Mass. mess
The city of Cambridge, Mass., has dropped its order for independent Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai to remove banners on his campaign bus depicting far-left Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in a feathered headdress. The banner reads: "Only a REAL INDIAN can defeat the fake Indian."
The order had prompted the India native to file suit against the city for violating his free speech rights, so he has dropped his lawsuit.
Warren, infamously, claimed to have Native American ancestry years ago in order to gain teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, though various internet fact-check sites have said there is no documentary evidence to support the claim. And she has never faced consequences over it.
The Cambridge order demanded that Ayyadurai remove the banners or face fines of $300 a day after the city claimed it had received "a series of anonymous complaints" about the signage. He called the order being dropped a "historic victory ... for free speech."
"If we had not fought and won this battle," he said, "the City of Cambridge would have set a historic precedent empowering any bureaucrat sitting in a City Hall across America to squelch your free speech, because they simply didn't like you or favored a particular political ideology or candidate."
Yep, that sounds familiar.
Predators' preference
The Nashville Predators have picked a political side, and it's not the side most Tennesseans are on.
The National Hockey League team has endorsed liberal Democrat David Briley in an upcoming special election for mayor of Nashville. Briley took over the job of mayor earlier this year when the previous mayor, Megan Barry, also a Democrat, resigned from office after pleading guilty to felony theft of property over $10,000.
Sean Henry, the Predators' president and CEO, made the endorsement in a video posted to the mayor's campaign Twitter feed last week while standing next to team mascot "Gnash." Henry and the team currently are trying to negotiate a new lease for the team to keep its home at city-owned Bridgestone Arena.
"I want to urge everyone to get out and vote," Henry says, as "Gnash" nods. "I also want to let Smashville know that we're supporting Mayor David Briley, and we hope that you join us for that as well."
Henry, who previously used the team as a platform in trying to entice the city to vote for a $5.4 million mass transit plan (which was trounced at the polls), defended his move and said he was "glad that we can leverage the attention that people have for our logo."
Clay Travis, in a post on Outkick the Coverage, said he'd never seen anything similar.
"I think it's bad for our country to be politicizing every aspect of our lives, including teams endorsing a political candidate," he said.
What's in a word?
President Donald Trump referred to members of the violent MS-13 gang as "animals" at a law enforcement meeting at the White House last week, and the media response was emblematic of the savage treatment the president has received since taking office.
For context, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders clarified the gang of which he spoke: "This is one of the most vicious and deadly gangs that operates by the motto of rape, control and kill," she said. "Frankly, I don't think the term that the president used was strong enough. MS-13 has done heinous acts. It took an animal to stab a man 100 times and decapitate him and rip his heart out. It took an animal to beat a woman they were sex trafficking with a bat, 28 times, indenting part of her body. And it took an animal to kidnap and rape a 13-year-old Houston girl."
In the meantime, some media outlets claimed Trump was calling all immigrants "animals," and one MSNBC reporter took up for the gang. "[H]owever repugnant their actions, MS-13 gang members are human beings," tweeted John Harwood. "[H]orrific crimes committed by human beings," he also tweeted. Similarly, CNN's Ryan Lizza said the comments were "dehumanizing" to MS-13 gang members and that the "animals" reference was "abhorrent beyond belief" and "disgusting."
It's shocking, actually, the correspondents didn't refer to Trump as an "animal" in response.
Was it worth it?
It doesn't get more delicious than this. One of the most vocal opponents of the Cleveland Indians' Chief Wahoo mascot recently pleaded guilty to stealing more than $77,000 in federal funds meant to benefit American Indians.
Robert Roche, a Chiricahua Indian, had been arrested for embezzling grant money from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which had awarded the money to the Parma (Ohio)-based American Indian Education Center, the group Roche heads.
A federal investigation found the baseball mascot protester had diverted the funds to pay for his personal expenses and had made false statements in the application for grant funds.
"This defendant stole from taxpayers and betrayed the Native American families he purported to help," U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman said in a statement after the hearing.
Roche could get as much as 16 months for his crimes, which will be lots of time to think about how, and if, feathering his nest compared to creating a stir about a mascot with a feather that only was created in tribute to Indians.