Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Today marks the opening of the NFL season. There are those who, like Fake President Trump, encourage police brutality and there are those, like many NFL players, who peacefully protest police brutality against minorities. It goes even deeper than that of course. The "very fine people" who Trump counts among his supporters march in defense of a "heritage" that includes hanging black Americans from trees. To Republicans, that's a heritage to be proud of. To decent, civilized voters, it's not.

As for protest, America was built on protest. As the clip below shows, senate candidate Beto O'Rourke, who is running against Ted Cruz, has addressed the issue with real leadership and intelligence, the very opposite of what the Orange Fascist inflicts on America.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Announcing a new policy, the National Football League owners and their Commissioner, Roger Goodell, have come down heavily against kneeling players who protest racial inequality and police brutality against African-Americans; all to please a racist draft-dodging con artist that they support with their campaign contributions. I suppose that, considering Goodell's past light treatment of players who beat up women, we shouldn't be surprised.

Meanwhile, President Bone Spurs has suggested that those players who protest police brutality and racial inequality "shouldn't be in the country." No, you stark, raving-mad Hitler wannabe, it is you who shouldn't be in the country. In a sane world, you wouldn't even belong in this century.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

-by Noah

This year, the ratings (NFL ratings) have gone backward because of the controversy. The controversy is polarizing the customer, polarizing the country.
--Papa John's "Pizza" CEO John Schnatter, trying to assign blame for his product's lagging sales on kneeling NFL football players.

Papa John's CEO John Schnatter, known for his cretinish wingnut approach to life, made the above comment on a call with investors on Wednesday. The truth is, however, that the sales picture of Papa John's (the Official Pizza of the NFL) was already going down in each of the first two quarters of this year, months before the third quarter start of the current NFL season. Nice try, Schnatter! If you were going to take that kind of tack, it would have made more sense to accuse your buddy Señor Trumpanzee of driving customer eyeballs away from your non-stop ads on game broadcasts as the reason for your lost sales, not that that would ever happen or that his opinion would matter to anyone who hasn't already fallen for his other cons. As to why the NFL's ratings are down somewhat, it makes more sense, in the reality normal people live in, to look at the accelerated public concerns about the longterm effects of head trauma and the high profile charges of domestic abuse among the league's players.

For a moment, let's forget what kind of person runs Papa John's "Pizza." Let's get right to the product. I live in New York. There's pizza and there's "pizza." On the list of top 25 choices for pizza here in New York, whatever that stuff Papa John's sells is comes in at about number 1850. I'll put it another way: Imagine you were sitting in a nice outdoor cafe in Paris and you sat down to enjoy some great wine and great cheese. In anticipation, you know the bread will be amazing, but then, they bring out a few slices of Wonder Bread. Papa John's is worse. I once worked in a studio here where, when it came time to order in some food, we pulled out the accordion file that held the menus and there, in the wide variety of healthy and unhealthy food choices, was a Papa John's menu. Someone had properly taken a sharpie and written "Are you fooking kidding?" across the top of the menu. For added perspective, the version choice of the expletive used indicates that the writer hailed from England, a country well-known for its very low standards when it comes to food. So, that's saying something. Here in New York, we just know Papa Johns's as "the pizza even the rats won't eat."

Schnatter's statement even brought derision from his marginally better competitors, Pizza Hut and DiGiorno. As you can see at the link, the tweets are flying! Let the trash pizza tweet wars begin!

A guy like Schnatter is probably happy about all of the attention. After all, it is often said that when it comes to marketing, it's all about getting your brand noticed, period. Unfortunately, as one of today's two memes indicates, other things that reveal what kind of person Schnatter is are being noticed, too. Choke on a slice, Schnatter! Choke on a slice, and treat the head of Chic-fil-a to a slice, too, while your at it.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

-by Noah

To some, the kneeling football player thing is tired. Some see it as a distraction or even a diversion from "bigger issues." I don't see it that way so I'm posting about it again. To me, the story gets to the core of what Señor Trumpanzee is, a sadistic, racist psychopath who seeks out every opportunity to inflict pain upon others. Case in point: His obsession with undoing anything his predecessor did; anything, even if it benefited the health of American citizens, our reputation with our allies, the lives of our allies, or even our own national security. Even his tax plan is sadistic towards those he looks down upon and has cheated all his life in that it raises the taxes of working class families while cutting the taxes of those in his own bracket by 4% or more, while also cutting estate taxes for only the very wealthy.

Trump and his wingnut supporters see NFL players kneeling as a chance to do one of those things they most love to do, i.e. put down African-Americans who dare to make an effort to defend themselves from injustice, even death. Trump's supporters lie about the kneeling having something to do with insulting "the flag," "the anthem," or "the troops." Some of them may even believe that, having rationalized their bigotry into a cover story that makes them feel righteous. There's a ton of irony in that. After all, one of the key reasons the players are doing what they are doing is that bad cops have been doing the ultimate put down of African-Americans, with their guns. In denigrating the protests of the players, the wingnuts are protesting those who protest racism. That's not surprising. Republicans enjoy their racism. They embrace it as a motivating force in who they are. So, of course, they protest those who kneel. How dare anyone protest against racism! The severely mentally ill Donald Trump knows this. He knows who and what his supporters are. They are him. His money is just a different wrapper.

For this reason, the story of NFL players taking a knee during the pre-game playing of the national anthem is not a tired story to me. We can't let Trump's propagandistic message about this issue be one-sided. From Trump's continuing tweeting about it to his Mike Pence stunt, it gets to the essence of what a divisive cancer Trump is for our country. And, for him, it's not just about having yet another opportunity to wave his racist freak flag, the flag that means so much more to him than our country's stars and stripes.

There's even more behind Trump's attacks on NFL players. He is also attacking the NFL itself, trying to turn his wacko supporters against the league. Why? Yes, he can use it all to rally his "very fine people", but it's also a very personal thing for him to attack the NFL as a whole. It's not just the players, it's also the owners, many of whom actually contributed large sums of money to his hideous campaign. The reason for the attack on the whole NFL? Simple. The NFL wouldn't let him join their club. Poor, sick in the head Donnie has felt rejected by the other rich guys for decades.

Once upon a time, in the early 1980s, Trump had a professional football team. It was the New Jersey Generals of the upstart United States Football League (USFL), a league that he helped establish back in 1982. HIs marketing and legal"strategies" for the league's growth, such as it was, is usually credited with leading to the league's demise. It's yet another example of a Trump failed business: Steaks, Wine, Airline, Football, raising his kids, and now America. The man is a failure in everything. He surrounds himself with gold but he has demonstrated a reverse Midas touch. As the USFL was going down in flames, Trump even thought some of its teams, especially his Generals, could be absorbed into the NFL, not unlike the former American Football League had been in the previous decade. That might have happened, if not for the fact that the NFL owners of the time wouldn't touch Trump with a 20 foot pole. They couldn't stand him. They saw him as the scumbag huckster con man that he is. Many of the NFL owners are no prizes themselves, but, even they had some standards, and, low as they were, Trump didn't even meet them.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

-by Noah

Poor little cloying, Trump-worshiping, kiss-ass snowflake Pence. Playing the Simpson's Smithers to Donald Trump's evil corporate pig Mr. Burns, Mike Pence was so offended by people kneeling to protest racial inequality, injustice, and police brutality that he did his master's bidding and walked out of a NFL game on Sunday. His enduring love for his boss made it so easy. Being Señor Trumpanzee's number 2, he gladly staged his boss's requested publicity stunt by going to an Indianapolis Colts game intending to walk out in a huff as soon as someone dared to exercise a right that good Americans died for; and that's exactly what he did, accompanied by his handler/fake wife chaperone, and carrying his pre-written press release with him.

I don't know what species Pence is but I suspect his latin genus-species name would be something like Pencis Douchebagis. The very idea of Americans being against the white supremacy attitudes of his boss and his party scares the shit out of Mike Pence. It makes him soooo mad. Republicans whine on and on about people who kneel against racism, speak against racism, and march against racism. They are affronted. Racism has been their brand for the last 50 years. How dare anyone call them out on it, especially (in their eyes) those "uppity blacks. They call the kneelers ingrates and much, much worse, just as slave owners once called slaves ingrates for not appreciating the gifts of Christianity, housing, and food.

It never occurs to intellectual dimwits that the best way to stop players from kneeling would be to address the evils of racism rather than continue to institutionalize it and expand it, but, why would they when they can play racism for all its worth to drive Republican voters to the polls. Some call Pence's despicable action yet another distraction devised by the Trump administration to pull our attention away from their acts of mayhem, fascism, and corruption. However, calling Pence's action a distraction makes light of this administration's promotion of attitudes and policies that promote racism and injustice.

Trump, Pence and their supporters would have you think that this kneeling thing is about disrespect for the American flag, the military, the national anthem itself, and who knows what else; apple pie and motherhood, perhaps? They childishly bitch and moan about all this while seemingly two-thirds of their own party marches in the streets worshiping the flag of the traitors of the Confederacy and the flag of a man who killed 6,000,000 people in death camps. The rest endorse this behavior with their silent approval. This, folks, is the republican party of 2017. This is what they voted for, march for, and scream about on FOX and in their blogs. If you google their memes about players kneeling, you will be shown an overwhelmingly pervasive tone of Republican racism, right down to pictures of kneeling gorillas in football uniforms. That's one meme you won't be seeing here on DWT.

It's not at all surprising that Pence would do what he did on Sunday. He was once the Indiana governor, a state that, back in the 1920s, was fully controlled by the KKK from the Governor's office and its legislature on down. KKK attitudes have mellowed somewhat in Indiana, but they are still very prevalent, as KKK operatives have recently demonstrated and actively supported Republican candidates in the state. It's safe to say that those attitudes helped Pence get elected in the first place, and, it's no stretch at all to point to that as one of the reasons he was chosen by Trump to be VP. Pence's act on Sunday was a throwing down of the pro-racism gauntlet. The Trump administration was making its stand and calling on its followers to do the same. Pence might as well have burned a cross in the parking lot. But, that's for another day, a day that seems to be approaching.

Addendum: "World Take A Knee Day," an idea whose time has come.

Suppose there was a million kneeling "march" on Washington on January 20th. Why not throw some humiliation back? You know more people would show up than showed up for nutboy's inauguration. If a few players is all it takes to get one walking cancer shaped like a man to leave a stadium, shouldn't we consider a few million American citizens taking a Sunday off to go kneel on the mall in front of the Capitol Building and the White House to purge Congress and the White House of the disease of republicanism? Short of that, perhaps even more Americans could take a knee at noon on November 8th, the one year anniversary of Trump's "election?" At noon on that day, people across the country and the world, Americans and other world citizens, could take a knee, maybe even while "This Land Is Your Land" plays on everyone's iPod or phone.

More On The Inauthenticity Of Right Wing Ideologue Mike Pence

Monday morning, after Mike Pence's nasty little stunt over the weekend, the NFL's Player's Association felt compelled the release a statement on their members constitutional rights:

NFL players are union members and part of the labor movement that has woven the fabric of America for generations. Our men and their families are also conscientious Americans who continue to be forces for good through our communities and some have decided to use their platform to peacefully raise awareness to issues that deserve attention.

It is a source of enormous pride that some of the best conversations about these issues have taken place in our locker rooms in a respectful, civil and thoughtful way that should serve as a model for how all of us can communicate with each other.

  We should not stifle these discussions and cannot allow our rights to become subservient to the very opinions our Constitution protects. That is what makes us the land of the free and home of the brave.

Gregg Doyel is a sports columnist for the Indianapolis Star , Indiana's top newspaper. His Sunday column was harsh towards the state's former governor, accusing him of using the Colts in a cheap political p.r. stunt against the First Amendment.

Two weeks after President Trump decreed that NFL players who kneel during the national anthem should be fired, Vice President Mike Pence walked out of Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday after about 20 members of the San Francisco 49ers knelt during the anthem. The 49ers were in town to play the Indianapolis Colts.

Pence was in town to upstage Peyton Manning.

What, you think he didn’t know the 49ers would kneel on Sunday? Pence knew. The 49ers are the one franchise, the only franchise, that have had at least one player kneel before every game since Colin Kaepernick was the first to do it in the 2016 preseason. Kaepernick played for the 49ers, of course. Last week, following Trump’s unpatriotic assertion that he would fire someone for exercising their First Amendment rights, more than half the San Francisco roster knelt.

Pence knew.

Hell, the media members that follow Pence were told before the game not to bother leaving their vans and enter Lucas Oil Stadium, according to a tweet from NBC News Vaughn Hillyard. They wouldn’t be there long, because Pence wouldn’t be there long. Trump, as Trump is wont to do, took credit in a tweet for Pence's walkout by saying he'd asked Pence to leave if anyone knelt.

This was planned.

And he wrote that he is "stunned that the President-- and now Vice President-- of the United States would take such a public position against one of the greatest rights the U.S. Constitution grants us: freedom of speech. It’s one thing for you to rip NFL players for kneeling during the anthem. They have the right to kneel, and you have the right to hate it. You have the right to boo. You have the right to rise from your seat and leave the game. So many of my family members fought overseas, some of them not coming back completely whole, for you to have that right. So, boo. So, leave. You don’t have my agreement, but you have my support. But when the top two elected leaders of our democracy decide that political speech-- in this case, a silent and non-violent form of political speech-- is unacceptable to the point of walking out of the game where it happens, well, that’s chilling. That’s the kind of oppressive nonsense our ancestors were leaving when they crossed the Atlantic Ocean hundreds of years ago."

He also asked "how much taxpayer money did Pence waste to make this grandiose statement of political oppression, anyway? He traveled here with his usual contingent of aides and bodyguards, and he didn’t fly standby on Delta. Chew on that for just a minute." Figures I've seen range from $250,000 on the low end to as much as $400,000. As Philip Bump mentioned Monday morning in the Washington Post, "Pence’s appearance at the game and his well-coordinated exit from it was staged... Pence’s flight to Indianapolis was planned for weeks; his social-media response ready to go with a graphic immediately after he left the stadium. It’s an impressive level of preparation for an administration, as it turns out, focused on goading the president’s base into anger at black athletes. The trip wasn’t free, and the idea that it was a cost savings is ridiculous. But the really galling aspect of Pence’s jaunt was that it demonstrated the sort of issue on which the administration is deliberate about having its act together."

So what about the quickie trip out to California from Indianapolis? That wasn't just something Pence threw together at the last minute either. As Alexei Koseff of the Sacramento Bee explained "If Democrats are going to take back control of the House of Representatives next year, their path travels straight through California. Half of the 14 remaining members of the state’s Republican congressional delegation won last November in districts that went to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton." And those were the seats Pence-- and Kevin McCarthy-- are trying to save for the GOP.

After arriving yesterday for an event in Beverly Hills, Pence is scheduled to make three more stops across the state today, starting this morning in Bakersfield, McCarthy’s hometown.

Republican National Committeeman Shawn Steel will host a luncheon with Pence at Newport Beach’s Pelican Hill Golf Club, according to the Orange County Register. Four of the seven targeted members-- Reps. Darrell Issa of Vista, Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa, Ed Royce of Fullerton and Mimi Walters of Laguna Niguel-- represent portions of Orange County, which selected a Democrat for president for the first time in 80 years in 2016.


Pence finishes the evening in Sacramento, according to details provided to The Bee. The event, at the Hyatt Regency on L Street, includes a VIP roundtable, a photo reception and a dinner starting at 8:30 p.m.

Ted Lieu (D-CA) is delighted Pence is in California. Yesterday he told us that "Pence supports Trump's deficit-exploding tax plan, which also disproportionately hurts Californians by eliminating the state and local income tax deduction. In addition, Pence spent over $242,000 of taxpayers money to fly to a football game and then leave, purely as a PR stunt. As the Vice Chair of the Western Region for the DCCC, I am pleased there will be pictures of Pence standing next to vulnerable Republican Members of Congress."

None of the California Democratic candidates I spoke to seemed concerned either. Sam Jammal, the progressive taking on Ed Royce (CA-39), had a great attitude, much like Lieu's: "Welcome to Southern California Vice President Pence! We voted for Hillary, not your boss. Though you may still think we are living in the 1950's and this is the old Nixon Orange County of yesterday, we actually have nothing in common with you today. It's 2018 and we believe in science, support women's rights, respect our LGBTQ friends, value immigrants and believe the economy shouldn't just work for the 1%. Take some time to admire our coast, diversity and culture. It might do you some good when you return to DC. Before you leave, take plenty of photos with Ed Royce. He will pretend you aren't friends this time next year, but we all know he is your most loyal Yes Man."

Laura Oatman, the progressive running for the Orange County seat Dana Rohrabacher occupies, sent me the photo above from the protests along Pence's route to the Pelican Hill Golf Club where he's raised campaign funds from GOP fat cats trying to keep Rohrabacher in office. "Pence’s stunt yesterday is right out of Donald Trump’s sophomoric playbook," she told us. "Pretending to protest a legitimate protest, his political prank cost taxpayers over $200K. And today he has the audacity to come to my hometown to raise money for our very 'patriotic' Dana Russiabacker. I wonder if he was surprised by the number of true patriots in Newport Beach who were out there protesting his visit?"

Kia Hamadanchy is one of the progressives running for the CA-45 seat held-- but not lived in-- by Trump rubber-stamp Mimi Walters. He's not surprised about Pence's fundraiser for her in Rohrabacher's district (where she lives.) "It's no wonder that Mike Pence is coming to Orange County to raise money for Mimi Walters. Why wouldn't he for the person who by all accounts is one of Donald Trump's favorite members of Congress and who has backed his agenda wholeheartedly and without question? It's also not surprising that Mimi Walters prefers that Mike Pence come raise money for her in the district in which she actually lives in, not the one she represents. At the end of the day its doesn't matter how many times Mike Pence comes to Orange County to raise money for her. Mimi Walters has not been accountable or accessible to her constituents and come November 2018 she will see that all the money raised in the world is going to allow her to escape or hide her record of supporting Donald Trump every single step of the way."

Ricardo Franco is way up in the Central Valley, running for the seat Devin Nunes is clinging to. Pence was in the area with McCarthy Sunday. The right-of-center DCCC establishment candidate, Andrew Janz, is off in DC hobnobbing with lobbyists and corrupt politicians but Franco is working in the district to help make CA-22 voters aware of what we're all facing with the rise of Trumpism. "After Pence's staged walk-out this weekend from an NFL game, it's clear that he's also willing to waste taxpayer money and any credibility he had simply to do 45's bidding," he told us. "His trip to deep-blue California to save House seats targeted by the DCCC shows they're desperate. I doubt Republicans can hold onto seats simply relying on the base Trump depended on to get elected. However, one thing is clear: Pence and other Republicans would do better to save themselves by actually passing good, meaningful legislation to boost their resumes rather than raising money to spread more lies. He can now join our local Congressman Devin Nunes as one of Trump's lap-dogs. Pence will tour California this week because Republicans know that Trump's presence would be ill-received, and Nunes will attend a GOP fundraiser next week in wealthy San Mateo County instead of meeting with constituents here. The GOP is trying to perpetuate a cycle of failure they started back in November: raise money from the wealthy and special interests to win seats in government, fail to get anything done, then blame Democrats to raise more money... all while forgetting about regular, working-class people trying to feed families."

Booing-- A Guest Post By Paul Lukasiak

-by Paul Lukasiak

The people who are complaining about NFL players taking a knee during The Star Spangled Banner don't give a damn about respect for the anthem, or the flag, or veterans. If they did, they'd be livid about a far greater demonstration of contempt for those symbols-- the booing engaged in by those who oppose the protesting NFL players.

An NFL player who takes a knee during the anthem is engaging in the least intrusive form of protest possible... those who disapprove of his actions can simply look away, and focus their attention where they themselves would say the attention really belongs-- on the flag that is being displayed, and/or the person singing the anthem. No one is forcing anyone to deal with the players' protests at all-- yet these players are roundly condemned by so-called “patriots” for “disrespecting the flag.”

Meanwhile, hundreds (thousands?) of fans are loudly booing during the anthem to protest the players who take a knee, and not only do these same “partriots” not criticize the fans, they often praise those who boo. But what could be more disrespectful to the flag and the anthem than to protest in a way that is simply unavoidable?

While the players are in no way interfering in the ceremony, booing is a direct assault on the anthem. You can look away from the players, but you can't “hear away” from someone booing while you are trying to listen to the anthem. The booing is inescapable-- and the only way to avoid hearing it is to avoid hearing the anthem as well.

But I've yet to see one single “patriot” who is the least bit disturbed by the booing-- let alone be mortified by this egregiously assaultive display of disrespect toward “the anthem, the flag, the troops, and our veterans.” The only thing these “patriots” have a problem with is black men getting attention while protesting the pervasive racism of the criminal justice system in this country. Its an offense to ask white sports fans to take a moment to consider a reality that black people live with all day, everyday.

As for the anthem, it was written in 1814 by Franc1s Scott Key. In 1814, well over 80% of the black people living in the United States were slaves. Thus, when Key wrote the words “O'er the land of the free,” he was clearly relegating black people to the status of non-persons.

This is unsurprising, given that Key was the son of a wealthy slave owner and owned slaves himself. Key was also adamantly opposed to abolitionism and used his power as US Attorney for Washington DC to suppress the abolitionist movement.

But despite this history, white “patriots” demand that black athletes treat Key's song as sacrosanct,and act as if the atrocities done to their ancestors in the name of the flag never happened.

 

The Midnight Meme Of The Day!

-by Noah

A message to Republicans who love being played by Con Man Trump and the crackpot media. I know you would never protest racial bias or injustice. We all know why. You're all for it. Being biased sits at the core of your beliefs. You've shown it time and time again. It's what you vote for, time and time again. Now, you've sided with injustice again. It's sickening how you wrap yourselves in the flag in the name of your evil. You and your orange fascist leader are an absolute disgrace.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

-by Noah

Two for the price of one today! And why not? It seems that Señor Trumpanzee, aka "The Great Racial Divider," has gone so far into exploring his personal bigotry space that his cheese has completely fallen off his cracker, hit the floor and been instantly runoff with by a group of little meandering, sheet-wearing mice, aka his Republican Party followers and enablers. Trump, of all people, talks about "respecting the America?"

Here in New York, we've known about Trump's not so hidden white supremacy tendencies at least since his very public stance on the Central Park Five case back in 1989. With the aid of the complicit, silent mainstream media, Trump is no longer just a racist demagogue; he is the racist demagogue President of the United States, aided and abetted by both houses of the complicit and silent United States Congress.

As we all know, Señor Trumpanzee went to Alabama last Friday to campaign for Alabama's U.S. senator, Luther Strange (If that isn't a comic book name, I don't know what is). Trump has made a habit of going to places where he will, logically, feel comfortable. Alabama is a place where people insult America and its flag 24hrs. a day by displaying the flag of their beloved Confederacy in their living rooms and on the bumpers of their cars and trucks. To Trump voters, Donald Trump is their new Jefferson Davis.

In his speech, the draft-dodging Trump decided to bring up the topic of professional football players taking a knee during the pre-game playing of our national anthem in order to protest the ongoing racial injustice that sickens moral people and is a grievous affront to the United States Constitution. Republicans, with their proven natural disgust of anything that smacks of racial equality and racial justice, have managed to play the naive and gullible into believing that "taking a knee" is an attack on all police, the military, and the country itself. Bullshit! It's not surprising though that Republicans, who have no time for the concept of equality or desire to understand it, don't get what's going on or want to twist it into something else.

I have to wonder how many Republican voters are sitting around in their underwear in front of their TV, clutching a beer and choking on a pretzel while the national anthem plays, impatiently waiting, for their game of the week to begin? To republicans, black athletes are people of a different social caste. Black athletes are, to quote their mental case of a leader, "those people" and "sons of bitches". Trump's speech was his best channeling of old racist Dixiecrat George Wallace yet, if only because he went to Alabama to give it. The NFL players are not protesting the flag anymore than Rosa Parks was protesting the idea of public transportation.

Meanwhile in Puerto Rico... Oh wait, "those people" don't matter.

Lay Down With Trump-- Get Up With Cooties... A Less Fancy Way Of Explaining Reputational Risk

Friday evening, Eric Ebron, Detroit Lions tight end, tweeted a question: "Does anyone tell Trump to stick to politics, like they tell us to stick to sports?" Trump had been busy attacking Stephen Curry and Colin Kaepernick and the NFL. NFL Players Association’s executive director, DeMaurice Smith responded that "This union will never back down when it comes to protecting the constitutional rights of our players as well as their safety as men who compete in a game that exposes them to great risks" and this morning, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell released a statement that rebuked Señor Trumpanzee: "The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture. There is no better example than the amazing response from our clubs and players to the terrible natural disasters we’ve experienced over the last month. Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities." Trump petulantly cancelled an invitation to the White House for Stephen Curry who had already said he didn't want to go. Trump's assertion that it was a great honor to be invited to the White House was true-- until he moved in.

Who cares? Probably a lot of sports fans. But also a lot of White House staffers. That picture up top-- from The Onion-- depicts Sebastian Gorka being welcomed to the halfway house for fired Trump Regime members. But what about the left-behinds? A report this morning from Politico's Nancy Cook reports that staffers are looking for the exits and that "after a wave of high-profile White House departures this summer, staffers who remained are reaching out to headhunters to discuss their next move." She wrote it's "a fast-growing number" and it's "aides up and down the chain" who are currently "reaching out to headhunters, lobbyists, and GOP operatives for help finding their next job."

Staffers from the National Economic Council-- where director Gary Cohn is expected to be on his way out altogether after tax reform or onto a different role-- as well as the communications shop and beyond are quietly exploring their next moves. They’re talking to headhunters about positions as in-house government affairs experts at major companies, or as executives at trade associations, universities, or consulting firms-- ironically, jobs that run counter to Trump’s “drain the swamp” mantra.

Political appointees want to leave for myriad reasons, according to recruiters, Republican operatives and White House officials. Morale is low, the Russia investigations seem only to grow in scope and constant churn at the top has left some staffers without patrons in a workplace known for backbiting and a tribal-like attitude.

“There will be an exodus from this administration in January,” said one Republican lobbyist, who alone has heard from five officials looking for new gigs. “Everyone says, ‘I just need to stay for one year.’ If you leave before a year, it looks like you are acknowledging that you made a mistake.”

Staffers are already laying the groundwork through networking, lunches, and résumés sent to D.C.-based executive recruiters, so that they can a land new job by the start of 2018. Two headhunters confirmed that they had heard from multiple White House staffers.

“There is no joy in Trumpworld right now,” said one adviser in frequent contact with several staffers. “Working in the White House is supposed to be the peak of your career, but everyone is unhappy, and everyone is fighting everyone else.”

...Roughly 23 White House staffers have also resigned or been fired since January including high-profile departures such Priebus, , Bannon and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to lesser-known appointees such as Michael Short of the communications shop, Derek Harvey of the National Security Council, or former deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh.

This constant departures and changes in leadership could make it difficult for the administration to woo Republicans or top policy experts for new openings, said one executive recruiter-- a problem compounded by the fact that the administration is still trying to fill vacant political positions in both the West Wing and federal agencies.

So far, the Trump White House has nominated roughly 345 appointees for Senate-confirmed positions. By Sept. 22 in past administrations, Obama had nominated 459 people while President George W. Bush had nominated 588 and Clinton 407, according to historical data kept by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.

“The question ultimately is whether people face a reputational risk by serving in this administration. Will it hurt people?” added the recruiter, who hires for trade associations, companies, and firms, looking for a D.C. presence.

But, this recruiter said, interest is always high in people coming out of the White House: “Our clients are always looking for people who have insights and perspectives from inside the administration, whether it is on tax reform or health care.”

...It’s not clear whether controversy over Trump’s policy positions will make it harder for people to find work. Former press secretary Sean Spicer has struggled to land a role as a paid network or cable news contributor because of concerns about his credibility.

The Last Supper by Nancy Ohanian