an interview that she has received death threats sand that she's not interested in talking to the president.

It seems the White House has reached out a few times, including the first time which might have actually been during Heather's memorial service; there were others after that as well. Bro was too tired to watch the news, and when she did, her opinion changed dramatically - after all, she had thanked Trump earlier in the week for his kind words. But now?

I hadn't really watched the news until last night and I'm not talking to the president now. I'm sorry, after what he said about my child. It's not that I saw somebody else's tweets about him, I saw an actual clip of him at a press conference equating the protesters...with the KKK and the white supremacists. You can't wash this one away by shaking my hand and saying "I'm sorry." I'm not forgiving for that. 

She also offered some advice for Trump:

Think before you speak. 

And finally, one more touch on the #MAGA theme. Trump has been telling us that Foxconn, the foreign company that makes electronics (including Apple products) in Taiwan, was going to be opening a factory in Wisconsin. Jobs, jobs jobs, he told us - that'll keep us from treating each other like crap, quell the racism and white supremacy and whatnot.

For some reason, when I heard the president going on and on about these great Foxconn jobs, I wasn't thinking we were buying those jobs through a massive corporate welfare program, did you?
Well, that's exactly what happened.

The Wisconsin state Assembly reached a deal on the economic development package for Foxconn, which will be putting its new factory in House Speaker Paul Ryan's district. I kid you not. Anyway, the deal is worth $3B -- billion with a B - in mostly cash incentives. The plant will eventually employ 13,000 people (less than the 50K the company said they wanted to create here) and average wages will be around $54K for the first 3,000 hired.

Oh - those incentives? The break-even point on that investment is not expected to hit for at least 25 years.

TGIF.