TGIF 9/29/17

Earlier this week, president Trump lost his first election since being elected last fall. And he lost his patience with just about everyone, it seems.

You'll remember, 'he' was successful in winning all of the replacement elections for the folks who left Congress to become cabinet members; the results of those elections I think were as much attributable to  Democrats struggling to get a message out vs. just throwing dollars from all around the country at the different races.

Over the past several weeks he had been running a full-bore Twitter campaign, and even held a rally in Alabama in support of Big Luther Strange, the 'loyal' candidate in the race against Constitution disregarder Judge Roy Moore.  Moore, with the support of Trump's former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, took the primary race.

The outcome for Trump? He started deleting his Big Luther tweets, although he may or may not have time to get all of them taken care of between his "we're doing great in Puerto Rico" messaging and his yelling at his cabinet members and his stumping for his once-in-a-lifetime tax reform for the rich program and threatening #NoKo with war and whatnot.  (In case you're wondering, here's some analysis on the legality of him deleting his tweets).

The outcome for Bannon? Tossed from the White House, reinvigorated at the helm of Breitbart news, and boldly defying his former boss. And oh -- attacking any candidate that has the support of Mitch McConnell (Strange had that, you see), even if it means going on the air against Trump to tell people the best candidate for Trump's agenda. Which, of course, is fascinating -- the guy who has the agenda doesn't even know who best will support it?  Or maybe the better question is, which agenda are we supporting, anyway?

Arizona Senator John McCain confirmed earlier this week his doctors say his prognosis is poor, which is not stopping McCain from doing his job in the Senate, nor is it stopping the president from continuing to bash him for his 'no' vote on the last best hope to make a mess of the Affordable Care Act while not repealing and replacing it.  Trump tweeted a montage of McCain saying the ACA needed to be r-and-r'd. And, according to Axios, Trump is physically mocking McCain's thumbs down vote in July.  Which simply can't be true, since he has never and would never mock anyone who has a disability, or, you now, serious injuries incurred as a POW.

One final note:  a while back, I expressed my dismay that SCOTUS Justice Neil Gorsuch was going to be giving a speech - at Trump's Washington DC hotel - a few days before the start of the 2017-2018 court season. The speech, which was given yesterday at a luncheon for the Fund for American Studies, was met with a few dozen protesters trying valiantly to create the 'din of democracy' that Gorsuch mentioned. He also included this comment:

To be worthy of our First Amendment freedoms we have to all adopt certain civil habits that enable others to enjoy them as well.

Civility? That thing we're seeing none of from the White House these days?

The hotel, of course, is the subject of a number of lawsuits, many pointing at the Emoluments Clause forbidding a president from accepting foreign 'gifts' - and it's possible that these cases will end up before the Supremes at some point...along with all of the other Trump related cases that might be end up there... which is why I was not thrilled with Gorsuch participating in the speech there in the first place.

On the plus side? The president will be relentless in expressing his displeasure with "his" Supreme Court Justice should Gorsuch rule against him at any time -- so I'll hold out hope for that.

In the meantime, TGIF.

You Can Say Anything...

On the subject of disliking someone and not want to do business with them, have you met Milo Yiannopoulos, and heard about his incredibly bad adventure?

Milo, the flamboyant, trouble-making, free-speech-advocating, banned-from-Twitter-for-life former senior editor at Breitbart (the Trump Administration's 2nd most-loved news network), was a fave of the alt-right. He'd say anything for the conservative cause and he was the guy the Right sorta kinda hated to love - I mean, he's a pearl necklace-wearing gay man, after all - but they did love him, sorta kinda, because he was a conservative, and that's all the matters. You remember - party over country and all that, which made Donald Trump an acceptable President.

Among the groups Milo has insulted or offended? Women. Lesbians. Fat people. Ugly people. Muslims. Blacks. Whites. Gays. Native Americans. Liberals. Rape victims... the list goes on.

Milo was invited to speak at Cal-Berkeley until the riots let to cancellation of his appearance, causing our alt-President to threaten the University of California.

Soon, Milo was invited to speak at CPAC, that annual clutch of cackling crony-capitalist conservatives. Here was the American Conservative Union's announcement, from Matt Schlapp:

We realize that this invitation will be accompanied by controversy which we think the conservative movement and our CPAC attendees can handle. Each will use his or her individual judgment as to the worthiness of each speaker, including Milo. ACU has publicly taken on racism and the alt-right and will continue to do so aggressively, like ACU's founders before us. We look forward to hearing Milo's message and having him sit down with Scott Walter to answer some tough questions. We believe that all of us are up to the challenge at a time when political correctness is properly being discarded. 

And of course, there was the tweet, too. The one about free speech, and Milo's "important perspective" on conservatism and political correctness and all the rest, I'm sure is what they were hoping for.

If only.

What happened next? Conservatives got upset with the CPAC invitation, and some among them apparently dug up some old videos of Milo's comments on sexual relations between adults and children, in which he seemed to defend pedophilia, or at least that's what it was made to look like.

The troll was trolled, as self-respecting conservatives took control of the narrative.  The CPAC invitation was rescinded in a tweet saying, in part:

Due to the revelation of an offensive video in the last 24 hours condoning pedophilia, the American Conservative Union has decided to rescind the invitation... We realize that Mr. Yiannopoulos has responded on Facebook but it is insufficient. It is up to him to answer the tough questions...

Which is sort of ironic, since the invitation itself was made based on the premise of Milo answering "tough questions" (albeit a different set of them, I'm sure).

And then, Simon and Schuster cancelled his book deal. And then came his resignation from Breitbart.

Milo is far from done 'being Milo.' His book will come out this year as planned, he said -- other publishers have expressed interest, and he'll of course add a chapter on this most recent part of his life. His "important perspective" will continue to be heard, somewhere, I'm sure.

Whether or not he rises from the fire he himself created, his name will live on, along with the rest of the folks who have been taken down by using their free speech rights to purposely, or accidentally, offend others.