Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Speaking of fireable offenses...

Wait-wait-wait, hang on. Let's just be absolutely clear about this. Sarah Sanders, the White House Press Secretary, today called for Jemele Hill to be fired for being mean to the President on Twitter.
Pictured: The White House Press Secretary standing at the Press Secretary's podium
in front of the seal of the White House calling for the firing of a private citizen for
criticizing the President on Twitter. Not pictured: the slightest hint of irony.
"The most outrageous comment anyone
could make? Challenge: accepted."

-The technical winner
of last year's election
Sanders was asked to respond to some tweets made by Hill, an ESPN host who called the President a white supremacist and someone who surrounds himself with white supremacists.

"...I think that's one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make, and certainly something that I think is a fireable offense by ESPN."

-Presss Secretary Sanders on-wait,
has she even met the President?

Pictured: Trump and Bush walking arm in
arm with a woman they were moments
before talking about sexually assaulting.
I mean is she unaware of of everything that's spewed forth from her boss's twitter hole over the nine months of his Presidency or the years leading up to it? There was that time back in 2015 when he suggested that Megyn Kelly was menstruating because she had the temerity to press him in a debate. And that time he and Billy Bush weighted the pros and pros of sexual assault. Oh, and remember when he blamed the Orlando nightclub massacre on immigration even though the man who committed it was born in Long Island?

Above: some of the Nazis the
President recently defended.
Because these were all pretty outrageous comments. We know because we're all still pretty outraged by them. Sanders also seems to be forgetting about that time he leapt to the defense of White Supremacists? Literal goddamn Nazis were marching in the street and he defended them. It was way back in August, so maybe it just slipped her mind, but it seems super-relevant because she's calling Hill's comments about white supremacy outrageous. And look, I don't know if Donald Trump is really a white supremacist, but I also don't think Jemele's read is wrong.

Working at the OGE has got to be like
working at Blockbuster. But somehow
sadder and without the pop rocks.
Speaking of Nazis, did no one in the White House have a problem with the fascistic implications of the Press Secretary calling for a private citizen to lose her job? Walter Shaub, the former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics even pointed out that there's a law against government officials using their position to influence private employment decisions. While he doesn't believe Sanders remarks are prosecutable, he did tweet that they were inappropriate and called them "[a]nother important norm down the drain." On a side note, does anyone else feel bad for the OGE?

"I mean, literal goddamn Nazis.."
-Jemele Hill, not being wrong
Well, there's nothing we can do about it. ESPN has distanced themselves from Hill and has refereed to 'disciplinary action' but hasn't said what that is yet. And even if they do fire her, we'll never really be sure if it was because of Sander's call for her dismissal or just corporate cowardice on the part of ESPN. What will be for certain is that she'll have lost her job because she criticized the President. Criticized him for something that's kinda true. That's kind of fucked up, no?

Yes. But what's even more fucked up is that Sanders job is almost certainly secure, despite using her position to try and get Hill fired for voicing her opinion. What Sanders did might not technically be illegal but-wow, is it me, or is this entire administration coasting on the phrase 'it's not technically illegal but...'
As long as she doesn't lead an FBI investigation
into Trump's Russia ties, she'll be fine.

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