The Mariani Fall-Guy Fund

Up until Saturday morning, I was The Daily Caller's opinion editor. That's when I learned -- from Twitter -- that I had been fired. It was because I published an op-ed by Milo Yiannopoulos. I was not given severance pay.

The idea for running Milo was first raised at an editorial meeting on Monday the 30th, when I mentioned that I was trying to get someone to write something punchy on the Kevin Spacey pederasty fiasco. The right-wing provocateur was mentioned, and everyone, including the top editors, was stoked about the idea. I cleared it with the editor-in-chief. I mentioned it again on Wednesday that I got a commitment from Milo to write it, and the mood was positive. That ended up turning into a commitment for something even better: a submission every week. Apparently this was a good idea, because the piece has been the #1 trending piece on The Daily Caller for four solid days.

On Friday afternoon the op-ed was published, and there was some incorrect reporting on the matter, saying that The Daily Caller had hired Milo. But internal buzz concerning column wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary. A nonchalant email from the publisher, the top person at the organization, just told me to tweak Milo's signature line and to correct the reports of other news organizations if they mentioned that Milo had been brought on as an employee. The editor-in-chief, my boss, told me to make things like this clearer to the top brass in the future, but was more worried about losing Milo as a columnist than correcting the record, so we didn't even downgrade his title to "contributor."

Saturday morning was much different. The editor-in-chief received an enraged phone call from the publisher. "Fuming" was how the publisher’s mood was described to me. What changed?

A few reliable folks tell me that the publisher was contacted by an anti-Trump donor or investor who was very upset with Milo’s column. We can all draw rational conclusions from the evidence and the abrupt change in tone. The publisher, Neil Patel, is a Bushie. He was chief policy advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney and has deep connections to Bush administration folks. And, if you’ve been paying attention, you know that Bushies are on an anti-Trump warpath these days.

I have all the costs associated with grad school to cover, and I won't be confident about where my next meal is coming from for much longer. I want to keep working on a side project that functions as a platform to unique perspectives, but up until now I've been funding it with my salary, out of pocket. Money here will help me in continuing to run that platform.

This is an unfair firing that's probably for unethical reasons, so I would appreciate help in dealing with my sudden lack of salary. I'm not trying to win the lottery here. I just want to keep on keeping on!