Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

As the current situation continues to worsen because Trump continues to deploy his anonymous stormtroopers and rip up America and the Constitution, we will remember who chose not to stand up for this country but to stand against it. The New York Yankees have chosen poorly, very poorly.

The fact that I have been a lifelong fan of the New York Yankees makes this one extra tough: The New York Yankees have chosen to provide Herr Donald Trump with what will amount to a Trump rally for an audience of millions of TV viewers. They have invited the fascist who is burning America to the ground, both figuratively and literally, the dictator wannabe who leads what amounts to the biggest death cult in American history, to throw out the ceremonial first ball of a Yankee baseball game. The original date was to be Saturday August 15th and you can bet that, since that game is on a Saturday, arrangements would have been made to feature it as the FOX Sports "Game Of The Week" in addition to being broadcast on their own network.

As it stands now, however, there has been enough blowback, even from the highly suspect Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz to force The Orange Menace To Society to at least temporarily back away. You can read Diaz's comments at the link I've provided. Late Sunday, Trump tweeted the following:

Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduling meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won't be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankkees on August 15th. We will make it later in the season.

There he goes again with "China Virus." The idea of "make it later in the season" is really up in the air now since at least several games have already been postponed, with more probably about to be postponed, due to an outbreak of positive tests for COVID-19 among the Florida Marlins players and staff. I guess it's not surprising that it's a Florida team we're talking about but the MLB (Major League Baseball) has taken every precaution to prevent such a scenario. They have used the best technology and medical protocols available to ward off what has happened and it has not worked. Within a few days, we may even hear that the MLB season is kaput after only 3 o4 4 games. None of this, however, should distract us from the simple fact that the NY Yankee invitation to Trump is yet another MLB scandal. This is a bigger scandal than the Houston Astros cheating scandal. It's bigger than the betting habits of Pete Rose. In fact, it's the biggest MLB scandal since their decades-long banning of all black players from the major leagues.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I do not blame the players or coaches. I'm sure that among them, they have a variety of political viewpoints. Management and ownership of the team has always been another matter. I mean, George Steinbrenner, the late owner? He was such a fuckhead that he gave an illegal campaign contribution to Nixon. 50 years later, the team is still owned by the Steinbrenner family. Team management also includes flaming Trump supporters in President Randy Levine and General Manager Brian Cashman.

The Yankees have built a great new stadium and put millions into player development and salaries in order to have a great team. Knowing which side their bread is buttered one, they allowed that team to express their solidarity for social justice on last week's opening day of the season; free speech and all that. The question now is what to do when ownership and management invite a virulent racist anti-free speech totalitarian monster who is the embodiment of being against social justice and against free speech to throw out the first ball of a game. It's about symbolism and more. It's a "We're down with white supremacy and fascism" marketing statement. Yankee ownership is pushing its own right to free speech over the edge and in doing so they are showing their desire to be a bigger part of pushing this country off a cliff and into the abyss of inhuman totalitarianism. Apparently, they don't even see the irony of inviting the cretinous monster responsible for there being empty stadiums across the entire country. What pro-fascism event will the New York Yankees permit their stadium to be used for next? Nixon once had thousands of protesters swept up, beaten and imprisoned at Washington's RFK Stadium. Trump would no doubt go further than that and use what happened in Chile's Estadio Nacional in 1973 as a guide.

Take a good look at those corporate logos in the meme above. Now picture the insane Orange Menace To Society standing on that pitcher's mound to throw out a first ball with all of those logos, the biggest of which is the Yankees logo, as a backdrop. Maybe there'll even be MAGA spelled out on the giant video screen or maybe he'll be wearing a special New York Yankee MAGA Edition hat presented to him by Brian Cashman himself. There may be no better photographic illustration of Fascism with a capital F defined as the total merger of Corporations with Totalitarian Government than that backdrop. Yes, the money generated for the Yankees by the display of those logos pays for the lights and the player salaries, but this is much, much bigger than that.

One final thought: If Major League Baseball, with all of the organization, money, and medical science it has at its disposal, can't protect its players, how are our woefully underfunded schools going to protect our children and their teachers?


Addendum:

The story just keeps getting more and more curious, and our insane president just keeps on providing layers of wackiness. To the alleged, (emphasis 'alleged') surprise of both his White House staff, and the Yankees, Trump announced last Thursday that he would be throwing out his ceremonial  pitch on Saturday August 15. Thursday was the day that Dr. Anthony Fauci threw out the first pitch at the NY Yankees and Washington Nationals opening day game and Trump, as usual, didn't like all of the favorable attention that someone else was receiving. It especially mattered that it was Dr. Fauci who was receiving the attention.

Apparently, President Mental Case decided he would take Yankees president Randy Levine up on a Yankees long standing heinous offer to go throw a first pitch. Said President Mental Case:

Randy Levine is a great friend of mine from the Yankees, and he asked me to throw out the first pitch, and I think I am doing that on August 15 at Yankee Stadium.

The funny thing about the Yankees here is that it took them 4 days, count 'em, 4 days, to deny that they had invited Trump and for Trump to issue his orange face-saving tweet. This is where it would be natural for anyone to conclude that either Trump or the Yankees are lying. Here we have a case where it appears that both are lying. The whole episode is disgraceful in multiple ways.